Roll Over Menno

The following was written by Menno Simons, regarding the Holy Supper and the Catholic Eucharist:

… they made the bread, in the Holy Supper, into the real flesh, and the wine into the real blood of Christ, and understood the words of Christ literally Take, eat, this is my body, and did not observe that Christ, John 6, does fully instruct us, how we are to eat his flesh and drink his blood; and says, that it would profit nothing really to eat his flesh, and to drink his blood, for this could not be done, because he was about ascending to heaven where he was before; we are therefore not literally to understand this eating his flesh, and drinking his blood; but spiritually, as he himself says, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” All those who thus understand this from the Scriptures, are by many, reproached as accursed heretics and profaners of the sacrament, and must suffer for it by water, fire and the sword.

O dear Lord! is this not an ungodly error, and great blindness, to teach and to believe, that a piece of bread, and a drink of wine should be changed into the real and essential flesh and blood of the Son of God, whereby we may be delivered from hell, the devil, sin and death, and are made children of grace? O, horrible heresy!

O miserable, blind people, believe the words of Christ, when he says, that it profiteth nothing to eat his visible and real flesh; and that his words are spirit and life, John 6:63; believe that he ascended up to heaven and sitteth at the right hand of his Father; therefore he cannot be eaten nor confined in the body by any one, nor can he be consumed by age, fire, or worms, as may be plainly seen, is the case with the visible bread and wine…

…O dear Lord! they are more ignorant than the heathens ever were; true, the heathens worshipped and honored the sun, moon and stars, which have their influence upon things below. They worshipped the ox, the dragon, serpents, fire, and other creatures; some of which had living breath within them. They also worshipped images of wood, stone, gold and silver, made by skilful workmen, who cast, carved and decorated them in the likeness of man. But those who are called by the name of Christ, pray to, worship, and adore a piece of bread, and a mouthful of wine, as the real flesh and blood of Christ, who came from heaven for our salvation; became man, and was made an offering upon the cross for our sins. O intolerable abomination and infamy I that the praise of God, the glory of Jesus Christ is converted and changed into such a feeble idol, which can neither avenge, speak, hear, see, stand nor walk; which worms eat and time consumes; and must be locked up, preserved, assisted, and carried about by the hands of men, like the idols at Babylon

From THE CORRUPTION OF THE HOLY SUPPER. (Book 1) Page 48
http://www.e-menno.org/menno/menno015.htm
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MENNO SIMON

In an article called A sacrament and a song - A cradle Catholic experiences Mennonites, Katherine Donnelly explains how Mennonites have simply “misunderstood” some of the traditions of the Catholic church, such as the Eucharist, the rosary, the sign of the cross, and the crucifix.

Through this kind of reasoning, some Mennonites are being gradually persuaded to consider participating in the Catholic Eucharist, as shown by the following excerpt from the Mennonite Weekly Review:

Bridgefolk seeks deeper communion between Mennonites, Catholics
By Robert Rhodes
Mennonite Weekly Review -July ‘06
http://www.mennoweekly.org/JULY/07-10-06/BRIDGEFOLK07-10.html

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — Mennonites and Catholics seeking deeper understanding of one another’s traditions explored the meaning of peacemaking and the Lord’s Supper during a recent gathering at a Benedictine monastery.

The fifth annual meeting of Bridgefolk, attended by about 60 participants, was held June 29-July 2 at St. John’s Abbey on the theme “Making Peace: At Table, in the World.”

…during the conference, Mennonites and Catholics alike took part in the daily liturgical prayers of the St. John’s monastic community and held a Mennonite-style hymn sing that mixed Anabaptist hymns with Latin plainchant.

Some also participated in an ecumenical eucharistic service concelebrated by St. John’s abbot and Bridgefolk co-chair John Klassen and Skudlarek on July 1…

If only Menno could see them now!

The following piece, from another Mennonite Weekly Review article, causes one to wonder why they don’t simply call this the Mennonite Mass.

Dialogue mirrors desire to seek more liturgical forms
By Robert Rhodes
Mennonite Weekly Review
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-23-04/LITURGY08-23.html

Taking the eucharist

One key issue is the matter of the eucharist — whether Mennonites participating in the Catholic mass should take the Lord’s Supper.

Because it has been involved in a variety of ecumenical efforts, observers say the community at St. John’s Abbey, where Bridgefolk meets, is perhaps more permissive than other monastic communities when it comes to distributing the eucharist. According to Catholic doctrine, the bread and wine of the mass are literally transformed into the body and blood of Jesus.

Under conventional Catholic teaching, no person who approaches the mass celebrant will be refused communion under normal circumstances.

