tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88625871655929305252024-03-13T14:50:11.043-07:00The Rector's CornerA blog of resources, writings, and thoughts from the rector of St Timothy's Episcopal Church, Salem, Oregon.Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.comBlogger606125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-9027443413561424512023-11-27T21:42:00.000-08:002023-11-27T21:52:18.785-08:00Between Thanksgiving and Advent...<p><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjds2RAZIyED4LWtX3BS62pwBf-rGrKelVGQtE_tTCd5mmOHRun6Tyx9IX5Z84Ks1xAfRsgccPbn9s1K8JH-3i7w3B3r_b7U4_pxgQvsrqy8PVPgBapxnfKMrBS71xm4QX6jodS7b1bSLX9bh6wxYxcGA7e-6BZRhurJzyvCSUXNr-JuJaXGwfa7gYG3UI/s804/Merry+Thanksgiving-2447015241.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="801" data-original-width="804" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjds2RAZIyED4LWtX3BS62pwBf-rGrKelVGQtE_tTCd5mmOHRun6Tyx9IX5Z84Ks1xAfRsgccPbn9s1K8JH-3i7w3B3r_b7U4_pxgQvsrqy8PVPgBapxnfKMrBS71xm4QX6jodS7b1bSLX9bh6wxYxcGA7e-6BZRhurJzyvCSUXNr-JuJaXGwfa7gYG3UI/w320-h319/Merry+Thanksgiving-2447015241.jpg" title="This can be a confusing period of time--as this book cover suggests." width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>This can be a confusing period of time--as this book cover suggests</i>.</div><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif">As we end November and approach December the civil and church calendars coexist in a somewhat unusual manner in the U.S.</span><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif"> </span><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif"> </span><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif">Often, Thanksgiving Day is the immediate herald of Advent, but November has</span><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif"> </span><i>five </i><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif">Thursdays this year (Thanksgiving currently is the <i>fourth</i> Thursday of November, not the <i>last</i> Thursday of the month), and this gives a longer-than-usual gap between the culmination of the fall and the start of the Church’s preparation for Christmas—time available for consideration and use in the spiritual life.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Under the current (1979 BCP) version of the Church Year, the last weeks of the annual cycle focus on themes of judgement, harvest, completion, and the consequences of time meeting eternity. These traditional Advent themes are, in effect, stretched out into something like a preamble to that season, emphasizing the elements of our faith summed up in the creeds around the “Judgment of the quick and the dead.” This includes a healthy dose of eschatology and its intensity--the "secret sauce" of all authentic Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This emphasis allows Advent itself to be focused largely on <i>joy</i>—both the joy of Christ’s first coming (Incarnation/Nativity) and the joy of his second coming at the end of the ages. This is different from prior calendars which tended to look at Advent in more explicitly penitential ways.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Because so much of Western Christianity’s understanding of eschatology has been built on fear, terror, remorse, shame, and condemnation, the other side of the coin is rarely considered. The form Advent now takes in our calendar is less about The Four Last Things of death, judgment, heaven, and hell, and more about living in such a way that we will hear with joy the words “Behold, the Bridegroom comes!” at the end of time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The biblical figures we focus on in the coming season are: the prophet Isaiah, the Prophet of the Advent; Christ’s Forerunner, St. John the Baptist; and the God-bearer, St. Mary the Virgin.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Isaiah prepares us for God’s shocking action of bringing the Messiah to us; the Baptist heralds the Messiah’s arrival, and the Blessed Virgin consents to God’s election and bears the Christ-child so that God may share in our life and redeem it “from within,” so-to-speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Through all of these weeks, the two aspects of our redemption—the proving, testing fire of judgment and the comforting, healing embrace of love—are explored and shown to be but two sides of the same coin. To dwell in the Kingdom of God means an entrance into the divine presence <i>and</i> our true selves, an entrance in which all sin is ultimately consumed and all distortion stripped away in the ravishing, glorious totality of God’s love. This is at the heart of authentic eschatology and forms a major part of the preacher’s and teacher’s work in this part of the Church Year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Most years, all of this happens in quick succession—The last Sunday after Pentecost, with its imagery of judgement and enthronement being followed by the harvest thankfulness of Thanksgiving Day and then almost immediately by Advent Sunday’s proclamation of “Sleeper’s, Awake!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This rapidity is as it should be, really. The scriptures testify that God’s judgement will be <i>sudden</i>, not a bureaucratic “process” involving lots of forms and delays, nor a test we “study up” for. Yet, the insertion of an extra week from time-to-time (as with this year) does afford us the opportunity to consider a couple of thoughts: God’s mercy in allowing time to repent, and the difference between judgement and simple retribution.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This extra space of time between Thanksgiving/The Last Sunday after Pentecost and Advent Sunday is a reminder that God often grants us time to draw back and change direction. This space for repentance is one of the many ways God shows mercy, and something to give thanks for, always.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The other point I would like to make about this week is that it shows how God’s judgement is a considered matter, a revealing of our journey, intentions, and purposes, rather than mere retribution or spite. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The parables of judgement in the Gospel are not about a capricious deity just showing off power for power’s sake, but the working out of consequences of deeds done (or not done). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">We can go for long periods without thought to the kind of life we are building, but all the while, we are still building it. That is our “life project,” and it is the offering we will make at the end of our earthly pilgrimage. The space between these parables of judgement and Advent Sunday is a good time to think seriously about the nature of that offering, and how we may use this Advent season to renew and re-form that offering so it may be worthy of the eternity on the edge of which we stand this season—and every day—as members of Christ’s body.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Enjoy this week, <i>and use it wisely!</i></span><span style="font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-23780021987525383792023-10-28T10:16:00.000-07:002023-10-28T10:16:13.747-07:00"That All Who Seek You Here May Find You..."<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5tSgk6tRW_rvDz76dq_MOVsX9d4BnlhyphenhyphenvpXw0LmUdW3FFIkNkx47VNtbSJbXEgfAwDF4QNXNvAplwrkQ8vEw45lsJ5NwJrJ-iTlaMSwg-8mi6hmaqe8gLsJYFwQyZLLsB33V0H46_BGVsqGoONxgaCfdWNvHsGiQPmxmzw2uuKqp6qdVk6pTrLsesM1A/s5239/north%20side%20and%20sacristy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3459" data-original-width="5239" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5tSgk6tRW_rvDz76dq_MOVsX9d4BnlhyphenhyphenvpXw0LmUdW3FFIkNkx47VNtbSJbXEgfAwDF4QNXNvAplwrkQ8vEw45lsJ5NwJrJ-iTlaMSwg-8mi6hmaqe8gLsJYFwQyZLLsB33V0H46_BGVsqGoONxgaCfdWNvHsGiQPmxmzw2uuKqp6qdVk6pTrLsesM1A/w320-h211/north%20side%20and%20sacristy.jpeg" width="320" /></a></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Almighty God, to whose glory we celebrate the dedication of this house of prayer: We give you thanks for the fellowship of those who have worshiped in this place, and we pray that all who seek you here may find you, and be filled with your joy and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.</span></i></i></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This Sunday St. Timothy’s will observe one of its two Parochial Feasts: the dedication of its church (the other is its “feast of title,” the commemoration of St. Timothy in January). This annual event recalls the dedication liturgies in this parish’s history: of the first church building (now our parish hall), of the second (and current) nave, and of the educational, office, and chapel addition in 1997.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This liturgy has several special characteristics. First of all, it is a feast with its own collect, lessons, prayers of the people, and hymns. It opens with a Festal Procession, with a collect at a station where the icon of our patron St. Timothy is displayed. The <i>Gloria in excelsis</i>, the great hymn of praise from the early Christian era reserved for major feasts, is sung as the altar is censed. Deceased benefactors and members of St. Timothy’s are recalled in our prayers. Finally, before the liturgy concludes, a solemn <i>Te Deum</i> is sung, giving God especial thanks for this house of prayer as a guaranteed place of meeting and as a center of mission. So much for the liturgical details.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What must be of greater concern for us is the meaning behind this feast and its special elements, for the liturgy is a direct participation in the mystery of God the Holy Trinity, and a showing forth of the Kingdom of God, dawning even now in its fullness by the action of the Holy Spirit. What, then, does this liturgy signify to us?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The collect for the feast puts two things front-and-center: communion and its fruits. The Feast of Dedication is a thanksgiving for communion in its many forms: fellowship with God, fellowship with other disciples, fellowship with those who have already entered eternal life. It is also a plea to God that this parish—holy ground, dedicated to God’s way, God’s presence, a kind of divine beachhead in our agonized and strife-torn world—may always be a place where people may find God and be filled with divine joy and peace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ours has become a “desacralized” world; that is a fancy word for the condition of having little or no holiness. In its place, we have tried to substitute the material, the commercial, the purely physical, or the ideological. All around us we see the grotesque results of this experiment: addictions, obsessions, environmental degradation, the commodification of human life, industrialized killing, and the reduction of mystery and awe to such slogans as “follow your bliss”, “it’s all good”, or the demand for conformity to a particular political party or opinion. The hunger for something more is being bought off—temporarily—by a less and less effective array of consumerist and ideological stop-gaps. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But the Church has the one thing that will satisfy that hunger: communion with God, with the creation, and with each other. Here, in this place, the cheap and sleazy answers the world hands out are not offered. Here, the utter connectedness of all things to their God is revealed. Here joy and peace are not just words: they are the currency of our shared life. Each Eucharist is a joyful renewal of that fact, reaching out beyond the buildings of St. Timothy’s into the lives of its members throughout this city and its surroundings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Feast of Dedication is no self-congratulatory party wherein this parish looks admiringly at itself in a mirror. It is a thanksgiving for the grace of God leading to the foresight, sweat, and sacrifice of those who came before us to bring about this parish’s physical presence. But it is more than that: it is a rousing call to take seriously the preciousness of Holy Ground in a city where hope, justice, peace, relationships, and even human life have become just words. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here, at this place, the Kingdom of God is made known at each Eucharist, in each class or parish event. Here, those who seek God are able to find him: imperfectly, yes—but find God we may. For the Lord <i>has blessed it, set it apart,</i> making it a portal through which all may enter and be restored, refashioned into what we were created to be from the foundation of the world: the Royal Priesthood of Creation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Let us give thanks for the dedication of this parish <i>and</i> live out its promise. Like all churches who retain zeal for the Kingdom of God, it is a beacon of hope in a world awash in turmoil, anxiety, and fear.</span><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-28397960961358993252023-07-31T20:25:00.008-07:002023-08-01T15:38:11.580-07:00Lammastide: Earth, Altar, and Us All<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHUXkB5958rrfhEDke43a6tu0fW7mxGU5SNMq6EAkrgzv0eC7E-s9ifLkdMLka2Q-j4hR1gANjAgoFd18WhlydIMjXyhjXx-URrP7M7o5dpyWJvt8c5LHH-SvmjMRNtsdJDFUf5ve6YIGppIpu-RAMEqtN1l3867mqrr5KPjoSgbfoB5aky8jEekZrLZ4/s1707/Lammas-024-e1564612095471-1280x1707.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHUXkB5958rrfhEDke43a6tu0fW7mxGU5SNMq6EAkrgzv0eC7E-s9ifLkdMLka2Q-j4hR1gANjAgoFd18WhlydIMjXyhjXx-URrP7M7o5dpyWJvt8c5LHH-SvmjMRNtsdJDFUf5ve6YIGppIpu-RAMEqtN1l3867mqrr5KPjoSgbfoB5aky8jEekZrLZ4/s320/Lammas-024-e1564612095471-1280x1707.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The first day of August is traditionally called Lammas Day – a term coming from an earlier form of English that means “Loaf Mass” Day. This was the day when wheat flour from the recently-begun harvest was made into loaves (often of an intricate form), baked, and then brought to the Eucharist to be blessed. It was a sign of gratitude to God for the new wheat crop and an opportunity for communal celebration of God’s provision and all the coordinated labor that went into it. </span></div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Until recently the direct connection between the earth, sustenance, human labor, community, and God was self-evident. If the crop failed, people went hungry, disease spread, and the possibility for all sorts of chaos became much greater. Village life – where most people spent their relatively short existence – left no room for global markets and Grubhub deliveries. It was a remarkably clear-eyed and relational world then: what was grown nearby through ceaseless toil and much uncertainty provided for survival. The various agricultural holy days in the English Church calendar (Plow Sunday, Rogationtide, Lammastide, and Harvest Home) brought human need to God’s throne through supplication, intercession, benediction, praise, and gratitude. The earth and the altar were directly connected through the plow, the worker’s hands, the barn, and the cottage hearth. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In our current day, these direct relationships have been obscured. The abundance of food in our society would startle people from less than a century ago. The seemingly-ceaseless flows of deliveries to stores and homes have disconnected the various parts of the chain in many people’s mind. No longer are worship, community, labor, and the individual fully integrated: they exist in a disbursed universe of specialties. Worship is quite often more of a performance or a weekly ideological fill-up. Community now generally means mere likemindedness, online more often than in person. Labor has become hidden from view and treated as a kind of necessary evil rather than a sacred act. What prevails today is just the individual, the all-important <i>consumer</i>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yet, when the pandemic upset all the supply-chains and production patterns, we had a momentary taste of the chaos and fear our forebearers knew well. Many people entered into full-on panic. Divisive attitudes, fantastic delusions, and apocalyptic hysteria proliferated. A few, however, knew that an essential part of the response to the situation had to be worship. Those of us formed by traditional Anglican/Episcopal patterns of worship knew about the centrality of those old practices of supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving. By engaging in them we drew closer to God and to each other rather than engaging only in panic. Earth, community, altar, and believer were pulled together once again.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The observance of Lammastide, or some version of it, would be good to re-institute in our churches (provision for it remains in the Church of England). It would be one more way for us to live out our message of hope, community, and communion. It would also be a very visible way to connect the earth, the altar, and us again. Rather than retreat further into the disconnected and anxious culture of darkness around us, we would be far wiser to gather together in the light of Christ, ask God’s blessing, and give thanks for the Creation and its many gifts – including each other. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But this will take courage, faithfulness, and vision. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">St. Timothy's -- which has long observed the Rogation Days -- will observe Lammastide this Sunday as part of our renewed focus on the connection between Creation and Liturgy. What will your community do to begin or continue this work?
