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.