First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew [Hardcover]

Frederica Mathewes-Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2006

Join Frederica Mathewes-Green on a guided retreat—ideal for the Lenten season—through the classic Great Canon, a wise, ancient, Orthodox text that will enrich your experience of spirituality and prayer.

First Fruits of Prayer will bring readers of all denominational backgrounds into the prayer experience of first millennium Christianity through immersion in this fascinating text, a poetic hymn written in the eighth century. This extraordinarily beautiful work, still chanted by Eastern Christians every Lent, weaves together Old and New Testament scriptures with prayers of hope and repentance. It offers ancient ways of seeing Christ that will nevertheless feel new to most readers today.

This insightful book offers all readers an opportunity to walk through a classic text from the Christian East in a series of 40 prayerful readings, with accompanying commentary and questions for further reflection.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this fascinating and sometimes magisterial guided exploration of an eighth-century hymn that is central to Lenten religious practice for the Eastern Orthodox, Mathewes-Green encourages her readers not only to examine but also to personally apply fundamental Christian concepts like repenting, understanding the nature of sin and experiencing God in prayer. A skilled interpreter of the theology and history of the Orthodox tradition, Mathewes-Green arranges the Great Canon of St. Andrew, bishop of Crete, into 40 readings accompanied by scriptural references, commentary, theological reflection and questions. Mathewes-Green, who has clearly done her scholarly homework, sets the stage by giving a brief overview of Andrew's life and an abbreviated paraphrase of the life of St. Mary of Egypt. (This account of a female hermit's meeting with a monk on a Lenten retreat is also read during the service of the Great Canon. This gem from the early church is alone worth the price of the book.) While some readers may be put off by Mathewes-Green's apparent conviction that her denomination has preserved the soul of the early church while Western Christians have strayed, others will find her insights both evocative and provocative. (Jan.)
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About the Author

Frederica Mathewes-Green is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and a commentator for National Public Radio. She has been interviewed in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and Time, among other publications, and is the author of several books, including At the Corner of East and Now (Tarcher) and The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer (Paraclete). Mathewes-Green lives in Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 195 pages
• Publisher: Paraclete Press (MA); First Edition edition (January 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557254699
• ISBN-13: 978-1557254696
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Orthodoxy

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Journey Through Lent, January 26, 2006

By 

Pennsylvania Settler (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew (Hardcover)

I don't intend so much to review this book (which I found excellent), as to respond to a couple of questions posed by the reviewer below, John Zxerce.

Mr. Zxerce seems to be looking at the theology of the book through a Protestant/Reformed lens. No doubt, if this is the case some of what he sees will seem strange, even foreign, to his understanding of the Faith. An example of this is his putting forth of several implicit or explicit "either/or's." But from an Orthodox perspective these are seen more as "both/and's." Salvation is found through "a Savior to be embraced" and "an example to be followed." One aspect of soteriology doesn't preclude or negate the other. Of course, one must "embrace" the Saviour before one can follow Him, but it the Orthodox mind the two are not radically separate. Salvation is a gift of God's grace, without a doubt. But that doesn't eliminate the need to live a Christ-like life. To put it in Western terms, righteousness is both "imputed" and "infused." It's not one or the other.

The ransom/redemption texts of Scripture that Mr. Zxerce quotes will fit just as well into the Orthodox paradigm of salvation as rescue, as they do into the Western understanding of the "substitutionary atonement," which of course the Orthodox believe, albeit not in the same way. Sin and death are definitely real enemies--I'm not sure how one could come away with any other idea after reading the Canon of St. Andrew. The difference between Orthodoxy and Protestant Christianity in this regard is the manner in which the two sides see those enemies being defeated.

It is important to remember that the Western "substitutionary atonement" model of the death of Christ isn't all there is. For centuries before that model became the dominant one in the Western Church, the Eastern Fathers (and many Western ones as well) held to the view that the Orthodox hold today. For further reading on this I'd recommend Mathewes-Green's earlier book THE ILLUMINED HEART and Matthew Gallatin's THIRSTING FOR GOD. These two books also contain references that point the way to deeper, more scholarly works on the subject.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Fruits of Prayer, March 17, 2006

By 

Jackie Maine - See all my reviews
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This review is from: First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book to go through during lent, or for that matter, at any time of the year. There are 40 excerpts from the Canon of St. Andrew. Frederica Mathewes-Green links these selections with the scripture from the Bible that inspired them and includes a brief commentary on each verse.

This book makes one look at their own shortcomings and sins, but also shines the light of a loving and merciful God as the help and healer of our human spiritual ailments. I really am enjoying reading and being challenged by this book.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Lenten Resource, February 18, 2006

By 

RJ (PA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew (Hardcover)

Eastern Christian thought, prayer and spirituality is not well enough known in "the West." The Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is a beautiful prayer, and Ms. Mathewes-Green does an excellent job in communicating these values in a way that those of us with a "Western" mindset can understand, appreciate, and find meaning in our lives. Great reading during the Lenten season.