“Bless, O Lord this new fire…

struck by us from flint-stone.”  And so opened our Great Vigil of Easter, 2007.  I celebrated the entire vigil by the Anglican Missal for the first time – all 12 prophecies, the full monty for the hallowing of the font, and a baptism complete with all of the exorcisms and anointings (and just check out that fire!).  Whew…three hours later we were beginning to wrap up.  I had used a hybrid of the missal and the Book of Common Prayer in previous years, and I decided this was the year to go all the way, as it were.  I am glad I did, but I had the unfortunate reality of facing an 8:00 AM said mass and a solemn high at 10:00 AM…as well as Missa Cantata at 1:00 PM.

But that was just the beginning…

 After celebrating the 1:00 with my mission congregation in Brimfield, I was too tired to drive all the way home in one shot, so Shelly and I stopped for a 20-minute dose of shut-eye at a rest stop on Interstate 74.

The 20 minutes turned out to be 2 1/2 hours.

My car lights were on.

At 7:30 I awoke with a start.  And a dead battery.  There was not a single service place open at 7:30 on the evening of Easter Day, and we had to rely upon our two best friends in Illinois – Sandy and Bill…my secretary and her husband – to get us back to Galesburg.

Monday morning I was planning on sleeping in until I had to go meet a mechanic to jump our car (a Toyota hybrid that no one wanted to jumpstart).  Early that morning I got a phone call telling me that there had been vandalism at the church – broken windows and whatnot.

Sigh.

Well, I made my way to the church, to find that a false alarm had been raised – there were NO broken windows, and no vandalism of any sort. Back home I went, to a cup of coffee, and some reading until the mechanic was ready.  $70.00 later I had my Toyota back, and I was showering and getting ready for mass for Easter Monday.

Maybe next Monday I can sleep in!

A blessed Bright Week it has been, anyway – I enjoyed a nice slice of Stilton this evening, along with a glass of wine.  This morning I had yet another hard-boiled egg.  Mmmmmmm.

It was worth the wait!

I Love my Wife!

Shelly is too cool!  Check out this video clip from Peoria TV…

Postcard from Home: Easter Eggs

I know her only lament is that she has been too busy teaching pysanky this Lent to actually do any eggs herself!

A Lengthy Lent

Well, no more lengthy than normal, of course, but I have been a little tied up, I just realized – someone informed me just today that there have been no posts on this blog in a long time, and it made me realize that the life of the parish has taken my undivided attention for a few weeks, and (almost) everything else in my life has been put on hold.  The upshot of all this is that I have not spent much time thinking about the strange things going on in the wider Anglican Church!

This past weekend I spent all day Saturday adminstering oral comprehensive ordination exams to the seminarians of our diocese, and after 8 hours of wearing my examining chaplain’s hat, I was ready for a nap that never came.  After the 1 hour drive back to town, I had a 5 PM Mass to celebrate, and meet with the new seminarian who has been assigned to my parish (I have 2 right now, along with 2 in-house aspirants!).  Then we set up for the big wing-ding planned for Sunday: Choral Evensong to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ordination for my predecessor in this parish. 

The Evensong was lovely, and I instituted him as “Rector Emeritus” of the parish – an honorary title.  A dinner followed (Eve of the Annunciation for us, and the discipline was relaxed a wee bit), and the 100+ people who shared the night with us had a good time, it appears.  My evening did not end until the wee hours of Monday morning.

Now, on this, Monday in the 5th week of Lent, and the Transferred Feast of the Annunciation, I am absolutely beat.  The water-meter guy came this morning to exchange my meter for a telemetric device…that has been the high point so far.  I fear that I am coing down with something as I have let myself get run down.  Shame on me.

I will eat a little food, drink some water, say my prayers, and try to get ready for mass this evening and a couple of brief hospital visits.

I am already looking forward to the day after Corpus Christi already, and that is more than 2 months off!

Gee, Ain’t Life Swell?

Well, yes, it is actually rather swell, in my humble estimation, but to follow on the heels of a previous post, I am flabbergasted at the triumphant joy that some conservative Anglicans are showing over the outcome of the Primates’ meeting, and the great expectations that many have.  Am I taking a cynical view of all this?  Should I just “get over it?”  Or am I feeling this way because:

a. I am just a cranky old curmudgeon, or

b. There really is something wrong with the whole experiment?

