Tag: Martin SHannon CJ

A Lenten Devotional (p)review

Lent is just around the corner and that means that though I am profane, most of the time, I hunt for resources to augment my devotional life, as I journey with Jesus on the road to the cross. Paraclete Press reliably carries some wonderful offerings. For this Lent, they have three new books which I will be using this year.

Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing by Gayle Boss

The first one, my whole family is particularly excited about: Gayle Boss’s Wild Hope: Stories from the Vanishing. Four years ago, we read together her Advent devotional, All Creation Waits which inhabits the waiting of animals through midwinter (in the American Midwest). We have read it, or parts of that devotional every year since. This year, I didn’t unearth our copy until half way through Advent, but we still had to read through the Christmas morning reading after the stockings on Christmas day.

Boss returns to the Wild to find more teachers for Lent. While her Advent animals taught us about the experience of waiting, these animals inhabit a season of suffering. The subtitle, ‘Stories for Lent from the Vanishing’ alludes to the fact that animals are now vanishing from our planet at a faster rate than at any other time in earth’s history. Boss explores the lives of these animals, with awe and wonder, and sadness for what they are made to suffer by human hands. The animals are grouped by week throughout Lent. Boss explores the animals that are hungry, sick, homeless, poisoned, hunted, and (for Holy Week) desecrated.

As with All Creation Waits, Boss’s reflections are accompanied by the stunning wood cuts of Illustrator David Klein. Unlike her Advent devotional, this is not quite a daily reader. There is an Ash Wednesday entry and then four readings for each of the weeks of Lent and Holy Week (only Ash Wednesday, and days in Holy Week, have day specific readings). I am really interested in how my children will respond to these readings. They care deeply about creation and are often sad about the ways we people have failed to care for the environment. I am eager to explore these stories with Boss, and hear about not just animal suffering, but about a pernicious and wild hope.

Let Me Go There: The Spirit of Lent by Paula Gooder

The next Lenten offering comes from Anglican theologian and Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathederal, London, Paula Gooder. Let Me Go There: The Spirit of Lent, follows Jesus through the 40 days of Lent, as the Spirit beckons him into the wilderness. Following six Lenten themes (wilderness, journey, fasting, taking up your cross, discipleship, prayer, and temptation). There are 34 readings designed to take you up to Holy Week, on the grounds that you will probably by then be wanting to turn your attention, reflections and devotions on to Jesus’ death and resurrection,” (8). That is 6 or 5 readings a week, until Holy Week, so you can miss a day or two of each week and not have to play catch up.

Gooder, is a New Testament scholar, and a favorite author of Rowan Williams and others. I am excited to dip into this one, as I journey with her through the wilderness of Lent.

Lead us Not into Temptation by Martin Shannon, CJ

Finally, Martin Shannon, CJ’s Lead Us Not into Temptation is designed to take us from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday, exploring how to deal with, you guessed it, temptation. Shannon is an Episcopal priest, liturgist and a devotional writer. He is part of the Community of Jesus in Cape Cod, MA (the community which operates Paraclete Press). I have read and reviewed his devotionals in the past, including another Lenten devotional, According to Your Mercy (which explored praying the Psalms through Lent).

This devotional came out of a weeklong retreat that Shannon attended before Ash Wednesday 2019, with other members of the Community of Jesus (5). At that retreat, Shannon felt led to write a daily devotional on dealing with temptation for their community, and now they are offering it to the world. Shannon is a perceptive spiritual writer who reads scripture attentively. Each daily reading closes with a quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall, and Temptation.

Ash Wednesday is coming up, so order copies today (follow the links to the publisher website, or order from Amazon or wherever fine books are sold).

Notice of material connection: Paraclete Press provided me with copies to review.

Angels from the Realm of Glory: a book review

We are currently midway through Advent—a season bookended by Annunciation and the angels singing, “Glory to God in the Highest and peace to people on earth.” The angels figure prominently in the stories we tell and the carols we sing, though we know (or suppose) angels  aren’t just God’s seasonal hires. They are not simply holiday apparitions, angels are God’s servants. But what are they like? What do we know about them?

I grew up fascinated by angels. When I was young, my parents tucked me in each night with prayers that God would send His angels to look after me. A couple of  perilous events caused my grandma to proclaim that my guardian angel was working overtime. I watched the angels on television imagining the halo hidden under Michael Landon’s coiffed hair and being moved by Della Reese’s maternal care.  I  heard popular treatment of angels which treat these divine messengers as our very special friends.

all-gods-angelsAll God Angels: Loving & Learning from Angelic Messengers by Fr. Martin Shannon is a new devotional exploring the depiction of angels in the Bible. Shannon is an Episcopal priest and is a member of the ecumenical Community of Jesus in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Twenty-four entries examine the angelic realm through Scripture and sacred art. Shannon’s exploration begins with the Cherubim gatekeeper of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24) and ends with the revelator Angel of the Apocalypse (Revelation 1:1-3). Each entry is paired with a full-color depiction of the biblical scene described from artists range from Fra Angelico to Marc Chagall.  There are also ancient icons, frescos and mosaics.

Shannon’s title is a slight misnomer. While he provides a broad overview of angelic visitations of the Bible, he doesn’t explore all God’s angels (just a multitude of heavenly hosts). The scary ones are under represented. We read of the angels at Abraham’s table in Genesis 18, but not how two of these angels would go on their way and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19). There is  no treatment of the angel of death killing the Egyptian-firstborn (Exodus 11-12),  or the ambivalent captain of the Lord’s army which Joshua encounters (Josh. 5:13-15). The angels of Revelation are discussed, without a mention of them pouring out bowls of wrath against humanity. Shannon emphasizes, instead, their angelic commitment to God’s service.

There are other biblical angels which escape Shannon’s mention; yet despite their absence, he is great at exploring the angels’ role as messenger, minister and mediator of God’s presence. The angels described are used by God at significant turning points in the Biblical narrative (i.e. the Fall, the time of the Patriarchs, the Exodus, exile, Christ’s birth, the start of his ministry, his death, resurrection and ascension and at the end).

What I most appreciated about Shannon’s treatment is the way he captures what angels are all about. They aren’t simply our special friends but God’s servants. My fascination with angels transformed to wonder as I read; however I was nowhere tempted to see these angels as objects of worship. They are simply wholly committed to the God, enacting God’s will and bringing God’s presence  to God’s people. This book may be nominally about the angels, Shannon focus (and the Angel’s) remains fastened on the God the angels serve.

I recommend this book to anyone fascinated by angels and would like a biblical, devotional treatment of the significant role they play, and what they have to teach us. I give it four stars.

Note: I received this book from Paraclete Press in exchange for my honest review.