Unlock Your Soul, and Welcome Him in Your Mind

July 10, 2009

sun beaming

Yesterday’s Office of Readings Tradition text, from St. Ambrose, struck me as particularly interesting. The basic thrust of it (listed below) is that the Creator of the universe wants a relationship with us, yet he will not force himself on us. God is not a thief who enters into our hearts and minds rudely against our will. Instead, God is a loving being that beckons us to have a relationship with himself, the One who made this vast and marvelous universe. In fact, Ambrose mentions that the Logos visits us, in love, and “knocks at our door” when we are in the middle of trial and temptation, which is fitting given that the Christian definition of love is willing what is best for the other. Basically, God is waiting for us to let him in, and trust in him. We should “desire the brightness of perpetual light that no night can obscure.”

My father and I will come to him and make our home with him. Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men. Indeed that true light shines on all; but if anyone closes his shutters against it then he will defraud himself of the eternal light. To close the doors of your mind is to exclude Christ. Of course he is capable of entering even so, but he does not want to force his way in or seize you against your will.

Born of the Virgin’s womb, he shone on the whole world to give light to all. It is received by those who desire the brightness of perpetual light that no night can obscure. For the sun that we see daily in the sky is followed by darkness and night; but the Sun of righteousness never sets, since evil cannot defeat wisdom.

Blessed is he, therefore, at whose door Christ comes knocking. Faith is the door of the soul, and if it is strong then it fortifies the whole house. Through this door Christ enters. Thus it is that the Church herself says, The voice of my brother is knocking on the door. Listen to him knocking, listen to him asking to be let in: Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair with the drops of night.

You see that when the Word of God knocks hardest on your door, it is when his hair is wet with the dew of the night. In fact he chooses to visit those who are in tribulation and trial, lest one of them be overwhelmed by distress. So his head is covered with dew, with drops, when his body is labouring hard. It is important to keep watch so that when the Bridegroom comes, he is not shut out. If you are asleep and your heart is not keeping watch, he will go away without knocking; but if your heart is alert for his coming, he knocks and asks for the door to be opened to him.

Thus you see that our soul has a door, but we have gates too, as the psalm says: Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors, and let the king of glory enter. If you choose to raise your gates, the King of glory will come to you, celebrating the triumph of his own Passion. For righteousness has gates, as we see it written when the Lord Jesus speaks through his prophets: Open to me the gates of righteousness.

It is the soul that has its door, it is the soul that has its gates. To that door Christ comes and knocks, he knocks at the door. Open to him, therefore: he wishes to come in, the Bridegroom wishes to find you keeping watch.

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Posted by David Bennett

From WSJ: Losing Confidence in Marriage

July 3, 2009

Excellent food-for-thought from the Wall Street Journal:

…In any crisis, people tend to panic and forget basic facts. This meltdown is no exception. First and foremost, marital breakdown is not rampant across the land. It is concentrated among low-income and black couples. Americans seem to have a lot of trouble grasping this fact, probably because so much public space is taken up by politicians, celebrities and journalists with marriages on the skids. But in actuality, the divorce rate for college-educated women has been declining since 1980. Out-of-wedlock childbearing among the educated class remains rare. The bottom line is that higher-income, college-educated couples are far more likely to get married and stay married than their less-educated and lower-income peers. We shouldn’t go so far as to call Ms. Loh and Mr. Sanford, if he decides to return to the heart he left in Buenos Aires, outliers. But they do nothing to clarify a key problem facing the country, which remains the apartheid state of marriage.

The seemingly reasonable notion that marriage is crashing because we’re likely to live till 80 also doesn’t hold up. The typical divorce is not of a midlife couple bored with finishing each other’s sentences; it’s of a twosome who have just written the last thank-you note for wedding gifts. More than one-fifth of marriages break up within five years. The median age at first divorce is 30.5 for males and 29 for females. The risk of break-up goes up after one year of marriage and peaks at 4½ years. That’s right. A lot of Americans barely wait till the paint is dry in the new family room before setting out for more promising territory…

Read it All

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Posted by David Bennett

Does It Really Need Changed?

July 1, 2009

I was reading some of the pieces of legislation at the 2009 Episcopal General Convention, happening now. There are your usual (and many) resolutions calling for same-sex marriage rites, and even some talk of formalizing “open communion,” but one I was reading through really bothered me, and it was B004, Hymnal Revision Study. The rationale for hymnal revision is as follows:

The world of this new millennium is very different from that of the prior century, when The Hymnal 1982 and its predecessors were created. Rapid liturgical, cultural and technological change continue to have an impact on the lives of all the faithful. A study of the need for a new hymnal for the Episcopal Church would explore sensitivity to expansive language, the diversity of worship styles, the richness of multicultural and global liturgical forms, and the enduring value of our Anglican musical heritage.

This seems to me to be code for “the old hymns aren’t politically correct enough for modern people, so let’s further chop them up so a few people on the TEC liturgical committees don’t get their heart rates up every time God is called ‘Father.’” Derek had an excellent piece up awhile back about the incessant need to tamper with the Book of Common Prayer (and was accused of being cranky by another blogger!), and I myself often wonder where the desire for constant liturgical revision comes from. Granted, I approve of the new translation of the English Catholic Mass, but that is because the new translation actually undoes some of the more radical work done by the ICEL in the past.

When I was in Episcopal seminary for a quarter we started out using straight Morning Prayer from the BCP for our daily worship. Good, right? Absolutely. However, the next quarter, the plan was to begin using trial materials from “Enriching Our Worship” because the BCP wasn’t inclusive enough. This was because a few students complained about it, even though these same people changed the words to the BCP as they said then anyway (for example, all the “he” pronouns in the psalms were replaced with “she” pronouns…while, of course, everybody else read the texts as written). Mind you, besides these two people, we all loved the BCP, and ranted and raved to that effect, but the squeaky wheels get the grease. I guess my point is that I don’t think there is a strong demand to change hymns and alter the BCP, but the people “in the know” and who complain the loudest make it out that your average Christian just can’t handle more traditional liturgy.

There will be a lot of talk about this General Convention and same-sex marriage, but an even bigger issue may be liturgical issues, like “open communion,” church calendar revision, and the calls for new hymns and liturgies.

3 Comments | Anglican and Episcopal | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Just in Time for Ss. Peter and Paul

June 29, 2009

Today is the solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul, and the Vatican has announced some major news relating to St. Paul. The Vatican recently unearthed what has long been venerated as the tomb of St. Paul. They found what is believed to be the oldest representation of St. Paul. Scientists performed Carbon dating, and the individual found inside does date to the period of St. Paul, so it very well could be the actual tomb of St. Paul. It is, of course, very ancient tradition that both Peter and Paul died in Rome.

Below is today’s Tradition reading from the Office of Readings (translation by Universalis.com), from a homily of St. Augustine:

This day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. These martyrs had seen what they proclaimed, they pursued justice by confessing the truth, by dying for the truth.

The blessed Peter, the first of the Apostles, the ardent lover of Christ, who was found worthy to hear, And I say to you, that you are Peter. He himself, you see, had just said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ said to him, And I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. Upon this rock I will build the faith you have just confessed. Upon your words, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my Church; because you are Peter. Peter comes from petra, meaning a rock. Peter, “Rocky,” from “rock”; not “rock” from “Rocky.” Peter comes from the word for a rock in exactly the same way as the name Christian comes from Christ.

Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter’s acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church’s universality and unity, when he was told, To you I am entrusting, what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained.

Quite rightly, too, did the Lord after his resurrection entrust his sheep to Peter to be fed. It is not, you see, that he alone among the disciples was fit to feed the Lord’s sheep; but when Christ speaks to one man, unity is being commended to us. And he first speaks to Peter, because Peter is the first among the apostles. Do not be sad, Apostle. Answer once, answer again, answer a third time. Let confession conquer three times with love, because self-assurance was conquered three times by fear. What you had bound three times must be loosed three times. Loose through love what you had bound through fear. And for all that, the Lord once, and again, and a third time, entrusted his sheep to Peter.

There is one day for the passion of two apostles. But these two also were as one; although they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, Paul followed. We are celebrating a feast day, consecrated for us by the blood of the apostles. Let us love their faith, their lives, their labours, their sufferings, their confession of faith, their preaching.

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Posted by David Bennett

OCA To Do Ecumenism with New Anglican Group

June 26, 2009

For those of you who haven’t been following religious news on the net, a group of former Episcopal bishops, conservatives who have left TEC, and others, have formed the Anglican Church in North America, and it has been recognized as a legitimate Anglican body by some worldwide leaders of the Anglican Communion as an alternative to the Episcopal Church. In other words, six years after Gene Robinson’s consecration, some sort of actual “re-alignment” may be occurring.