I am prone to go with “b”, but I am sure there are many, who at times, would vote for “a” (my wife being one of them, from time to time!).  However, I recall a terse yet wise response to a question of mine that I posed to Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon at the “Faith of our Fathers” colloquium in Detroit – I asked “could there be any hope for realigned Anglicanism in North America?” 

Father Patrick’s short response:

“No.”

‘Nuff said, I suppose.  His explanation of the answer was that we had strayed too far from the target – like an arrow that is fired just a degree off course.  As it gets closer to the target, it actually gets farther away from it, if you will.

My question lately is when this particular arrow will just run right out of forward inertia and drop to the earth?

Fasting and Weight Training

Patrick (my faithful subdeacon and personal trainer) has been concerned recently about my fasting.  He is concerned about the quality of protein that I am taking in during Lent, and I have to admit, I am curious about it.  I am curious about it purely in a “gee, that’s interesting” sort of way – not curious enough to allow it to affect the fast, mind you.  I was careful to look into my whey protein powder before Lent, of course – no actual whey in it, just the isolate of its proteins…so I am fine with getting my essential building blocks during these forty days. I also take several protein tablets daily, providing some BCAA’s (branched-chain amino acids), so I am sure that I am getting everything I really need.  Patrick’s concern and my curiosity lies in my appetite for solid meat proteins.

Normally (outside of fasting periods) I eat a decent amount of lean protein as we get on toward evening (post-workout, that is).  Just a few days into Lent, I find myself CRAVING lean meat after a hard workout.  Tonight I went and bought a can of smoked oysters (no spinal cords – acceptable during the fast, I am told) packed in spring water in an attempt to slake my post-workout protein-withdrawal jitters.  It has mostly worked, but when Becket dove for a little piece of oyster that fell from the can, I nearly got down on all fours and fought him for it.  Rrrrrrrrrrrr…rrrrrrr…raaarrrrr…..

Soooo…I am wondering if anyone out there has any tips on my protein-jonesin’.  I am not really hungry beyond bearability, per se – just wanting to sink my teeth into something that will help my body rebuild. Patrick has warned me against soy protein because of its estrogen-boosting qualitites, and so I mostly eat a bit of peanut butter here and there, my protein isolate mixed with water, and the odd oyster (as of tonight). If all else fails, I will just wait for the 8th of April and gorge myself on lamb, sausage, cheese,  and hard-cooked eggs!!

Huzzah!

Let’s take stock, shall we?

OK…while Becket and I were in the basement, pumping iron and listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I began thinking about the change of attitude that many Anglican colleagues of mine have had in the past few days, as it has become clear that the Primates issued a sterner warning to the Episcopal Church than was first understood.

“All righty,” I said to myself, “just how ‘good’ have things become since we realized that the Episcopal Church got sent to the principal’s office?” Let’s see what shape the Anglican Communion is in now, shall we?  Currently:

1. A woman who is posing as a bishop is at the head of the American branch.

2. Said woman is quoted as saying that she finds it totally unacceptable to think of Jesus Christ as the unique means of salvation.

3. Said woman refers to Jesus Christ merely as “our vehicle to the divine.”

4. This woman has now been graciously welcomed into the Primates’ meetings.

5. As if that is not enough, she has been elected to the Primates’ Standing Committee. Yikes!

6. The Church of England is a heartbeat away from allowing women bishops, which means that theoretically, in a relatively short period of time…

7. There could be a woman filling the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury (which would mean a vacant see…and no head of the Anglican Communion).

8. Some of the “Global South Bishops” in whom so many conservative American Anglicans place their trust have very different views on many central points of the Catholic faith – the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the role of Mary, the nature of Holy Orders.  Some are just downright protestant.

Hmmmmm…OK, I’ll bite – how is it that things are getting “better” for Anglicans?  From where Becket and I were sitting, it looks pretty freaky! 

Oh dear…time to drown my sorrows — mix me up a protein shake, Becket, and make it a double!

Ash Wednesday

“Aren’t you going to cover that up?” the fellow asked, pointing to the large Theotokos icon at the entrance to our chapel (right beside a Christ Pantocrator that I picked up last summer at Holy Ascension Monastery in Detroit).  “Goodness,” I thought to myself…”how could I cover an icon? People wouldn’t know what they’re venerating!”