</span></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-54090611847618136362023-03-15T18:45:00.000-07:002023-03-15T18:45:03.850-07:00Mid-Lent Sunday<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7aL6r1ZSei5veWe9A-5DLYOPnV8kKOTwKgBJpL0mm8ZRSNgnQJevCaglJUh2BCSXxSW3934ZYYUNZkGLcEaLF8Ecbu4cgVDZuFFWaTyZDknOIIetHRPE0S8AIs_DnpzCnajH9bZwWepdK1msnKa5BCCnrYG63UjUknTG0XlVCJT8svfJ3q7T4oyql/s640/515f93_27955c0e8a1443339d04ffc75e205cdb~mv2-344217284.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7aL6r1ZSei5veWe9A-5DLYOPnV8kKOTwKgBJpL0mm8ZRSNgnQJevCaglJUh2BCSXxSW3934ZYYUNZkGLcEaLF8Ecbu4cgVDZuFFWaTyZDknOIIetHRPE0S8AIs_DnpzCnajH9bZwWepdK1msnKa5BCCnrYG63UjUknTG0XlVCJT8svfJ3q7T4oyql/s320/515f93_27955c0e8a1443339d04ffc75e205cdb~mv2-344217284.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Church at Little Gidding</td></tr></tbody></table> </p><p>Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. <span style="font-style: italic;">- from ‘Little Gidding’ (No. 4 of “Four Quartets”) by T.S. Eliot</span></p>This Sunday forms the transition in the Lenten Season from the focus on our own need for repentance to Christ’s work of bringing about our reconciliation with God. Thus, it turns our attention from our sin (which can become a sort of obsession if we are not careful) towards God’s love. Like Eliot’s ‘Midwinter spring,” we have come to a moment that is between two seemingly opposite things: Ash Wednesday and Easter Day… yet this moment is but part of a reality of which both Holy Days partake. <div><br /></div><div> Mid-Lent Sunday (also known by an entire raft of other names: <span style="font-style: italic;">Laetare</span>, Mothering Sunday, Refreshment Sunday, The Sunday of the Five Loaves, &c.) is a brief respite from our usual Lenten observance; it is also an open invitation to take the season seriously if we have previously not. As St. John Chrysostom will remind us at the Easter Vigil (<a href="http://anglicansonline.org/special/Easter/chrysostom_easter.html">in his famous sermon</a>), it is not too late to begin our preparation! </div><div><br /></div><div> On a deeper level, though, this Sunday moves us from a focus on our sinfulness to the freedom and forgiveness we receive in Christ. The <a href="https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Lent/ALent4_RCL.html">Gospel reading for this Sunday</a> makes the choice very clear: either we are like the man born blind, who received the gift of sight from God as a gift, or we are like the Pharisees whose love for God had become twisted into a bitterness that could ignore the miracle in their midst and instead condemn both the recipient and the giver. </div><div><br /></div><div> Mere religion will side with the Pharisees. They were simply “following the rules.” True Christian discipleship will choose the riskier path of Jesus, though…because it brings freedom and the capacity to love. As has been said, humanity is always suspended between the law of this world and the love of God, and it must choose.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let the rest of Holy Lent be a conscious examination of our preferences, so that when we arrive at Holy Week, we will choose love, knowing there is no other way to the peace we seek, the potential self our God has in store for us.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-59684408715605765032023-03-01T20:06:00.001-08:002023-03-01T20:07:56.649-08:00Lent: The Season of Spiritual Heart Surgery<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVUKiTx2n54ibbIVI3nX_9TQcSYqEDp_ZaZ0qxkIqFtB-OL5FIB1prFdC2KSeh7naAc9b1awziKL486o2yspZfGOmgOQSQl5aqOgwdpMvalkXZzUSaj9XL6W2GXBXZGu1jdN7xr4We2x6gezacMtv3hbdvNeGZ4vPI0mZfJ_ugFUvf1yG94euoRh7s/s300/stone%20heart.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="300" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVUKiTx2n54ibbIVI3nX_9TQcSYqEDp_ZaZ0qxkIqFtB-OL5FIB1prFdC2KSeh7naAc9b1awziKL486o2yspZfGOmgOQSQl5aqOgwdpMvalkXZzUSaj9XL6W2GXBXZGu1jdN7xr4We2x6gezacMtv3hbdvNeGZ4vPI0mZfJ_ugFUvf1yG94euoRh7s/s1600/stone%20heart.jpg" width="300" /></a></i></div><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></p>The Collect for Ash Wednesday, which may be used throughout the season, asks God to give us “new and contrite hearts.” </span></i><div><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The renewal of our true and innermost being—symbolized by the heart in biblical language—can only happen by a kind of surgical re-shaping (contrition means “to wear down” or to “grind away”). This is one of the main purposes of Lent, and each year we are called to take seriously where God is calling us to open our lives to his providential, careful work of healing and softening hardened, sick hearts.</span></i><p></p><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The passage below is from one of the earliest extant Christian documents, perhaps even older than some of the books of the New Testament in their final form. It is from a letter written by the Bishop of Rome to the Christians of Corinth when their internal dissention had risen like a thundercloud on the horizon of the Church’s mission. Their divisions were hurting the common life of the Body, and Clement sought to do the work of a true pastor: open the eyes of the flock to the truth of their situation, giving them the remedy. Like all Christians, they stood in need of repentance when they had lost their way.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The season of Lent is, to a certain degree, a renewal of our sense of eagerness for the Kingdom of God, something early Christians knew and felt with great naturalness. Such eagerness exposes everything adverse to God’s way of love, exposing it to view and inviting the Master Surgeon to remove the cancer of sin, wherever it grows. It is that heartfelt desire Lent seeks to rekindle in us, for this season and beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>If we want as individuals and as a community to experience something of the transforming grace and motivating energy of ancient and authentic Christianity, we must offer ourselves for the same surgical procedure without delay. For, as Scripture says, “now is the acceptable time,” and a new and healed heart awaits us…our very lives depend on it!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">+ + +</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let us fix our attention on the blood of Christ and recognize how precious it is to God his Father, since it was shed for our salvation and brought the grace of repentance to all the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If we review the various ages of history, we will see that in every generation the Lord has offered the opportunity of repentance to any who were willing to turn to him. When Noah preached God’s message of repentance, all who listened to him were saved. Jonah told the Ninevites they were going to be destroyed, but when they repented, their prayers gained God’s forgiveness for their sins, and they were saved, even though they were not of God’s people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the ministers of God’s grace have spoken of repentance; indeed, the Master of the whole universe himself spoke of repentance with an oath: As I live, says the Lord, I do not wish the death of the sinner but his repentance. He added this evidence of his goodness: House of Israel, repent of your wickedness. Tell the sons of my people: If their sins should reach from earth to heaven, if they are brighter than scarlet and blacker than sackcloth, you need only turn to me with your whole heart and say, “Father”, and I will listen to you as a holy people.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In other words, God wanted all his beloved ones to have the opportunity to repent and he confirmed this desire by his own almighty will. That is why we should obey his sovereign and glorious will and prayerfully entreat his mercy and kindness. We should be suppliant before him and turn to his compassion, rejecting empty works and quarrelling and jealousy which only lead to death.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Brothers, we should be humble in mind, putting aside all arrogance, pride and foolish anger. Rather, we should act in accordance with the Scriptures, as the Holy Spirit says: The wise man must not glory in his wisdom nor the strong man in his strength nor the rich man in his riches. Rather, let him who glories glory in the Lord by seeking him and doing what is right and just. Recall especially what the Lord Jesus said when he taught gentleness and forbearance. Be merciful, he said, so that you may have mercy shown to you. Forgive, so that you may be forgiven. As you treat others, so you will be treated. As you give, so you will receive. As you judge, so you will be judged. As you are kind to others, so you will be treated kindly. The measure of your giving will be the measure of your receiving.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let these commandments and precepts strengthen us to live in humble obedience to his sacred words. As Scripture asks: Whom shall I look upon with favor except the humble, peaceful man who trembles at my words?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sharing then in the heritage of so many vast and glorious achievements, let us hasten toward the goal of peace, set before us from the beginning. Let us keep our eyes firmly fixed on the Father and Creator of the whole universe, and hold fast to his splendid and transcendent gifts of peace and all his blessings.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">(From <u>The First Letter to the Corinthians</u>, by Clement, Bishop of Rome, c. 100)</span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-91767576299388864442022-12-02T22:50:00.005-08:002022-12-03T10:14:40.701-08:00Advent, Repentance, and the Prayer Book’s Way of Preparation: It's More than a Wreath<p><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJSSyvkJ2pgiyz_PSM0YdlJR9o975tnmCRbwSATMdDvFCUibETK8ocK3B_qTXx0kiUczmv5kvsRCdoZDmaOWC6-kPev1jZR_fL1W6zxjEiC4lTQeUL1nfrAsSdiEZdu9R5Aw82uCtB9frCZRLSFlY7C_FfFhfbNfosxoR8zSa2s3nB0AblAnWiO2uz" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><img alt="" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJSSyvkJ2pgiyz_PSM0YdlJR9o975tnmCRbwSATMdDvFCUibETK8ocK3B_qTXx0kiUczmv5kvsRCdoZDmaOWC6-kPev1jZR_fL1W6zxjEiC4lTQeUL1nfrAsSdiEZdu9R5Aw82uCtB9frCZRLSFlY7C_FfFhfbNfosxoR8zSa2s3nB0AblAnWiO2uz" width="320" /></span></i></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Advent is a season of beauty, expectation, and penitence.<br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Advent is frequently a misunderstood season today, and thus often not fully experienced. It is typically reduced to wreaths, candles, and a countdown to Christmas (or, even a sort of prolonged "pre-function" to Christmas) involving chocolate-filled calendars. It is far more than that. Advent is a complex season with multiple dimensions and a strong call to engage in repentance -- yes, <i>repentance</i>.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">This <i>is</i> a <i>penitential</i> <i>season</i> – despite the occasional cavil from more recent liturgical experts – but not in the same way as Lent. Advent’s preparation for the Feast of the Nativity of Christ is marked by a high degree of eschatological expectation, for Advent is really a preparation for two “comings” of Christ: his “coming amongst us in great humility” as the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent says and which we celebrate at Christmas, and “when he comes again in majesty to judge both the quick and the dead” at the Last Judgement. Both require serious and considered preparation. This is why St. John the Baptist and his urgent call to prepare for the coming of the Lord features so strongly in the readings, prayers, and hymns for these weeks.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Because true Christian belief and practice about the Last Judgement is founded upon hope and joy (rather than fear and anxiety), any sense of trepidation about the “Last Things” is a sign that we have spiritual work to do – and who among us is free from this ongoing work “now in the time of this mortal life” as the great Advent Collect puts it? Advent, with its focus on expectation and preparation, naturally serves as a time to consider what needs repentance and reconciliation in our life.</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">This is all very well to say, but how do we respond? The Prayer Book provides some clear direction.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">First, there is the matter of examining our conscience. By engaging in this practice, we are led to see what the Holy Spirit is prompting us to address at this juncture in life. Tools for this work abound in the Book of Common Prayer:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The Ten Commandments (from the Penitential Order in the Holy Eucharist)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The Summary of the Law (from the same place)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The five baptismal promises found in the Baptismal Covenant (in the Baptismal liturgy)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The Litany of Penitence (from the Ash Wednesday liturgy)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The Great Litany<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The Catechism<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The Psalms & Collects<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">There are, of course, many other tools for examining our conscience (reading from the Sermon on the Mount is one, or one might use one of the traditional forms found in such non-BCP resources as The St. Augustine’s Prayer Book).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Once we have spent time in careful consideration about what is at issue, it then follows that we confess to God our sins and receive assurance of God’s pardon. In the Anglican and catholic tradition of the faith, there are three such forms: Private Confession, General Confession, and Sacramental (auricular) Confession.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Private Confession is what we do on a daily basis in our own private prayers. It is often how we approach the Confession in Morning / Evening Prayer or the bedtime service of Compline when said alone (though, one must always remember, these services are always <i>liturgical services</i> and thus part of the whole Church's offering, even if said alone). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">This is our regular application of what Jesus teaches in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Confessing our sins to God should be a natural part of life – not as an act of shame or scrupulosity, but openness and candor with our God. It may be done at any time and it is indeed good to become able to confess quickly, just as the Lord's Prayer suggests. It will help up learn to forgive others quickly, as well.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">General Confession takes place in community, in the context of Morning or Evening Prayer when gathered in church, or at the Holy Eucharist as we prepare to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ. It reminds us that sin is never a purely private matter (a “victimless crime”), but always impairs our relationships with both God and neighbor. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">This form of confession is closer to how the earliest Christians confessed their sins to one another, and thus connects us to the ancient Church’s pattern of acknowledging sin as a body. It is also an important (essential) part of participating in public worship and particularly in receiving the Holy Sacrament. One other point: General Confession is followed by the priest/bishop pronouncing an assurance of pardon, making clear that our confession and repentance is predicated on God’s mercy eternally offered in Christ's death upon the cross; the ordained minister is not a magical pipeline of that forgiveness: it is a declaration of that eternal al forgiveness over God’s penitent people assembled for worship.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Finally, there is Sacramental or Auricular Confession. Here, a penitent confesses to God and the Church in a private manner – with only a priest present. This form of confession is especially appropriate for sins of a serious nature, for old sins which have long continued to plague one’s conscience, for relapses into past patterns, at the end of life or when preparing for confirmation, marriage, ordination, or other major changes in our life, or when God’s forgiveness seems far away. