Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2010

John 13. 1, 31-33, 34-35

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

During the supper when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

Dear Jesus,

I think I have read this Gospel passage a dozen times in the last few days looking for something – anything – to write about for this week’s reflection. “Love one another,” you said. Do you have any idea how meaningless the word ‘love’ has become in today’s society? O.K. That was obviously a rhetorical question. But what can be said about love that hasn’t been said thousands of times before and by people much more articulate and inspiring than I am? Help me out here, Lord.

Love, (see what I mean? I typed that out before I even thought about it.)

Jean

Beloved,

What do you mean, “…in today’s society”? I have never known a time since the world began that people have really fully and consistently grasped the true concept of love. This is not a new thing we’re talking about here. You’re asking what can be said about love that will suddenly change everybody’s perceptions, including yours? Wrong question. Try again.

Love, (and I did think about it.)

Jesus

Dear Jesus,

Are you trying to lead me deeper or get me to go beyond the First Thought? Why am I not surprised? Let me just get something straight here. If what you’re saying is that some profound statement isn’t likely to bring about a new attitude about love in me or in anyone else, then that must mean that the challenge of learning what love really means is part of the human journey, especially the Christian human journey. Love must be more like a mountain we are meant to climb or a sea we are called to swim, not a concept we are meant to analyze and define until it’s meaningless. Am I getting there?

Love, (This time I did think. And I mean it.)

Jean

Beloved,

Getting close. But go back to the words “climb” and “swim”. These are action words that infer that the action is yours and you are in control. This is all right up to a point but ponder on this question: Do you do something to love or with love - or does love do something to or with you?

Love, (have you noticed how this word is underneath all our messages – like a foundation…)

Jesus

Dear Jesus,

I think I’m getting what you’re saying. Love is not ours to ‘do’. It is not simply an action or a decision, although it includes those things. Love is not a thing. It’s not just an emotion or a set of attitudes. It’s not a law. You can’t legislate love because love is…YOU! Love is You, Jesus. That’s beautiful - but I have no idea where to go from here.

Love, (It really is like a foundation. Good thing. I feel like I’m on shaky ground here.)

Jean

Beloved,

Hint: go back to the Gospel. Note that it says that "having loved my own who were in the world, I loved them to the end."  Now skip ahead a bit to where it says, “Just as I have loved you…” Most people read, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another,” but kind of fade out when they get to “Just as I have loved you,” and in reality (my reality) you can’t have one without the other. If you are focusing on how Christians should love one another but don’t stop to ponder on how I loved my disciples, it will be like trying to drive a car with no engine. Now that really is shaky ground.

Love, Jesus (Ah… that feels better. You really can’t put me and love on two different lines. We’re one and the same.)

Dear Jesus,

O.k., so I went to the Gospels with the question in my head, “How did Jesus love his disciples?”  At first, I thought it would be easy to compile a list of how you loved them but as I read and searched, I discovered that specific instances of how you loved them are not that easy to find. In fact, reading about some of the things the disciples did and said, it’s a wonder that you found them loveable at all. If there was a way to fail or a wrong thought to be expressed, those disciples found it or said it. Then a light bulb flicked on. You loved them “even though”. That’s a kind of love we humans have problems with, Lord.  We tend to love others “because”, not “even though”. If we come at your love as a cause and effect love like a lot of our natural love is, we will never understand how to love as you loved. Your love was deep, ancient, all encompassing and ever flowing. It was alpha and omega love. It was and is the love that created the universe and all of us; it was the love that made you incarnate. Out of that love, you called your disciples by Name because you knew who they really were. They had no idea but you did. You loved and rejoiced in their true beings. 

You drew them to you because love recognizes the heart of the Father in his creations. You taught them in order to help them break free of their own limiting self-images and their limited image of the Father. You taught them so they could see life and have life. You shared the power of your love with them and showed them how to share it with others, not because you needed a helping crew but because you loved them so much that you wanted them to experience what it was like to walk, like you, in the Kingdom of Love. You served them and washed their feet to impress upon them that love flows from the bottom up, not from the top down. Love that depends on power is no love at all and will be toppled and broken. Power that depends on love is power indeed. Love is the power of one who chooses the lowest place because the lowest place is the place with the most freedom to love. 

You loved those disciples with yearning, a yearning so profound that nothing could have stopped you from choosing them, calling them, drawing them, moving them, forgiving them, teaching them, washing them and dieing for them. You loved them because you knew their true value. 