At the ACNA recent gathering, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America spoke of entering into ecumenical relations with ACNA, rather than the Episcopal church. He spoke of certain things that would have to be addressed before the Orthodox Church would ever enter into full communion with this new Anglican body, and these issues are:

1) ACNA must affirm the 7 ecumenical councils
2) Removal of the Filioque clause must occur
3) Calvinism is a “condemned heresy” and must be denied
4) “Anti-Sacramentalism” must be denied
5) Iconoclasm must end
6) Ordination of women must “be resolved”

In other words, there is no way in you-know-where that the Orthodox Church in America is ever going to enter into full communion with ACNA (or TEC, of course). There are already prominent Anglican conservatives defending Calvinism, and rejecting the fifth, sixth, and seventh ecumenical councils. If an Anglican wants to be Orthodox, there is really nothing stopping him or her from actually becoming Orthodox. The ACNA was not set up to become Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. Any historical Church that is thinking of entering into ecumenical relations with ACNA needs to realize that while ACNA does have a fair-share of sacramental, Anglo-Catholic, folks, a good chunk (the majority?) are evangelicals, and many are evangelical Calvinists. While some evangelicals oppose women’s ordination, others have no problem with it.

If I were still Anglican, ACNA might be a slightly better alternative to TEC, but honestly, it seems to me like it is similar to the same hodge-podge of different beliefs that currently make up TEC and Anglicanism worldwide, except instead of being united by the English crown (or perhaps the prayer book), the ACNA folks are united in their opposition to the moral and theological direction of TEC. Thus we have yet another tenuous alliance. Honestly, I think unification by the crown or prayer book makes for a more lasting alliance than unification by opposition to someone else. I may be looking at ACNA in the most negative way possible. I realize this, but I just can’t see hardcore evangelicals and hardcore Anglo-Catholics, who have strongly differing views on fundamental issues, remaining united too long, especially now that they have effectively left TEC.

…And in other  news, conservative Episcopal bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carlolina basically admits that the conservative voice within TEC is so tiny and fractured, that working inside the system for change is basically pointless.

8 Comments | Anglican and Episcopal, Orthodoxy | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Some Humor: Ignatius the Youth Pastor

June 24, 2009

1 Comment | Humor | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

The Year of the Priest

June 22, 2009

john vianney

The pope has declared June 19, 2009-June 10, 2009, as the Year of the Priest, and has made St. John Vianney the universal patron of priests. In our modern society, being a priest is difficult (it has never been necessarily easy), and I think it is important to recognize those who serve us and the Church.

There are educational and prayer materials at the link I provided above, but I also want to highlight the U.S. Bishops’ Meet Our Priests Class of 2009 Page, which has a lot of information on those being ordained in 2009. There really are a lot of good things happening in our Church, and this is one of them.

Saint John Vianney, pray for us, and for our priests!

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Posted by David Bennett

Saint Bonaventure, From Today’s Reading

June 19, 2009

From today’s Office of Readings Tradition Reading (via Universalis), for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart:

Take thought now, redeemed man, and consider how great and worthy is he who hangs on the cross for you. His death brings the dead to life, but at his passing heaven and earth are plunged into mourning and hard rocks are split asunder.

It was a divine decree that permitted one of the soldiers to open his sacred side with a lance. This was done so that the Church might be formed from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death on the cross, and so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘They shall look on him whom they pierced’. The blood and water which poured out at that moment were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.

Arise, then, beloved of Christ! Imitate the dove ‘that nests in a hole in the cliff’, keeping watch at the entrance ‘like the sparrow that finds a home’. There like the turtledove hide your little ones, the fruit of your chaste love. Press your lips to the fountain, ‘draw water from the wells of your Saviour; for this is the spring flowing out of the middle of paradise, dividing into four rivers’, inundating devout hearts, watering the whole earth and making it fertile.

Run with eager desire to this source of life and light, all you who are vowed to God’s service. Come, whoever you may be, and cry out to him with all the strength of your heart. “O indescribable beauty of the most high God and purest radiance of eternal light! Life that gives all life, light that is the source of every other light, preserving in everlasting splendour the myriad flames that have shone before the throne of your divinity from the dawn of time! Eternal and inaccessible fountain, clear and sweet stream flowing from a hidden spring, unseen by mortal eye! None can fathom your depths nor survey your boundaries, none can measure your breadth, nothing can sully your purity. From you flows ‘the river which gladdens the city of God’ and makes us cry out with joy and thanksgiving in hymns of praise to you, for we know by our own experience that ‘with you is the source of life, and in your light we see light’.

