First
Fruits of Prayer:
A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew
by Frederica Mathewes-Green
Paraclete Press, 2006
review
by Cindy
Crosby
Frederica
Mathewes-Green (Facing East, The Open Door), a Beliefnet.com
columnist and a commentator for National
Public Radio, turns
her capable pen to the Canon of St. Andrew in First Fruits
of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew.
This text, I discovered in the introduction, is a “prayerful
hymn of epic length” offered during Lent each year in the
Eastern Orthodox Church. “Let this hymn soak into your
bones,” urges Mathewes-Green compellingly. After a lengthy
introduction to the Canon of St. Andrew that includes practical
ideas for usage and historical context (very helpful for non-Orthodox
readers like myself), Mathewes-Green presents it divided into
40 readings.
I
approached the Canon of St. Andrew as a first-time reader,
and was startled by the intensity and beauty of the
ancient text. It is “intense” in
that Andrew does not sugar-coat sin, as do so many spirituality
authors today. Rather, I bumped
into lines like this:
I
confess to Thee, O Savior, the sins I have committed, the wounds
of my soul and body, which
murderous thoughts, like thieves, have inflicted inwardly upon
me.
Or
another,
With
my lustful desires I have formed within myself the deformity
of the passions and disfigured
the beauty of my mind.
This
has the same effect as a bracing cold shower—you are
startled awake, and
see clearly the magnitude
and cost of turning away from God. I’m
not sure a contemporary text could get away
with this in the same
way. Also helpful is the screened commentary pages
that accompany each of the 40 chapters (although the small
type of the commentary
pages against the gray background of the screens will challenge
middle-age readers who need bi-focals, like this reviewer). Without
the commentary, I would have made several wrong assumptions as
I read. In one place, for example, “Holy Mother Mary” is
not the mother of Jesus, but St. Mary of Egypt. (A bonus is the
inclusion at the end of the book of the story of St. Mary of
Egypt, paraphrased and summarized by Mathewes-Green.) The commentary
page ends with thoughts for consideration that lend context to
the ancient wisdom, which might otherwise seem difficult or bewildering
to the contemporary reader.
I
particularly liked Mathewes-Green’s anticipation of
how readers might feel conflicted about the text. In one portion
of the commentary, she notes, “This assertion of St. Andrew
that he has sinned more than any other person…(is) startling
to contemporary readers.” She then gives a short explanation.
After reading petitions to St. Mary of Egypt, St. Andrew, and
the Theotokos, she notes in the commentary, “How do you
feel….? Is their presence alongside us in prayer helpful,
or intimidating, or frankly not believable?” This is disarmingly
invitational for non-Orthodox readers, who might otherwise put
the book down and are instead intrigued enough to continue.
There are many helpful observations as well,
such as when she offers a short definition of the fire of Gehenna
(“and
thou, my soul, hast kindled the fire of Gehenna, and there to
thy bitter sorrow thou shalt burn”). Gehenna, I learned,
was a garbage pit in New Testament times in which the bodies
of executed criminals were tossed. She also recaps pertinent
scriptural stories that are referred to in the text that might
not be generally familiar.
However, Mathewes-Green does not feel as if she
has to explain everything. Many of the questions she asks are
designed for personal
reflection and meditation (“In what sense is your flesh
an ‘idol’ to you?”) She doesn’t shy away
from some of the more difficult passages, such as St. Andrew’s
words dealing with Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his
only child, Isaac. (Mathewes-Green asks the reader, “Think
through what it would be like to sacrifice to God whatever is
most precious to you, in the firm expectation that God can restore
it.”)
I confess to floundering over a few of the terms
in the commentary sections (what is a “tropation, or irmos?”) But mainly,
I was struck by Mathewes-Green’s pithy prose and talent
for cutting to the heart of each reading (In one section, she
remarks, “…the temptation to consider any other person
worse than yourself lays an axe to the root of your soul.”)
Mathewes-Green’s arrangement of readings from the Canon
of St. Andrew will make this ancient text accessible to readers
who might otherwise fail to tap into its beauty and wisdom.
Copyright ©2006
Cindy Crosby
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FRUITS OF PRAYER,
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