“Age-old” Christmas traditions that we take for granted grew out the invention of rapid and reliable transportation, improvements in printing and postal technologies, mass marketing, the rise of the middle class. It also had the help of some inventive writers like Charles Dickens, Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore.
Not long ago, someone took the baby Jesus from a public nativity display and replaced him with a pumpkin. Instead of tying the Christ child’s wrist to a manger with a bicycle chain, churches and synagogues are using GPS chips to track down stolen religious ornaments.
What started as an orientation exercise for a national communications committee has turned into an unprecedented display of unity and generosity by thousands of members of the Anglican Church of Canada in congregations right across the country.
Lionel Deimel shares a personal account of the special convention in Pittsburgh last weekend and The Diocese of Quincy has formed a steering committee to plan for their future and are planning a special synod (convention) for February.
There is an old joke that describes the Pope’s dismay when, upon arriving in heaven, he discovers that the defining word for ordained life is spelled “c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e.” He is not alone. Few spiritual leaders take the time to celebrate their good work or express gratitude for the blessings of their ministry.
A Bishop in the Church of England is facing a rebellion because of his refusal both to ordain women and appoint a suffragan bishop who
All the talk about separation and schism creates anxiety among clergy and the laity and some bishops feel obligated to find ways to reassure them, claiming that the likelihood of these breakaways receiving permission to establish their own province is very unlikely. Much of this fretting is, in my view, the consequence of excessive concentration on the details of this de facto schism and its potential spread.
May God who sent us the light of the world
and who has given us the light of this day,
grant that we may come to know the lightness of being
which allowed Mary to say, “Yes.” Amen.