Our Lady of the New Advent Icon

 (Photo by Lars Hammar)

From House For All Sinners & Saints, an urban liturgical community in Denver, CO:

"This is the icon we created during liturgy over the 4 weeks of Advent. Every piece of this is from "Christmas" ads: circulars, catalogs and all that junk that comes in the mail and the newspaper. We created 1/4 of it each week. An Artist in the community traced the image onto poster board indicating what color should go in each shape. People ages 6-65 cut out the right color from the ads and glued it in the space. Easy and subversive." (On the blog Sarcastic Lutheran, December 29, 2008)

A quite relevant project and words, as we have just come through another "Black Friday" experience. So begins the secular season of the Grinch of Greed, just as (in fact, weeks before, even) the Christian community anticipates the celebration of Advent: how Jesus the Christ came into the world and the condition of a human being: taking on our joys and struggles, eventually running up against the leaders of organized wealth, power, and yes, religion, whose tunnel-vision devotion to their idols constitutes a formidable draw away from commitment to Jesus' values of simplicity, compassion, mercy, and love.

Fr. Pius Parsch, in his Year of Grace, suggests that we take some time just before plunging into Advent to think about three things: 1) the quality of our service before Christ in the past Church year; 2) giving thanks for God's grace and guidance during the past Church year; and 3) rededicating ourselves to serving Christ and our sisters and brothers in the coming "year of grace".


What opportunities have we missed to "cry the Gospel with our lives"? What's at the root of our lukewarm or lazy service? Which of our baptismal vows have we found most difficult to carry out this year?


Christ Jesus has brought us through another "year of grace". We have our lives, both physical and spiritual. We have the reality of Jesus' presence with us still, at this moment. Do we appreciate what this gift really means? Parsch remarks: "Yes, let us readily admit it, we are the true children of fortune." Each of us has much for which to be truly thankful. Nothing good which we've thought, or said, or done has gone unseen. Every prayer, kindness, and good resolve has got God's attention. All that we've suffered, all our anxieties, all our challenges, accepted with faith and patience, have been noted. As the Preface says: "It is truly meet and right that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to You, O holy God!"


What will the new Church year bring? None of us knows for sure. We do know that we are the "apple" of God's eye; that God gathers us, as a mother hen gathers her chicks under protective wings; that whatever we do this year, small or great, out of love and caring for a sister or brother, we do for Christ.


Pius Parsch concludes: "What is left for us to do? Open our New Testaments and meditate upon the last things as set forth by our Savior: Be always prepared; live your days in the light of the Second Advent. I am sure that such is the spirit of the Church according to the liturgy. By directing our gaze toward Christ's Second Coming, the Church reminds us how to become rich in the fruits of good works and in the increase of patience and perseverance. We may never forget that she wants work to follow words. In the holy Sacrifice [of the Mass] she brings the Lord in His Second Advent close to us mystically...'I am thinking thoughts of peace, not of punishment'...The Cross [Jesus] chose for Himself, but to us He says: 'Come, blessed of my Father'..." 

And, with the people of the ancient Church communities, we say: "Marana tha!...Come, Lord!"

For All Your Gracious Gifts and For One Another, We Thank You, Lord!

"Simply praise God with 'songs of joy'"! [St. Augustine]

By coincidence, the American Music Awards aired yesterday, the same day as the commemoration of noted English musicians John Merbecke [Marbeck] (c. 1510-1585), Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), and William Byrd (c. 1540-1623). And today we commemorate St. Cecilia (??-c. 223), a Roman martyr and, since the 16th century, patroness of musicians.

Probably a native of Beverley in Yorkshire, John Merbecke [var., Marbeck, Merbeck] apparently was a boy chorister at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and was employed as an organist there from about 1541-1543. In 1543 he was convicted with four others of heresy and sentenced to stake, but was pardoned through the intervention of Bishop Stephen Gardiner, of Winchester. An English Concordance of the Bible which Merbecke had been preparing was however confiscated and destroyed. A later version of this work, the first of its kind in English, was published in 1550 with a dedication to Edward VI.

In the same year Merbecke published The Booke of Common Praier Noted, in order to provide for musical uniformity in the use of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. The liturgy was set to semi-rhythmical melodies, partly adapted from Gregorian chant. The book was rendered obsolete, however, when the Prayer Book was revised in 1552. It was however rediscovered in the 19th century, and adaptations for the Anglican 1662 liturgy are still in use.