There is only one way we could ever hope to love one another like that, Lord. We would need to know from experience that that’s how you love us. It's hard to give what you ain't got. 

I remain

Ready to Be Loved,

Jean

Beloved,

Be still. Be open. Believe. Be loved. Begin.

And I remain,

JLEOSVUES (Figure that one out.)

Fourth Sunday of Easter, 2010

John 10: 27-30

‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.’

In a Manna reflection quite awhile ago, I wrote about sheep hearing the shepherd’s voice so I’ll just remind you of the significance of Jesus using this particular analogy. In Jesus’ time, shepherds would bring their flocks to a walled enclosure to keep them safe at night. In any one enclosure there would be several flocks belonging to different shepherds and there was no effort to keep each flock separate from the others. One would think there would be complete chaos in the morning as the shepherds tried to sort out their own sheep from all the others. Not so. Each flock intimately knew the voice of its own shepherd. All each shepherd had to do was call the sheep by their names and his sheep would hear his voice and follow him. Sheep are not particularly bright animals so this voice recognition was not due to their high intelligence; rather, it was due to the fact that shepherds spent so much time with their flocks and spoke to them by name so often that the sheep learned to distinguish his unique voice from other voices.

Jesus said,  “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”  The Shepherd knew his sheep. This indicated a shepherd who interacted daily with each individual sheep. From the moment a lamb was born, the shepherd became intimately involved with it. He named that sheep and called it by name from then on. He came to know that sheep’s character in the same way we know our own children’s natures and proclivities.

In John 10: 3-5, Jesus says, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

It’s important to establish how much individual care and attention a shepherd lavished on one of his sheep in order for us to really appreciate what Jesus is saying in this week’s Gospel. It’s not always easy to hear the passionate voice of Jesus in the Gospels; it often sounds like he’s just giving a short, dry religious dissertation because the writers were simply trying to record important events and get the words of Jesus written out so they would not be forgotten or distorted. They weren’t writing an exciting novel full of descriptive prose that could give others an idea of the depth of Jesus’ spiritual determination and his fiery love for his people. But when I read the words, “No one will snatch them out of my hand,” I want to add an exclamation point in there. “No one will snatch them out of my hand! Just let them try. I would die rather than let my sheep be led away by a stranger.” Any mother reading this will understand the intensity of what Jesus is saying. “Don’t you touch my child! Don’t even think about it!”

And then Jesus says something incredibly wonderful. “What my Father has given me is greater than all else…” Greater than all else. What is he referring to? What’s greater than all else?

You.

To Jesus, his people are more precious than anything else in the universe. Greater than all else…worth more to him than we can imagine. 

We know this. Intellectually we know it because it’s the basis of our faith. If he didn’t particularly care about us, he wouldn’t have gone to the cross for us. But it’s difficult sometimes to let that knowledge filter down to the heart level to the degree that we walk in continual love and gratitude that we have such a Shepherd. When the knowledge remains head knowledge, it’s easy to abandon relationship little by little. We start to forget that Jesus has a voice and that we can listen for that voice and come to recognize it and wait for it with anticipation. We forget that our first relationship with Jesus is not a relationship between the boss and the servant but a relationship between the caregiver and the cared for: the lover and the beloved. It becomes easier to lose sight of the truth that he is always coming to us and calling us by name. We can become forgetful of his immediate and tender concern for every aspect of our lives. 

"The voice of my beloved, lo, he comes leaping upon the mountain and skipping over the hills..." (Song of Solomon)

How do we know when we are hearing the voice of the Lord? That is, unfortunately, a complex question because we are all vulnerable to and influenced by many inner voices that can be hard to sort out. A partial and helpful answer would be to determine some of the things that are NOT the voice of the Shepherd:

