"Now the power, Now the vessel brimmed for pouring..."

In an eMail from Magnificat - I'm not sure that the artwork isn't the greatest benefit of the magazine.
No, that would be the reflections.
Though it might be the obscure saints on various themes. Oh, except it's probably....
(Sometime I feel as if I am advertising for Magnificat, but really, you should subscribe.)
Anyway, this reminded me of the heartbreaking statue of the Man of Sorrows at St John Cantius, the same kind of stillness and power.

"Now the power, Now the vessel brimmed for pouring; Now the body, Now the blood..."

(Hymn text, by the way, which has nothing, so far as I know, to do with Magnificat, by Jaroslav Vajda.)

"You don't believe any of this....?"

Himself started watching something last night that looked interesting to me, but as I've more or less given up tv, (though yeah, I check the weather, and whether or not our country had gone to war....,) for Lent, I left the room.
He turned it off shortly afterwards, I asked what gives? and he said, "Oh, you know, the kind of programming they put on this time of year, we're being utterly objective and scientific and historical about all this Jesus stuff, and they make a big deal about anything that contradicts the Bible or common understanding, but if any hard facts support Christian tradition they downplay them...."
"Oh,"... he added, "and you know how they get jackasses or crazies for all the talking-head parts."
Yep, yep, I do know...
But, Department of Silver Linings, we don't have an Established Church in the US.

Few things in life are more reliable than that the BBC will celebrate Holy Week by running a story which causes controversy about Christianity; the only thing more reliable is that it won’t do the same about Islam during Ramadan. The latest, to be found here reveals that nearly a quarter of ‘Christians’ do not believe in the Resurrection. However, 1 in to people with no religion said they sort of believed in some way int e Resurrection, prompting this: ‘The Church of England said it showed many people held religious beliefs.’ I fear what it really shows is the failure of the Established Church in this country to do much in the way of religious education. One of the more remarkable bit of the piece was a vicar saying that: ‘”I think [people answering the survey] are being asked to believe in the way they might have been asked to believe when they were at Sunday school.’ Quite apart from the fact that it is doubtful that many people even go to Sunday School, one wonders quite what she thought was being taught at Anglican Sunday Schools? Then, with all the confidence of a modernist who doesn’t know better, she pronounced: ‘”So to ask an adult to believe in the resurrection the way they did when they were at Sunday school simply won’t do and that’s true of much of the key elements of the Christian faith.” She tells us that” And an adult faith requires that it be constantly questioned, constantly re-interpreted, which incidentally is very much what modern church is actually about.’ Indeed, and in that apercu lies much of what has gone wrong with the Church of England.

One wonder, then - if asked in a survey, does the quoted vicar think the Anglicans of the UK would deny that they loved their Mums? Because, of course, they wouldn't love them in the same way they had when they were children....

"Liturgical Material Assuring Us the Man With the Scythe Won't Have the Last Word"

A perfectly wonderful piece, from an Anglican perspective, on the immense value of the Christian funeral.
I don't know Stewart Dakers, but he is, as he so felicitously describes his state in life, "in the queue" when it comes to being the secondary locus of attention at a funeral, i.e. getting up there.
By virtue of my Church work, and even more so, of my enormous family, I have been to many more funerals than most people, it seems, going back to childhood. I am often shocked to know people quite middle-aged who tell me they have never been to one.
(My very earliest memory is of a dead man in a large, pretty box, in a tidy, sweet, if somewhat dark, stone house - the wake of our parish's pastor in his own rectory. It wasn't in any way, shape or form, scary, and I have sympathy for those whose experience, or lack thereof, leads to the dread I find many adults have of the dead and of funerals.)
Mr Dakers paints himself as a bingo-playing senior citizen, but he writes with an edge and wit many an urban hipster would envy.

And then, on top of that, he's simply right in his thought and opinion.

I attended a better funeral a couple of weeks earlier. It took place in a crematorium, whereas Enid’s affair had been in a real church. So in a sense the contrast was the greater. We sat in silence until the coffin was brought in with those wondrous ominous words
I am the Resurrection and the Life…
which set the tone for a sustained focus on the divinity of love and the hope of eternal life. Even without the accoutrements of a holy building, there was a feeling of belonging to a larger universe, a sense of the transformational.
In this secular age, sceptical of the numinous, the religious funeral demands from us the spiritual literacy which can surrender its cerebral convictions to an incredible hope. If that ingredient is removed, if every departure is presented as an event from which we are urged to move on, to draw a line under, then it does not take a psychiatrist or a theologian to identify a major source of contemporary angst.