On the other hand, Catholic priests are not allowed to actively invite non-Catholics to receive the elements.

The result is that those who wish to participate approach the sacrament with an open mind and “let their faith and conscience be their guide,” Nisly said.

More than likely, no questions will be asked.

So do Mennonites sometimes take Catholic communion — a practice that would have sent the early Anabaptists into fits of despair?

Some do and some don’t, Bridgefolk participants said.

Would this open minded practice have sent the early Anabaptists into fits of ‘despair’? Or would their strong beliefs have sent them into hiding from persecution, unfair trials and torture? How far today’s compromising Mennonites have come from the original courageous convictions of Menno Simons and those who followed him, often to a martyr’s death.

ROM: High

His followers may be naively returning to the church of Rome that he denounced, but the words penned by Menno Simons still speak from the grave. Perhaps some post-modern Mennonites will read them and wake up…

THE PAPISTIC BELIEF

It is true, the papists teach and believe, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he offered up his flesh, and shed his blood for us, but if we would enjoy them, and be partakers thereof, we must adhere to and obey the pope and his church, hear mass, receive the holy water, perform pilgrimages, call upon the mother of the Lord, and the departed saints, confess at least twice a year, receive papistic absolution, have our children baptized, and commemorate the holy days. The priests must vow chastity; the bread in the mass, must be called the flesh, and the wine, the blood of Christ; besides all their other idolatry and abominations, which are daily practiced by them.

And all this is called, by these poor, ignorant people, the most holy christian faith, and the institution of the holy christian church. Although it is nothing but mere human opinion, self chosen righteousness, seductive hypocrisy, manifest deception of the soul, ungodly, indecent bodily nourishment and gain of lazy priests, an accursed abomination, an incensing of God, a disgraceful blasphemy, an unworthy despising of the blood of Christ, a self devised undertaking, and a disobedient, contumacy to the divine word. In short, a false, offensive, divine worship, and open idolatry, of which Jesus Christ (to whom the Father points us) has not left or commanded us a single letter of all these things.

It does not suffice that they practice such abominations; they not only also despise as vain and useless all true fruits of faith, commanded of God himself, the sincere, pure love and fear of God, “the love and service of our neighbor, the true sacraments and divine service, &c., but they also revile them as damnable and heretical, and exterminate and persecute them. I think this may properly be called a sect.

-Menno Simons
http://www.e-menno.org/menno/menno029.htm

From THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MENNO SIMON
http://www.e-menno.org/menno/menno000.htm

Rom Index: R.I.P.
Menno would be quite pleased that his words have been dug up for viewing.

In May of 2000 an article in the Menno Weekly Review called Mennonites discover the ancient practice of spiritual direction (www.mennoweekly.org/pdf_archive/05_16_00.pdf) stated that there were 130 Mennonite trained spiritual directors across the United States and Canada. Roughly 700 were meeting one on one with a spiritual director several times a month at $25-$40 per session, including Mennonite pastors and laity. Marlene Kropf, then minister of worship and spirituality for the Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries, said the practice of spiritual direction was part of an ancient tradition that is not just limited to Catholics.

“Since the 1960’s and Vatican II, a lot of things have opened up, and the tradition has been shared more broadly” said Kropf, who is now on faculty as Associate Professor in Spiritual Formation and Worship (see here) at AMBS (Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Indiana).

One of the retreat centers used to train spiritual directors at the time this article was written was called The Hermitage in Three Rivers, Mich. According to a 1999 Mennonite Quarterly Review article, The Hermitage was “founded and led by a husband-wife Mennonite pastoral team, Gene and Mary Herr, it offers silent retreats, guided meditation and spiritual direction, primarily to Mennonite pastors. The Hermitage has a long-standing relationship with the Spiritual Life Institute (SLI), a Catholic religious order of Carmelite origin. Bro. Eric Haarer, an early Mennonite supporter, is now a Catholic member of SLI and maintains a close association with The Hermitage, as do other members of SLI.”

Seven years later, The Hermitage is still being used as a retreat center by Mennonites. Here is a typical day at the ecumenical Hermitage (http://www.hermitagecommunity.org/main/):

The following events take place regularly in the Chapel of Transfiguration and are open to all who wish to participate:

* Morning Prayer: Mondays through Saturdays at 8:00 a.m.

* Centering Prayer: Saturday mornings at 8:00 a.m.

• Taizé Evensong: The second Sunday of each month at 7:00 p.m.

Also found at the Hermitage is something called “The Phoenix Gallery, named for the mythical bird that must die to be reborn, displays works of art that encourage contemplation.” However, no where does the Hermitage website mention that the Phoenix is a well known symbol of ancient occult mystery religions and freemasonry (see here).

