Whitsunday, which we celebrated a few weeks ago, brings to an end the first half of the Church Year, which began with Advent last November. From now till this coming November (with the promise of a long, hot summer in between) we are in the second half of the Church’s year, called Trinitytide.
Unlike the first half of our year, which focuses on the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, Trinitytide simply counts the Sundays from the Feast of the Holy Trinity till the next Advent. In some ancient Church calendars—and in some modern ones—these Sundays were just called “Sundays of the Ordinary Year.” Some modern church calendars mark these Sundays from Trinity to Advent as “Sundays after Pentecost.” Whatever we call them, it’s the longest time on the Church’s calendar.
The liturgical color of Trinitytide is green; the color of growth.
At St Joseph’s, there is growing work to be done this season. We have an Altar Guild to establish, a choir to grow, and, hopefully, new parishioners to bring in. I will be working on re-constructing parish rolls and a parish register. That will enable me to visit your homes and get to know you a bit better as I try to establish the “ecclesiastical status” of those of you attending St Joseph’s.
The Parish Register is the official record of the parish. It tells who our members are, who was baptized, confirmed, married, and died here. It’s an essential record of the life of St Joseph’s.
It’s missing and nobody seems to know where it is. So I’ve got to put together a new one, and it will take time—research, digging through parish documents, asking questions, getting help from you. It will be a task, but one I’m looking forward to, as it will enable me to get to know each of you a bit better.
I’ve asked Bruce Boyer—and am happy to say he’s agreed—to put together an official history of St Joseph’s. This will be good for us to have, and invaluable to me in working on the register. Reconstructing the register and producing a history of the parish will help us as we look to the future of St Joseph’s. More than most, Anglicans understand that our future is embedded in our past. This Trinitytide season of 2011 will be a time of re-learning something of our roots, that come the new Church Year, we’ll be ready for a fresh set of challenges—which the Lord, without doubt, will send our way.
This Trinitytide will be a green time for us—a time of quiet growth for St Joseph’s. Next week, a few notes and suggestions as to making it a time of quiet growth for each of us spiritually, too.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Athanasian Creed
You know the Apostles’ Creed. We say it every day at Morning and Evening Prayer. You know the Nicene Creed. We say it every Sunday and Holy Day at Mass. But do you know the Athanasian Creed? It has been in every Book of Common Prayer, except that of the Episcopal Church, since there have been Books of Common Prayer, since the first one, published in 1549.
The Athanasian Creed is part of our heritage as Anglicans. The English Book of Common Prayer requires that it be recited on thirteen different Holy Days throughout the year, most especially on Trinity Sunday, as the Creed so much emphasizes the dogma of the Holy Trinity.
It’s long. The Quincunque Vult (to use its Latin title from the Prayer Book), is more than twice as long as the Nicene Creed. Its phrases recite a detailed description of the Church’s belief about the Holy Trinity, insisting on the equal divinity of each Person of the Trinity while at the same time describing the differences between the Persons.
In discussing the equal divinity of the Persons, for example, the Creed says: “there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.”
On the other hand, regarding the distinctions between the Persons, it reads: “The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.”
It’s not meant to be simple, but thorough.
The Creed is named after the renowned Archbishop of Alexandria, St Athanasius the Great. He was one of the driving forces behind the Council of Nicaea which met in AD 325, the Council which produced our Nicene Creed. St Athanasius didn’t write the creed which bears his name—it was produced two hundred years after his death, to combat anti-Trinitarian heresies lingering in Spain—but the creed was called after him because it forcefully (and, yes, lengthily) teaches the faith for which St Athanasius fought.
So this Sunday at Mass, we’ll proclaim the Athanasian faith of the One Church using the words of the Athanasian Creed. I can’t promise you’ll understand the Trinity any better after you’ve said the Creed than you did before saying it, but I can assure you you’ll think about it more than you have in a month of Sundays saying the Creed of Nicaea.
The Athanasian Creed is part of our heritage as Anglicans. The English Book of Common Prayer requires that it be recited on thirteen different Holy Days throughout the year, most especially on Trinity Sunday, as the Creed so much emphasizes the dogma of the Holy Trinity.
It’s long. The Quincunque Vult (to use its Latin title from the Prayer Book), is more than twice as long as the Nicene Creed. Its phrases recite a detailed description of the Church’s belief about the Holy Trinity, insisting on the equal divinity of each Person of the Trinity while at the same time describing the differences between the Persons.
In discussing the equal divinity of the Persons, for example, the Creed says: “there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.”
On the other hand, regarding the distinctions between the Persons, it reads: “The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.”
It’s not meant to be simple, but thorough.