Yes, it is the first day of our western Lent – Ash Wednesday, and while I was an obedient Anglo-Catholic priest and veiled our statues in the church, I could not bring myself to cover the icons before which I spend most of my prayer time.  I have never seen an icon veiled in purple during in Lent, but if there is someone out there who can speak to the broad Eastern tradition on the matter, I would be all ears.  Is there any tradition of veiling anything during Lent?  In churches where it seems as though every square inch of free space is covered in icons, it would be a bit much.  Is my desire to pray before our Lady without a barricade of purple gauze just selfish, or am I not thinking about this clearly enough?

Please do tell!

Aside from that minor speed-bump, the day has been mostly good, although I tend to get grumpy from lack of food (I think it was St. John the Golden-mouthed one who said something like “what good is it that we fast from food but devour our brother?” Ouch. Lord have mercy.).  My curate said mass early this morning for a small but faithful group – it was his first Ash Wednesday as a priest, and (as I have been throughout all of his fledgling ministry with me as his rector) I was honored to be his co-pilot in the blessing of the ashes! The mass this evening was very well attended, and I took the opportunity to preach and teach about the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, which I have introduced to the parish for daily use this Lent.  A very odd feeling, it was, though – the prayer strikes me as one of the most humbling prayers, and for me to try to adjure people to those things for which it asks made me feel very much as though I was looking in a mirror with a great big finger pointing back at me.  Yikes!  I had one of our dear friends in the congregation tell me afterwards that spending time contemplating the prayer makes her realize how much work she has to do.  “You and me, Gayle,” I replied, “you and me both. Pray for me – I’ll pray for you.”

How far short we all have fallen.  Glory to God for having come amongst us to make the dead come alive.  Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever!

 Hey…I think I heard that somewhere before…

I Feel Better Now…

Becket and I went and lifted weights in the basement after we read about the trainwreck in Dar es Salaam.  I had already drunk my afternoon dose of L-glutamine, and figured that as things could not get any worse, I would go pump some iron and listen to Pearl Jam.  An hour later I whipped up a nice protein drink, and slammed a few post-workout protein tablets…and you know what?  I didn’t care so much anymore about what an apostate bunch of schismatic western “Christian” bishops had just done (or failed to do)!

The truth is out there.  It always has been.  It isn’t going anywhere.  Put not your trust in Canterbury, but in Jesus Christ…and get yourself quickly to the Church that He founded!

This Ain’t Lookin’ Good…

Ruth Gledhill broke the story in the Times just a short time ago…

“Schori triumphs in Dar as new Anglican queen”

 That’s right…the presiding “Bishop” of the Episcopal “Church” has been elected to the Anglican Primates’ Standing Committee.

In the words of REO Speedwagon…

I believe its time for me to fly
Oh, Ive got to set myself free
Time for me to fly
And thats just how its got to be
I know it hurts to say goodbye
But its time for me to fly

Lord, have mercy.

Monday, Monday…

Whew…what a weekend.  I can’t really say what it was that made it such a tiring couple of days, but something sure did me in! 

Ash Wednesday is this week, and I feel wholly unprepared for Lent, somehow.  Shelly and I have for the past 5 or 6 years embraced an Eastern fast for Lent, although we have kept it for a slightly shorter time and not nearly as strictly as we should have at times.  This year we are trying to be faithful to the fast as far as we understand it, although once again I find myself making little exceptions – as of today we are already fasting, yet tomorrow is our parish Mardi Gras celebration.  Will I have a glass of wine, some shrimp etoufee (however it is spelled), and king cake?  I most certainly will.  Heck, I may even dip a strawberry or three into the chocolate fountain.  Sigh…

OK. So much for keeping the fast entirely as we would have liked!  One of these years…

Anyhow, what I had really intended to do with this post was to express suprise and alarm over a post I read in the Times (London).  “Churches Back Plan to Unite Under Pope” by Ruth Gledhill appeared in the Times and has been variously recieved around the Anglican world, as far I can see.

Yikes!

I do not think this could happen in my lifetime, but it will certainly make for interesting discussion at the next deanery meeting!  I, for one, left Rome many years ago, and have no desire to return.  While remaining an Anglican is not a healthy option for the long term, neither is submitting to the authority of the Bishop of Rome. I don’t find the west as understandable as I used to, and I feel more and more like an “ecumenical observer” from another planet. 

Such an interesting time in the Anglican Communion.  As Bishop Stanley Atkins (of blessed memory) quipped about what he wanted carved upon his gravestone, “The Episcopal Church – I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Lord, have mercy.