Where?

Where were they? Where were all the priests and religious this past Saturday?


I show up at 7:30 am. The Cathedral of Guadalupe in downtown Dallas. It's the day I've been waiting for. I show up to show my solidarity with all those who oppose abortion. I board a local Catholic School bus along with dozens of other faithful to pray the rosary and march around the Routh Street Women's Center. As the bus pulls away I hear from the back,

"Well, Father's here...we can begin our rosary now."

For a second I thought she meant to begin it.

"Father?!" came the cry a little louder. "Let's start the rosary!"

Good thing I know the rosary, eh? That was better than, "Ah well, let me see if I can remember how it begins..."

Thus began a day filled with being confused for a Catholic priest. Well, I was the only one dressed for the part on that bus.

As the rosary got going, I was enthused to say the least. The roaring responses lifted me out of my skin. These souls were serious about the mission of the day!

Next the bus stopped and the door burst open. We marched around the block drifting to our own cadences...yet all still in prayer...and in unison. When we reached the front windows of the clinic I could see folk moving about inside. All our voices seemed to rise higher at this moment.
Once more around the block and back on the bus to the Cathedral.

I had many encounters throughout the day that I am still processing. I am left with two puzzles. Was I the only Anglican priest there? Could that really be true? I know of another, for sure.

Then I began to wonder where all the Catholic priests were. Where all the religious? I saw many Bishops, some priests inside the Cathedral, a scattering of religious...perhaps a few from each monastic rule. It was not what I expected.

That may be due to many factors. I remember seeing Catholic priests [as well as mainline clergy] marching alongside the civil rights protesters in the 1960s. Did the press skew my memory to think that combination was normal?

Anywho, I think I get why there were so few Anglican/Episcopal clergy present.

Were Catholic diocesan priests not able to attend because they were busy with parish life and leadership? Where they making pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to march on the mall? I'm still kind of wondering. I don't know. I don't presume to know why, either. I just do not know the answer and, yes, I rather bothers me.

I intended to show solidarity...not lead other men's flocks in prayer.

Proverbs and Virtue

I have been teaching this fall through Solomon's book of Proverbs. At first I thought I would openly present the material from the Cardinal Virtues and Capital Sins and draw support from the chapter-by-chapter material. My thinking was that there should be some material somewhere that will help categorize the material of Proverbs according to the virtue and vice tradition. For each virtue or vice I had hoped to provide a list of verses from Proverbs to support the notion.

Well, so far I have been on my own in this regard. As soon as I realized this, which thankfully was before the sessions began, I decided simply to work our way through Proverbs chapter-by-chapter and insert the analogies from the Cardinal Virtues and Capital Sins when naturally applicable. Some other information is also very deferential to the Proverbs. The ways we participate in other peoples' sins...The ways to show mercy toward all people...etc. When you click through those two links be sure to read up on all the other material on that page. Thank you, fisheaters.com

Now if only I could find a book or website that has sorted the stanzas of Proverbs according to the Virtue and Vice grid. If anyone knows good resources for this I will gladly receive them and warmly thank you.

Predestination and Grace

A friend of mine posted here and here recently on the issue of Eastern Orthodoxy's stance on Predestination and Grace. Click through to read his full posts.

I find it hard to agree with him, but he puts things out for everyone to examine.

He quotes from a gathering of Eastern Patriarchs that issued a statement [though not a conciliar statement]. From this Synod came the Confession of Dositheus.

“We believe the most good God to have from eternity predestinated unto glory those whom He has chosen, and to have consigned unto condemnation those whom He has rejected; but not so that He would justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause.”“But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other.”“And we understand the use of free-will thus, that the Divine and illuminating grace, and which we call preventing [or, prevenient] grace, being, as a light to those in darkness, by the Divine goodness imparted to all, to those that are willing to obey this — for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling — and co-operate with it, in what it requires as necessary to salvation, there is consequently granted particular grace.”“This grace co-operates with us, and enables us, and makes us to persevere in the love of God, that is to say, in performing those good things that God would have us to do, and which His preventing grace admonishes us that we should do, justifies us, and makes us predestinated.”“But those who will not obey, and co-operate with grace; and, therefore, will not observe those things that God would have us perform, and that abuse in the service of Satan the free-will, which they have received of God to perform voluntarily what is good, are consigned to eternal condemnation.”“We believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which works through love, that is to say, through faith and works. But [the idea] that faith can fulfill the function of a hand that lays hold on the righteousness which is in Christ, and can then apply it unto us for salvation, we know to be far from all Orthodoxy. For faith so understood would be possible in all, and so none could miss salvation, which is obviously false. But on the contrary, we rather believe that it is not the correlative of faith, but the faith which is in us, justifies through works, with Christ.”“But to say, as the most wicked heretics do and as is contained in the Chapter [of Cyril's' Confession] to which this answers — that God, in predestinating, or condemning, did not consider in any way the works of those predestinated, or condemned, we know to be profane and impious.”

No one wants to be called a Heretic. Nobody likes it because it sounds like a denial of genuineness or scholarship or sincerity or that the said Heretic is not actually a Christian. I am reposting his stuff here because the ACNA has been challenged by the OCA, via His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah, to eschew our Reformed Heresies. This will most likely be the very last one to drop...if it ever does.

I simply cannot read the Anglican Collects from the Book of Common Prayer without feeling the strong tap on the shoulder from Orthodoxy and Catholicism....Synergy!

Reading

Reading is a strange journey for me. I have to admit that I did not read a single story, book, or assignment until I moved to Texas my senior year of high school. I hate to admit it, but it was my goal to finish with high grades while never reading any assignment. College suffered for this poor attitude. But I was rescued by the Texas high school experience. I was lumped in with others of my GPA (presumed capacity) and soon realized that these nerds where not cheating and loafing like I was. The teacher knew what she was doing too. I could simply not make it though this class unless I lost my reading virginity and got down and dirty (sorry for that crass comparison). Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies were the first two assigned books I ever read right through to the end.

My memory is so pervasive in that old vow that I actually forgot about that one night stand with Jeremiah Denton. Well, here goes another admission. While still a very underachieving Alabama youth I stole away with When Hell Was in Session by Jeremiah Denton and could not put it down. It was the first book I ever finished. And I finished it in a couple of days. It felt the same as that morning when everybody else was sleeping in--I found myself mesmerized to tears by watching Ann of Green Gables on PBS. Oh, the shame a young southern male would endure had he been caught enjoying Ann Shirley's stories (or watching PBS for that matter). At least my first book was macho.

A friend recently blogged about the risky side of reading too much internet claptrap. I have over 300 feeds coming to my GoogleReader that I check daily...throughout the day, of course. I really use them as a clipper service to dredge the internet's ocean floor for stuff I'd like to read up on. It does have a downside. I find that reading headlines reduces the amount of time that I actually READ. Oh, no! That is not the point of the clipper service.

Horton hears "according to who?"

Here is the latest article asking the "age old question" of authority. If you don't subscribe to Modern Reformation just email me and I'll send you a .pdf of the thing.

Be sure to read the full response to the Michael Horton's comments here. Bryan Cross's response in the journal is truncated due to space.

Opinion

I think I just realized something.
If I am the only person on the planet with a particular opinion...
that rather places me in the minority.

Transfiguration of Christ

Propers for The Transfiguration of Christ
August 6.

The Collect
O GOD, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistering; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty, who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle

2 St. Peter i. 13.
I THINK it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

The Gospel

St. Luke ix. 28.
AND it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said. While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone. And they kept it close, and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen.