So, how willing are you to take part in this type of community? Would you stay, or bolt and run away?

Put Off, Put On

...As the truth is in Jesus, [that you] put off your old self...and put on the new self... Ephesians 4:22, 23

I've been reading medieval Celtic penitentials again. Grim stuff, that. Think of any sin you've ever heard of -- and some you haven't dared imagine -- and one or another of these handbooks for soul-surgeons will tell you how to help your confessor overcome it. This is reading to challenge the seriousness of your faith. The Celtic penitentials appear throughout the period of the Celtic revival -- roughly the fifth through the ninth century -- and give guidance to pastors on how to help the people in their care overcome whatever sin they have come to confess. Paul's injunction not be be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil by good provides the underlying principle for practicing the spiritual discipline of penance (Rom. 12:21). The penitentials -- such as those by Finnian and Cummean -- put it rather differently: contraries are cured by contraries. Behavior contrary to holiness is corrected by taking up, for an appointed time, a regimen of behaviors designed to inculcate holiness.

So whatever the sin, the local pastor, or the confessor's soul friend, was expected to be able to help him get over it and get back on the path of pursuing holiness in the Lord (2 Cor. 7:1). Celtic Christians considered unconfessed, unrepented-of sin to be a detriment, not only to the individual sinner but to the community as a whole. Therefore, they created an environment in which sinners felt free to confess their shortcomings, knowing they would be received with understanding and grace, and counseled as to how they should recover from this setback so that they could get on with following the Lord.

Several things stand out as significant with these handbooks of penance. First is their frequent resort to the Law of God -- in particular, the statutes or case laws of Israel -- for specific guidance in how to counsel restoration. Second is their use of the psalms to cure bad attitudes, sinful speech, and even improper behavior. Celtic Christians recognized the value of praying and singing the psalms as a means of growing the grace of the Lord; singing psalms was often one aspect of a varied prescription of penance.

Third is in the implication that, in Celtic Christian society, the pursuit of holiness was everybody's responsibility. The believers were accountable to one another and maintained "soul-friendships" for the purpose of helping one another to walk the path of righteousness. Sin was not a private matter, and it was nothing to wink at. Sin had to be dealt with, and people had to work together in order to improve the level of spiritual life, both of the individuals and the community. Celtic Christian communities were open, honest, caring, and firm in the conviction that whatever contrary behavior might rear its head, threatening the judgment of the Lord against the community, would be dealt with swiftly and effectively by a prescription of contrary behavior, designed to promote righteousness.

A far cry from our present practice of not talking about sin, of tolerating it because, after all, we're all sinners and God loves us just as we are, and of acting like the pursuit of holiness is not, in the end, the true mark of a "saint."