The right to pray is no more.

The right to pray is no more.
Many of our hospitals have chaplains - most cry out to a power beyond themselves in crisis. And our Canadian Armed Forces have chaplains - so it's alright to pray in fox holes, but not where the decisions are made for our daughters and sons to go to places of harms way.
The right to pray is no more.
Before long we may not be able to pray in a place of worship for fear of offending some visitors rights to a historic facility.
Either all have the right and freedom, or all have lost the right and freedom.
When no one can pray all have lost the right of freedom.

What did those who died believe?
What do we believe who live?
One is truly free when one can enhance the rights of another, even when they do not embrace the belief of another. Then all right will be honoured and all freedoms upheld.

If God is God - God is more than one can imagine - God allows humankind to be foolish - and God allows us to be wrong. God doesn't laugh at us when we're wrong, or foolish. In those moments - God dies for us and loves.
How small is your faith? Faith like a mustard seed!

Introducion - Proper 19 - 2013-08-11

Isa 1:1, 10-20 – PS 50:1-8, 23-24 – Heb 11:1-3, 8-16 – Luke 12:32-40

Intro to the Readings

The Collect brings to mind the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy and peace.

Isaiah prophesies to those who live by violence, abomination, and arguing with the Lord.

With the urgency of renewal the Psalmist cries out “God will come and will not keep silence.” God is a consuming fire!

The writer to the Hebrews says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for” - that which is seen and that which is not visible. Writing for children CS Lewis said “things are not always as they appear.”

Lord Baden Powell’s scout mottol – “Be Prepared” - is a good way to perceive today’s Gospel – “Be Prepared.”

“Be Prepared” – hear God’s Good News and live in faith as Abraham, the Father of all, lived in the land of promise so that God’s children may receive their inheritance.

What is the Parson Reading Now? - Life and Work in Newfoundland by Fr Julian Moreton

What is the Parson Reading Now?

Life and Work in Newfoundland by Fr Julian Moreton

Among my father's papers I came across a reprint of Fr Julian Moreton's book Life and Work in Newfoundland. This book was published in 1863. Fr Moreton was stationed at Greenspond from about 1850 to June of 1860. Gooseberry Island and Flat Island were among the communities he visited and ministered to.

Fr Moreton shares his experience of ministry in Newfoundland for his readers in England, and in particular for the supporter of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which sponsored clergy and schoolmaster in Newfoundland at that time.

The book can be accessed at:
archive.org                 http://archive.org/details/cihm_46718
books.google.com      http://bit.ly/15wbcdg

Two ministering to each other as they journey with their spouses.

Two stopped to talk. Each of their spouses' are living with cancer. Ministry happens in the parking lot. Where there is love God will bless.

Holy Cross Day - 2012 - Fr David Jenks Devotion

My Crucifix

Good Friday Day

 “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth crucifed.”— Gal. iii. 1, R.V.

Picture: your crucifix.
Resolve: to meditate on my crucifix.

I — The sacred head.
a. The seat of the intelligence. To fix the attention on this part of the crucifix is to remind one’s self that he moved towards his cross with the clear deliberation of purpose, knowing it to be the Father’s will. He waited upon the unfolding events as one who realized that “My times are in thy hand.” Even now he is giving himself to die: he is fulfilling his mission he is not being defeated.
b. Consider that his sacred head had been caressed by a devoted mother in the days of his infancy; now it was crowned with thorns. When he was in his ministry he had not where to lay his head, and now it had been struck in mockery ( S. Mark xv. 19).
c. The head is the ruling part of the body. In the Body corporate he is the Head. Fix the mind on that, and learn there from the lesson of the crucifix. That which the Head has done for the Body, the Body shares with him. All initiation is from the Head, but he works through the Body, and in it by his own power he reproduces the experience of the Head. Am I becoming conformed to his crucifixion? What he does for me, he must do in me.
II — The arms.
a. Stretched out upon the cross. Consider them spread out in prayer to God. The crucifixion is, on his part, an act of obedience and an oblation. Therefore his crucifixion is intercession. It is good that one pray at times with the arms stretched out, to realize the value of prayer in union with his merits. And the spirit of the cross should enter into one’s life of intercession.
b. Next consider the arms outstretched to embrace you and all the world. “All the day long have I stretched out my hands to a gainsaying and disobedient people.” His arms are stretched out east and west, for so far as the east is from the west, so far hath he set our sins front us. In these arms, too, he embraced children. Learn to say Eph. iii. 17, 18 with S. Paul.
c. See those hands, laid upon the sick: with them he wrote upon the ground ( S. John viii. 6-8, 11). He stretched out his hands to bless. S. Thomas spoke rightly ( S. John xx. 25); the blessing of Christ must come from out of his glorious Passion; it must be the benediction of the pardoning blood. These hands have consecrated the Sacred Host; think how he gives to you the broken body with his nail-stricken hand. Say, “The chastisement of our peace was upon him.”
III — The feet.
a. “Beautiful are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.” Think of the ministry of those feet. S. Paul bids us have our feet shod with the preparedness of the gospel of peace: contrast your own wayward feet with his, and think of the Good Shepherd, leaving us an example that we should walk in his steps, for he has said, “Follow me.”
b. Consider the gradual restraint of his feet as the ministry proceeded, till at last he must not even go to Jerusalem, except when his hour was come. And now his feet are pierced together. And yet we rebel if we cannot do all that we wish to do, or if any constraint is put upon us.
c. Once more consider those feet, kissed with penitent love, which Simon would not wash. But it was he who washed his disciples’ feet. Oh, Minister of humble service, what emperor would not now wash thy feet? Yet do we not obey thy word, to wash one another’s feet. If faith is not strong enough to embrace thee on thy cross, yet may we cling to thy feet, and kiss their wounds with penitential love.