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Sacramental Confession is a part of the Church’s healing ministry and is directly connected to our baptism. It is essentially <i>spiritual medicine</i> and may be received either at posted times in the church’s schedule, or by special arrangement with the priest.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Advent’s brevity is actually one of its best features: it makes clear that the time for setting our house in order is limited, and that God awaits our cooperation for our healing and renewal. The joyful expectation which marks the season is also a summons to enter into this work with alacrity and zest: God desires our freedom and has come amongst us to secure it. It is now time for us to respond by discernment and repentance so that we may enter more fully into the joy set before us – a joy begun at Christ’s nativity and culminating in the final “setting to rights” of all things in the love and truth of Christ’s return.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Let us all make this Advent season now begun a profitable season of spiritual renewal and restoration, “now in the time of this mortal life.” By entering into a careful consideration of our conscience and appropriate repentance, followed by confession in the full assurance of God’s loving pardon, we may come to Christmas with a greater joy and a less burdened heart, ready to celebrate and live with our eyes firmly fixed on that day when, by God’s grace, “we may rise to the life immortal,” already begun in our life in Christ now.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">one God, now and for ever. <i>Amen.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style></div></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-13900535175234494252022-11-30T21:09:00.001-08:002022-11-30T21:09:17.984-08:00An Advent Rule of Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1anWgV9sV7TFeZhPeuVGJqh0rOFJFy9WY18ZAhejcOQpt0JWxW19jjqniQt99iGQ2tP8S06K5iRjz5vBdp1_UxdP6Pn-z6BwBeLLi3Doff4K1x9ALB4sqNh76OWvijsKslFiXJwKLa2k4g_6Kfcy4gYSpFd5W54vWtTpg8LzcTDIgAIUBzbcYxiB3" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1280" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1anWgV9sV7TFeZhPeuVGJqh0rOFJFy9WY18ZAhejcOQpt0JWxW19jjqniQt99iGQ2tP8S06K5iRjz5vBdp1_UxdP6Pn-z6BwBeLLi3Doff4K1x9ALB4sqNh76OWvijsKslFiXJwKLa2k4g_6Kfcy4gYSpFd5W54vWtTpg8LzcTDIgAIUBzbcYxiB3" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><br /><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost,<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">one God, now and for ever. <i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><i>Collect for the First Sunday of Advent<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">The Book of Common Prayer sets forth a holistic vision for Christian faith and practice, providing both theological teaching and guidance for living that teaching. The Collects – prayers for the various Sundays and major Holy Days through the year – are one of the chief repositories of that guidance. The role played by the Collect of the Day in any given worship service is of great significance, and careful study of these prayers is richly repaid.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">The Collect for each Sunday is used at the daily services throughout the week following (with the exception of major Holy Days with their own Collect), and this affords us time to do that deeper consideration which marks a maturing, generous, and healing faith.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">The Collect for the First Sunday of Advent, surely one of the greatest of the Prayer Book’s contributions to Christian prayer, is a fine example of this capacity to integrate teaching and practice.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">It begins with a call to God for grace (meaning the experience of God’s presence and power) enabling us to do two very Advent-themed things, in language drawn directly from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: <i>cast off works of</i> <i>darkness</i> and be clothed with <i>the armor of</i> <i>light</i>. It then positions this work in the context of our era – the “era of the Church” – between Christ’s first coming and his second. Thus, the Collect illustrates the unique meaning of Advent as a season of preparation for the yearly celebration of Christ’s Nativity at Christmas and the ongoing preparation for a final reckoning – of ourselves as individuals and the human race and its history as a whole.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">This prayer is not just about delivering teaching or information: that is not enough to our way of praying. It connects faith with a response to that faith. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">The Christian journey is at every stage a deeper confrontation with all that is alien to God – alienation manifest in thoughts, words, and deeds born of darkness. Christ’s teaching in the Gospel begins with the same message St. John the Baptist proclaimed: <i>Repent! </i>– from obvious sins as well as from less-obvious ones like cynicism and judging others. A central aspect of Advent is waking up from slumber and getting ready for what is coming, taking stock of what we are.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">Our journey with God is not only about repentance, however. It is also about growing in grace and sacred knowledge, that “armor of light” about which St. Paul speaks. Our life is more than negative (avoiding sin). It is a positive embrace of what God has in store for us as his children. This can mean getting away from electronic devices (like the computer/phone on which you are reading this!) for an extended period of time each week or day so as to pray or read Scripture. It can also mean learning to listen to others from a position of curiosity and interest.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">What emerges from this prayer is a “rule of life” for the Advent season: calling upon God to reveal and cast away the works of darkness in our life <i>and</i> to cloth us with the protection of light in the place of that darkness. Note that this is not a do-it-yourself project (so dear to the modern American mind), but something that can only be done in concert with God’s grace and leading – a drawing together of human and divine will in harmony, inspired by Christ’s “great humility” we are preparing to celebrate at Christmas.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;">Advent is a short season, and that is part of its message. We do not have forever. We live in time and have been given our life to learn how to love. This week’s Collect is a striking example of one way the Anglican/Episcopal way of faith engages our total self – mind, body, spirit – in this process of learning. This prayer’s urgency (“now in the time of this mortal life”) is a final Advent theme: let’s get to work <i>now</i>, for now is all we have before the God who is the “Eternal Now.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span> </p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-4621573123652098022022-11-19T20:48:00.000-08:002022-11-19T20:48:20.332-08:00A Different Kind of King: The Last Sunday after Pentecost<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGUKfDghqrNS4W14F6PyFzwDOI4oNNBvZZTeK2IUBvKmQJlmn6cEmzy90jknLI73yJzWQKhgERZngwaBkz36RzbE79RYMmhazoqwy98mz1M1HaFJsIDpGMNqS6nB2HgMvMAwjc1QCT34izBSriG9c7wJMMDm_NTpnZWz_jDrNqUfIotzpahIieJ5T5" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="447" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGUKfDghqrNS4W14F6PyFzwDOI4oNNBvZZTeK2IUBvKmQJlmn6cEmzy90jknLI73yJzWQKhgERZngwaBkz36RzbE79RYMmhazoqwy98mz1M1HaFJsIDpGMNqS6nB2HgMvMAwjc1QCT34izBSriG9c7wJMMDm_NTpnZWz_jDrNqUfIotzpahIieJ5T5" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The last Sunday of the Church Year in the current calendar emphasizes humanity’s need for salvation. It speaks of our kind being “divided and enslaved by sin,” and prays that we may all be “freed and brought together.” Ah, but exactly how?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The desire to conform the divided and contentious human race to a single standard and rule is an ancient one, fueling millennia of empires, wars, intrigues, and revolts. It has also led to some of the greatest art and literature humans have produced. The difficulty is that the usual attempt at uniting peoples has been through force or coercion – which ends up just bringing us to the next chapter in division, enslavement, and alienation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">This Sunday gives God’s response to our need for salvation, healing, and freedom: Christ Jesus, a different kind of king. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">When the earliest Christians began calling Jesus “Lord,” they were being quite specific in this term of address. Using a title reserved for earthly rulers (and, in the Roman world, for only one ruler – <i>you know who)</i> revealed Christians as a dangerous and subversive community of people. In an empire built on force and coercion, the Christian Church exalted service, self-sacrifice, and meekness – as did its Lord Jesus. The currency of this rival empire was in an untried coinage, one which did not take death as its starting and ending point: the coinage of love.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">In addition to positing a higher loyalty than the to the Emperor, this alternative vision for humans was utterly despicable to those who were invested in the world-as-it-is. As Jesus had predicted, his Gospel brought conflict with the Powers that Be, who quickly decided that they must stamp the mutiny out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">As long as humans think that true freedom or peace can be found at the end of a gun’s barrel, or by putting a boot on someone’s neck, we will be caught in the cycle of insanity that is recorded history. When any of us, even for a season, step out of that cycle and put into practice the Gospel vision for freedom and peace – this Sunday expressed in the words of the crucified Christ: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing”– by praying for one’s enemies and by handing over all hatred, judgment, and condemnation to the only one who sees all things in truth, then for that moment and in that place the Kingdom of God is present. Fleeting, perhaps, but present. For a moment, the lie is overcome in truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">This final Sunday of the Church Year reminds us that no other solution to the conundrum of human brokenness will, in fact, work. Only Christ’s “most gracious rule” can give the freedom and peace we desire. Only his peculiar lordship, one completely devoid of a desire to coerce, will unite a divided world. Try as we might to avoid it, this is humanity’s destiny. It is what we proclaim in our faith, what we enact in our worship, and what we are challenged to practice in our daily lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-63438786547247681562022-08-31T09:14:00.002-07:002022-08-31T09:14:24.660-07:00St. Aidan & the Seeds of Renewal Today<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8NlqxdyPkWaW8mfVJCH1JVEMXHdXV-sqEl1mYE2qVRsPRncXhprsd8u4ZnMNNvPB-J30vZRuByRASMeCzMnLrpGtBL2tH6frcjmDM-meLpLx60cIv13MqxSeqrrxa0F-hQBENSjcrmhFwvXwNnIXsjCv7RE7HUG-rSuwkotP8_bs0lJYrSCVCA-Ec" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8NlqxdyPkWaW8mfVJCH1JVEMXHdXV-sqEl1mYE2qVRsPRncXhprsd8u4ZnMNNvPB-J30vZRuByRASMeCzMnLrpGtBL2tH6frcjmDM-meLpLx60cIv13MqxSeqrrxa0F-hQBENSjcrmhFwvXwNnIXsjCv7RE7HUG-rSuwkotP8_bs0lJYrSCVCA-Ec" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today is the feast of St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, who entered into eternal life in AD 651. He is often called "the Apostle to the English." His statue on the holy island of Lindisfarne shows him bearing a torch, bringing light to a world mired in spiritual darkness, magic, oppression, and anxiety. This shows the Church's task and setting remain essentially the same in every age.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aidan was sent from that other "holy isle" in the Celtic north (Iona) to try and restart a failed mission led by a previous monk. This monk had spoken down to everyone, was of an irascible temper, and seemed to feel that people needed to come to him rather than he going out to them. He also thought that the Gospel could be propagated by spending his time with the "influencers" and powerful in Northumbria rather than with the ordinary folk. As a way of sharing New Life in Christ, it bombed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aidan essentially turned this model upside-down -- which is pretty much what authentic Christianity always does to so-called "normal" strategies of human power and invention.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">He spoke humbly and with openness, not cloaking himself in arrogance or "know-it-all-ism." He was gentle in manner yet clearly revealing an inner strength and groundedness in kindness and Truth different from the magicians and wizards. He addressed real problems of poverty and slavery rather than consigning everything to unseen forces and talking in airy platitudes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">He walked everywhere (not using horses, then the symbol of power in transit) and spoke with everyone, high or low. This unnerved some of the high-ups in that very stratified society but it immediately struck the common people and opened doors to Aidan's message his predecessor could never have imagined. The results were spectacular. A form of Christianity -- rooted in the culture and practices of that place and time -- grew rapidly and without coercion. Eventually, an entire crop of holy people were produced in the next generation, which is always a sign God's blessing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aidan wasn't concerned with building an institution or a success-machine. In this way he differed from many who claim to follow Christ today, where the focus so often goes to the trappings of success and acknowledged achievement rather than true renewal of the person and the world around us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Renewal of the Church has never really been the point of Christian mission. The Church is Christ's Body and has already been made glorious in Christ's resurrection and ascension, and through the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Church is forever alive, forever victorious over death, forever new. What <i>isn't</i> is the way the Church often goes about its work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Much of the last century in our country the Church has acted rather like Aidan's failed predecessor: talking down to those outside, hanging out with elites, and being concerned with symbols of power rather than being like Christ in humility and simplicity. Aidan's witness so many centuries ago is memorable because of how it overturned merely human logic with divine love and unexpected freedom. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is needed today in the Church is not more relevance and techniques (read: success and control) but more servanthood, listening, and sharing from the treasury not of political/cultural power by ancient and ever-new wisdom -- the wisdom of God. This will, of course, sometimes lead to conflict not only with the "powers that be" but also those who are dedicated to ideologies opposed to the Gospel -- especially those which clothe themselves in "church-talk" while actually being predicated on sin. Yet, such a way of living inevitably attracts those who desire what Jesus, rather than Caesar, has to offer. We must simply be patient, focused, and undistracted in our work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Such are the seeds of authenticity and simplicity Aidan brought to Northumbria well over one thousand years ago, and these are the seeds of renewal we must tend today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Collect for St. Aidan of Lindisfarne</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">O loving God, you called your servant Aidan from the cloister to re-establish the Christian mission in northern England: Grant that we, following his example, may use what you have given us for the relief of human need, and may persevere in commending the saving Gospel of our Redeemer Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.</span><br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-73497631429332971852022-08-29T19:54:00.004-07:002022-08-29T19:54:56.709-07:00The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist: Telling the Truth<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG__CFAiUA8L1lCwCEQ85-uAsLsOyI3RF9a1_M-IXlLcL5Jrj1oSr3l948HRt4GnvdaqGPCz6M2dCxTyy6ruNo3f2dzXFnNYiMrvD_PtIKc7vODd_rAiED0reVhrtK6jmeRoHxfzQUVKY/s1600/Beheading+of+John+the+Baptist.