St. David’s Anglican Study The Seven Ancient Practices for the New Year

The Seven Ancient Practices:  Three govern the body; Four govern time.

Monday Evenings at St. David’s Anglican Church from 7 to 9 pm – January 10, 17, 24, 31, February 7, 14, 2011. Everyone is welcome.

1. Tithing:  We must give back to what we are a part of.  It’s a practise of giving to the maintenance of the Kingdom of God; just as we maintain the state with our goods.
2. Sacred Meal:  The most intimate relationship we can ever have with each other is to break bread together.  When we take communion we participate in the Kingdom.  We share with each other in the most incarnate fashions.
3. Fasting:  Fasting depletes our energy and forces us to begin to retreat.  Fasting draws us further into ourselves until there is no energy to meet the stimuli outside of ourselves.  We realize the Kingdom of God is inside of us as well as outside of us.  It helps us understand our citizenship in the Kingdom of God and how to live it outwardly.
4. Fixed Hour of Prayer:  The Psalmist said “seven times a day do I praise thee…”  The fixed hour of prayer governs the day. It involves praying every three hours and offering brief prayers. 6 AM, 9 AM, Noon, 3 PM, sunset and before bed [and midnight if you are brave].  You are joining the church invisible when you practice fixed hour prayer.  When you pray those prayers you are praying with the church vertical and church horizontal.
5. Keeping Sabbath:  Governs the week.  Keeping an entire day that is set aside for God.
6. Keeping of the Liturgical Year:  Reminds us and our community that this is the story we live every day of our lives and we measure our time by it.
7. Business of Pilgrimage:  You can’t intellectualize faith, it’s something you do incarnate.  You incarnate by going to those places that have been made hallowed over the years.  Christianity lacks transcendence.  A pilgrimage is a coming back.