Christ Church

The Comfortable Words and the Literature of Consolation I

The “comfy words,” as they are affectionately or pejoratively called, are a peculiar feature of the Prayer Book liturgy however much one might find some precedence in the psalms surrounding the words of absolution in the Liturgy of St. Mark and the Liturgy of St. James in the rites of Eastern Orthodoxy or in sixteenth century Lutheranism such as Hermann of Cologne’s Consultations which is probably the more immediate source. That work places the Comfortable Words before the words of absolution rather than after the absolution. “Here what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him,” is what we hear in the Prayer Book Communion Service just after the surpassing comfort of the words of absolution, the words of the forgiveness of our sins pronounced after confession.

What we hear are a selection of Scriptural words that are, well, comforting and powerful. But why? And what do they mean in this context? What is meant by “comfortable”? Even more, do they have any connection to the tradition of Consolation Literature, both non-Christian and Christian? This will be our Lenten consideration: to consider the Comfortable Words in relation to the literature of consolation, attending to one or two works in particular in that extensive tradition.

Our Lenten series cannot pretend to be an exhaustive consideration. The richness and the wealth of the material is just so great and vast, each work worthy of so much more consideration in its own right. It will not even be possible to name all of the works that might be included in the catalogue of the literature of consolation. But in general, the literature of consolation deals with the question about how we face suffering, sorrow, and loss philosophically and religiously. The terms are complementary.

But what about the term “comfortable”? The great mystery writer, Dame P.D. James, in a work which stands outside her oeuvre of mystery novels, The Children of Men, makes the acute observation about contemporary Christianity that “the recognized churches, particularly the Church of England, moved from the theology of sin and redemption to a less uncompromising doctrine: corporate social responsibility coupled with a sentimental humanism”. What this means, the novel suggests is the virtual abolition of “the Second Person of the Trinity together with His cross.” Good-bye Jesus. The cross, traditionally seen as the symbol of comfort and consolation, becomes “the stigma of the barbarism of officialdom and of man’s ineluctable cruelty”. Good-bye redemptive suffering. There is just the sense that for some, particularly unbelievers, the cross “has never been a comfortable symbol.” But in the context of her novel which explores more or less completely the dystopian qualities of contemporary culture, what is more cruel and more barbaric? The cross or “corporate social responsibility” which in the novel includes the Quietus, a euphemism for euthanasia of the elderly and the inconvenient? What is more cruel? The cross or “sentimental humanism” in a world devoid of purpose and meaning? These are not merely rhetorical questions.

They challenge us about consolation, about what is meant by comfort in such things as the so-called “comfortable words,” and even more about the rich tradition of consolation literature. Comfort does not mean simply what pleases us. It is not about ‘comfort food’. The word is really more about what strengthens us. And what strengthens us has very much to do with how we think about our life in Christ through his sacrifice. That powerful Christian image connects with the philosophical traditions about the nature and the power of the Good and our participation in it.

But what about the “Comfortable Words” in the context of the Liturgy? What do they mean? A Scriptural confirmation of what is proclaimed in priestly absolution, a kind of check on the lingering suspicions about sacerdotalism? Or preparation for our participation in the saving work of Christ sacramentally? Or both? Or neither? Better perhaps simply to consider the words themselves as “comfortable words,” words which strengthen us and which complement the interweaving patterns of contrition, confession and satisfaction belonging to the movement of the liturgy. But in what way and how?

They strengthen our faith by recalling us to God. Though peculiar to the Prayer Book Liturgy, their real purpose has to do with the mystical theology of The Book of Common Prayer which is always about circling around and around and into the mystery of God, a constant “redire ad principia”. The liturgy is not a linear narrative but is always about our participation in what is eschatological – beyond time and space. We are constantly being gathered into the divine life through Word and Sacrament.