The Creed is named after the renowned Archbishop of Alexandria, St Athanasius the Great. He was one of the driving forces behind the Council of Nicaea which met in AD 325, the Council which produced our Nicene Creed. St Athanasius didn’t write the creed which bears his name—it was produced two hundred years after his death, to combat anti-Trinitarian heresies lingering in Spain—but the creed was called after him because it forcefully (and, yes, lengthily) teaches the faith for which St Athanasius fought.
So this Sunday at Mass, we’ll proclaim the Athanasian faith of the One Church using the words of the Athanasian Creed. I can’t promise you’ll understand the Trinity any better after you’ve said the Creed than you did before saying it, but I can assure you you’ll think about it more than you have in a month of Sundays saying the Creed of Nicaea.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
A Member of Christ
The Prayer Book tells us when we were baptized we became “a member of Christ.” As we noted last week, unus Christianus, nullus Christianus. “One Christian is no Christian.” We cannot be Christians by ourselves.
In the beginning, God said “It is not good for man to be alone.” He followed His observation by creating Eve to be with Adam, and so laid the foundation—not only for the family, but for society as well.
The Church is God’s bringing together—from the scattered and contentious race of man—a Family “of all nations and kindred and peoples and tongues” of His own. From its beginning, the Church understood God drew its members together “for our salvation and that of the whole world.” “We are His family and the sheep of His pasture.”
Families are both wonderful and exasperating, made up of people sometimes loving and sometimes loathing each other. Many of the closest bonds we form on earth are with family members, and oft-times, the greatest tensions and trials of our lives come from members of our family. When the Church is likened to a family, it’s not meant to be a perennially pleasant comparison. The comparison tells us something about God and each other (and maybe ourselves, too).
We are part of each other. “No man is an island,” John Donne reminds us. Your cousin may be delightfully witty and your nephew deadly dull. They remain related regardless. The man who occupies the pew in front of you may have a bad singing voice or a ill-fitting toupee; the pretty woman in the choir may draw admiring glances from the men and disapproving glares from the ladies, but each—the unknowing toupee-man, the attractive soprano, the admiring men and disapproving women—all are “members of Christ,” the “family for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross,” as one of the Collects for Good Friday reads.
God puts up with us, and He expects us to put up with each other. He loves us, and He expects us to love each other.
This is why we have parishes. Places where Christ’s members, His family, come together to worship Him, receive the Sacraments, intercede for the fallen world, and learn how to love each other, even if we don’t always like each other (and sometimes, of course, our best friends may be in the neighboring pew).
It’s no accident that you belong to the parish you belong to—God brought you there, to do—and to be—something. In your parish, as in your family, God is “working out your salvation.” It’s not always easy, it’s sometimes challenging, and it’s often fun and happy and exhilarating. God has made you His own in baptism and plopped you down in a parish to figure out what that means. So jump in with both feet and figure it out. The answer has eternal implications! -Fr Gregory Wilcox
In the beginning, God said “It is not good for man to be alone.” He followed His observation by creating Eve to be with Adam, and so laid the foundation—not only for the family, but for society as well.
The Church is God’s bringing together—from the scattered and contentious race of man—a Family “of all nations and kindred and peoples and tongues” of His own. From its beginning, the Church understood God drew its members together “for our salvation and that of the whole world.” “We are His family and the sheep of His pasture.”
Families are both wonderful and exasperating, made up of people sometimes loving and sometimes loathing each other. Many of the closest bonds we form on earth are with family members, and oft-times, the greatest tensions and trials of our lives come from members of our family. When the Church is likened to a family, it’s not meant to be a perennially pleasant comparison. The comparison tells us something about God and each other (and maybe ourselves, too).
We are part of each other. “No man is an island,” John Donne reminds us. Your cousin may be delightfully witty and your nephew deadly dull. They remain related regardless. The man who occupies the pew in front of you may have a bad singing voice or a ill-fitting toupee; the pretty woman in the choir may draw admiring glances from the men and disapproving glares from the ladies, but each—the unknowing toupee-man, the attractive soprano, the admiring men and disapproving women—all are “members of Christ,” the “family for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross,” as one of the Collects for Good Friday reads.
God puts up with us, and He expects us to put up with each other. He loves us, and He expects us to love each other.
This is why we have parishes. Places where Christ’s members, His family, come together to worship Him, receive the Sacraments, intercede for the fallen world, and learn how to love each other, even if we don’t always like each other (and sometimes, of course, our best friends may be in the neighboring pew).
It’s no accident that you belong to the parish you belong to—God brought you there, to do—and to be—something. In your parish, as in your family, God is “working out your salvation.” It’s not always easy, it’s sometimes challenging, and it’s often fun and happy and exhilarating. God has made you His own in baptism and plopped you down in a parish to figure out what that means. So jump in with both feet and figure it out. The answer has eternal implications! -Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus
The Prayer Book Catechism is straightforward in its teaching: “…in baptism, I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”
We did not, the Prayer Book says, become Christians when we “accepted Christ as our personal Savior.” We didn’t become Christians “the hour we first believed,” or when we became convinced we were sinners. Those notions, so prevalent in modern Christianity, are foreign ones to the religion of the Prayer Book.
