The Truth about Thanksgiving

It’s nearing Thanksgiving again, and so it’s time to remind everyone again of the Truth about Thanksgiving.  For your convenience, you may read that article by clicking here.

 

 

Bones of what Kind?

My youngest daughter has recently taken to watching episodes of the TV show “Bones.”  This sentence sounds innocuous, but it doesn’t really describe the phenomenon: she watches hour after hour.  In a couple weeks she’s worked her way through seasons one through three, borrowing each season’s DVDs from her sister.  Inevitably I have seen more than a few of these episodes.  At first, I was horribly put off by the eponymous skeletons, and even more so by the crimes.  But something caught my attention.

I thought for a while that the interest, at least for my generation, was a little historical.  After all, we grew up watching police shows and doctor shows on television, and here is a show that combines the two.  Or so I had thought.  Perhaps that is what drew my attention.  Initially.  But then I was intrigued by the “squints,” the geeky scientists.  These characters could have been my friends from high school and college, the people I most related with.  The show has dialogue that is witty and erudite, qualities lacking on television since the end of “Frasier.”  Even better, “Bones” (the show) doesn’t feel the need to repeat every step of reasoning and logic, trusting viewers to be bright enough to follow along and skip the occasional bit: it is intelligent television.

But then the flash of intuition illuminated: the character of Seeley Booth, played very well by David Boreanaz, the same fellow who had brought us the character of Angel from the two vampire series: Buffy and Angel.  Booth is not a squint, which is not to say he’s not intelligent; he’s extremely so.  Booth is, however, strong, moral, just, a straight-shooter (no puns necessary as the character is not only an ex-soldier but an ex-sniper).  He is not only a Boy Scout type, he is knightly in his virtue…his duty is to protect and defend others.  Booth is the white knight.

Now, not only is it good to see this sort of character, it is fabulous to see this archetypal Boy Scout not only portrayed well but shown not as a target for mocking, but as a real hero, acted with a straight face and respected and honored by the rest of the cast.

I take comfort in the fact that while my generation is the one that spent decades confusing cynicism and the hermeneutic of doubt with intelligence and “coolness”, the demographics of “Bones” watchers shows the generations X and Next to be not as easily fooled as were we Boomers.  If the teens and twenty-somethings can see the values that Booth represents, and valorize them, then mayhap the country is ready to turn a corner and recover from the disastrous 60s – 90s!  Thanks be to God!

 

It is finished!

Preached Good Friday, A+D 2009 (11 April 2009) at St George’s Anglican Church (CANA/ACNA), Colorado Springs, for a “Pan-Anglican” service of Good Friday meditations on Jesus’ words from the Cross.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“It is finished.”

For a minute, let’s look at earlier words from our Lord. “Who do you say that I am?” That’s the question that Jesus asked the disciples. He asked them this while they were in the middle of Gentile territory – surrounded by pagans and worshippers of idols – the very idols that St Paul tells us are really demons in disguise. And our Lord asked “who do you say that I am?” That may be the most important question every Christian – every soul – has to answer.

How we answer that question may be affected by the picture we have of Jesus. How do we see Jesus? Which Jesus do we see? Which picture of Jesus do we carry around in our minds and our hearts?

 

Lent and Discipline

Here it is again–Happy Lent!
Lent helps us enter the deepest and most important mysteries of what it truly means to be human—spirit and flesh fused together. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. Ashes remind us of our mortality. The ashes which are blessed and traced in the form of a cross on our forehead come from the palms of a previous Palm Sunday, also reminding us that the very praises of Hosanna which we sang turn to dust when we deny Our Lord through sin. Lent is a time of self denial. As Anglican Catholics we need to understand three things about Lent: fasting, abstinence, and discipline.

 

The Anglican Catholic Express

If you’ve been watching the blogosphere in the last week, you’ll have seen a lot of excitement.  If you haven’t noticed it, I’ll detail it for you before I make my own comments.