Thomas Tallis, an English composer, flourished as a church musician in 16th century Tudor England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of England's early composers. Little is known about Tallis's early life, but he was probably born toward the close of the reign of Henry VII. His first known appointment to a musical position was as organist of Dover Priory, a Benedictine priory c. 1530. He then moved to London, probably in the autumn of 1538 to the Augustinian abbey of the Holy Cross at Waltham, and remained until the abbey was dissolved in 1540.

Tallis's next appears at Canterbury Cathedral. He was sent to court as Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1543, where he composed and performed for Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth I. As organist and composer for these monarchs, Tallis managed to avoid current political and religious controversies, though, like William Byrd, he stayed an "unreformed Roman Catholic." Tallis was adept in switching the style of his compositions to suit the vastly different tastes of the kings and queens whom he served. Tallis certainly stood out, among other important composers of his time, because of his versatility of style and his general, more consistently easy and certain handling of his material. Tallis married around 1552, his wife, Joan, outliving him by four years. They apparently had no children. Late in his life he lived in Greenwich, possibly close to the royal palace. Thomas Tallis died peacefully in his house in Greenwich on November 23, 1585. He was buried in the chancel of the parish of St Alfege's Church.

One of Tallis' most notable students was William Byrd. Byrd was born in London, the son of a Thomas Byrd (not the Thomas Byrd of the Chapel Royal), about whom little is known. He had two brothers and four sisters. A reference in the prefatory material in the Tallis/Byrd Cantiones of 1575 clearly indicates that Byrd was a pupil of Thomas Tallis, then the leading composing member of the Chapel Royal Choir.

Byrd's first known professional employment was an organist and choirmaster of Lincoln Cathedral, a post which he held from 1563 until 1572. His career at Lincoln wasn't entirely trouble-free; in  November, 1569, the Dean and Chapter cited him for ‘certain matters alleged against him’ as the result of which his salary was suspended. Since Puritanism was influential at Lincoln, it's possible that the allegations involved over-elaborate choral polyphony or organ playing! A second directive that same month spelled out detailed instructions as to how Byrd was to use the organ in the liturgy. In  September, 1568, Byrd married Julian Birley, and enjoyed a long-lasting and fruitful union which produced at least seven children.

Byrd was appointed to the prestigious post of Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1572. Almost from the outset Byrd is named as ‘organist. This position vastly increased Byrd's opportunities to widen his scope as a composer and also to make contacts at the court. Queen Elizabeth I was a moderate Protestant who steered clear of the more extreme forms of Puritanism and retained a fondness for elaborate ritual, besides being a music lover and keyboard player herself. Byrd's output of Anglican church music is surprisingly small, but it stretches the limits of elaboration then regarded as acceptable by some reforming Protestants who regarded it as a distraction from the Word of God.

In about 1594, now in his early fifties, and as a far as the Chapel Royal, seemingly in semi-retirement, he moved with his family to Stondon Massey, a small village in Essex. The main reason for the move seems to have been the proximity of Byrd's patron Sir John Petre. Byrd remained in Stondon Massey until his death on July 4, 1623, which was noted in the Chapel Royal Check Book in a unique entry describing him as ‘a Father of Musick’.

Byrd's output of about 470 compositions amply justifies his reputation as one of the great masters of European Renaissance music. Perhaps his most impressive achievement as a composer was his ability to transform so many of the main musical forms of his day and stamp them with his own identity. Having grown up in an age in which Latin polyphony was largely confined to liturgical items, he synthesized the English and continental models of the motet. He virtually created the Tudor consort and keyboard fantasia. He also raised the consort song, the church anthem and the Anglican service setting to new heights. Finally, despite a general aversion to the madrigal, he succeeded in cultivating secular vocal music in an impressive variety of forms.

According to 5th century sources, Cecilia was of noble birth and was betrothed to a pagan, Valerian. Her witness to the faith allegedly resulted in the conversion of Valerian and his brother, Tiburtius. Eventually, because of this, the brothers were martyred and, while burying them, Cecilia herself was arrested. It is said that, in 1599, when an earlier church on the site of Cecilia's villa in the Trastevere was rebuilt, her tomb was opened and her body was found in an incorrupt state, but quickly disintegrated when exposed to the air. Sculptor Stefano Maderno, who witnessed this, later created a life-sized statue, enshrined in the Church of Santa Caecilia in Rome, as he saw her: "lying on the right side...her knees drawn together and seeming to be asleep..." She had been at least partially beheaded.

