Holy Order | Trailer

Bryan: He begins, he begins that book with this famous quotation, You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. And then when he describes his own descent into a life of pretty sort of carnal sin, he he begins book two with this wonderful quote that everyone can identify with. He says, All I wanted was to love and to be loved. the implication is that he didn't have any idea how to love. And so he he goes and makes a mess of his life until God ultimately transforms his heart. and he begins to love God and others, and that's that's sort of the story of his own sanctification and conversion.

Cooper: so I guess practically how can we talk about as it relates to our lives, like the significance? Like why why should someone care about this?

Bryan: Yeah. Well, I think that everyone is is like Augustine, not only Augustine, we're like Saint Paul, who says, Why is it that I I do the the things that I don't want to do? You know, he recognizes the tension in his life. He's being pulled between these two cities, these two different kinds of loves. Augustine sort of referencing back to Paul in book eight of the confession says, Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.

Cooper: Yeah.

Bryan: which is one of my it's just one of the most memorable lines. He's suggesting he he knows he wants to love rightly, but he but he's pulled all the wrong things. And so I I believe, and maybe it's just me, but I believe that all human beings can identify with that. but how it is that that we enter into a life where our hearts really can be formed and we begin to actually desire the thing that the things that God promises for us, that's

Cooper: Mm-hmm.

Bryan: a matter of of of right ordering. What Augustine calls order amoris, actually, which is learning to to love, it's just keeping the Great Commandment, quite frankly. It's you know, which is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. We learn to do that though, as we become more attentive to the things that we love, but also as we surround ourselves, allow ourselves to be surrounded by communities who themselves are rightly ordered. And so, this is what theology is all about. This is what this is what the business of pastoring is all about. It's about developing a church community, a congregational community, a diocese, even in a province, where word and sacrament are central because they keep God present among us day in and day out. and what that means is that we hear the gospel preached again and again, and we learn to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the word of God so that not only Do we receive God's forgiveness? But we're given the word of God as a kind of path unto our feet, a light, a lamp unto our feet, so that we can find our way. and then we have a community of people who are all sinners and who are forgiven, who come together again, week after week, to hear the gospel, to be taught scripture, so that they might again properly order their lives. And this is what this is what church is for. And then, of course, sacraments to the Eucharist is where do we? respond to that gospel week after week and and and say, yes, we we we accept your forgiveness. We love you. We want to abide in you. and that's what it all that's what it's all about. and so this is very relevant. the things that we're talking about are are just the cultural tension, the spiritual, the personal, emotional tension that we all feel throughout our lives.