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG__CFAiUA8L1lCwCEQ85-uAsLsOyI3RF9a1_M-IXlLcL5Jrj1oSr3l948HRt4GnvdaqGPCz6M2dCxTyy6ruNo3f2dzXFnNYiMrvD_PtIKc7vODd_rAiED0reVhrtK6jmeRoHxfzQUVKY/s400/Beheading+of+John+the+Baptist.jpeg" width="296" /></a></p><br /><div class="MsoNormal">August 29 is the commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Baptist. It is a solemn day, with a story well-attested in the Holy Scriptures, long honored by the Church (though only recently recognized by the Episcopal Church, for some reason).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Holy Forerunner's death is deeply connected to the story of his nativity (June 24) and the his father Zechariah's prophesy in Luke. It is also directly connected to Christ's nativity and our Savior's embodiment of Truth. We encounter the Baptist's significance and ministry each time we pray the <i>Benedictus Dominus Deus</i> at Morning Prayer -- which, depending on which canticle one uses, could be just about each morning.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Throughout the year, John plays a central part in the story of salvation. In Advent he heralds the coming Messiah by calling all to repent and prepare. His baptism of Christ is central to the entire logic and purpose of Epiphanytide. His boldness and proclamation of repentance is recalled again in Lent. His promise that the One he heralds will bring the Holy Spirit with fire binds Advent to Pentecost.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This omnipresence in the Church year mirror's John’s centrality to the Gospel narrative, from the beginning of Mark through the opening of the Book of Acts. His fierce insistence on divine truth and faithfulness in the face of earthly power is a foundation on which Jesus built and upon which the Christian Church’s ministry of prophetic witness flourishes. Because of his utter fidelity to God’s call, he died a martyr’s death – prefiguring Christ's death at the hands of unjust leaders, as well as the countless other who follow in his footsteps to this day. Indeed, our day has seen the making of a vast number of martyrs, many beheaded in much the same manner as the Blessed Forerunner -- hidden away in dungeon and "secure locations."</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">John's witness with regard to the interaction of faith and political power speaks to us in especially potent ways today. His uncompromising commitment to telling the truth in the face of overwhelming secular power sets the standard for authentic Christian life -- and shows how weak and hypocritical many in the Church (lay and ordained, then and now) are when dealing with "the powers that be" when the Church becomes enmeshed with the "power of the sword."</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When John said to Herod “you cannot have her” with regard to Herod’s liaison with Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip, it was too much. John was just possibly endurable when he was taking on the religious leaders, but here he was crossing the line into the lane where the traffic is fast and unmerciful. Herodias, tired of Herod’s anxious shilly-shallying about John, wanted this meddling holy man dead and found a way to achieve it. Using the occasion of a drunken birthday party, she slyly planted her daughter as dancing bait for Herod’s inebriate lust. Wildly making public promises of largesse, Herod was in her debt…and Herodias's daughter took him down like an experienced hustler takes down a green rube just off the bus from Nowheresville. In the time it took for the music to stop, Herod was in over his head, and John was without his. The message was clear: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t get in the way of powerful people when reputation, politics, and personal cred are on the line. </i>This is ever the case.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;">The portrait of arrogance, privilege, decadence, and drunkenness emerging here is remarkably appropriate to current events. With so many Christians being willing to go along with Herod's "might-makes-right" reasoning, and with nearly idolatrous levels of support given to politicians very much Herod's kin in terms of behavior by many "Christian" leaders as well as the rank-and-file, one could well imagine John the Baptist's head being lopped off with their quiet nod today. <i>He would have to go, you see: he made the base angry.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;">The teaching potential of this holy day is great. It shows that to confront evil, we need endurance. Sometimes, it seems that evil actually wins; but its victory—like Herodias’s -- is only apparent. In reality, God’s power and truth is finally completely victorious. It survives continual assault as a vision and a desire. God's vision will forever keep popping up, no matter how many are "cancelled" by silencing or decollation. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;">What is needed is an ongoing commitment to Gospel justice, even in the face of evil’s awful array of violence, lies, distortion, and corruption. To the last drop, the last moment, the last sentence, St. John the Baptist witnessed to such a commitment. This is why we keep this day.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;">This day reminds us that by following Jesus Christ as Lord (whom John heralded), we share in this revolutionary ministry of truth-telling. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -63.4pt -.5in 0in 30.6pt 48.6pt;">If we in the ordinary congregations of the Church take this vocation seriously, maybe even the so-called "leaders" of a heavily-compromised American Christianity follow the Holy Truth-Teller until the day when all lies are exposed and all elites humbled. Then the tragedy of this day will be crowned with true glory. As it is, we journey on in hope and faithfulness.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Collect for the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: EN-US;">God our Father, you called John the Baptist to be the herald of your Son's birth and death. As he gave his life in witness to truth and justice, so may we strive to profess our faith in your Gospel. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMT; mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-83062164439118995082022-02-02T13:23:00.000-08:002022-02-02T13:23:09.915-08:00A Light to Enlighten the Nations: The Feast of the Presentation<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiejhNHgvShZf507zD2eV_VJQljUyyCVj6_8S-GSAGiIlCtX_aTYvJKAk5GL9mej0_-lKnCXptObmdpGaFMbn4DdofXRzpPEzimdt5GrVxO_uJBu03DSR1gmN7XXxpZMwlBTG0hDFdlg7vp4Dxq4sUEgG0i4sEgfhb89_SfIYSLRl1S9lQTtFXWMGGO=s817" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiejhNHgvShZf507zD2eV_VJQljUyyCVj6_8S-GSAGiIlCtX_aTYvJKAk5GL9mej0_-lKnCXptObmdpGaFMbn4DdofXRzpPEzimdt5GrVxO_uJBu03DSR1gmN7XXxpZMwlBTG0hDFdlg7vp4Dxq4sUEgG0i4sEgfhb89_SfIYSLRl1S9lQTtFXWMGGO=s320" width="313" /></a></b></div><b><br /><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">On the Feast of the Presentation<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Today we rejoice that Christ has come into the Temple to be presented, in accordance with the Law of Moses, to His Father. The story is found in <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/HolyDays/Present_RCL.html#GOSPEL" style="color: purple;">Luke 2: 22-40</a>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">This is a day of extraordinary beauty. In it is fulfilled the yearning of an entire people…though secretly, quietly, gently. The ancient Temple has its true purpose revealed and completed: the presence of God in this Holy Place is now complete, and the hostility between humanity and God is being overcome by God's own initiative<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Mary and Joseph witness in awe and wonder the meaning of this moment, treasuring it in their hearts as will all future disciples of Christ. A prophesy of struggle and suffering for Mary is pronounced, something true for her in a unique way, but also a fact for anyone who follows Christ and the Gospel Way authentically.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Yet, there is more. Aged Simeon holds the child who is his Messiah in his own arms, bringing age, infancy, and eternity together. Anna—another aged prophetess—so rejoices at the Messiah’s coming that all around her take note in her delight. It is a day marked by joy, a joy much like that of the Day of Resurrection which it prefigures.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Each person who confesses Christ is fundamentally alive in this joy. It is a mark of true discipleship. Young and old, insightful and simple, mystical and practical: we all share in the light of Christ’s presence. That presence transforms and fulfills us in ways we cannot comprehend or imagine. It reaches through us into the lives and needs of others. “The light has come into the world, and the darkness has not overcome it.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">For centuries, it has been the custom of those celebrating this feast to light small lamps or candles, recalling the light of Christ now come into the world—and especially the Holy Spirit given to us each as members of Christ's body. At Holy Baptism, a candle is presented to the newly-baptized (or a sponsor) to remind all present that this light is conferred and must be cherished and borne into the world.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Do we consciously bear Christ’s Light? Do we honor it? Do we see it as the one true gift—quite apart from our opinions, agendas, experiences, and goals—we have to give? Let us pray that this is so for us. To substitute something else for this light is to turn our back on the Savior, and to close the door on the mystery and power of the events celebrated on this beautiful day.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Rejoice with the Blessed Virgin, with St. Joseph, with aged Anna and Simeon on this day…and share the light given to you long after the candle you bear is extinguished!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i>A reading from a sermon by Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (7<sup>th</sup> Century)</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Our lighted candles are a sign of the divine splendor of the one who comes to expel the dark shadows of evil and to make the whole universe radiant with the brilliance of his eternal light. Our candles also show how bright our souls should be when we go to meet Christ.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">The Mother of God, the most pure Virgin, carried the true light in her arms and brought him to those who lay in darkness. We too should carry a light for all to see and reflect the radiance of the true light as we hasten to meet him.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">The light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in shadows; the Dayspring from on high has visited us and given light to those who lived in darkness. This, then, is our feast, and we join in procession with lighted candles to reveal the light that has shone upon us and the glory that is yet to come to us through him. So let us hasten all together to meet our God.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">The true light has come, the light that enlightens every man who is born into this world. Let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal. Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of the light, who sent the true light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendor.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which he prepared for all the nations and revealed as the glory of the new Israel, which is ourselves. As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. Our eyes have seen God incarnate, and because we have seen him present among us and have mentally received him into our arms, we are called the new Israel. Never shall we forget this presence; every year we keep a feast in his honor.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i>Collect for the Feast of the Presentation</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;">Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.<o:p></o:p></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-79082951949873498022021-12-15T20:50:00.002-08:002021-12-15T20:50:49.941-08:00The Heart's Hidden Manger<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgb3OYvjyeQfO3XUz-Is6bGC4yIJff_EJNf9nu6k66p3PR17QXb7JBxn6Qzkk172raFcTFM1OC0PbJhO3GqPSAKdYVSBxgFHXAYWAbeELMl9fKQ2OyazMqnv_SaR6qcg4nt4gnqelJ2A1KPBR6q-v5rgBdwA0I7I9WgyD-6lnmMebs_QMC0fTGxRDY=s1600" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgb3OYvjyeQfO3XUz-Is6bGC4yIJff_EJNf9nu6k66p3PR17QXb7JBxn6Qzkk172raFcTFM1OC0PbJhO3GqPSAKdYVSBxgFHXAYWAbeELMl9fKQ2OyazMqnv_SaR6qcg4nt4gnqelJ2A1KPBR6q-v5rgBdwA0I7I9WgyD-6lnmMebs_QMC0fTGxRDY=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">The days are getting quite short now as we approach St. Thomas's Day and the Winter Solstice. Advent's sense of expectancy and quiet contemplation is building to its peak. Of all the seasons of the Church Year, this is perhaps the one with the most interior sensibility and I delight in this.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">My own Advent Rule has been focussed on going into that quiet place with Christ and resting in him--finding my peace in his presence. Given all the swirling news and events around us this has been extremely valuable.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">I often think about Mary and Joseph in these final days before Christmas--about their journey to Bethlehem and how they might have felt. Were they anxious? Did they wonder whether God would provide a safe road on the way and a warm bed for them when they arrived? As I make my way through this second pandemic Advent I want to join them and ask them about how to travel unfamiliar roads in faith.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Like many of you, I find this season both very beautiful and yet also difficult. The beauty is found in happy traditions, memories, and opportunities to see and serve Christ in others. The difficulty can arise in a sudden flash as I wonder whether I can manage all the responsibilities, or when I lament the loss of people, times, or places in the past.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">When I take the time to rest in Christ, to go to the manger and gaze upon Jesus, I find there the acceptance, peace, and hope I need. These hearty gifts are remarkably portable; they can go with me on my own Bethlehem-bound journeys of the heart and mind at this season and beyond.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">I look forward to coming to the manger at Christmas--not only the one we set up in church or at home, but the manger Christ has prepared for me in the heart. That spiritual manger secretly feeds my soul in what I lack. It is a place of holy encounter and encouragement made precious by the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph her dear spouse, who placed the Christ-child in its hidden center, making the Infant King available to all who would turn aside from the road and rest there, day or night, always.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Brandon+</span><div><span style="color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32);"><br /></span></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbU71I_NldwnT4XwriKnep15d3XIN-zgQldiMv_SYd6ZlUTRmhbo1n38T-KEEVW3Goe20PCTmVdOMEaoLbdbtB6HqlaOLh8Zq6_3XJ64SM-u8Dpdk1fJllDNDt0bJZAl8NW19ctAOm8bZ5oYkYd1v8ub7H9uGqJts5kh4uoFsGtz-L6oywqBx1Tkm5=s1500" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1003" data-original-width="1500" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbU71I_NldwnT4XwriKnep15d3XIN-zgQldiMv_SYd6ZlUTRmhbo1n38T-KEEVW3Goe20PCTmVdOMEaoLbdbtB6HqlaOLh8Zq6_3XJ64SM-u8Dpdk1fJllDNDt0bJZAl8NW19ctAOm8bZ5oYkYd1v8ub7H9uGqJts5kh4uoFsGtz-L6oywqBx1Tkm5=w400-h268" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 32, 32); color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-65765348976733896582021-12-14T10:01:00.004-08:002021-12-14T10:01:58.107-08:00Christ the Victor<p><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkBSduXtiupt1ILHUNLfkExsuJINGau_V6_8SiGUZygrEsszLD6JRWiW0xZk8bzCc_gDDVThxTmQS0BFh0fyttcB_0md7t_G23NQ3RJryaAikA1kU9dbh8wtwpAO8xr_blu7eTeV7Rxg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkBSduXtiupt1ILHUNLfkExsuJINGau_V6_8SiGUZygrEsszLD6JRWiW0xZk8bzCc_gDDVThxTmQS0BFh0fyttcB_0md7t_G23NQ3RJryaAikA1kU9dbh8wtwpAO8xr_blu7eTeV7Rxg/" width="275" /></a></span></i></div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here is a perfect expression of how the Early Church understood the mystery of salvation. Here, St. Cyril is commenting on St. Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah and Christ’s response to this confession. Note how Cyril views the Cross and Resurrection as part of a process of salvation, and especially how the Paschal Mystery is an overthrowing of tyranny and a shared victory for us all rather than simply the payment of a debt owed to God. This “Christus Victor” understanding of salvation is what we proclaim in the Episcopal Church, leading to a deeper appreciation of God’s perfect love, which “casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18). This passage also makes clear that Christ’s teachings and the Paschal Mystery are a united reality—the former being completed by the latter. Finally, such an understanding of salvation makes clear our response to share the faith lovingly by way of response and action rather than remaining passive viewers or recipients.</span></i><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When, however, the disciple had professed his faith, [Christ Jesus] charged them, it says, and commanded them to tell it to no one: “For the son of man,” he said, “is about to suffer many things, and be rejected, and killed, and the third day he shall rise again.” And yet how was it not rather the duty of disciples to proclaim him everywhere? For this was the very business of those appointed by him to the apostleship. But as the sacred Scripture says, “there is a time for everything.” There were things yet unfulfilled which must also be included in their preaching of him, such as were the cross, the passion, the death in the flesh, the resurrection from the dead, that great and truly glorious sign by which testimony is born of him that Emmanuel is truly God and by nature the Son of God the Father. For that he utterly abolished death, and he faced destruction, and spoiled hell, and overthrew the tyranny of the enemy, and took away the sin of the world, and opened the gates above to the dwellers upon earth, and united earth to heaven; these things proved him to be, as I said, in truth God. He commanded them, therefore, to guard the mystery by a seasonable silence until the whole plan of the dispensation should arrive at a suitable fulfillment. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 – 444), from Commentary on Luke, Homily 49.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-88258079732604439582021-11-30T09:47:00.001-08:002021-11-30T10:25:39.808-08:00St. Andrew: Christian life and an Ordination Anniversary<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCSLOuY3QS7O3FWrgYg2geSm6tnvgoKmE5u-YefmtehRT-93VcfgeTk9gIbSp9um3B7XqIBSc8KF1dxlNDb_3GLU2QpJ9oHOLVJzfO4xvS1Dok05SSQlW-QPoDpFYgJP0PEaKF5ZKlUuI/s567/St.+Andrew+with++Cross+-+Strained+Glass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCSLOuY3QS7O3FWrgYg2geSm6tnvgoKmE5u-YefmtehRT-93VcfgeTk9gIbSp9um3B7XqIBSc8KF1dxlNDb_3GLU2QpJ9oHOLVJzfO4xvS1Dok05SSQlW-QPoDpFYgJP0PEaKF5ZKlUuI/s320/St.+Andrew+with++Cross+-+Strained+Glass.jpg" width="169" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">May Andrew, gentlest of the saintly company</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #990000;"> Inspire forgiveness for our grievous trespasses</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #990000;">That we, sore burdened by offences manifold </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #990000;"> At his petition may obtain deliverance</span></span></div><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">(Verse from a hymn on St. Andrew’s Day)<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">Almighty God, who hast given such grace to thine Apostle Saint Andrew, that he counted the sharp and painful death of the cross to be an high honour and a great glory; grant us to take and esteem all troubles and adversities which shall come to us for thy sake, as things profitable for us toward the obtaining of everlasting life. Through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #990000;">(The Collect for the Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle, in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer)</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">November 30<sup>th</sup> is the Feast of St. Andrew “the first-called,” as recorded in the Gospel according to St. John. St. Andrew is my “ordination patron,” since I was ordained to the sacred priesthood on this day in 1993. In addition to seeking his prayers as a companion on the journey, I have thought a great deal about my patron over the years, learning more about his particular ministry and gifts—both from the Holy Scriptures and subsequent pious tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Perhaps known best as St. Peter’s brother, the Fourth Gospel records Andrew as having first been a disciple of John the Baptist before becoming acquainted with Jesus and eventually following him (and in turn inviting his brother Peter to meet Jesus). From this we can tell he had keen spiritual thirst and insight. Andrew listened so deeply to John’s message that he knew John was not the Messiah, recognizing (as others couldn't, it appears) John’s mission of <i>preparing</i> the way for the Messiah.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I keep this aspect of St. Andrew’s witness in mind as I go about pastoral ministry. It is so easy to become wrapped up in personalities or issues that I can miss the <i>true</i> message. When younger, I sometimes became quite wedded to a particular figure or movement in the Church without recognizing how such passions and loyalties can take my attention and focus from following Christ and his gospel. It is surprisingly—and sadly—easy to substitute another “gospel” for the one our Lord taught. Andrew’s witness challenges this. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another aspect of this Apostle which intrigues and guides me is his name. Andrew’s name in Greek means “manly,” or “valorous.” The fact he bore a <i>Greek</i> name rather than a Hebrew one (as did his brother Simon) suggests a family background operating more in the midst of the complex cultural currents of his time and place rather than in the backwaters or safe eddies of religious traditionalism. This also has a message for me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is sometimes tempting for a person with my temperament to desire peace so much as to want to “climb back into the womb” (to borrow a phrase from Nicodemas) of religious purity and custom. This is not real discipleship or authentic Christianity—but an immature and selfish impulse to avoid the implications of following Christ. To show real maturity, true spiritual valor, we must be so deeply-grounded in Christ’s mind that we may follow wherever He leads without fear or complaint. It means being willing to take risks while not losing connection with the life-giving source of faith, vision, hope, and wisdom. This is the proper place of holy tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This leads me to a final point of consideration: Andrew’s courageous and yet gentle nature. Tradition holds that Andrew was martyred on a cross, much like his brother Peter. These first disciples identified so deeply with Christ Jesus they were to die in a like manner as did he—emphasizing that the Christian life is not an escape from suffering but an encounter with it in Christ’s power and love, identifying more with Christ through them. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This, in turn, leads to loving others more openly and speaking the truth in love. Andrew <i>invited</i> his brother Peter to meet Jesus: he didn't <i>force </i>or<i> hector</i> or <i>shame</i> him. The difference is at the heart of the Christianity I know and desire. Relinquishing the outcomes to Christ is a necessary part of surrendering to God--as step requiring humility and inner communion with the Lord.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am thankful for having the “first-called” Apostle as my ordination patron. His witness inspires me in the sometimes difficult and tumultuous times in which we live to listen deeply, follow simply, and love courageously. While I am only a beginner in this journey, today I rejoice in the witness of a disciple who has left a record of “things profitable for us toward the obtaining of everlasting life” in his actions, words, and character. By God’s grace may it be so for us all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-22471810725157339682021-11-18T09:27:00.001-08:002021-11-18T09:27:20.443-08:00The Last Sunday<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mcnCaptionBottomContent" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody><tr><td class="mcnTextContent" style="line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top" width="564"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuoOtv6jsK9zYcAkVky4LuS2-c2x3u8gCnFJZNvZuDKEz43RuP7JRC9k2292thUhtL-mrNN1JqxGxgARF1ZQYkAM7dtlAtfwr0kG9lI7_ZBqj8257hMv42GxrziXKFnSclZ51TDiOepdjs/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><img alt="" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1100" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuoOtv6jsK9zYcAkVky4LuS2-c2x3u8gCnFJZNvZuDKEz43RuP7JRC9k2292thUhtL-mrNN1JqxGxgARF1ZQYkAM7dtlAtfwr0kG9lI7_ZBqj8257hMv42GxrziXKFnSclZ51TDiOepdjs/" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #202020;">Next Sunday's liturgical title is: "The Last Sunday after Pentecost." It has a rather jarring quality to it. </span><em style="color: #202020;">The Last Sunday</em><span style="color: #202020;">. It makes one think of finality and culmination.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">Due to the collect for this Sunday and the imagery often used in both the scriptures appointed and hymns chosen, it is frequently called "Christ-the-King," though the BCP nowhere actually names it thus.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">The "Feast of Christ-the-King" was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1920s in response to growing secularization, the effects of nationalism, and (to be honest) the decline in monarchies in favor of democracies, communism, or dictatorships. Originally appointed in that Church for the Sunday before All Saints' Day, it emphasized Christ's sovereignty above other loyalties and ideologies--something very much worth consideration now, as well.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">Many Episcopalians now prefer "The Reign of Christ" to "Christ-the-King" for this day, largely for its avoidance of patriarchal / hierarchichal / masculine imagery for Christ. Yet, the debate over this Sunday's "nickname" tends to obscure its actual message.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">What this Sunday celebrates is not substituting one form of earthly power (monarchy for democracy) for another, but the coming victory of God's reign on earth--something we pray for each time we say the Lord's Prayer and the Creeds. Simply put, this Sunday celebrates a world we pray for but often seem at odds with.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">Such a world is not based on death, fear, or shame. It is lived in light, love, and joy. It bridges divides we think impossible; it raises up the lowly, and brings down the haughty. It reveals the truth about God, humans, and the creation. God's restored world is utterly unexpected by and completely at odds with "the way things are." Through the gift of the Holy Spirit it is available to us in holy creation, in liturgy, in prayer, and in Christian service with others made in God's sacred image.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">Whenever we meet with it--even for a moment--we will find Christ's reign strange and challenging <i>to the exact degree we are wedded to death</i>. It is for this reason that this Sunday's Gospel reading highlights the dialogue between Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ: a conversation between death and Life itself.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">This Sunday is a frank admission that placing our loyalty in "the way things are" or in our own "devices and desires" is in direct opposition to Christ's reign, his will as made known in the gospel. It points to the conflict at the heart of being a Christian.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">It has been observed that, for one to catch the feeling of authentic Christianity, </span><em style="color: #202020;">one must understand every day to be our last</em><span style="color: #202020;">. Only then will the preciousness and sacredness of each day be revealed. "The Last Sunday after Pentecost" catches that very well. True Christianity means we have already died and risen with Jesus and are thus citizens of God's dominion, God's sacred community. Our loyalties, priorities, and desires must and will be tested again and again, until we gladly surrender to this.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">As we come to this Sunday, I pray we will each experience it truly as "The Last Sunday": consciously standing on eternity's edge and preparing to fall lovingly into Christ's arms of love and truth.<br /><br />For, in truth, that is what this Sunday (and every day) <i>should be</i>--the eternally glorious moment of surrender to the Love which alone makes right, and which alone overcomes death, fear, and loss.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #202020;">Brandon+</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-53643275051270689582021-11-08T09:08:00.026-08:002022-12-03T12:13:25.921-08:00Sharing the Common Cup: A Pandemic Message<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh48-D6FISQEQvgkTdRRyU1Z51nU4DBxAaGuMBoqsjxVE0WyHNQ7CDVeBe3YZypF0hLd4e_stCgUAcrrpq0iTYcsFzYcRy-E5-fD7Ljl7DAzgagOYMT7uIZHN5xmIriIKu0cfqnTgwImZc/s599/510px-Chalice_and_Grapes_002.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh48-D6FISQEQvgkTdRRyU1Z51nU4DBxAaGuMBoqsjxVE0WyHNQ7CDVeBe3YZypF0hLd4e_stCgUAcrrpq0iTYcsFzYcRy-E5-fD7Ljl7DAzgagOYMT7uIZHN5xmIriIKu0cfqnTgwImZc/s320/510px-Chalice_and_Grapes_002.jpg" width="272" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the pandemic there has been a concern on the part of some about the chalice at the Eucharist. The concern is that the common cup is not sanitary and should be avoided. Indeed, the Episcopal Church in many places forbade the distribution of the Holy Sacrament from the chalice to the people at the start of the pandemic--and continues to do so in some places still--while in others questionable or novel innovations have been employed to deal with this concern. Like so much else, the biblical, catholic, and rubrical provision for communion in both kinds in the Eucharist has been upended in the pandemic.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">These responses have often resulted in erroneous, improvised, and misguided thinking and practices: <i>scientifically, spiritually, </i>and <i>liturgically.</i> I write this message to address these matters as part of the teaching office I have with you.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><b><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Scientifically</span></i></b></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The risk of transmission of disease from the common cup is very, very low. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7439816/" target="_blank">A recent article</a> has once more confirmed this.* If the shared chalice <i>were</i> an effective means of communicating disease, I would be ill much of the time, as I receive what remains in the chalice at the conclusion of communion at each celebration of the Eucharist. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We also know now that SARS-CoV-2 is not effectively transmitted by surface contact in situations such as found with the common cup. As the above-linked article concludes:</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.9991px;"><blockquote><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">In summary, the common communion cup may theoretically serve as a vehicle of transmitting infection, but the potential risk of transmission is very small. Currently, available data do not provide any support for the suggestion that the practice of sharing a common communion cup can contribute to the spread of COVID-19.</span></blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the risk isn't zero, very few people are at any risk of infection by receiving the sacrament from the chalice.† </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Episcopalians often say they "follow the science." Here, this means accepting that<i> the chalice is both sanitary and safe</i> for the vast majority of people. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Spiritually</span></b></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Above and beyond the question of science is the matter of what sacraments mean and what they provide for the faithful. We should be much more concerned about the value and efficacy of the sacraments as spiritual medicine and our fitness to share in <i>them</i> than a preoccupation with their fitness for<i> us</i>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Consumerism has so invaded our minds that we often ignore the solemn words found in the <a href="https://www.st-vidicon.net/bocp/bocp3.shtml#page316" target="_blank">Exhortation</a> (based, in turn, on St. Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians) for "all persons to prepare themselves carefully before eating of that Bread and drinking of that Cup" and "Judge yourselves, therefore, lest you be judged by the Lord." The exaggerated concerns around the common cup only deepen a serious error in contemporary church discourse: conforming the sacraments <i>to us</i>, rather than conforming our lives to <i>sharing in them and what they exhibit</i>. As Jesus asks of James and John, so he does of us: "</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Are</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">you</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">able </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">drink</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">cup</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">that</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">am</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">about</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">drink</span></span><span class="words-of-christ" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">?” (Matthew 20:22), not "is the cup I am about to drink suitable to your needs?" The common cup is not an "option" among options, but a very physical encounter with Christ, neighbor, and creation through the Paschal Mystery. Approaching it in this light changes the discussion's context, criteria, and character.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This brings up the point that the Holy Eucharist, like the entire Christian life, is not primarily about "being safe." Putting the priority on complete safety has never been a mark of authentic Christianity. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the early stages of the pandemic there was an understandable concern to limit transmission and keep our gatherings from being a way of bringing sickness and death, but with added knowledge it is time to assert the spiritual priority of making the sacraments available to God's people. The absolute priority of safety urged by some obscures the truth of the Gospel--a way of life inherently risky and at odds with the world's standards. Reliance on comfort, convenience, and riskless-ness found through such things as teleconferencing and avoidance of the chalice ultimately makes the Christian life more unreal, removed from human need and divine participation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The spiritual consequence of prolonged physical absence from receiving the Holy Mysteries in both kinds is not to be downplayed. When Jesus says in John 6:53 "</span><span style="background-color: white;">Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" he is not speaking only figuratively. Prioitizing online forms of gathering has unintentionally undermined incarnational, sacramental faith while encouraging gnostic, intellectualized distortions of that faith. The anxiety around the cup is, I believe, a further expression of this. When the cup is returned to normative use our fears will gradually be overcome and a renewal of trust made available through it.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;">Now that they have been vaccinated against this disease, many of our people have been pleading with clergy and lay leaders to bring back fully-sacramental worship in order to give sustenance for this long and arduous journey. Sadly, they have often been met with what amounts to pseudo-scientific legalism and spiritual prevarication, being told "we can't share the cup until everyone is comfortable with it</span>" and the like--something never true in the Church's history before and quite beside the point now. The many people who have told me that receiving the cup is, for them, an essential part of their spiritual life have been denied this because of the qualms of others in their home communities, often in the name of "inclusion." This turning of sacramental theology on its head is sadly ironic and painfully misapplied.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Holding whole communities of vaccinated (and now boosted) parishioners hostage to the anxiety of a few is actually a form of coercion and exclusion rather than an image of inclusion. Making accommodation for access and mitigation of risks (bringing the Holy Sacrament to the immunocompromised, online access for services where useful, employing masks in liturgy, improved ventilation/air cleaning, &c. in church) while allowing for normative worship is the inclusive, generous, and spiritually-based response. It is also faithful to the vows taken by every cleric in Holy Orders.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Liturgically</span></b></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Eucharist is a sacrament of unity--the unity of God-in-Trinity, the unity of God and humanity in Christ, the unity of the Body of Christ in heaven and earth, the unity of the Church throughout the world and across the ages, the unity of our life as a holy offering, and the unity of those who gather in Christ to share in this meal. To shun the shared cup without sound reasons diminishes this sacramental sign of unity.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Reliance on the Doctrine of Concomitance has been overplayed during the Pandemic. While the 1979 Book of Common Prayer clearly allows for communion in one kind, this permission is granted only in extreme or highly unusual circumstances and is not revocation of the normative practice of this Church, of Anglicanism since the Reformation, and of the ancient and undivided Church which the Reformers and all subsequent faithful Anglicans have seen as the locus of authority on the matter. To use this doctrine outside this narrow field of permission is, I believe, both dishonest and disloyal to our vows and the Church as a whole.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Similarly, the substitution of pre-packaged "communion kits" for a common sharing essentially obliterates the sacramental sign. When, as some churches have done, communicants are given (or take for themselves) private plastic-wrapped wafers and cups, the visible sharing in this unity is drastically reduced if not destroyed. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Prayer Book's rubrics on the reverent consumption of the remaining bread and wine has never been abrogated and is still in force. The use of individual cups makes such "reverent consumption" impossible, it seems to me. This is worthy of a separate consideration, but I shall stop here.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Such a form of communion also creates a large amount of plastic waste at what is supposed to be a meal where "nothing is wasted" and brings up the question of how such "waste" is to be reverently disposed of--along with the obvious point that such "communion-at-all-costs" is an unfortunate icon of our alienated, polluted relationship to God's Creation. Once again, consumerism (masquerading as sanitation, safety, convenience, &c.) has intruded, with all its Mammon-worshipping paraphernalia and logic, and displacing sound sacramental, liturgical practice.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The often hasty liturgical modifications made at the start of the pandemic may have had some logic initially, but their continued employment proves one should not generalize from emergencies to life afterwards. Rather, we should prioritize normative liturgical practice as found in the official formularies of our tradition, working from them and staying as close as possible to them and the underlying, cumulative sacramental wisdom they embody. Liturgy based on this communicates <i>Christ</i>, rather than panic, fear, or uniformed and consumeristic novelty.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <b>+ + + </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are, of course, legitimate reasons for not receiving from the chalice: recovery from alcoholism, or the effects of some medications might be good reasons, for example. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since we teach that reception in one kind (either the consecrated bread or wine) is sufficient for a full communion, abstaining from the common cup does not nullify one's experience of the Sacrament. T</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">o receive or not from the chalice should, however, be based on </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">spiritual</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">factual</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> considerations, not myth, pseudoscience, or plain misunderstanding. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">To conclude: For all but the most seriously immunocompromised, the chalice is safe. It is sanitary. It delivers Christ's sacred Blood to us without danger, as our Lord would have it. It is a sign of our being one in Christ. You may receive from it in faith and without fear and in joy. The pandemic has not changed this.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Let us focus now, instead, on what it means to "share in that cup" and to be nourished in Christ's life and love there.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">BLF+</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;">* This article does remind us that if we are experiencing active infection, we should not receive. In such cases, we should not be in public liturgy, either.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">†If you are seriously immunocompromised or for some other reason do not feel you can receive Holy Communion in a public liturgy, please contact me. I will make Holy Communion available to you privately in an ultra low-risk setting.</span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-25867822650618036152021-07-03T21:51:00.001-07:002021-07-03T21:51:50.806-07:00The Fourth of July: Liturgy, Patriotism, and Partisanship <p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrAuZbvQqZC-ZaotzSwClAzYjEKVF1Yp2i3Bd3BNx227wZZMiP8Dw3R3-VLhQVcNuensgF_xk2Gjkd6NgUdvKdTjdyPfcorJfClz5_Phd-fuqSDvzLHZjrl69R2XXec0jjZwnl-EXKJoo/s1008/2016_48_1_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="844" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrAuZbvQqZC-ZaotzSwClAzYjEKVF1Yp2i3Bd3BNx227wZZMiP8Dw3R3-VLhQVcNuensgF_xk2Gjkd6NgUdvKdTjdyPfcorJfClz5_Phd-fuqSDvzLHZjrl69R2XXec0jjZwnl-EXKJoo/s320/2016_48_1_l.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />William White, First Bishop of Pennsylvania</i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">July 4<sup>th</sup> is a Feast Day in the Episcopal Church’s calendar. That might not seem revolutionary, but it actually is (pun intended). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">During the American War of Independence, Church of England clergy in the American Colonies found themselves facing three possible actions: they could stay loyal to the Crown and risk fines, injury, or imprisonment, they could betray their oath to the King in the name of Independence, or they could stay and accept the changes while only grudgingly embracing the revolution. Many thousands chose the first and left for Canada, England, or elsewhere. Another group was “all in” with Independence. Those who did not support the revolution but stayed had to find a way to survive in the newly-independent nation and the brand-new <i>Episcopal Church</i>. Hard feelings were everywhere and memories were long (indeed, Pamela and I knew a priest and his wife in New York whose families were on opposite sides of the American Revolution: it was still a sore subject in the late 1980s). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Early on, there was quite a lot of pressure to make July 4<sup>th</sup> a Feast in the Episcopal Church’s Calendar. The thought was that, just as the Church of England had a holiday celebrating the accession of the monarch to the throne, the new nation needed a church feast celebrating independence. This is called patriotism. It was also gratifying for some to rub the noses of the clergy who had “lost” in their disappointment, making them say prayers, preach, and lead liturgies celebrating a cause they didn’t really support. This is called partisanship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">One of the key pro-revolutionary figures in the early Episcopal Church was The Rev’d Dr. William White, who became the first Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. He had been chaplain to the Continental Congress. He had “cred” with the Revolutionaries. When discussion at a church convention about an Independence Day Feast was taken up, it was expected White would encourage the observance of an event he so clearly supported and for which he had risked so much. Such was not the case, however.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">White wrote this about the attempt:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The members of the Convention wanting to force this observance seem to have thought themselves so established in their station of ecclesiastical legislators, that they might expect of the many clergy who had been averse of the American Revolution the adoption of this service; although, by the use of it, they must make an implied acknowledgement of their error, in an address to Almighty God….<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">White rebuked those who, in their triumph, gloated over those who had lost. Once he wrote this, the energy for the 4<sup>th</sup> of July Feast Day in the liturgical calendar collapsed. It was not included in our calendar until over a century later, in the 1928 revision of the <i>Book of Common Prayer</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Today we would say White’s judgment was wise for a number of reasons. First of all, the American Revolution had only partly lived out the ideal of the Declaration of Independence. Race slavery was incompatible with its ideals and its retention was one of the clearest signs that national failure and hypocrisy was as much the issue as independence and liberty on July 4<sup>th</sup>. White, who would not own enslaved people (unlike our first Bishop, Samuel Seabury), also ordained African-Americans (Absalom Jones and William Levington) to ministry, and was conscious of this profound discrepancy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">White also knew that when you are right you don’t have to prove it by being belligerent. Such tactics are those of a weak person or cause. His refusal to “get on the bandwagon” for the July 4<sup>th</sup> Feast Day was a refusal to descend into the narrowly partisan, smugly self-certain aspect of faith. He held strong views and wasn’t shy about sharing them, but he remained convinced the Gospel’s force was blunted—not sharpened—by adopting mean-spirited, partisan tactics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Finally, White understood that liturgy is not the place for mockery or invective. Our address to God in prayer must rise above self-serving ends or the gratification of unworthy aims. Liturgy must glorify God and increase love of neighbor—not contempt for neighbor. That remains true. The 4<sup>th</sup> of July prayers in the BCP pray God’s grace to make our nation a truly just and equitable land, not a smugocracy of self-delusion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">William White’s commitment to a truly Christian approach in political life meant he was free to see the real needs present and to act with regard to them. He worked tirelessly over his long life to bring the Gospel to those in need: persons with disabilities, in prison, or women who had experienced abuse (the first such institution in the United States). When most every other white clergyman fled Philadelphia during the Yellow Fever outbreaks of the 1790s, Bishop White stayed to minister to the sick. He was a true Christian.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Church today is faced with a major decision: to follow the logic of partisanship and retreat into the shadows of the “culture war,” taking pot-shots and allowing the Cross of Christ to be merely a tool used by humans for political advantage, or to confront the cruelty, injustice, and selfishness of our society with the words and power of the risen Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Some want the Church to be apolitical, by which they mean uninvolved. Others want the Church to ally itself with one or another political party, by which they mean subordinated. Neither represents Christ’s way of challenging the powers of this world while remaining firmly anchored in the love of God. Christ was involved, and so must we be. But his involvement always means loving God and loving neighbor as ourselves—not descending in a race to the bottom of disrespect and partisanship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There are few easy answers in the matter of Church and political life. I look to the example set by Bishop White as a better way to live in response to the challenges of faith and politics: we practice the Gospel by taking personal risks and making personal sacrifices for the safety of others and a more just world. We link our worship to our actions, becoming more Christ-like as we live. We become more truly “revolutionary” this way rather than more partisan and mean-spirited. When we gather on Sunday, July 4<sup>th</sup>, we will pray for our country, give thanks, and—like Bishop White—labor on that it might become the kind of nation it has long proclaimed: a land “with freedom and justice for all.