First off, it seems, an article appeared in The Record, a respected Australian Catholic newspaper, on Wednesday, January 28th.  This article, titled “Healing the Reformation’s Fault Lines,” gave a brief background summary of the ecumenical conversation between the Traditional Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church, a conversation that has been going on for nearly three decades.

It seems that the thirty years of conversation are about to bear fruit.

 

Priests at Our Lady of the Snows

Here’s a picture that was late coming in due to technical difficulties, but it is at last here, so I’m posting it here now.

These are the clergy of the Society of St Michael (SSM) who were present at the Anglican Church in America’s general synod in October of 2008 at the national shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleview, IL.

(L-R: Bp Stephen Strawn SSM, Fr Richard Sutter SSM, Fr Nicholas Taylor Obl.OSB SSM, Fr Terrence Keller SSM, Fr Michael Sclafani SSM, Archbishop John Hepworth,  Fr Terence Gross SSM, The Rev’d Dr William Wiener SSM, Fr Carlton Clarke SSM, Fr John Wesley Westcott III SSM.)

His Grace, the Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, very kindly consented to be photographed with us.  Clearly, we must have been hoping some holiness and wisdom would rub off on us!

 

The First Thanksgiving

A priest friend of mine makes a point of preaching special holiday sermons—sermons that are myth-busters, in which he takes a popular idea or belief about that holiday and shows how those ideas or beliefs are false.  His reasoning is that holidays are the only times some people go to church, and so he may not get the opportunity to preach again to those people for several months—so he has to hit them while he can! 

This is the season where, in America, everywhere you look you’ll see pilgrims and Indians and turkeys.  You’ll see specials on television about what is referred to as “the first Thanksgiving.”

The pilgrims must have had the best PR available, because they didn’t really have the first Thanksgiving!

Actually, I’m thankful that they didn’t.  The so-called pilgrims, were the enemy.  They hated us.  They hated our church, our Prayerbook, and our bishops.  They wanted to put as much distance between us and them as possible.  The puritan separatists were coming to North America not for freedom of religion, as their PR says, but for two reasons.  First, they wanted to get away from everything that makes Anglican Christianity what it is, such as tradition, liturgy, sacraments, even Christmas!  Second, they wanted the power to force everyone else to also.  No, I have no sympathy, no affection, no respect for those pseudo-Christians at all!

 

The Miracle of Healing

Take a look at this young lady.  This picture was taken on September first of this year.

On September first she underwent emergency cardiovascular surgery for an enlarged heart and a tear in her aorta and had her aortic valve replaced.

Her mother flew to Denver from Georgia to be with her.

Her fiance sat with her non-stop. 

Clergy gave her the sacraments of unction and eucharist.

And of course, lots of people all over the world were praying for her.

Probably many of you reading this were among those praying for her.  At one point at the hospital, a small child pointed down at her in her room and said she saw Jesus.  We have no doubt that he was there, holding her.  This is the same young lady 33 days later:  

  

This is the power of prayer. 

Thanks be to God! 

And thank you, Ven. John Henry Newman, St Michael, St Jude, and our blessed Lady Mary.

We are so blessed!

 

Christians and Hallowe’en

In recent years we have started to hear some Christian groups encouraging Christians not to observe Hallowe’en, not to let our children trick-or-treat, not to go to costume parties. Many of those groups urge churches to have “harvest parties” as an alternative, or even just ignore the day entirely and pretend it doesn’t exist. Why do they feel this way?

A few years ago I wrote a tract about this topic, and last year I finally dressed it up for printing.  Please have a look before you buy into anyone’s odd ideas.

christians-and-halloween-brochure

 

Anglican Mass in Modern English – Beta

I have received numerous comments privately and on the Anglo-Catholic Central forum, for which I am very thankful.  Please accept my gratitude, all who passed on your thoughts to me.

As a result, please see the second draft of the Anglican Mass in Modern English.  Again, I welcome your critique.