Practices

Anointing Rite in the Orthodox Church

2 Comments
The Anointing of David

The Anointing of David

David Larsen at Heavenly Ascents continues to provide excellent notes from his attendance at the Temple Studies Group Symposium in London last weekend.  Recently he posted his notes on Archimandrite Ephrem‘s presentation about the Holy Oil in the Orthodox Church.  Father Ephrem gave out a handout which included detailed notes on the anointing rite in the Orthodox Church, which includes this portion:

The one to be baptized is brought forward. The Priest takes some of the oil and makes the sign of the Cross on the forehead, breast and back of the candidate, saying: The servant of God, N., is anointed with the oil of gladness, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As he signs their breast and back he says: For healing of soul and body. On the ears: For the hearing of faith. On the feet: For your feet to walk. On the hands: Your hands made me and fashioned me. And when the whole body has been anointed the Priest baptizes the person, holding them upright and facing East, as he says: The servant of God N. is baptized, in the name of the Father. Amen. And of the Son. Amen. And of the Holy Spirit. Amen. At each invocation the Priest immerses them and raises them again [three-fold immersion]. ((Handout from Archimandrite Ephrem in notes on Heavenly Ascents blog.  Notes in brackets are mine.))

Check out David Larsen’s Heavenly Ascents blog for more details from Father Ephrem’s presentation.

Margaret Barker on The Holy Anointing Oil

2 Comments
Samuel anointing David. Stained glass.

Samuel anointing David. Stained glass.

My friend David Larsen has some great notes at Heavenly Ascents on the presentation given by Dr. Margaret Barker at the Temple Studies Symposium III in London this past weekend.  Her words were an introduction to the symposium which focused on the topic of “The Holy Anointing Oil”:

Anointing with myrrh oil was the most holy mystery of the Jerusalem temple. It passed into Christianity and gave the faith its name. This symposium will explore the temple rite and its meaning, and then look at some of the ways in which Christians preserved the ancient tradition. ((TempleStudiesGroup.com))

David’s notes on Barker’s presentation include some interesting facets of anointing:

  • The Messiah, the Christ, was the Anointed One, and so the holy anointing oil is central to Christian identity. It gives the Christians their name.
  • Christian teaching concerning anointing is a conscious continuation of the ancient temple teaching.
  • The oil was understood to impart holiness… It was part of the secret teaching of the high priesthood.
  • The anointing with oil was a part of the “secret teaching” passed on to Christianity from Christ through the apostles.
  • The high priests were “christs” — they represented Yahweh by being anointed and wearing name “YHWH” on forehead.

See the Heavenly Ascents blog for David’s full notes on Barker’s presentation.  Hopefully her presentation will also become available on TempleStudiesGroup.com.  Other speakers included Dr. John F. Hall (Professor from BYU), Archimandrite Ephrem, The Rev. Dr Richard Price, Dr Sebastian Brock, and Rev. Dr Laurence Hemming.  David has some notes on their presentations here, and will post more notes about their presentations soon.

Access the Scriptures via SMS Text or Instant Message

4 Comments
DearScriptures.com

DearScriptures.com

I’m always looking for better ways of accessing, searching, and reading the scriptures.  They are truly the words of eternal life.  Whenever I hear of a new way of encountering the scriptures, I check it out.  DearScriptures.com is an online version of the scriptures that now allows you to text message (SMS) or instant message (IM) scripture references to it, or search for scriptures, and it will reply with the references and/or text of the scripture(s). It includes other great features as well, such as searching hymns and retrieving hymn lyrics.  And it’s all free! [Read more…]

Using Google Wave in the LDS Church

12 Comments
Google Wave

Google Wave

Anyone who has been following this blog for some time knows that I love new technologies, and most particularly how those new technologies might be used to benefit the Church and the work of the kingdom of God on the earth.  Last week I received a nomination to the “preview” of the new Google Wave service from a friend on Twitter (thank you!).  Last night I finally received my invitation to join the service and test it out.  I quickly hopped on board and began exploring.

I’ve only used the tool for a few hours, and its only available in a very limited preview release at the moment, but I’m already wondering how this cool new technology could be used in the Church to help the work roll on.  For those who are not familiar with the service, it is being touted as the ultimate collaboration tool, an amalgam of email, instant messaging, wikis, social networking, document collaboration, picture/video sharing, and much more.  Many are still not sure what exactly its potential is, or if it will even catch on.  But from my limited encounter so far, it does seem like a powerful tool for working on things together, and I think it will be of use to many.

So the question that’s been rolling around in my head then is, how can we use Google Wave in the Church?  How could it facilitate those things we already do in the Church to make them better?  How can we harness its power to help the threefold mission of the Church accomplish its ends in a quicker, easier, or simpler way?  [Read more…]

Prayer Circles and the Power of Group Thinking in Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’

9 Comments
Book Cover

Book Cover

(This is a continuation of my thoughts about The Lost Symbol from my previous post.)

One of the themes taken up again and again in Dan Brown’s latest novel The Lost Symbol is the idea of power in group thinking and concentration.  Katherine’s character in particular is engaged in the scientific study of producing physical changes through the power of group thought and concentrated collective intention.  In connection with this, the practice of prayer circles is brought up:

The shocking discovery, it seemed, paralleled the ancient spiritual belief in a “cosmic consciousness”—a vast coalescing of human intention that was actually capable of interacting with physical matter. Recently, studies in mass meditation and prayer had produced similar results in Random Event Generators, fueling the claim that human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body . . . a highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world. ((Page 56))

In another place, Brown continues:

Galloway knew, of course, that one needn’t go to a lab to witness proof of this bold new idea, this proposal of man’s untapped potential. This very cathedral held healing prayer circles for the sick, and repeatedly had witnessed truly miraculous results, medically documented physical transformations. The question was not whether God had imbued man with great powers . . . but rather how we liberate those powers. ((Page 313-314))

And again:

Katherine smiled down at him. “We have scientifically proven that the power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought.”

Langdon remained silent, wondering where she was going with this idea.

“What I’m saying is this . . . two heads are better than one . . . and yet two heads are not twice better, they are many, many times better. Multiple minds working in unison magnify a thought’s effect . . . exponentially. This is the inherent power of prayer groups, healing circles, singing in unison, and worshipping en masse.” ((Page 504))

Prayer circles have been defined as where participants join hands in a circle of prayer, often as part of a vigil ((Wikipedia – Prayer Circle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_circle)).   Such circles have existed for a very long time (see my paper “The Genesis of the Round Dance“).  They are witnessed today in even the simplest act of joining hands around the dinner table while saying grace.  Hugh Nibley wrote extensively about their use in early Christianity in his paper “The Early Christian Prayer Circle.”  In that paper he said:  [Read more…]