"The Harvest is Meagre But the Laborers, We Got'em Coming Outta Our EARS!"

"...so tell the master of the harvest to lay off some of the laborers for his harvest,” said Jesus never.

And yet, that actually seems to be the problem for some protestant sects.

Since leaving our former leadership roles in a local church more than a decade ago, my husband and I have talked to many, many people who were once either in college or seminary preparing to enter full-time vocational ministry and couldn’t find a job upon graduation, or those who had been in ministry and for a whole host of reasons were no longer in a leadership role. Some were no longer part of an institutional church in any way.
The lure of the promise to spiritually-minded emerging adults that they are destined to be world changers, given them at conferences, retreats and youth group meetings as they grew up, meshes with the ambition that characterizes this life stage. I’ve informally followed the trajectory of some of the amazing, committed students I knew from my days working at Trinity International University who were preparing for vocational ministry. A percentage did connect with paying ministry positions after graduation and are still employed by a church or parachurch ministry five or ten years later. Others found a ministry position, only to discover that the cold reality of harsh politics and/or dwindling church finances pushed them out of a job before the ink was fully dry on their degree. And too many faced a long hall full of closed doors. These people have moved into other lines of work, hampered by the challenging combination of a difficult economy and a degree that doesn’t always translate neatly to other fields.

Now, of course, there are plenty of once idealistic and now disillusioned Catholics, and there are those priests who, fairly or unfairly, have found their services were no longer required by the Church, as well, but on the whole, unless there is actually something wrong with you as a priest, the Church is going to make use of your calling.
(Not necessarily the best use, you understand... I'm talking to you, bishops and provincials who like to send scholars and dynamic leaders of an orthodox bent to out of the way nursing homes, etc....)

Anyway, I find the whole thing mystifying. Of course, I wasn't aware of that whole "Shepherding" thing and the abusive totalism in some Evangelical circles until recently, so it's not as if I keep abreast.

Have We?

From an Evangelical blogger:

Of course, we in the church have been given the responsibility to judge one another, and the privilege of stirring each other in community to act in love and do good works. 

Hmmm.
Not disagreeing, just wondering.

A Pentacostalist makes the Case for Authentic Liturgy

Very worth your while read.

Preach, Brother:

In my experience contemporary church service styles rarely yield the same results as those I've experienced in more formal liturgically-based settings. Why? For three reasons.
1. Most contemporary church gatherings rarely incorporate formal liturgical mechanisms into their order of service
2. Most contemporary church gatherings simply do not create space for reflection
3. Most contemporary church gatherings are more concerned about creating a performance-based program that seeks to keep people entertained, not liturgically engaged.

Need I say, he expounds on these reasons.

"Theology needs to 'catch up' with gestures"?

I do not pretend for a moment to have any special insight into the relationship between the Church and the Anglican communion, or what the schism caused by Henry VIII's desire for a male heir and a woman who was not his wife entailed, or how any of this confirms or confuses the Ordinariate.

But I am having great difficulty wrapping my mind around the idea of theology - that is, received and discerned truths about God, His wishes, and mankind's relationship to Him and to those wishes - conforming itself to the gestures made by churchmen, rather than the other way 'round.

Fr Tony recalls that the documents of the Second Vatican Council recognized those elements of the Church which exist beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church, adding that recent ecumenical efforts have been looking at the implications of that statement in the search for reciprocal recognition of ministry.
While he notes that such recognition is still not fully possible, he cites many gestures to show a growing respect and recognition of the ministry exercised by Anglican bishops. In particular he recalls the gesture of Pope Paul VI, 50 years ago, of giving his own episcopal ring to the Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey. Theology, Fr Tony says, “needs to catch up” and find the “theological underpinnings to these gestures”.
He adds “I think it’s true to say we don’t use the language of ‘null and void’ any more” as that’s “clearly not what is spoken by the gestures, generosity, and warmth which we see time and time again”.

Just because one does not use certain language because it will not advance ones cause does not make that language inaccurate, does it?
I suppose "imaginary" and "non-existent" are equally injudicious.... 

