The Seventh Sunday of Easter

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

What Are the Instruments of Good Works

22. Not to give way to anger.
23. Not to nurse a grudge.
24. Not to entertain deceit in one's heart.
25. Not to give a false peace.
26. Not to forsake charity.
27. Not to swear, for fear of perjuring oneself.
28. To utter truth from heart and mouth.
29. Not to return evil for evil.
30. To do no wrong to anyone, and to bear patiently wrongs done to oneself.
31. To love one's enemies.
32. Not to curse those who curse us, but rather to bless them.
33. To bear persecution for justice' sake.
34. Not to be proud.
35. Not addicted to wine.
36. Not a great eater.
37. Not drowsy.
38. Not lazy.
39. Not a grumbler.
40. Not a detractor.
41. To put one's hope in God.
42. To attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good one sees in oneself.
43. But to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing, and to impute it to oneself.

A Community of Love

The church is a community of love where the personal presence of Jesus Christ is known and where his love masters the community and builds it into a genuine unity. Normal human communities are characterized by a clearly defined restriction on membership, by a definite limitation on the commitment required of its members, and by demands which are quite explicit and acceptable to those who join. In God's church, men and women are called to go beyond this and to find intimate community with people who are incredibly different, with whom they have no natural human homogeneity, and who they usually would have no other occasion to know.

George W. Webber, The Congregation in Mission, 1964

Mystagogia #6

The Paschal Mystery of our Lord's dying and rising has transformed our lives and given us hope in our temperal life as well as in the life to come. The collects for this week ask God to refresh us with his agape love that we may in faith and hope obtain his promises that exceed all that we may hope for; always offering thanks (make eucharist) for all the good things that we constantly receive from his hand; responding to his will, giving us pride in all we do; making us faithful stewards of all the Father has given us; lifting our hears and minds to heaven where our Lord continually dwells; giving us power, wisdom, gentleness so that we may shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; giving us discernment to behold in God the source of all our talents, offering them to your glory.

The Feast of Dunstan of Canterbury

O God of truth and beauty, you richly endowed your bishop Dunstan with skill in music and the working of metals, and with gifts of administration and reforming zeal: Teach us, we pray, to see in you the source of all our talents, and move us to offer them for the adornment of worship and the advancement of true religion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

What Are the Instruments of Good Works

1. In the first place, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole strength.
2. Then, one's neighbor as oneself.
3. Then not to murder.
4. Not to commit adultery.
5. Not to steal.
6. Not to covet.
7. Not to bear false witness.
8. To honor all (1 Peter 2:17).
9. And not to do to another what one would not have done to oneself.
10. To deny oneself in order to follow Christ.
11. To chastise the body.
12. Not to become attached to pleasures.
13. To love fasting.
14. To relieve the poor.
15. To clothe the naked.
16. To visit the sick.
17. To bury the dead.
18. To help in trouble.
19. To console the sorrowing.
20. To become a stranger to the world's ways.
21. To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.

Ezekiel 1:28-3:3

Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking. He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you. And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, "Thus says the Lord GOD." Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them. And you, O mortal, do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear; for they are a rebellious house. But you, mortal, hear what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you. I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it. He spread it before me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe. He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.

Friday after Ascension Day
Matins

The Feast of Florence Nightingale

Life-giving God, you alone have power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the example of your servant Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them your Presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

On Calling the Brethren for Counsel

In all things, therefore, let all follow the Rule as guide,
and let no one be so rash as to deviate from it.
Let no one in the monastery follow his own heart's fancy;
and let no one presume to contend with his Abbot
in an insolent way or even outside of the monastery.
But if anyone should presume to do so,
let him undergo the discipline of the Rule.
At the same time,
the Abbot himself should do all things in the fear of God
and in observance of the Rule,
knowing that beyond a doubt
he will have to render an account of all his decisions
to God, the most just Judge.

But if the business to be done in the interests of the monastery
be of lesser importance,
let him take counsel with the seniors only.
It is written,
"Do everything with counsel,
and you will not repent when you have done it" (Eccles. 32:24).

To "Anonymice"

Anonymous comments will not be posted, however, the writer of this journal would enjoy a dialogue and open communication. I look forward to an opportunity to explore those things that rest heavy on your heart.

i ain't tell'n!

Recently there was a discussion within the parish about the fact that there was an over abundance of "secrets". This is almost a contradictory phenomena for if someone knows there are "secrets", how come they don't know the secrets?

And besides, how do you end the perception that "secrets" are in the air? For if someone says there are "secrets" there must BE "secrets". Such a thought can easily put the rector on the defensive. For such a discussion is suggestive that the rector is to blame for these secrets. If he would be more forthcoming, more open with everyone, then these "secrets" will become know to everyone.

I have a more important question. I wonder what they (those aware of the secrets) want to know? All they need to do is ask, to enter into dialogue, to explore life more deeply. Now, no doubt, there will always be "secrets" we can't forget that somethings are told to me and others in confidence, most people don't want their private lives shared openly and indiscriminately. You know the more I think about it the more I realize how good it is that "secrets" abound for it means that the faith community is protected from one another.