1. The voice of the Lord does not condemn.  If there is something unbalanced or wrong in your attitudes and life directions that he wants you to address, his voice brings conviction, which is much different than condemnation. Conviction allows you to see what’s wrong and gives you the desire, courage and grace to change. Condemnation puts chains around you and keeps you in a mode of anxious self-loathing and shame. (So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. Romans 8: 1+2)
2. The voice of the Lord is a Voice of Love. It is a voice that creates in you the knowledge that you and others are loved unconditionally by the Shepherd. This in turn creates a great respect for your own value - and the value of other people. It is a voice that urges action born of love.
3. The voice of the Lord is not impatient. We have critical timetables and schedules; God does not. If you’re not sure if God is saying something to you or directing you somehow, wait. Wait, pray and stay open to clarification. Very often, it’s our own preferences, attitudes and perceptions or the pressures from others that cause us to think, “I have to do this RIGHT NOW or all will be lost!!”
4. The voice of the Lord is full of wisdom. This is wisdom that is beyond our natural wisdom based on past experiences. The Lord can use our past experiences but very often that experience is so tainted by fear, mistrust and wounds that it’s not wisdom at all; it is self protection.
5. The voice of the Lord is quiet. God does not batter his people with noisy clamor. We do that to ourselves. The world and the media does that to everyone. If our lives are totally filled 24/7 with busyness, chaos, madness and noise, it will be difficult to come to know the sane, quiet but gently authoritative voice of God within. He will not harangue you into obedience. He will not mercilessly drive you to action. In Jesus’ time, the Shepherd led his sheep; it was the butcher who drove the sheep.

This certainly is not a comprehensive look at what the voice of the Lord is like but it’s enough to give us all a great head start in untangling all the broken voices in our heads to see if we can find the long strong silver strand that is the Shepherd’s living and life giving voice. If Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice…”, then it is certain that he wants us to discover his unique voice and learn to be able to distinguish it from all others.

The Shepherd is calling your name right now. Are you listening?

Third Sunday of Easter, 2010

John 21: 1-19

Excerpt: Vs. 1-6.

After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.

 Vs. 15-19

 …When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

I have a love/hate relationship with change. I love the way change brings new experiences, new skills, new interactions and new ways of beholding God, others and myself. What I hate about change is that there is often a transition period, a period in between the old and the new where it feels like everything is just on the edge of unraveling, a time that can be terribly lonely and filled with uncertainty and frustration. Even if the change was one that was longed for and sought for, the challenges, loneliness and insecurity within transition can make you ache for the familiar ground of what was before.  In the transition desert, it’s difficult to maintain a vision of the goodness and rightness of change. It’s easy to feel self-doubt and wonder where God is in the transition shift. People can be forgiven for trying to recreate the familiar in new circumstances where the spiritual landscape is strange and old routines have been upset.

The disciples in this gospel were in transition. Yes, they had seen Jesus, knew he was alive and knew everything had changed – again. You’d think that after three years of following Jesus, they would be used to profound change and accustomed to handling exceedingly unfamiliar situations but this was radically different. Before he died, Jesus was with them in the flesh, all the time. Even though all sorts of boggling, exciting and challenging things had been happening, Jesus himself was their constant. They knew they could come to him face to face, ask him questions and get answers, even if they didn’t understand a lot of the answers. Jesus was larger than life, full of confidence, able to handle the trickiest people. Every once in a while Jesus would go off to pray or send them out to do some ministry but in the end, they knew where to find him.

So, as joyful as they were to know that Jesus wasn’t dead, it was still very confusing to know how to proceed and what to do. Jesus was alive, yeah, but where was he? They couldn’t just turn around at any given moment and say, “Hey, Jesus. What did you mean about the yeast? How come you spoke to that woman? What do you mean you call God ‘Papa’? How come Peter sank like a rock?” In fact, right at the time they were at the Sea of Tiberias, they were probably remembering all the times of immediate contact they had with Jesus in the past and how they squandered it and took it for granted. They may have been thinking of all the questions they could have asked or all the lessons he taught that they should have paid closer attention to. They probably reminisced about the times of laughter in the evenings as they sat around the fire listening to Jesus tell them about the Father or the times when they all walked along singing the psalms together. Maybe they were thinking of how precious it had been to belong to such a community with their beloved Master. What they wouldn’t give to go back to those days of walking by Jesus’ side! They were good days. They were blessed days. Now, even though they knew Jesus was alive, there were moments of overwhelming homesickness for the days when things didn’t seem so complex and spirituality didn’t seem to demand so much faith and courage, the days when Jesus was there to look after them, calm their fears and keep them grounded. It was completely different now.

We’ve all been there. You got your first career job and suddenly you were the newbie, the neophyte who knew nothing and felt so insecure but you couldn’t quit because you realized you were the one who was responsible for rent and food now, not your parents…You got married and after your first major bitter argument with your husband you realized you couldn’t go home to cool off because where you were was your home now and you were stuck… You had your first baby and the whole world turned upside down and inside out and you couldn’t go home to Mom because you were Mom…you moved to a new town and you were anonymous and alone and nobody at Mass reached out to welcome you…  Yes, we’ve all been there, so we can all totally relate to what Peter decided to do.