Remember When I Stepped on That Rusty Nail at the Beach When We Were Kids, and My Foot Swelled Up and Got Infected and They Were Afraid It Was Blood Poisoning and I Had To Get a Tetanus Shot and It Kinda Ruined the Family's Vacation?

Good times, good times....
Ya know something? that's exactly 40 years ago, this summer!

I gotta great idea, LET'S HAVE A PARTY TO CELEBRATE THAT!!!!

"Did you really just ask that?" 

"Um, I'm gonna say .... NO!"

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?
Also not taken in by the derangement that leads to such suggestions.

The German cardinal said in a new book-length interview: “We Catholics have no reason to celebrate October 31, 1517, the date that is considered the beginning of the Reformation that would lead to the rupture of Western Christianity....
“If we are convinced that divine revelation is preserved whole and unchanged through Scripture and Tradition, in the doctrine of the Faith, in the sacraments, in the hierarchical constitution of the Church by divine right, founded on the sacrament of holy orders, we cannot accept that there exist sufficient reasons to separate from the Church.”

"Did you really just ask that?"

"Um, I'm gonna say .... NO!"

Requiescat in Pace, Cardinal Cottier

The theologian Swiss Cardinal Archbishop Georges Marie Martin Cottier O.P. has died.
May perpetual light shine upon him...
He was an eloquent foe of the "soft heresies" that sidle up next to the Truth such as a false ecumenism.
For instance:

"If the Church has set out guidelines for admission to the Eucharist of non-Catholic Christians and if she rejects inter-communion, it is because Eucharistic communion is not a starting point, [emphasis supplied] but because it expresses and brings to perfection a communion that presupposes in its entirety: communion in the teaching of the apostles, in the sacraments and in communion with the Apostolic College which Peter is the head.
Sometimes that position, not being understood, seems to our Protestant brothers unjustly harsh. It is a fraternal duty, therefore, that the Church says it does not recognize the right to dispose at will of what is a gift received from her Lord. His attitude is adoration, praise, and obedience."

Which promises to be an important truth to hold on to this week.

Holy Week Film Festival

Himself is an old movie junkie, so I have no doubt that this evening or tomorrow he will begin his annual Viewing of the Passions.
I used to avoid tv this week, but now that I no longer have musical/liturgical duties I do have plenty of time, and I don't think watching certain films is an at all inappropriate way to turn ones thoughts on what our Lord has done for us, so when the DVDs come out, (yes, we're that old,) I'll probably join him for some.

There was an excellent television movie that's always in the rotation.  The crucifixion is harrowing, there are first-rate, A-lister performances, and I require about 3/4 of a large box of Puffs to be able to see anything by the end.

I can only watch parts of the Mel Gibson film, but the very end, where Christ stands, alive and naked and strides forth from the tomb into the world Made New Again? and the sunlight streams through the hole in his hand?

Epic. (And That is what that word means. It doesn't describe a kegger. Or a golf tournament. Or a new nail color.)
(That reminds me, last week EWTN showed a fascinating and very moving film about St Edith Stein, starring the thrilling actress who portrays the Blessed Mother in the PotC. Look for it.)

But a film popped into my head after Mass this morning, which, if you haven't, you should see, and Holy Week is a pretty fine time to do so.
We have a lovely mosaic of the infant Jesus behind the altar, and I suddenly remembered a scene in Robert Duvall's masterful The Apostle.

He plays a pentecostal preacher on the lam, and the story of sin, redemption, and amendment is eloquently told.
What is so good affecting about it is that while it is a satisfying plot, with a premise, action, narrative and conclusion, yes, an actual ending - it also is is about those processes of sin, redemption, and amendment in a post-lapsarian world, and the atonement is on-going.
It doesn't seem to say, once saved, always saved, at least to me.
Salvation, once found, can be lost.
Our conversion, our turning toward the Lord must be continuing - which is a very un-Protestant notion, no?

There is a magnificent scene where Duvall is preaching, and he picks up a baby from the congregation, and marvels with his congregation how beautiful the infant is, how perfect, look at his perfect little hands! How his parents must love him!
Can you imagine hurting such a lovely thing? Who would allow that?

How can we wrap our minds around a father, THE Father, Who loves us so much He would allow a nail to be driven into the palm of his Beloved, His Only-Begotten, His One-In-Being-With-Him Son?

We hardly can.