Ascension Joy!

Today is our parish's name day. Ascension holds before us the full meaning of our humanity in Christ and reminds us of our interconnectedness with God and one another. Ascension is the spirituality of community, the realization that community is not something we created, but something that creates us.

In our scientific age, the Ascension has become more of a symbol than a literal fact leaving us still yearning for fuller meaning and hope. In, through, and with Christ our flesh has been received with all its limitations into the presence of God. Christ, who is our high priest, continually prays to the Father that we shall "be one" as he and the Father are one.

May we recognize the true meaning of ourselves, formed and molded by others, as a people reborn in the risen Christ who has filled all in all. Alleluia.

Second Homily on the Ascension of our Lord

From a homily by the former Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, III

Here we are faced with a paradox: What the Apostles perceived as Jesus leaving them once again, this time not by way of the cross by way of ascension, was in fact a prelude to a deeper, fuller and more substantial knowing of the risen One mediated by the Spirit.

... a new kind of knowing in which Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life is known inwardly and with such force that they will, in time, be able with St. Paul to cry out, “The life I now live is not my own, but the life Christ lives in me.”

Here I am put in mind of an observation made by Carl Jung that “the Western attitude, with its emphasis on the object, tends to fix the ideal -- Christ -- in its outward aspect and thus to rob it of its mysterious relation to the inner man.” “Too few people,” he observes, “have experienced the divine image as the innermost possession of their own souls. Christ only meets them from without, never from within the soul.

Christ’s ascension opens the way for a new mode of being present, being with ... What the Spirit takes from Christ is not information but life, life expressed as love and realized in the intimacy of communion whereby Christ dwells in us and we in him.

First Homily on the Ascension of our Lord

From a Homily of Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Ascension of the Lord:

The Lord says to us, mysteriously, that his going away and disappearing will also be a coming and an appearing: "I am going away, and I will come to you" (Jn 14:18). And to help us understand that his going away and coming are one and the same, he puts it even more clearly: "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you" (Jn 14:18-20).

His disappearance from the world begins with his Passion and ends with his Ascension. For since he was laid in the tomb, no worldly person, no one who lacks the Spirit of Christ, has seen him anymore. His coming to us, however, starts on Easter morning, where he meets one disciple after another; it continues throughout the Forty Days and is brought to its fulfillment at Pentecost, when he pours out his Spirit over the Church and thus fills her with his own innermost being.

It is not that his presence changes into his absence; what changes is the mode of his presence.

(You Crown the Year with Your Goodness [Ignatius Press])

The Feast of the Ascension

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

On Calling the Brethren for Counsel

Whenever any important business has to be done
in the monastery,
let the Abbot call together the whole community
and state the matter to be acted upon.
Then, having heard the brethren's advice,
let him turn the matter over in his own mind
and do what he shall judge to be most expedient.
The reason we have said that all should be called for counsel
is that the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best.

Let the brethren give their advice
with all the deference required by humility,
and not presume stubbornly to defend their opinions;
but let the decision rather depend on the Abbot's judgment,
and all submit to whatever he shall decide for their welfare.

However, just as it is proper
for the disciples to obey their master,
so also it is his function
to dispose all things with prudence and justice.

Rogation Wednesday / Thirty-Nineth Day of Easter

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

What Kind of Person the Abbot Ought to Be

Above all let him not neglect or undervalue
the welfare of the souls committed to hia,
in a greater concern for fleeting, earthly, perishable things;
but let him always bear in mind
that he has undertaken the government of souls
and that he will have to give an account of them.

And if he be tempted to allege a lack of earthly means,
let him remember what is written:
"First seek the kingdom of God and His justice,
and all these things shall be given you besides" (Ps. 33:10).
And again: "Nothing is wanting to those who fear Him."

Let him know, then,
that he who has undertaken the government of souls
must prepare himself to render an account of them.
Whatever number of brothers he knows he has under his care,
he may be sure beyond doubt that on Judgment Day
he will have to give the Lord an account of all these souls,
as well as of his own soul.

Thus the constant apprehension
about his coming examination as shepherd (Ezech. 34)
concerning the sheep entrusted to him,
and his anxiety over the account that must be given for others,
make him careful of his own record.
And while by his admonitions he is helping others to amend,
he himself is cleansed of her faults.

Rest in Peace: J.F.

My first reaction to Mr. Falwell's death was a quiet alleluia; but the more I reflect on his voice within our culture the more I realize that he, like many of us, was caught in the net of chronic anxiety and fear. He was terrified of change and he wanted others to share his fear. He looked the future in the face and saw nothing but his own nihilistic reflection. He was against so many things that it almost was comic, if it wasn't for the many people he hurt in his quake. I wish him peace and joy and now that he has "full vision" in the life to come, may he able to see those things that he dared not to see while he was among us.

Rogation Tuesday / Thirty-Eighth Day of Easter

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ in his earthly life shared our toil and hallowed our labor: Be present with your people where they work; make those who carry on the industries and commerce of this land responsive to your will; and give us all a pride in what we do, and a just return for our labor; 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.