Why We Call This Friday Good
Elizabeth Kantor ·
April 6, 2012 at 2:35pm
Well, why Jane Austen did, anway. From a bedtime prayer she wrote:
Give us grace to endeavour after a truly Christian spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience of which our blessed saviour has set us the highest example; and which, while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give. Incline us oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.
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Re: Why We Call This Friday Good
"In spite of my utter inability to be good" is the nub, I think. JA seems to think that we can be--though only with the grace of God (through the merits of Jesus' death) . Which today sounds surprisingly Catholic, for such a very English Protestant lady.
St. Salieri: Sorry, misunderstood your first point.
And Mollie said it better than I could - Good Friday is about so much more, than this prayer, which barely seems to touch on the main things of Good Friday. And works righteousness is one of many great sins to be avoided, but of course we can't avoid sin, we are even in faith,simul iustus et peccator, even though I'm still a sinner, I can be justified, through nothing of my own in the eyes of God, made a son of the Father, and a co-heir with Jesus; that is the glory of Good Friday, in spite of my utter inability to be good, there is merit, unmerited for me and all humankind in the sacrificial love and death of Christ Jesus. · 31 minutes ago
Nov '10
Re: Why We Call This Friday Good
I have to say that this is a kind of spirituality that I recognize--it is what I grew up seeing in my father, who was raised Episcopalian with the 1928 prayer book. The thing that you can't get about this if you haven't known it personally is how private it is. I think all the backbone of the gospel is there, but it's not easily expressed.
Re: Why We Call This Friday Good
This seems v. close to what's going on in the prayer. It seems simply Catholic to me (after all, Henry VIII & his descendants weren't really very thorough Reformers) rather than neoPlatonist. But then I'm a Catholic, & you're a neoPlatonist.
Pseudodionysius: There's something else at work here. Jane Austen in the prayer that Elizabeth highlights is clearly petitioning God for something and that something is divine grace. I can't say that she had an explicit doctrine of divine grace fully worked out, that the Anglican theology to which she was exposed would have had, retained or expounded such a doctrine but she's clearly asking for it. Sacraments are divine signs and channels of grace, but she seems to be intimating not merely beatitude in the next life but some measure of participation in the divine beatitude in this life.
It is, dare I say it, hinting at a neoplatonic development of divine participation. A very clever example, Ms. Kantor. · 9 hours ago
Sep '10
Re: Why We Call This Friday Good
This seems v. close to what's going on in the prayer. It seems simply Catholic to me (after all, Henry VIII & his descendants weren't really very thorough Reformers) rather than neoPlatonist. But then I'm a Catholic, & you're a neoPlatonist.
Actually, I am a Catholic as well (a convert within the last 10 years), though I defer to several texts published by CUA Press, including the English translation of Jean Pierre Torrell, OP's Aquinas's Summa which gives a thumbnail of the considerable debt Aquinas's synthesis owes to neo platonists in general and Pseudo-Dionysius in particular though, of course, Aquinas is not an uncritical synthesizer and remains firmly in charge of his own work.
Dec '11
Re: Why We Call This Friday Good
In my judgment, the standard for Jane Austin was the natural prototype, the good and noble human being, the gentleman. One can see the original idea of the gentleman in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Bartlett, Collins translation recommended). To understand Miss Austin, it is helpful to begin from this perspective.
From this perspective, we see Miss Austin modifies Christianity to serve this natural standard. For example, in the prayer she states:
"…while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give."
Her prayer redirects our concerns. The end is not the "life to come" gained by saintly suffering and sacrifice, but "enjoyment" of "this world."
Christianity does supplement this natural understanding by adding a divine sanction which is necessary for those "unfit to hear moral philosophy." (Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida, Act 2 Scene 2)
Miss Austin re-forms Aristotle's idea of the gentleman. Military valor is less necessary. The modern democratic commercial republic requires a more modest gentleman. The Founding Fathers and, especially, Lincoln are perfect examples. Her gentleman is "industrious and rational," engaged in honorable mutually-beneficial business.
Edited on April 9, 2012 at 12:23am