Deconstructing Christianity, Deconstructing Christ

A bit of shock, sadness and sniping at a Catholic Mass intended for those who have virtually no choice in the time or place of their corporate Catholic worship, or of the sensibility of ars celbrandi embodied in that Mass (which makes it all the more troubling, and cruel, when you consider the purpose of such broadcasts,) that makes use of a shocking, sad, and yes, worthy-of-snipe song. (By the way, this sacrilege took place several years ago, there is not reason to believe that those responsible for it, the problematic nature of such programming having been called to their attention, have not been admonished, been instructed, and amended their ways.)

Gaia? really? REALLY? is Gaia our creator, is she our redeemer, is she our advocate? is she the Word, is she homooúsios with the Trinity, which is then, what? ....a "quadrity"?

Patently not - nor is she a saint, not the mother of Jesus, not a member of the hosts of heaven; in brief, not someone who enjoys the beatific vision.

And if she ain't, WHY IN HELL DOES A CATHOLIC MASS CONCLUDE WITH A SONG IN PRAISE OF HER?

Really, if Catholics are going to sing, or listen to encomiums to her, why not address Tartarus at funeral Masses?
Oh, sure, in the bad ol' days it was mentioned as a place, but why not as a sentient being, a primordial being?
And why sing about Tartarus instead of to him? O Tartarus, please don't swallow the souls of the departed?
Or maybe, please don't "absorb" them - we might think of Tartarus as a collective like the Borg!

In the great timesuck that is Those Interwebs, I had to look into the source of the Bad Song that kicked off the discussion.
Unitarian Universalist.
Well, not exactly, she's part of "a loose community of women", (word order is everything,) but she is the composer of "most beloved song" of that sect.
And she is also one the creators of the Water Communion, a ritual with a long tradition - going back all the way to the 1980s!

Due to the nature of Unitarian Universalism, traditions vary from one congregation to another; however, most Water Communions follow the same general idea. Throughout the year, members of the congregation collect small amounts of water that have meaning for them, either from a special location (e.g., the family home, an ocean or river, memento of a trip) or a special occasion (first rain after a dry spell). At the service, the samples of water are placed in a single bowl so they can merge. Some of the water is often saved, sterilized, and then used for ceremonial purposes at other times of the year; the rest is returned to the world.
The symbolism, like that of the comparable Flower Communion, can be interpreted in various ways. The classic life-related symbolism of water is apparent. The rejoining of many waters can also symbolize the rejoining of the congregation after summer travels. McDade and Longview chose this way to honor the "journeys" of women, and to represent the way women both contribute to and draw from each other's strength, working both individually and together, to bring change. 

Mayhaps I am looking at this the wrong way, but the emphasis on women doesn't seem very, well.... inclusive.
But that's just me.
The "flower communion"?
A Unitarian minister, (do they call them "ministers"?)

saw the need to unite the diverse congregants of his church, from varying Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish backgrounds, without alienating those who had left these traditions. For this reason he honored the universal beauty of nature by having a communion of flowers instead of the Eucharist. 

In a religion that believes nothing in particular, don't the rituals mean nothing in particular?
Reading this, I wondered - was the danger of "alienation" from referencing something a congregant formerly had rejected? or formerly believed in?
Flowers are pretty, that something we can all get behind!
How would a former Catholic who had reject the tenets of the Faith react to echos of baptism, with PTSD or warm fuzzies?
But Unitarian practice has many echos of Christianity.
In looking at the "most beloved song," I watched a very well sung and arranged version on the Tube of Youse,  the visuals of which were pretty nature photography and the lyrics.
And then, mirabile dictu, the Corporal Acts of Mercy, (though not so named,) or bits of Matthew 25.
Who do most UUs think Jesus was, do you suppose?
Who spoke those words?
Someone Who spoke profound truth there, but was crazy or lying when He forgave sin, or claimed that "I AM" before Abraham was, or declared that the Father and He were One, or when He promised to send His Spirit?

Why, when they are so ready to humbly accept the transcendence of nature are they not ready to humbly accept the transcendence of God, why so unwilling to embrace their inability to understand the One-in-Three?

