On Saturday, after dusting off the same white stole he wore when he knelt before Miami’s Roman Catholic Archbishop 15 years ago to be ordained, he put it back over his shoulders. Padre Alberto is a priest again, this time in the Episcopal church.
The issues at stake have become so trivial—We are not debating right and wrong, we are debating whether there should be trifling penalties for giving offense to other members of the Communion.—that to engage them at all compromises our moral standing and diminishes our ability to speak credibly on issues of real importance.
How awesome to be in the presence
Of you, Lord, the One
Who brings Good News.
Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, the Primate of the Church of Nigeria, has called for his country to pull out of the United Nations because the organization opposes bias against gays and lesbians. Can we expect Rowan Williams to express displeasure as quickly as he condemned the election of a lesbian bishop in the Episcopal Church? No, because that deadline has already passed.
Updated with video. Resist the urge to “liven things up” with percussion; music that works well is perfectly alive. What it wants is support and accent, not a personality transplant. Learn to listen thoughtfully, a skill infinitely more valuable than hand speed and dexterity. Give me the percussionist with hands of clay and ears of gold any day.
I have already said that God reared this fabric of the world out of nothing, by his word, wisdom, or power; and it is evident that your sages of old were of the same opinion, that the Ao’yos, that is, the Word, or the Wisdom, was the Maker of the universe, for Zeno determines the Logos to be the creator and adjuster of everything in nature.
The moment that the first Prayer Book was issued in 1549, it came under attack and not only from the people of Cornwall, who could not understand its form of English and preferred the old Mass. Reformed theologians also objected, such as Martin Bucer, who left Germany in the previous year to become a professor at Cambridge at Cranmer’s invitation,
Representatives of those Provinces, national or regional churches whose decision-making bodies have gone against the agreed moratoria a) will be asked to step down from formal ecumenical dialogues such as those with Orthodox Churches or the Roman Catholic Church, and b) will no longer have any decision-making powers in the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order that handles questions of church doctrine and authority.
It was requisite that the gift should be visible, that the bodily sense might the more stir up the disciples. For such is our slothfulness to consider the gifts of God, that unless he awake all our senses, his power shall pass away unknown.
I take some pride in being a person who likes to learn, actually loves to learn. In that pride, Jesus’ promise in John’s Gospel that the Spirit will guide us into all truth feels exhilarating. Sometimes it’s harder to remember that pain and fear are also part of learning. Why is that so? Because learning demands unlearning.