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Posted by David Bennett

Free Latin-English Day Hours Breviary

June 17, 2009

From the 1962 Catholic Breviary. It looks pretty good, and it is free in .pdf form.

H/T Derek

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Posted by David Bennett

Episcopal Sisters Swim the Tiber

June 15, 2009

Young Fogey has blogged that most of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor are soon to become Catholic. Two sisters will remain Episcopalian for the time being, although the rest have apparently made the commitment to swim the Tiber. It turns out that the chaplain of the sisters is a former pastor of mine, Fr. Warren Tanghe, from when I attended an Anglo-Catholic parish in Atlanta. Word is that he too is coming Romeward, which is not surprising given his theology (although I do recall him having a discussion with a supply priest from the parish, who eventually swam the Tiber himself, about the role of the pope, and Fr. Tanghe was not the “anglo-papalist” that this supply priest was). The sisters have a rich history, and a very traditional understanding of themselves and their vocations; they also make and sell holy cards, if you are interested in their products.

YF also mentioned rumors about the Vatican setting up some sort of generous plan for Anglican parishes worldwide that wish to become Roman Catholic. This falls under the “I’ll believe it when I see it” category, but I think Anglicans, when they are traditional, do liturgy very, very, very, well, and we will be much richer if even a few Anglicans take us up on such an offer.

UPDATE:

Here are a few links that provide more information on the All Saints Sisters becoming Roman Catholic:

Home to Rome

Anglican Convent of All Saints Sisters to be Received in Full Communion

8 Comments | Anglican and Episcopal, Converts and Conversion | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Archbishop Gomez: Evangelization Counters Secularization

June 12, 2009

Speaking to American Hispanic Catholics, Archbishop Gomez of San Antonio issued a call for the raising up of Hispanic Catholic leaders, with an emphasis on the re-evangelization of America (emphasis mine).

…In his address, titled “La predicación y la enseñanza: Evangelization, Education, and the Hispanic Catholic Future,” the archbishop mentioned such problems as a consumerist approach to religion and certain Protestant preachers’ exploitation of the “poverty and insecurity” of Hispanics…

…Archbishop Gomez said the most serious problem Catholic Hispanics face is the “dominant culture” in the United States which is “aggressively, even militantly secularized…”

“Definitely, we need to raise up Hispanic Catholics leaders, and we need a pastoral plan to educate Hispanics in the faith and to nourish them with the sacraments,” Archbishop Gomez said. “But this must be part of a wider evangelical strategy. We need to commit ourselves again to the work of re-evangelization, to preaching the Gospel again to America.”

Noting the rise in high school dropout rates and single-parent families among Hispanics, the archbishop said, “I worry that we may be ministering to a permanent Hispanic underclass.”

Hispanics have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births and abortion, he added, saying these cannot be written off as just “conservative” issues.

“[W]e need to find new ways to keep our kids chaste and in school, and to instill in them the value of education,” he advised. “We need to push for real improvements in public education, and in public support for private education, especially in our poorest school districts. And we need to assemble all the resources of our own network of Catholic schools to meet this challenge.”

The archbishop then further underlined the need for evangelization.

“Hispanic ministry should mean only one thing—bringing Hispanic people to the encounter with Jesus Christ in his Church. Too often, I’m afraid, we lose sight of that,” he said, warning that Catholics should not mistake the “means” of programs and bureaucratic administration for this most important end.

“The proclamation of Jesus Christ must be the criteria against which we measure everything we do in Hispanic ministry,” he continued. “Are we making new disciples? Are we strengthening the faith of those who have already been made disciples? Is the knowledge and love of Christ spreading through our work?”

Read it All

A challenging call not just to American Hispanics, but to all of us!

1 Comment | Culture Wars, Evangelization, Morality and Moral Issues | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Fr. Jeffrey Steel is Swimming

June 8, 2009

I just read, via A Conservative Blog for Peace, that Fr. Jeffrey Steel, Anglo-Catholic Anglican priest, is swimming the Tiber. I am not surprised, As Fr. Steel has leaned in the Romeward direction for some time. From Fr. Steel’s post:

My PhD studies really set me on my Catholic journey in a deep theological way though I did not realise it at the time. I have been looking at Bishop Lancelot Andrewes as a catalyst for ecumenism with the Catholic Church in the area of Eucharistic sacrifice. Andrewes was in regular dialogue with S. Robert Bellarmine SJ and it is in this dialogue and Andrewes’ other writings that I saw how Catholic he was with regards to the Eucharist being the Christian offering which consisted of more than a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. It was and is propitiatory as well as other things.