That is a common feature of modern man, no? Profound ambivalence about the supernatural.
Oh, we moderns couldn't believe in that, we're too knowledgeable for THAT, as he rejects the hard sayings of religion, (as if an Aquinas, or a Ratzinger, or a Lemaître is a silly, superstitious, uneducated, gullible, slightly dim hick,) and then fill the hole he has created in his his soul with vampires, or the earth, or aliens -- or the idol he has made of his Self.
Jesus - is He the Christ, the Son of God, the Logos? or is he, (note lower case,) just some nice Jewish teacher who died tragically young?
If the latter, why does He have such a hold on those who reject the former, why their continuing fascination, their inability to go their merry way and ignore Him, even, very often, their insistence on defining themselves in relation to Him in that very rejection?

Is a puzzlement.

Playboy Magazine and the Episcopalian Priest Who's a Big Fan of Abortion

What? you ask....
I read a little blurb about a woman who was ordained in the Episcopal church and believes God is "on the side" of those who favor a woman's right to dismember her unborn child, and filed an Amicus brief with the Supremes regarding the Texas law placing more stringent requirements on "health" facilities where unborn children are done away with.
Her letter of recommendation, (that killing an unborn child be considered hunky-dory and should therefore be expedited,) begins on pg 27 of the PDF.

Killing her child effected the usual Good Things. It kept it from being impossible to finish Divinity School, which carrying the child a few more months and giving him up for adoption would have put the kibosh on.
Not sure why - shopping for maternity clothes and a few days in the hospital and a few more recuperating would have put her that far behind in her studies? or Divinity schools in those days frowned on public immorality and might have suspected her guilty of fornication, or adultery or some such?

Probably not the latter, as the pregnancy was "accidental", (as in, slipping on a banana peel and landing on some guys gamete.)

Anyway, thanks to discarding her child she was able to lead Three Capital Campaigns (!!!) engage in various forms of activism, and, (this was the phrase that struck me, "help the enormous number of people whose lives she has touched."
One Little Life  vs. An Enormous Number of People.
Off one person who you don't really know, to contribute to the happiness of a whole bunch you do know, yourself first of all.

Hmm....
Sound familiar?
Of course it does!
Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella were in a movie a few years back, there was a Twilight Zone episode on tv, apparently a radio play (who knew there were radio plays in the 1970s?) and the germ of the idea actually traces back to Chateaubriand, (not the steak. What would Jesus eat?)

But Richard Matheson's short story is probably most responsible for the resonance the plot has today.

You know it, even if you think you don't - a couple, or family, or divinity student in dire straits. A sinister stranger offers the way out of all difficulties.
Only one thing is needful.
See this button? Push it, and all your worries will magically disappear!
The catch?
Someone will die.
Don't worry, someone you don't even know.
A stranger.
A "Chinaman" thousands of miles away.
A baby in your womb.
Does it really matter who?
YOUR WORRIES WILL BE GONE.

Push the button.

The Matheson story dates from 1970.
It was a gentler, less inclined to look favorably on the convenient murder of the inconvenient or inconsequential, and I doubt anyone read it without thinking the person who made the offer was the Devil, and taking the deal was to do evil.
In 1970, I'll bet even the readers and editors of Playboy, which first published the story, thought so.

Yeah. Playboy.

Think about that. The vanguard of the Consequence-free Sex Movement, "An Ye Harm None Have Fun, Do What Ye Will."

Even Playboy knew that not knowing the innocent person you would kill to make your own life easier didn't make a heinous act somehow all right.

Don't tell me you don't see the irony in that....

"Com'on, Hugh, push the button. You'll be famous, have a mansion, beautiful women will pretend to love you, you'll be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Just push the button.... oh, don't worry, Anne, I have a button for you, too. YOU, my dear, will be able to become a priest and  'help' people, like Mrs Jellyby did...."

Gee, If It Were an Inter-Denominational Service, the Lutherans Could Have Brought "Bars"

A funeral in Italy for the gentleman who invented the Moka, basically.... an elegant coffee pot.



Elegant enough for liturgical use? exemplifying "noble simplicity?"

Honestly, I don't know.
It wasn't to be funny, and it was meaningful to the family.
The Church now permits cremation, as long as it is not done to disparage belief in the Resurrection of the Body, and a container with sentimental significance to the family or the deceased is deemed appropriate by most people for the  grounds  remains.

Mmmmm.... bars.

I'd not heard that term, 'til Himself told me tales of touring small towns in the upper Midwest and parts of Canada, and the immense hospitality of the people.
But the concept is more than familiar to me. (I've subbed with Lutheran church choirs. There's this magic thing with butter and graham crackers.....)

Alas, I am Polish/Irish/Norman/Austrian-American Catholic, and I only bake anything of that sort at Christmass time.