“In baptism I was made a member of Christ.”
That means you weren’t made a Christian when you decided to be one, but when God decided to make you one. Even if you were baptized as an adult and went through baptismal preparation, even if you chose the time and place of your baptism, nothing you could do would make you a Christian until the priest poured the waters of baptism over your head. Being a Christian is less a matter of believing than it’s a matter of being. God made you a Christian through the sacramental waters of baptism.
We can’t baptize ourselves. Somebody has to baptize us. That doesn’t sound profound, but it tells us something important—even essential—about the Christian religion. The Christians of the first few centuries had a saying quite at one with the Prayer Book: unus Christianus, nullus Christianus. “One Christian is no Christian.” You can’t be a Christian by yourself.
“In baptism I was made a member of Christ.”
If we are members of Christ, part of His body, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, we are also members of each other. Fellow Christians don’t simply “go to the same church” we do—in the waters of baptism we are “born again” into the One Family of Faith.
If you have been baptized, you are a Christian. You may not live the life of a Christian, you may deny every article of Faith in the Creed. But you and I are Christians because it pleased God to make us Christians. Only He knows why. You may have been baptized because your parents wanted you to, or even because everybody else in your family is baptized and it’s just “what we do. We don’t really go to church all that much, but…” The reasons for your baptism don’t affect the reality of God’s sacramental act.
Baptism is the beginning of a Christian’s life. After the priest baptized you, he said to your Godparents and the others present: “Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is regenerate,” [that is to say, “born again”] and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto Him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning.”
Baptism isn’t magic, it doesn’t mean we are “going to Heaven,” but it does mean our footsteps are set on the path of the Lord Jesus, following Him where it pleases Him to lead us. We can always leave the path.
Baptism means God has made you His own in a special way, for a special reason. We are meant to “work out our salvation” with other Christians, as members one of another. And the parish church is essential to the “working out of our salvation.” There we receive the sacraments, offer to God the weekly sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and have to “work out our salvation” with people we may not know very well and sometimes may not particularly care for! But “in baptism I was made a member of Christ.” Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus.-Fr Gregory Wilcox
We did not, the Prayer Book says, become Christians when we “accepted Christ as our personal Savior.” We didn’t become Christians “the hour we first believed,” or when we became convinced we were sinners. Those notions, so prevalent in modern Christianity, are foreign ones to the religion of the Prayer Book.
“In baptism I was made a member of Christ.”
That means you weren’t made a Christian when you decided to be one, but when God decided to make you one. Even if you were baptized as an adult and went through baptismal preparation, even if you chose the time and place of your baptism, nothing you could do would make you a Christian until the priest poured the waters of baptism over your head. Being a Christian is less a matter of believing than it’s a matter of being. God made you a Christian through the sacramental waters of baptism.
We can’t baptize ourselves. Somebody has to baptize us. That doesn’t sound profound, but it tells us something important—even essential—about the Christian religion. The Christians of the first few centuries had a saying quite at one with the Prayer Book: unus Christianus, nullus Christianus. “One Christian is no Christian.” You can’t be a Christian by yourself.
“In baptism I was made a member of Christ.”
If we are members of Christ, part of His body, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, we are also members of each other. Fellow Christians don’t simply “go to the same church” we do—in the waters of baptism we are “born again” into the One Family of Faith.
If you have been baptized, you are a Christian. You may not live the life of a Christian, you may deny every article of Faith in the Creed. But you and I are Christians because it pleased God to make us Christians. Only He knows why. You may have been baptized because your parents wanted you to, or even because everybody else in your family is baptized and it’s just “what we do. We don’t really go to church all that much, but…” The reasons for your baptism don’t affect the reality of God’s sacramental act.
Baptism is the beginning of a Christian’s life. After the priest baptized you, he said to your Godparents and the others present: “Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is regenerate,” [that is to say, “born again”] and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto Him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning.”
Baptism isn’t magic, it doesn’t mean we are “going to Heaven,” but it does mean our footsteps are set on the path of the Lord Jesus, following Him where it pleases Him to lead us. We can always leave the path.
Baptism means God has made you His own in a special way, for a special reason. We are meant to “work out our salvation” with other Christians, as members one of another. And the parish church is essential to the “working out of our salvation.” There we receive the sacraments, offer to God the weekly sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and have to “work out our salvation” with people we may not know very well and sometimes may not particularly care for! But “in baptism I was made a member of Christ.” Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus.-Fr Gregory Wilcox
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