How do you prepare yourself to write the Declaration of Independence? On what was Thomas Jefferson nourishing his mind and soul? His account books reveal that on May 24 Jefferson paid someone named Hillegas twenty-seven shillings for fiddle strings. May 27, Jefferson spent “one and seven” for toys.
Jackson Kemper’s ministry it tied up with the organization called the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, which in turn is tied up with the story of Episcopal expansion in areas west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River. As early as 1792, the General Convention considered a proposal to send Episcopal missionaries to the frontiers of the United States.
In one of the apocryphal Christian books, the Acts of St. John, we learn that after the Last Supper our Lord, Jesus Christ, came down from the table and danced a sacred round with his twelve disciples and ‘Having danced these things with us, the Lord went forth. And we, as though beside ourselves, or wakened out of deep sleep, fled our separate ways.’
Ordinary Time [the Seasons after Epiphany and Pentecost] is the time of the Church, of the daily life of every Christian community, and of each one of us. It is the time not of a brief effort during which one hurries or even runs in order to progress on the way, but the time when one goes at a measured pace in order to cover a long distance.
Christ, why do you allow wars and massacres on earth? By what mysterious judgement do you allow innocent people to be cruelly slaughtered? I cannot know. I can only find assurance in the promise that your people will find peace in heaven, where no one makes war. As gold is purified by fire, so you purify souls by these bodily tribulations, making them ready to be received above the stars in your heavenly home.
Charlemagne invited a number of scholars to come to the court to assist him, most notably Alcuin, the celebrated deacon of York. . . .The prayers of the Carolingian period bore a personal and devotional character. Several good examples of prayer books (libelli precum–small booklets of prayer) have survived. It has long been held that Alcuin was the compiler of libelli such as these.
O Lord; O King, resplendent on the citadel of heaven,
all hail continually;
and of your clemency upon your people still have mercy.
Lord, whom the hosts of cherubim in songs and hymns
with praise continually proclaim,
upon us eternally have mercy.
The feast of the Holy Trinity is unique to the Anglican communion. Originating in Spain in the early Middle Ages, spreading through the Gallican church in France, it survived only in England. This festival of the triune God is dedicated not to the commemoration of an event such as Christmas and Easter, nor to a person such as a saint, but to a theological doctrine.
The work of the Spirit, [according to John’s gospel,] is to teach, witness, convince, guide into truth, and declare what is to come, and every part of this ministry is derived from, and in turn points to, the historic mission and teaching of Jesus.
Luke has a great sense of symmetry, and his traditions are organized in orderly patterns of time and space. The ministry of Jesus began with the descending of the Spirit, and so Jesus progresses from the provinces to the city of Jerusalem.