Be they self-centred, neighbour-centred or God-centred - and they’re bound to be a mixture of all three for believers.
Controlling our thoughts is difficult. We can’t easily do it because they’re a river flowing through our minds. The danger is seizing a wrong one and implementing it on impulse. Our more measured thoughts help life flow well. Our best thoughts are the making of us and of the world.
So flowed my own thoughts looking at the martyrdom of St Agnes, a 12 year old girl we know little about save her paying the highest price for chaste thoughts and, being named after Jesus Lamb of God, becoming an icon of self offering. Her story is of a Christian girl resolved to stay single for the sake of the Gospel, who, threatened by an aggressive suitor, is forced into a legal conflict. Agnes’ faith went on trial during the Diocletian persecutions of 304 AD. Her name, mentioned in the oldest eucharistic prayer, means chaste in Greek and lamb in Latin hence our two themes of purity and self-sacrifice.
Being a retired priest gives me more time for relaxation and conversation and - thank you Fr John - attending and leading worship. The other day I got into a conversation with a 21 year old lad who confided in me his decision to turn away from the pornography so many of his friends were getting immersed in. ‘I don’t want my future relationships spoiled’ he said with telling wisdom.
Our thoughts determine our lives. St Augustine captured the damage done in his lustful youth when he talked of memory being ‘a sad privilege’. Many of us know first hand the truth he speaks of. Thoughts of things from the past intrude the flow of our thinking and fuel action destructive of our relationships. The Feast of St Agnes is a call to purity of thought, word and deed including custody of the eyes and the avoidance of salacious television and reading material.
Secondly, today’s Saint calls us to think on her namesake Jesus Agnus dei. This image may be familiar to some of us - show book ‘The Bound Lamb’ by Francisco de Zurbarin who lived in the 17th century. It’s an image that often appears on Nativity scenes, the Shepherds’ offering which anticipates Christ’s sacrifice. As Jeremy Paxman wrote in the Church Times of this painting: ‘no image I know so perfectly captures the astonishing force of the Christian story’. Jesus fulfils the sacrifice of the Old Testament Passover Lamb whose blood daubed on doors protected the households of believers. Unlike the Old Testament lambs, Our Lord’s sacrifice is voluntary and as such takes away sin. Our Lord on Calvary takes the full force of sin and death for us at the cost of his life.
Today on our patronal feast we make the memorial of the Offering of Jesus and enter into that Self-Offering. It is through the sacrificial Lamb of God that we can make a perfect offering to the Father, our sinful bodies made clean by his body..our souls washed through his most precious blood. There is a deep continuity between the sacrifices of the Old Testament - Abel, Abraham and Melchizedek - the offering of Jesus the Lamb of God, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and our own sacrificial living as Christians. They all hang together. In a culture full of self-interest what we are about this evening is powerfully counter-cultural. Here, in union with Christ, we are offering our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice
As St Agnes teaches, sacrifice is at heart about voluntary choice about how we direct our lives - it is about love before it is about death. It is about joyous living just as sure as ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. It is not so much about forgoing what we desire but of binding our energies to what God desires.
Our thoughts determine our lives - be they indulgent or geared to purity and sacrifice.
A couple of practical suggestions to help order our thinking and action more into those two qualities of St Agnes captured in her name, one about using the Jesus Prayer and another about making a Morning Offering.
Repeating under our breath the Jesus Prayer of Eastern Orthodoxy, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’ is very powerful, as people have found praying it for 1500 years. It's a succinct summary of faith with capacity to empower us against useless and harmful thoughts. The power in the name of Jesus is such that, when we are tempted by base thoughts, repetition of this prayer sees them fly away. ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’. We need the will to pray, but knowing and using this prayer is a key aid to purity.
Secondly the Morning Offering. The idea is to sit on your bed as soon as you get up and, whilst letting the blood reach your head, get into gear spiritually by praying something like, ‘Lord, I thank you for who you are and your love for me and all that is. I give myself to you. Take me and use me for your praise and service and the building up of the body of Christ. Come, Holy Spirit'. When you have made such a prayer at the start of the day you recognise spiritual needs and opportunities around you and the hand of God working in your life in the hours that follow. I know this from when I forget to pray it - my day turns rather useless! The Morning Offering is linked to Christ’s Offering and invitation to join in it at Mass where we pray, ‘May he make of us an eternal offering to you’.
Our thoughts determine our lives. May the prayer of St Agnes inspire us to take continual battle against bad thoughts and make of our lives an ever more complete offering to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be all might, majesty, dominion and power now and henceforth and to the ages of ages. Amen.
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