Go fishing.

Fishing was what Peter knew. Before Jesus came and turned everything upside down, he was a fisherman and when he was fishing, he was in control. He knew how to handle the boat, he knew how to deal with the nets and he was at home on the water. He could give orders and men followed those orders.  In his loneliness and confusion, he turned back to the familiar and the known. It probably felt very comforting to be in that boat doing what he knew how to do but after awhile something became apparent. No fish. All night they fished and caught nothing. In the spiritual walk with Jesus, you can’t go back. No matter how uncomfortable the present feels and no matter how murky and confusing the future looks, you can’t go back. Not if you desire to grow and flourish.

Jesus appeared on the shore and said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?”  He was so gentle and so loving with these men. He knew how they were grieving for the past and he didn’t blame them one bit. What he did was tell them to cast their net on the right side of the boat and he filled their nets to overflowing. It was a gift but also a lesson. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” Unless the Lord sends you fishing, it’s probably not going to do much good to look for the old boats to go fishing.

At one time, Jesus filled Peter’s nets and then told him that from then on he would be a Fisher of People. Later he told Peter he would be a Rock for his Church. On the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, he told Peter three times to feed his lambs and sheep. He was telling Peter he was a Shepherd.  “Unless the Lord builds the house…” Unless the Lord speaks your name – Rock, Fisher, Shepherd, Voice in the Wilderness, Warrior, Counselor, Teacher, Breach Mender, Builder, Comforter etc.– your labor will distract you and keep you busy but your nets will be empty. In times of transition we need to learn to wait on the appearance of the Lord and listen for the Name he calls us by. 

Anatole France, a Nobel Prize winner for literature, said this: “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

We are allowed to grieve for the past; indeed, it is healthy and good to grieve over, love and honor all that has shaped us so far. It is part of the dieing and letting go process. But we must not forget that where we are ultimately moving is forward into new life. When we read this week’s gospel, it is hard to ignore the fact that the changes that bring new life involve taking risks. Nobody can deny that completely trusting in God when the unfamiliar threatens to swamp us and overwhelm us is very risky. The risk lies in the fact that when something is new it cannot be easily visualized or actualized by us. Only the Lord can create what is truly new. What we tend to create is a rehash of what we’ve always known.

Here’s an unattributed quote I read recently that I think is very comforting and brilliantly true. I can hear the voice of my God coming through:

Everything will be okay in the end.

If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. 

First Morning

I am ten years old and it is the first day of summer holidays after a particularly bad school year with a teacher who seemed to despise herself and hate children. It is early morning and the sky is a mild blue. There’s a soft breeze and I am riding my bike down tranquil neighborhood streets that are not yet stirring with the busyness of a new day. I am reveling in amazing freedom. The fear is gone; the knots in my stomach are untied. The tension has dissipated and the relief is overwhelming. I am experiencing one of those rare golden moments of pure joy.

Whenever I think of Easter, my first images are not of disciples discovering an empty tomb or Mary encountering angels and the ‘gardener’. I don’t immediately think of the two men on the road to Emmaus being joined by the engaging stranger. I don’t think of words like, “He is not here but has risen” or “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”  As wonderful as the accounts are of the disciples discovering that Jesus was not dead after all, they are not what excites and stirs my spirit.

Instead, I hear in my imagination an immense and intense CRACK!  It’s the sound of a sudden thunderclap overhead or the trunk of an ancient gargantuan tree suddenly fracturing in two in a strong wind or the report of a thousand rifles being shot simultaneously. It’s not a crash. It’s a sharp, immediate sound that’s over as suddenly as it began except for the reverberating echoes down through eternity. It is the crack of Resurrection. It is the power of death being snapped.

Then I see Jesus sit up. Even though it’s still dark, there is light around him. He begins to laugh. The pain and fear is gone, the knots in his stomach are untied, the relief is overwhelming and pure golden joy cascades over him. The world is not yet awake as he moves out of the tomb but along the horizon is another kind of crack – the crack of a dawn just beginning. I see Jesus walking through the gardens and all he wants to do is breathe. He takes in deep, marvelous and unobstructed breaths that are free of tension or care. If he had a bike, he would ride it. He would glide, carefree and excited down silent paths and through still olive groves. As it is, he walks, almost floats, without the heavy restraint of the worldly gravity of sorrow, pain and fear. He praises his Father but not with words. By breathing, he praises, by delighting, he praises, by allowing excitement and anticipation to well up inside, he praises. There are no words that can do justice to his praise.