"Not a 'Casual Catholic'” ? Sorry, Father, That's EXACTLY What She Was

A very sad story in USCatholic about a sibling who left the Church for warm fuzzies.
There is no specific acknowledgement that that is what she left for, there is talk of "spiritual needs" being unmet, finding "warm greetings", "uplifting music",  easy to read lyrics...

So yeah, warm fuzzies.

The evidence that she was not a "casual Catholic" is that before her apostasy, she "was involved in youth ministry, retreat leadership, and liturgy planning."

How could anyone who either didn't know about, or simply didn't believe in the Real Presence be allowed to be "involved in youth ministry, retreat leadership, and liturgy planning"?

Because I can state categorically, no one who did know and did believe would abandon Him, Present in the Sacrament, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, for warm greetings and an available pastor.

"As I drove home, I realized how adult-centered this church was. This is in stark contrast to the typical Catholic parish, where a lion’s share of its time and treasure are committed to the education of children"

So, instead of "child-centered," we should be more "adult-centered"?
No. In fact, NOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Here's an idea -
HOW ABOUT WE MAKE OUR CHURCHES THEOCENTRIC?
The writer, who is a priest, (THAT is sad,) blames the flight of those like his sister on the lack of adult involvement and formation available in Catholic parishes? poppycock - the primary source of formation and involvement is the Liturgy.
And if we present the Liturgy, as too many of us have for decades, as a place where readings from the Bible; fellowship with our co-worshippers; and catering to our fluid tastes in music, art and everything else, are just as important as or, sometimes it seems, even more important than the sacramental Presence of our Eucharistic Lord, well no wonder we have several generations of malformed, and therefore necessarily "casual" Catholics.
When our faith is dependant on activities and experiences and things that we can get elsewhere, when it is tied to incidentals, why stay?
Why go to Mass?

Make such a big deal of the box and the wrapping, ignore the contents, is it any wonder that the Greatest Gift is held cheap, ignored, TOSSED ASIDE as in this case?

Until the Blessed Sacrament regains its centrality in Catholic life, this is a sucker's game - the rock arena or the opera house will always have better music; the neighborhood pub is always going to offer better conversation and more fun, and the chance to be with people you really like; the library is going to be more informative; your psychoanalyst or you Mom will have more reassuring, easier to put in practice advice; and your favorite chair with a good reading lamp will make lectio divina more rewarding.

I have a suggestion for you non-casual Catholics - you "like" where you go to Mass now?

Go somewhere else once in a while.
That other parish with the wretched music. The pastor who puts you to sleep. The people you don't like. The ugly stained glass windows. The uncomfortable pews. The lousy parking lot.

Go to THAT Mass.

It'll remind you what, or rather Who you are really there for.

Wondering How the Atheist Minister Fared, So I'm Entering the Wayback Machine,...

...with Mr Peabody and Sherman?

Not exactly.

I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, I "get" the amorphous democracy of the definition of "information" on the Information Superhighway, I understand the voracious appetite for click-bait, and the concept of the slow news day, and the absence in most "news" outlets with nothing even remotely resembling a news gathering organization, so I have steeled myself to the existence of  absurdly out-of-date "news," with titles and ledes designed to provoke curiosity or outrage.

But every once in a blue moon I stumble across something from a while back and I am genuinely eager to know - how did it all turn out??!?!???
Sadly, it's often not really news so I am destined to live with disappointment.

An ordained United Church of Canada minister who believes in neither God nor Bible said Wednesday she is prepared to fight an unprecedented attempt to boot her from the pulpit for her beliefs.

In an interview at her West Hill church, Rev. Gretta Vosper said ...

“I don’t believe in...the god called God,” ...

Vosper, 57, who was ordained in 1993 and joined her east-end church in 1997, said the idea of an interventionist, supernatural being on which so much church doctrine is based belongs to an outdated world view....

“It’s mythology. We build a faith tradition upon it which shifted to find belief more important than how we lived.”

Vosper made her views clear as far back as a Sunday sermon in 2001 but her congregation stood behind her until a decision to do away with the Lord’s Prayer in 2008 prompted about 100 of the 150 members to leave. 

This was last August. So, how'd it all play out?

Well, a few weeks ago, it still hadn't.

Another denomination imploding?

Speaking of Dutifuls and Prodigals....