The Comfortable Words as a form of consolation literature return us to God, to our life in God, to his goodness and truth as living and moving in us. It is radically about our life in Christ. In a way, that is the simple yet profound teaching of the “comfortable words”. They counter our anxieties and our worries, our narcissisms and self-regard simply by turning us to God. As such they belong to the literature of consolation which in one way or another recalls us to the truth and goodness of God in whom there is no suffering, no loss, no pain because in God we have all and everything that belongs to our good and our happiness. The task is to learn to see this; in short, to see the radical meaning of Christ’s sacrifice which opens us out to the goodness of God who alone brings good out of evil and turns sorrow and suffering into joy and delight in the goodness of the God who cares for us.

The Comfortable Words are for those who “truly turn to him.” Something is required of us. At the very least a kind of awareness. There is the knowledge of our own sins and follies but that turns upon a prior awareness, namely, the surpassing awareness of the goodness of God without which there could be no knowledge of ourselves as sinners. It is a kind of paradox. The knowledge of ourselves as sinners means the prior knowledge of goodness of God as absolute. At issue are the forms of our participation in that goodness.

In this sense, the Comfortable Words in the Prayer Book liturgy simply belong to the fundamental pattern of “contrition, confession and satisfaction,” underscoring these theological themes both scripturally and pastorally. They provide a wonderful counter to our anxieties which are always about our focus and preoccupation with ourselves and our immediate concerns which are precisely the things which turn us away from God. We forget the great lesson emphasised over and over again and in different ways that we have nothing apart from God and, its corollary, that in God we have everything.

That alone challenges and changes our outlook. It does not deny the realities of the human condition. In fact, nothing could be more emphatically stated about the human condition than the opening word of comfort from St. Matthew’s Gospel which is Christ’s invitation to turn to him out of our state of weariness. “Come unto me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Refreshment. What is that except a kind of strengthening that allows us to persevere and to do so with the sense that there is something more that is found in our labours and our being heavy laden, even joy and delight in what God wills for us?

St. Matthew’s words are immediately complemented by words from The Gospel According to St. John, namely the famous passage from John 3.16. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Powerful words which open our hearts and minds to the purpose of Christ’s coming. God in his infinite goodness seeks our good – our everlasting good, our good as found completely and utterly in him. The passage underscores the essential and recurring message of the entire liturgy. It is about nothing less and nothing more than our participation in the divine goodness.

The third “Comfortable Word” is that of St. Paul from his First Letter to Timothy, at once intimate and universal. It emphasises the purpose of the Incarnation, “a true saying worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. Wow. This unambiguously proclaims a certain good news in the face of the knowledge of ourselves as sinners. To know ourselves as sinners is to have a glimpse and a sense of the goodness of God from which we have fallen away. But here Paul reminds us of God’s motion towards us in Christ Jesus.

This comforting and strengthening word is followed by the last word again from St. John but this time from his first epistle. It is, perhaps, the most theological of the three in terms of its language. It deals with the way in which we in our sins accuse ourselves and stand indicted – the courtroom language is unavoidable. It stresses however that “we have an Advocate,” one who pleads for us to the Father, Jesus Christ, whose righteousness is imputed to us to make us righteous, whose righteousness is the “propitiation for our sins”. The technical term, “propitiation,” is simply about Christ’s atoning sacrifice for us. He bears our sins for us to make us right with God, make us one with God. It is all about the power of the divine goodness which alone is able to make something good out of our evil and to establish justice out of the forms of our injustice. That is the wonder, too, of the consolation literature which recalls us to a philosophical meditation upon the justice of God and creation.

It is in turning away from God that we suffer. In being turned back to God, our sorrows are turned into joy. We are comforted by being strengthened in the radical meaning of the Christian Faith. We are able to find joy and peace even in the midst of sadness and sorrow. Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth/fifteenth century mystic whose works contribute to the literature of consolation, memorably says that “all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well,” but only when we learn “to live gladly in the knowledge of [God’s] love.” In him we have everything. This is the great comfort and consolation.

Fr. David Curry
Lenten Programme I, 2018
Tuesday, February 20th, 2018