He stops on the top of a high hill and gazes down on a sleeping Jerusalem. The heaviness of the people is visible to him. It’s like a miasma of fear, uncertainty, suffering, anger and anguish seeping through the hushed streets, too heavy to rise or dissipate. He knows where his disciples are hidden, unable to sleep in their confusion and pain. He knows because he can see all things clearly but he also knows because their terror has a seeping suffering color different to the rest of the unaware population. He is touched by their suffering and wishes he could hold them and let each one experience just how glorious this dawn really is. It’s all right. Soon they will know. Soon.

Then, on that hill of dawn stillness, the heavens crack open and Jesus is immersed in a roaring cascade of all of heaven reciting his Names. Names like:

All in All, Almighty, Altogether Lovely One, The Great Amen, Anchor, Ancient of Days, Angel of the Lord, The Anointed One, Apostle, Arm of the Lord, Alpha & Omega, Author and Finisher of our Faith, Balm of Gilead, Beginning and the End, One and Only Begotten, Beloved, Blessed and only Potentate, Branch, Bread, Bridegroom, Bright & Morning Star, Brightness of God's glory, Captain of our salvation, Carpenter, Chief among ten thousand, Child, Chosen of God, the Christ, Comforter, Commander, Consolation of Israel, Cornerstone, Counselor, Creator of all things, Daysman, Dayspring from on High, Day Star, Deliverer, Desire of all nations, Door, Emmanuel, End of the Law, Express image of His (God's) person, Faithful & True, Father of Eternity, First & the Last, First begotten of the dead, Firstborn, Firstfruits, Foundation, Fountain, Forerunner, Friend of sinners, Fullness of the Godhead, Gift of God, Glory of God, God, Good Master, Governor, Great High Priest, Guide, Head, Heir of all Things, Helper, Hiding Place, High Priest, Holy Child, the Just, Hope of Israel, Horn of salvation,

                                                                              I AM 

Intercessor, Judge, Just One, King, Kinsman, Lamb, Lawgiver, Life, Light, Lion of the tribe of Judah, Lord & Savior, Master, Mediator, Merciful High Priest, Mercy, Messiah, Mighty God, Minister of the Sanctuary, Offering, Root of David, Ointment Poured Forth, Our Passover, Our Peace, Physician, Plant of Renown Potentate, Prophet, Propitiation, Power of God, Quickening Spirit, Ransom, Redeemer, Refuge, Resurrection the Life, Righteousness, Rock of Salvation, Rod, Sacrifice, The Same now and forever, Sanctification Savior, Servant, Shadow of a great Rock, Shepherd, Shiloh, Son, Sower, Star, Stone, Sun of Righteousness, Surety, Teacher, Tender Plant, Testator, True Bread, Truth, Vine, Way, Wisdom, Wonderful, Word…

His Names pour over him like a river of truth and grace and in answer, he begins to speak the names of all of his beloved, past, present and future. You’re not even born but he is naming you and calling you. He is calling you as an extension of himself, naming you as someone who will flow out of himself. Because his name, Jesus, is the Name above all names.

Speak the Word and we shall be created.

Eventually the rest of the world that sleeps the sleep of death will know about the resurrection too but it won’t be as easy to identify as the sun rising in all its glare and heat. His resurrection will appear dawn-by-dawn, moment-by-moment, stillness-by-stillness, tomb-by-tomb. Each spiritual death will bring a sharp crack of death being broken and a soft crack of dawn breaking on the horizon and a name being called.

This is my imagination of Easter but it’s not an imagining based on pure fantasy. It’s based on the resurrections I have experienced in my life, the moments where I passed from heaviness and death into a gracious crack of new light. It is based on the knowledge that Jesus has sanctified all my tombs, and the tombs of all his people.  They are no longer graves of imprisonment but portals to the kingdom through which we can see the creeping light and hear the echo of our spiritual names. 

I pray for you a holy and blessed Easter. Slip through the crack of your tomb and join him on the silent hill. He is calling you and would love to see you.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6: 3-11. Easter Vigil Epistle)