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Brandon+<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Collect for Independence Day:<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-36650448886025133512021-02-16T23:11:00.002-08:002021-02-16T23:13:24.562-08:00Prayer, Fasting, Mercy: "These Three are One."<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgombfNW01ZhzqAsrt6unOSnI5GwyT5kFv89_eg3AMvG-E-p9-jKDGQ5E5If2Sgcukgrrupw_4tl3ooKt7yVbWovpY7ScbQCzoKz2LKJUxjzM7qpuFdYb7ce3H9F0lcjYugrZ22F68qIko/s640/20d2c328609f60bf16401d91f3e8fd6a--christian-quotes-peter-otoole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgombfNW01ZhzqAsrt6unOSnI5GwyT5kFv89_eg3AMvG-E-p9-jKDGQ5E5If2Sgcukgrrupw_4tl3ooKt7yVbWovpY7ScbQCzoKz2LKJUxjzM7qpuFdYb7ce3H9F0lcjYugrZ22F68qIko/s320/20d2c328609f60bf16401d91f3e8fd6a--christian-quotes-peter-otoole.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #800180; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>This sermon is by St. Peter Chrysologus (c. 380 -- c.450), bishop of Ravenna. It is a wonder of beauty, economy, and insight. Use it as a guide for your Lenten journey and you won't go wrong:</i></span></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God’s ear to yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Let this be the pattern for all men when they practise mercy: show mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Therefore, let prayer, mercy and fasting be one single plea to God on our behalf, one speech in our defence, a threefold united prayer in our favour.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others. Let us offer our souls in sacrifice by means of fasting. There is nothing more pleasing that we can offer to God, as the psalmist said in prophecy: <i>A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; God does not despise a bruised and humbled heart.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Offer your soul to God, make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your soul may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, remaining your own and at the same time made over to God. Whoever fails to give this to God will not be excused, for if you are to give him yourself you are never without the means of giving.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> To make these acceptable, mercy must be added. Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Amen.</span></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-34487966726038685042021-01-15T15:21:00.006-08:002021-01-15T15:21:51.872-08:00An Earnest Pleading before Christ<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCMIdRXK5zhGzbeR24RBrsgTbzc8a4Wxo-kMJkdxlP1rRmQZ88Unxsh0bN33qShTGanCNzcCIKKga3bOl65zKo47O314FferIaZCn8dOIV7TTv7dcCgX9SNgevLHOvBRWnIHBnI7EO2k/s511/KneelingAtTheCross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="511" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCMIdRXK5zhGzbeR24RBrsgTbzc8a4Wxo-kMJkdxlP1rRmQZ88Unxsh0bN33qShTGanCNzcCIKKga3bOl65zKo47O314FferIaZCn8dOIV7TTv7dcCgX9SNgevLHOvBRWnIHBnI7EO2k/s320/KneelingAtTheCross.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><i style="font-family: georgia;"><p><i>This prayer, called an "Obsecration," is a pleading of God's mercy in the face of human sin. In the midst of a world bent on its own destruction, it is tempting to turn our backs in either indignation or disgust. Yet, the Christian faith embraces the Cross of Christ, and in so doing, intercedes for the world. Such pleading also confronts us with the truth of our own complicity, leading us to repentance and amendment of life. This prayer is especially suitable for Fridays throughout the year, as well as in Lent, Holy Week, and as an examination of conscience.</i></p></i><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">+ + +</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Lord, by this sweet and saving Sign,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Defend us from our foes and thine.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesus, by thy wounded feet,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span> </span>Direct our paths aright:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesu, by thy nailed hands,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span> </span>Move ours to deeds of love:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesu, by thy pierced side,</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span> </span>Cleanse our desires:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesu, by thy crown of thorns,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Annihilate our pride:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesu, by thy parched lips,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Curb our cruel speech:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesuby by thy closing eyes,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Look on our sin no more:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Jesu, by thy broken heart,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Knit ours to thee.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And by this sweet and saving Sign,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Lord, draw us to our peace and thine.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">- Richard Crashaw, and others.</span></i></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-46605977278145106302021-01-06T10:50:00.002-08:002021-01-06T10:50:33.474-08:00St. Leo the Great on the Feast of the Epiphany<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tqgJp7v-ymEhQspBsQhBa0Jqtss8AU6NNor7ErNMaokcoapdwRdTnpoai8JWELQlYlVx7JYnZ2zMlSv6c9E8au3snpY93iTGaFNWTLnBQB_dUBp7MvmvVWQs9hvHNG7ZF3mlA9l0LHc/s2048/DSC_3375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tqgJp7v-ymEhQspBsQhBa0Jqtss8AU6NNor7ErNMaokcoapdwRdTnpoai8JWELQlYlVx7JYnZ2zMlSv6c9E8au3snpY93iTGaFNWTLnBQB_dUBp7MvmvVWQs9hvHNG7ZF3mlA9l0LHc/s320/DSC_3375.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i><br /></i><p></p><p><i>This excerpted sermon on the Epiphany by St. Leo the Great illustrates a number of features of classic Christian faith. It shows how deeply imbued with the Holy Scriptures all true teaching and preaching in the catholic faith must be. It delivers a message both of hope and of clear direction for how to savor this feast and how to apply it—in this case, by taking a lesson from the star that guides the Magi on their way, to help others come to their destination in God. It is a fine example of what faithful preaching has always been (and must always be), so human hearts may be nourished in the unique and joyful message of Salvation.</i></p><div class="MsoNormal"><i>May your Epiphanytide celebrations continue the theme of joy and possibility begun at Christmas. Keep the whole season after Epiphany until Lent as a time of intentional thanksgiving for being led by faith into God's nearer presence while on earth and for the promise of meeting our Lord "face to face" at the end of the ages.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">+ + +<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The loving providence of God determined that in the last days he would aid the world, set on its course to destruction. He decreed that all nations should be saved in Christ.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A promise had been made to the holy patriarch Abraham in regard to these nations. He was to have a countless progeny, born not from his body but from the seed of faith. His descendants are therefore compared with the array of the stars. The father of all nations was to hope not in an earthly progeny but in a progeny from above.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Let the full number of the nations now take their place in the family of the patriarchs. Let the children of the promise now receive the blessing in the seed of Abraham, the blessing renounced by the children of his flesh. In the persons of the Magi let all people adore the Creator of the universe; let God be known, not in Judaea only, but in the whole world, so that <i>his name may be great in all Israel</i>.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Dear friends, now that we have received instruction in this revelation of God’s grace, let us celebrate with spiritual joy the day of our first harvesting, of the first calling of the Gentiles. Let us give thanks to the merciful God, <i>who has made us worthy</i>, in the words of the Apostle, <i>to share the position of the saints in light, who has rescued us from the power of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.</i> As Isaiah prophesied: <i>the people of the Gentiles, who sat in darkness, have seen a great light, and for those who dwelt in the region of the shadow of death a light has dawned</i>. He spoke of them to the Lord: <i>The Gentiles, who do not know you, will invoke you, and the peoples, who knew you not, will take refuge in you.</i><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This is <i>the day that Abraham saw, and rejoiced to see</i>, when he knew that the sons born of his faith would be blessed in his seed, that is, in Christ. Believing that he would be the father of the nations, he looked into the future, <i>giving glory to God, in full awareness that God is able to do what he has promised</i>.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This is the day that David prophesied in the psalms, when he said: <i>All the nations that you have brought into being will come and fall down in adoration in your presence, Lord, and glorify your name</i>. Again, <i>the Lord has made known his salvation;</i> <i>in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice</i>.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This came to be fulfilled, as we know, from the time when the star beckoned the three wise men out of their distant country and led them to recognize and adore the King of heaven and earth. The obedience of the star calls us to imitate its humble service: to be servants, as best we can, of the grace that invites all men to find Christ.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Dear friends, you must have the same zeal to be of help to one another; then, in the kingdom of God, to which faith and good works are the way, you will shine as children of the light: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with God the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.</span><o:p></o:p></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right; text-autospace: none;"><i>from</i> Sermo 3 in Epiphania Domini, 1-3. 5: PL 54, 240-244.</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right; text-autospace: none;"><a href="http://satucket.com/lectionary/Leo_Great.htm" target="_blank">St. Leo</a> (c. 400 AD - 461 AD) is commemorated on November 10th<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Collect of the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Chris</i>t</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="initCap" style="font-size: larger;">O</span> God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. <i>Amen</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-38851070008480003842021-01-04T17:06:00.000-08:002021-01-04T17:06:43.009-08:00Blessing your home this Epiphany<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyj9tuqCowrJYFdWZMUpyu3FQg8-hkdhUkRtCE-LfK0VHu2Z_s7VpI_E9CA0LPswmGcObNi-QSZ715GXOIszZEsUgllt6aU0nR1gBAjIw5NARYdCwQddRdOwmo8SXUbDmgnW2ZqaGYJvQ/s1200/magi-clipart-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyj9tuqCowrJYFdWZMUpyu3FQg8-hkdhUkRtCE-LfK0VHu2Z_s7VpI_E9CA0LPswmGcObNi-QSZ715GXOIszZEsUgllt6aU0nR1gBAjIw5NARYdCwQddRdOwmo8SXUbDmgnW2ZqaGYJvQ/s320/magi-clipart-8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Blackletter"; font-size: 16pt;">Epiphanytide Prayers </span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Cambria, serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Blackletter"; font-size: 16pt;">for God’s Blessing on a Home</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Lucida Blackletter;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Also known as "Chalking the Doors" </span><span style="font-size: 17.33333396911621px;">this service may be used during the first weeks of the New Year. Chalk is used, along with candles and holy water (obtainable through church).</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">[The electric lights are dimmed in the room where the opening section of the service is to be celebrated. Candles are lit and arranged on a table, around which participants stand. Holy water may be placed in a bowl or other container for use at the service’s conclusion.]</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">All</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: + <b><i>In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Leader</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: Peace be to this house.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">All</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: <b><i>And to all who enter it in this year of God's favor and grace.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Leader</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: The Magi came from the East to worship the Lord Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">All</span></u><b><i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: And falling at his feet and beholding the radiance of his glory, the glory he had with the Father before the world began, they gave him precious gifts of mystic meaning.</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Leader</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: They presented him with gold because he is the world's only true King, the one merciful Lord worthy of our gifts, our service and our vows. They blessed him with incense that sweet-smelling smoke might evermore rise up from our altars to the Throne of his majesty, worshipping and blessing and magnifying him, the one, true God. They offered him myrrh because it would soon anoint his immaculate body, preparing it for his burial.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">A Reading from the Gospel according to Matthew: (2:1-12)</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">All</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: <b><i>Our Father....</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Leader</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: Gracious God, you revealed your Son to the nations by the brilliant Star of Bethlehem. O Uncreated Light, Morning-Star of Epiphany and the world's New Dawn, lead us, warm our hearts, fortify our wills, enkindle our devotion to you, enlighten and illumine our inward vision. Lead us, guide us all the days of our earthly pilgrimage until we are received into your glory. We implore your great mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord. <b><i>Amen.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">[With chalk, the leader makes this inscription on the lintel of the main entrance: 20+C+M+B+21. The letters stand for the traditional names of the Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. The numbers are for the year of our Lord. If holy water is to be used, it is brought forth for use at this time. If holy water is not used, the bracketed portion of the following prayer is omitted.]</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Leader</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt;">: Eternal God, we ask that you send your blessing to be upon this home. [Let the sprinkling of this holy water recall for us the gift of baptism, our consecration to Christ's service. May it drive far from this house and all who enter it all snares and assaults of the enemy. Wherever this water is sprinkled may safety be guarded and hospitality be made manifest.] Grant that faith, charity, and good health triumph over evil in this house. May your Word always be cherished and obeyed here. We give praise and thanksgiving to you, and to your Son, and to the Holy Spirit. <b><i>Amen</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">[Holy water, in the sign of the cross, may be applied to the door. All may then bless themselves with holy water; holy water may be applied to the doorway of each room in the house; those present may sing appropriate Epiphanytide hymns as they move from room to room.]</span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-11145831925249528762020-12-05T12:51:00.003-08:002020-12-05T12:52:32.259-08:00The O Antiphons: An Introduction<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-b3nM2g-DtQEs5eR8sFnIju4ACv9NrSEeGRUsbnYKdjzd2wygnGP9HDf0uFTx-Rc8C86l0yxYaEShXz-fQHOCFJ4Ao2D-uW54zZsZFQNHpgo5X6V7Sy4tVLUci3zFsU4qfXTH221V95o/s248/O+Antiphons+spiral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-b3nM2g-DtQEs5eR8sFnIju4ACv9NrSEeGRUsbnYKdjzd2wygnGP9HDf0uFTx-Rc8C86l0yxYaEShXz-fQHOCFJ4Ao2D-uW54zZsZFQNHpgo5X6V7Sy4tVLUci3zFsU4qfXTH221V95o/s0/O+Antiphons+spiral.