Today, thanks to retreat centers like The Hermitage, spiritual formation has become common place among the Mennonites, and is now accepted as part of the training at most Mennonite Seminaries.

It’s hard to say how many more Mennonite spiritual directors there now:

*The 2005 Mennonite Spiritual Directors USA list shows just over one hundred.
(www.mennoniteusa.org/executive/congregational_life/docs/Spiritual-Directors.pdf)

*The 2005 Mennonite Church Canada Christian Formation list has twenty three.
(http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/resourcecentre/ResourceView/5/7964)

But who can ever count how many Mennonites have been influenced since Vatican II to explore ancient spirituality by this so called Christian spiritual formation?

ROM Index: High

Churches across the nation are offering labyrinths as a way for Christians to move closer to God during Lenten and Easter season. Once again, the Mennonite church is part of this new trend. But is it really new? Can it draw Christians closer to God?

The following is from an article by The Berean Call.

Mennonite mysticism

Excerpts from “Labyrinths - A new and ancient way to pray” The Mennonite 6/1/2004 Marlene Kropf, who teaches Christian spirituality and serves as spiritual director at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., is probably responsible for introducing more Mennonites to [Catholic mystical prayer] labyrinths than any one person. In 1998, when she was a staff person for the Mennonite Church’s Board of Congregational Ministries, Marlene included the labyrinth as a prayer discipline in that year’s Lenten material for congregations…

The entire article may be read here:
http://www.thebereancall.org/node/415

There is a description of these Lenten Labyrinth materials in this Mennonite Church USA article:

Holy Spirit leads teams in creating Lenten, Easter-to-Pentecost worship resources

NEWTON, Kan., and WINNIPEG, Man. (MC USA and MC Canada) — The Holy Spirit is a key member of the teams that create worship resources for Advent, Lent and Easter-to-Pentecost, said Marlene Kropf, director of Mennonite Church USA’s Executive Board Office of Congregational Life…

The Lenten materials include a painting by Rembrandt depicting the prodigal son story; a labyrinth, the ancient use of a pathway leading to a center where one meets God; and on a hymn,”Come Ye Sinners (and Elder Son)…”

The article (found here) goes on to explain that the Easter season Lenten guide, developed by a team from British Columbia and coordinated by Mennonite Church Canada, is called “Season of Awakening.” A document by the MC Canada Staff Worship Service called Praying the Psalm, Using the Labyrinth can be found at Mennonite Church Canada (click here).

However, one might wonder what exactly Mennonite Church Canada means by calling Lenten Labyrinth worship the “Season of Awakening.” Especially when a close look at the roots of the Labyrinth expose an ancient esoteric spirituality.

One book about this, called The Lenten Labyrinth: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent (Daily Reflections for the 40-Day Lenten Journey), begins with this introduction:

ASH WEDNESDAY
Today your home should be decorated in Halloween fashion as you stand at the gateway to the great Lenten labyrinth. Before swinging open the iron gate of the labyrinth, ponder these lines of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, “Dirge without Music.”

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go…

(page 10)

Does the Lenten labyrinth sound like something that the Bible would teach Christians to participate in? Will it draw people closer to God, or is this spiritual practice ‘awakening’ its participants to ancient occultic spirituality?

Wendy Miller, who assisted with the labyrinth at Eastern Mennonite University, notes that Christians in the Middle Ages ‘adopted’ the labyrinth as the means to a symbolic journey during Lent.

But are Mennonites asking what exactly the labyrinth is “adopted” from?

For those answers, ROM recommends the following reading:

THE LABYRINTH, PAGAN SPIRITUALITY
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/labyrinth-pagaspirituality.html

Enter the Labyrinth
http://www.letusreason.org/Nam30.htm

The Labyrinth Journey: Walking the Path to Fulfillment?
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/teichrib/labyrinth.htm

Read about the many churches who have become involved in the Lenten Labyrinth trend here:

Walking the Faith
http://www.religiousherald.org/300.article

Read about the many Mennonite labyrinths here:

*Into the Mennonite Labyrinth
http://rollovermenno.wordpress.com/2007/08/17/into-the-mennonite-labyrinth/

(*Into the Mennonite Labyrinth has been viewed 1,120 times since first published on ROM last summer.)

Hopefully there will be some Mennonites who will speak out against this spiritual trend and take a stand in their denominations, churches and schools before their members get hopelessly lost in the labyrinth mania maze. Surely Menno would be rolling over in his grave if he knew about this!

ROM Index: a-maze-ingly HIGH