Through my time of study in Catholic sacramental theology and viewing my own priestly ministry within this theological framework the question of communio began to frequently come to mind. I had fully embraced Catholic sacramental theology and believed that I could be a Catholic in the Church of England and planned on retirement from the C of E later in life. With all that is going on around the Anglican Communion presently, and particularly within the C of E and how she makes decisions on matters of doctrine, I began to ask questions about authority. As a theologian praying for reunion with the Holy See the question I was now asking was, ‘on whose terms does this reunion take place?’

What I became aware of was that it was almost impossible to say ‘the Church teaching is’ within the Anglican church because there are so many various opinions on matters of sacraments, liturgy, morality, scripture etc. What I did not want to experience anymore was proclaiming the teaching of the Church only to end up defending myself rather than the Anglican church defending me. This has become an ever-increasing impossibility that is no secret to the entire Anglican world. My preaching would always be seen as a matter of personal opinion rather than having the authority of the Magisterium that backs up what I teach publicly. Of course there is dissent in the Catholic Church but it is always that, dissent towards what Mother Church proclaims as authoritatively true. It is the truth of Mother Church that I embrace as my own deep personal faith.

In January of this year I began to seriously pray about my journey and was moving deeper into the question of communio. What was God saying to me and why did he bring me all the way to England to have me consider the possibility of becoming a Catholic? What about the last 19 years of my life and the pursuit of serving him in full-time ministry? What do I do about the ever-increasing reaffirmation and sense of call to vocational priesthood? These items I took to prayer with Ss Bede and Cuthbert at the Durham Cathedral each Friday during Lent. There I prayed for requests given to me by people from around the world and my own spiritual journey was a part of this prayer ministry. I gave myself to Mary and her Son and said ‘please lead and guide in the way you want me to go either by remaining a priest in the C of E or a move to the Catholic Church’. At this time I scheduled my retreat during Easter week to make a spiritual journey and pilgrimage to Rome. I had a number of meetings there with priests and a former Episcopal bishop (Father Jeffrey Steenson) who had converted from Anglicanism as well as an American Catholic priest who is in Rome finishing his PhD on the Pastoral Provision of the late Pope John Paul II.

In my heart, I knew that I had grown to love and believe the Catholic faith as it was taught in the Catholic Catechism. On my final day in Rome on 17 April 2009 I went to the tomb of S. Peter and knelt and prayed for quite some time. I knew in my heart I was a Catholic and asked what it was that was keeping me from converting. All sorts of fears ran through my head and I felt very restless there and at times just knelt quietly asking S. Peter to pray for me because I didn’t know how or the way to go. At the end of this time I went over and knelt at JPII’s tomb and asked him to please pray for me as I was scared to make a journey like this with a wife and six children not knowing how God would provide for us.

After praying with JPII, I got up and went to S. Peter’s tomb again and there with conviction of heart signed the Roman Catholic Catechism stating ‘This is the Faith of the Church and this is my Faith’, and signed my name with the day’s date. Before leaving the Basilica I walked over to the statue of S. Peter with the key in his hand, rubbed his foot, and said, ‘I am going out to find the way, open the door and make this happen and pray for me as I make this journey.’

One week later I was in a meeting with a couple of Catholic bishops in London. I had made the commitment in my heart that coming home to the Catholic Church was God’s plan for me. I have now made the biggest jump I have ever made in my life and I am trying really hard not to struggle too much as I fall while waiting for God to catch me. The one thing that has not changed in my heart but has only grown over the past nine years is my desire to remain in England as a Catholic. This desire has been confirmed through much prayer and discernment and all signs point to us remaining in England for the entirety of our lives. For numerous reasons, I am discerning God calling me to the southern region of the country, which has been my plan for three years. London will be our new home and if I am ever to be priested in the Catholic Church it is where I will be incardinated…

Maybe we’ll call it an [un]even exchange for Fr. Cutie…

3 Comments | Anglican and Episcopal, Converts and Conversion | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

The Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity

June 7, 2009

That would be today…Trinity Sunday. Denied by many, the Trinity remains a beautiful paradox of Christian faith. Today is the day we especially immerse ourselves in the mystery of God!

Here is an excerpt from the Letter of Athanasius to Serapion, the reading for today in the Liturgy of the Hour’s Office of Readings:

We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly, in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.

Leave a Comment » | Liturgical Year | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

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