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in -31.5pt 0in 0in;"><b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Great “O” Antiphons</span></b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /><br /></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">The <i>Magnificat</i> (also called “The Song of Mary”) from Luke 1:46-55 is sung or said every day at Evening Prayer (as the <i>Benedictus</i>, Zechariah’s song, is used with Morning Prayer and the <i>Nunc dimittis</i>, Simeon’s Song, at Compline). It is customary to use short phrases, called “antiphons,” usually drawn from Scripture, before and after these canticles or songs. Antiphons change by season or special commemoration at each service. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in -31.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in -31.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">In the week before Christmas there is a special group of antiphons for use with the <i>Magnificat</i> at Evening Prayer. These antiphons all begin with “O” and have been collected together to form the words to Hymn 56, “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” Each verse of this hymn may be said as an antiphon to the <i>Magnificat</i> in the evening during the week before Christmas, in addition to its being sung as a hymn on its own. Many recordings of these antiphons in Latin and English are available online; the chants associated with them are often extremely beautiful.<br /><br />The “O” antiphons, based mostly on prophesies from Isaiah, address the Messiah in various ways, focusing on his different attributes and gifts to us. Together, they form a rich array of images not only about Advent, but for how we live in Christian expectation throughout our lives.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in -31.5pt 0in 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 17: <b>O Wisdom</b>, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord." Isaiah 11:2-3<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"He is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom." Isaiah 28:29<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 18: <b>O Adonai</b>, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">“With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins." Isaiah 11:4-5<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">"For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler, the Lord is our king; he will save us." Isaiah 33:22<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 19: <b>O Root of Jesse</b>, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah 11:1<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious." Isaiah 11:10<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 20: <b>O Key of David</b> and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open." Isaiah 22:22<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore." Isaiah 9:7<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." Isaiah 42:7.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 21: <b>O Morning Star</b>, splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined." Isaiah 9:2<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 22: <b>O King of the nations</b>, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"For a child has been born for us, a son given us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." Isaiah 2:4<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Isaiah 64:8<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">December 23: <b>O Emmanuel</b>, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.25in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Garamond, serif;">"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel." Isaiah 7:14<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">These antiphons have been arranged as an Advent litany in the revised edition of The St. Augustine’s Prayer Book, suitable for use each day in Advent as a way to focus our prayers to God for renewed hope and faith during this season. This litany is available on <a href="https://blessedtimothy.blogspot.com/2020/12/a-litany-for-advent.html" style="color: #954f72;">Fr. Brandon’s blog</a>, as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-58582056371302457342020-12-02T13:41:00.024-08:002020-12-04T21:14:32.479-08:00A Litany for Advent<p><span style="color: #800180; font-family: Garamond; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #800180; font-family: Garamond; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfFMiiXB4e9c_Wf8XIeGVW7e0kb-PwA6naiYmf-6ZtLiR8lN2pj-Ujx5iGMWUIKur0HlYprdvlXrvJcdKjk2TScFjrRmvk_GksT9qiWavI2upmLIzIuxTepS6D6qu6p_oeN3pvuPZVL4/s1216/O+Oriens.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="1216" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfFMiiXB4e9c_Wf8XIeGVW7e0kb-PwA6naiYmf-6ZtLiR8lN2pj-Ujx5iGMWUIKur0HlYprdvlXrvJcdKjk2TScFjrRmvk_GksT9qiWavI2upmLIzIuxTepS6D6qu6p_oeN3pvuPZVL4/w397-h248/O+Oriens.jpg" width="397" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #800180; font-family: Garamond; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Garamond; font-size: medium;"><i>Below is a litany for use during the Advent season. It is based on the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Antiphons" target="_blank">Great O Antiphons</a>" used before and after the Magnificat at Evening Prayer in the week prior to Christmas, which are themselves based on various passages of the Old Testament which the Church has seen as prophetic of Christ's coming. This litany (and the prayers following it) may be used at morning, noon, or evening prayers, or as a way to meditate on the message of the Advent season at another time, such as a Quiet Day or a retreat.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 18.66666603088379px;">X </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 18.66666603088379px;">X </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 18.66666603088379px;">X</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">O Wisdom, proceeding from the Most High, reaching from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering</span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;"> all things: </span></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come and teach us the way of understanding.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">O Adonai and Leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai gave the Law: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come to deliver us with your strong arm.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">O Root of Jesse, given as a sign for all peoples, in whose presence kings are silenced and before whom all nations will be judged: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come with the day of peace and do not delay.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">O Key of David, who opens and none can shut, leading us to life everlasting: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come and lead out those bound in chains.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">O Day Spring, the bright and morning star, the eternal light that enlightens all: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come and shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">O King of the Nations, chosen and precious cornerstone, binding in one all peoples: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come quiet the strife that afflicts your children.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">O Emmanuel, the promise and the fulfillment of all promises: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Come and bring among us the joy of your kingdom.</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come. <i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>One of these prayers may then conclude the litany.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Make us watchful and alert, O Lord our God, that when he comes, your Son Christ our Lord will not find us sleeping in sin or distracted with fears, but awake, strong in faith, active in service, and rejoicing in your praises, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.<i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">May Christ, whose second coming in power and great glory we await, </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 14pt;">X</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 14pt;">make us steadfast in faith, joyful in hope, and constant in love. <i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. <i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. <i>Amen</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The year declines and our days draw to a close: let us, for it is time, amend our doings to the praise of Christ; let our lamps be burning, for the exalted Judge cometh to judge the nations. <i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lord, you have set before us the great hope that your kingdom shall come on earth, and have taught us to pray for its coming; give us grace to discern the signs of its dawning, and to work for the perfect day when your will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. <i>Amen</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: right;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: 14pt;">From <i>The St. Augustine’s Prayer Book,<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 12.609999656677246px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: right;"><i><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: 14pt;">Revised Edition</span></i></div>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-87173889062657301032020-11-04T20:25:00.001-08:002020-11-04T20:25:30.911-08:00Remembering our Citizenship<div class="separator"><p class="MsoNormal" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Garamond, serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMrbNGzJFrXzTwQTe38XlxaoI6y5nH__6V_S-t5RW7DnXaMak2aWhgbVBm3Eh9Oh12fGZY4Nnp5X29Qr8nVtRO5hm1vlPIhLa5_ga23_hC8iAA5oksCgrJGwHs19hnEpr7QS6q_4BUwRI/s199/Word+from+the+Rector+Image+BLF+at+Gospel+with+Cope.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMrbNGzJFrXzTwQTe38XlxaoI6y5nH__6V_S-t5RW7DnXaMak2aWhgbVBm3Eh9Oh12fGZY4Nnp5X29Qr8nVtRO5hm1vlPIhLa5_ga23_hC8iAA5oksCgrJGwHs19hnEpr7QS6q_4BUwRI/s0/Word+from+the+Rector+Image+BLF+at+Gospel+with+Cope.png" /></a></div><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 15pt;">A Word from the Rector...</span></i></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />I've been through quite a few elections now as a parish priest--both secular and ecclesiastical--and through them all, certain things stay constant. One is the tenderness following a vote. In our way of doing things, some must win and some must lose. Being on the losing side can be very painful, especially if we believe only that side possesses the truth. Another is the tendency for those who "won" to forget the Golden Rule and act with swagger and certitude. <br /><br />My advice to all is to remember a verse from sacred scripture (Philippians 3:20, to be exact): <i>But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. </i><br /><br />St. Paul's words here remind us that our deepest identity is found in our membership in Christ's body, and through this body, in God's Kingdom of Love. That citizenship is secure and enduring.<br /><br />While we work to proclaim God's kingdom here, and labor to fulfill our commission as ministers of His mercy and justice, we must not allow ourselves--however gradually or imperceptibly--to substitute an earthly counterfeit for our heavenly citizenship. Our earthly citizenship is passing, frequently incomplete, and involves us in much sin and tumult; our heavenly citizenship is the source of our hope, our peace, and our triumph.<br /><br />No matter which "side" we found ourselves on Election Day, our real allegiance should be to Christ, whose perfect will and peace is only imperfectly known in the things of human governance. As we go forward from this week, let us bear this in mind with regard to our neighbor and (especially) with regard to our fellow parishioners, together with whom we have won over the forces of death and division through Jesus Christ our Lord.<br /><br />Brandon+<br /><br /><i>A Prayer for the Election</i><br /><br />Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the completion of this election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. <i>Amen.</i><br /><br /><i>A Prayer for those who Influence Public Opinion</i><br /><br />Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. <i>Amen.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"></p><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img height="21" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/9b05093f-90b3-4289-b843-90799dc33784" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="20" /></div><p></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862587165592930525.post-41780635836436229542020-09-26T11:55:00.004-07:002020-09-26T11:55:39.502-07:00Making known the Mystery of God: Lancelot Andrews<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzgfp6OneENUYgtgyWaxySc3nZnRrzYVnwSKVHwRS-lCRNd6XNeEWgy0M7pNqP2uaxwzfG-ZwgGeeO7OANYMfI9bMUsCE6Z9fGANzt4RTXuxPST0GWPNuQxMtqggLEjPPpFtq_97n9kw/s960/Lancelot+Andrewes+Icon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="764" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNzgfp6OneENUYgtgyWaxySc3nZnRrzYVnwSKVHwRS-lCRNd6XNeEWgy0M7pNqP2uaxwzfG-ZwgGeeO7OANYMfI9bMUsCE6Z9fGANzt4RTXuxPST0GWPNuQxMtqggLEjPPpFtq_97n9kw/w319-h400/Lancelot+Andrewes+Icon.JPG" width="319" /></a></div><br /><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Today we honor the life and witness of Bishop Lancelot Andrews (1555-1626). He was instrumental in the process by which the “King James” translation of the Bible took place (being responsible for translating much of the first five books himself), and was one of the greatest preachers and teachers of his age. His guide to prayer (</span><i><a href="https://ccel.org/ccel/andrewes/devotions1/devotions1">Preces Privatae</a></i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">) remains one of the essential texts for understanding classical Anglican approaches to prayer, and his</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><i><a href="http://anglicanhistory.org/lact/andrewes/v1/">96 Sermons</a></i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">represent, along with Hooker’s</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><i>Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity,</i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">perhaps the summit of early Anglican thought.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was the gift of a collection of Andrewes’ prayers to me at age sixteen which began my pilgrimage to Anglicanism, and (along with his sermons) has kept me limber and faithful since. He is one of the truly great lights in my life, a father among the saints to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here is what one Russian Orthodox author wrote about Andrewes:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia;">If Andrewes was indeed a man of his own time, which he wanted to make aware of the fact that the relationship of man to God is not an idea but an experience lived out in the Church, which itself is in the final analysis <i>nothing other</i> than the place where the Spirit blows and where one participates in the divine life, perhaps even <i>because</i> he was a man of his time and not an atemporal thinker, he joins those whom one calls the Father of the Church. Now they are called that because they knew how to communicate <i>in their own time</i> the sense of the experience of God, showing then to others who would come later what they had to do for their own time. Their paternity is in fact actively generative, and their sons and daughters are called, like Andrewes, to become living images of their Fathers, thus Fathers (and Mothers) in their turn: that is, people who transcend the limits of their own time.</span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 10pt;">From the conclusion to “Lancelot Andrewes the Preacher,”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 10pt;"> by Nicholas Lossky, Andrew Louth, translator (1991)<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;">May we be found to be fathers and mothers of the faith in our own day!</span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Collect for the Feast of Blessed Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Perfect in us, Almighty God, whatever is lacking of thy gifts: of faith, to increase it; of hope, to establish it; of love, to kindle it; that like thy servant Lancelot Andrewes we may live in the life of thy grace and glory; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>Brandon Filberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06355914204734644026noreply@blogger.com0