I'm not the nicest person in the world.
I like to make jokes, and I do it too often at other people's expense.
I'm trying not to snark too much at political figures at the moment, (not because they don't deserve it, but because politics is actually making me a little sick so I'm trying not to think about it,) and I fear that the excess snark not so utilized is being deployed in other directions.

So I don't want to make this too snarky, and I REALLY don't want to indulge in noting that some kettles share the same coloration as myself.

That said--

There seems to be a kind of dionysian glee, (a paradox, yes) taken in lamenting that certain persons who should not have received the Blessed Sacrament have partaken of the Eucharist throughout the Catholic blogosphere.

The commentary, (this is generally in com-boxes, not the work of writers with any reputation or standing,) almost wishes perdition on separated brethren and sistren rather than praying that they might be saved, that all might be one.

I do not condone the sacrilegious, (even if unintended, it is sacrilege,) reception of Communion at Mass, nor the fuzzy thinking and preaching that may have encouraged it, but come on - people must be presumed to be of good will, and people of good will need to be catechized, not have anathemas hurled at them.

There was an excellent reflection in Magnificat this past week, can't recall the writer, that essentially told of the truth of a Word being attested to in any of three way: the speaker can be trusted, the word itself is self-evidently true, or those who already hold it to be true inspire confidence in it.

Orthodox Catholics Are Obliged To Behave In A Manner Worthy Of The Vocation In Which The Are Called.

You cannot draw people to the Truth if you make that Truth seem ugly.

Holy Week Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

People seem quite broken up, for reasons noble and otherwise, about the official sanctioning of an illicit act that has been practiced in deliberate and, frankly, insolent disobedience, to whit -
Adding feminae selectae to the mix for the Holy Thursday foot-washing.

No doubt this will contribute to the local economy in some places as the demand for a quick pedi touch-up rises.

I think it can be a bit indelicate, (especially in consideration of the lack of sense, not to say decorum or modesty, too many exhibit in determining their outfits for Church,)  to have a priest kneeling with his face level with... well.

(And I think rewarding the flouting of liturgical law is bone stupid.)

Anyway, let the reminder go out, WEAR TROUSERS, LADIES!

That isn't the change that bothers me, I am alarmed and upset at the prospect of the day of Easter being fixed - oh, not that we and our Orthodox brothers and sisters, (and even the Anglicans, at least what's left of them in 5 to 10 years,) would finally get on the same page, (of the calendar,) but that it should be fixed, without regard to the lunar calendar, on the Xth Sunday of the month of Whosis every year.

 

It is, and should remain the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

The full moon in Holy Week, allowing for pilgrims to travel at night, and for greater visibility in Liturgies and devotions taking place out of doors after sundown is a lovely reminder of the way, even in a post-agrarian society, we are connected to nature, to the earth and the moon and the sun and the stars.

And we should be connected, in a far more profound way than we are connected to the fiscal calendar, or the school year, or when the rates go down for spring break travel.

Don't do it Fathers!
I'm not the only one., by the way, who feels strongly about this.

Big Honkin' Schismatic Chickens Coming Home to Roost

I genuinely feel for both sides in this, (hence by blocking out mention of the cause of their disagreement,) I do believe they are all trying, as they understand it, to live out their Gospel vocation, but seriously, what did they expect?
I do not hold with the borderline schismatics in the Church, (by which I mean the OHCA,) who say that our separated brethren best serve the Lord by trying to be the best separated brethren they can be rather than returning to the OHCA, but nor can I gloat over this shambles.

A meeting of national leaders of the Anglican Communion on Thursday issued a statement reprimanding the Episcopal Church, its American branch, for having allowed its clergy to [XXXXXXX].
“Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on [XXXXXXX] represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage,” a Jan. 14 statement from the meeting reads....
The Anglican Communion has been in tension in recent years over the issues of [XXXXXXX] . Since 2003, the Episcopal Church has made moves to be more tolerant of or even welcoming to [XXXXXXX] . These moves have drawn sharp criticism from Anglican communities elsewhere...
The Primates 2016 statement notes that “We gathered as Anglican Primates to pray and consider how we may preserve our unity in Christ given the ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of [XXXXXXX].”
“The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds [XXXXXXX]. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”
The statement called the Episcopal Church's decision “unilateral” and lacking “Catholic unity. 

 

"Unity, shmunity! where'd'ya THINK 

this was all gonna lead?"