Canada Day - Memorial Day - 2012

As you celebrate Canada Day

Pause and remember with gratetude those who gave their lives for your freedom. From the Eastport Peninsula we remember those who died on the First of July 1916, and in the Great War.

Royal Navy: Gilbert Dyke, Charles Ralph, Steven Dicker, Albert Hallett, William Babstock, John Walter Dyke.

Royal Newfoundland Regiment: Thomas Seymour, Garland Powell, Louis Brown, George Elliott, Hubert Oldford, Kader Squire, Robert Wells, Lewis Hancock.

Rest eternal grant to their souls, and all the souls of the faithful departed. Amen.

Anthony Bloom - The Writings and Life of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

Beginning to Pray / audio recording

http://www.audiobooksdirect.com.au/product.asp/isbn/9780867166330

http://www.metropolit-anthony.orc.ru/eng/eng_06.htm

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

http://www.liturgica.com/cart/musicInfo.jsp?catNo=AJ056

The thankful miracle within us.

If we want to learn to “thank” aright we must “think” about the miracle that is happening to us. For thinking and thanking belong together. Both are worship and they cannot be separated. Both are an exercise which we must perform every day.

Helmut Thielicke

This from The Waiting Father, by Helmut Thielicke, 1959, p. 35. The Waiting Father is one of a series of publications by Thielicke of his sermons.

Small Group Leader reading the book How to Lead Small Groups

Neil McBride wrote How to Lead Small Groups in the early 1990's. A small number of us have been working through this book and considering leading small group Bible Study groups. We've read and considered two chapters of this book. In the new year we will continue with our reading and study. All to support the ministry and spiritual needs of the Parish.

Steve Jobs: a man of vision

Steve Jobs, a man of vision and creator of the Mac, has died.
But I would encourage all to watch Jobs speak to a graduate class in 2005 at Stanford University.
Jobs speaks about hope, cancer, death, and life.

Bake-Apple Prayer Work

Prayer is often done on ones' knees, or sitting to a table, but sometimes it is done in ordinary places and in ordinary ways. Many of our mothers and grand-mothers prayed while knitting in a rocking chair. And some of our fathers managed the same as well. Today I was invited to go and pick bake-apples. Stooping and picking I prayed.

Chimes & Church Music: Pre-Service and MP3 players

I'm old enough to recall walking to Church to the peel of a bell. Later came chimes and taped music. These days many churches use a disk player. At St Edward's, Glovertown, they employ an mp3 player. Now that's a neat little solution for big sound.

Grace and Preaching

When you preach you find out how much GRACE some people have!

Seder Supper 2011

Listening to a Rabbi chant the Seder as I get ready for this evening. A lamb is being prepared as we gather for the annual Seder on the Eastport Peninsula. Shalom!

Palm Crosses for Palm Sunday

Tonight we gathered and prepared Palm Crosses for Palm Sunday.
It's surprising how easy it is to forget how to make Palm Crosses.
After a little struggling we rediscovered how to make them.

Creative Ideas for Alternative Sacramental Worship - Fr Simon Rundell

I'm presently reading this book and appreciating what Fr Simon Rundell has written. Fr Simon lives in the UK where he has been involved with Blesséd and Fresh Expressions.
See also: Fresh Expressions Canada.

Three Celebrating 60 Years of Ordained Ministry

Three Celebrating 60 Years of Ordained Ministry

Sunday June 5^th the Diocese of Central Newfoundland will be celebrating the 60^th Anniversary of their ordination to the Diaconate of the Rt. Rev. Mark Genge, the Rev. Canon Bert Cheeseman and the Rev. Canon Arnold Torraville who served in our Diocese. We will begin with a service at St. Martin’s Cathedral, at 10:30am, followed by a banquet at Hotel Gander at 2:00pm. Banquet $25.00 per person. The offering at the service will be for Queen’s College.

Organ Donor Week is April 17-23

Organ Donor Week is April 17-23 – we give thanks for the Gift of Life. We are grateful for all have donated. We remember those who donated in death that another might live. We pray for those who grieve their lost – for those who received – that all may celebrate the Gift of Life.

Over the past couple of years we have prayed for individuals who in death gave the gift of life. And for those who have received an organ donation. With thankfulness we remember in pray and love those who gave a gift of life. We pray for the continued health as those who received celebrate the life that was given for them.

Books in the process of being read! About Messy Ministry!

I recently purchased Facing Messy Stuff in the Church and When Ministry is Messy. Like most I've encountered a few messy - sticky - moments in ministry, and some that were not pretty at all. So when I saw these books I decided to acquire both.
After a quick look at Facing Messy Stuff in the Church, by Kenneth L Swetland (2005), I'm not to excited about the book. It is a series of fourteen case studies. It appears it is a book about issue studies as much as cases studies. Maybe I'll feel differently once I've read the whole book.
But after scanning When Ministry is Messy, by Richard C Brown (2006), I'm looking forward to reading this text. Let's see how they both hold up as I read through both over the next weeks.