Since the 16th century, Cecilia has been immortalized as the patroness of musicians, possibly because of a misreading of a line in the Acts of the martyrs: "...like the singing of an organ she sang in her heart to the Lord, saying: 'May my heart be unsullied forever, that I may not be thwarted in my vows." The Flemish artist, Jan Van Eyck, was the first to depict Cecilia, seated at an organ. An indelible childhood memory of mine is of a large framed picture of Cecilia at the organ, which was kept in a spare storage room in my grandparents' home where I used to "play Mass". Cecilia was declared patroness of the Academy of Music, founded in Rome in 1584, and has been mentioned in many musical compositions and poems. She is also named in the Canon of the Roman Latin Mass.

Culture of Christ Sunday

This is known as “Christ the King” Sunday, the last Sunday after Pentecost, and the culmination of the Church’s liturgical year. Next week is our “liturgical New Year’s”: the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Cycle A lectionary readings.

Contemporary theologian, James Alison, says this about “Christ the King” Sunday: “We don't often think in terms of kings or kingdoms anymore. The ‘PC’ way of talking about it is to talk about a ‘Reign of Christ.’ But I'm not sure that catches it, either. In this democratic, capitalist age we don't talk about either kingdoms or reigns. Even ‘nation’ is becoming less of an issue. What is it that we talk about the most these days when it comes to social constructs? Isn't it ‘culture’? Everything these days is about ‘culture,’... So how about the ‘Culture of Christ’ Sunday?”

Alison goes on to reflect on how fed up he is “of going to seminar after seminar in which there is so much babble about culture that amounts to little more than a cataloguing of characteristics…” No one seems to examine the deeper issue: namely, how culture is generated, how it comes into being.

René Girard, noted cultural anthropologist, was one who did think about such things. He puts the Cross of Christ right at the center of what reveals to us how our culture is founded, is based upon, violence and killing -- which is exactly what today’s Gospel (Luke 23:33-43) seems to be about. In the cross of Christ we see both the revelation of how we base our culture and how God founds the divine culture, offered to us in Christ: a culture based on Christ's yielding to the violence and killing on which our culture is based, at the same time that he forgives us for it.

Take, for example, the ongoing world crisis against terrorism. Our culture seems unable conceive of any other option than to meet violent force with further violent force. We attempt to make peace by threatening more violence. Look at the attitudes and actions of our current political leaders in the Congress and Senate: apparently, they truly can't imagine any other option for the President. What would it look like if we possibly based the affairs of State on something like the Cross? We can't even imagine it. But God could. And God has, in fact, brought about a new culture, a new reign: the opposite of murder and vengeance. namely, by forgiving, even in the face of violence and killing.

The one statement which fairly leaps out at us from Luke’s Gospel text this morning is: “And the people stood by, watching…” (23:35) It’s found only in Luke who, throughout his Gospel, shows how “the people” witness virtually every aspect of Jesus’ ministry: Zechariah the priest proclaimed early on that God has “looked favorably upon his people and redeemed them”, even sending a messenger to “give knowledge of salvation to his people”. The people listen to Jesus’ teaching, praising God for his healing power. The people witness Jesus confronting and criticizing the religious authorities, and flock to hear him in the temple, even as he prophesies its destruction. Luke says that “a great number of the people” follow as Jesus is led away to be crucified, and here they are, again, “the people” standing by the cross, watching.

What a contrast with the others at the scene. The people don’t mock or deride Jesus in his desperate situation, as others do. What could their presence here by the cross mean? Are they just curious onlookers, like gawkers who crane their necks at the sight of the gruesome horror and “spectacle” of a freeway accident: captivated, but without any personal commitment or involvement? Or perhaps, are they like friends and family, gathered in vigil at the bedside of a dying loved one, simply offering support to their beloved Teacher in the only way they know how?

Luke’s silence about “the people’s” motives invites you and me, as readers and hearers of this Gospel, to ourselves enter into the episode as we “watch” the story unfold. What do “the people” see? What do the hearers hear? the readers understand? What do we hear and see and understand?

As Jesus travelled around among the people, he clearly rejected any association between himself and the idea of “kingship”, despite the interesting allusions which Luke uses earlier in the Gospel. Zechariah, again, refers to the One who will be “a mighty savior...in the house of [God’s] servant David”. The heavenly angel, appearing to the shepherds after Jesus’ birth, confirms that. Other allusions include Jesus being referred to as “the Anointed One” [messiah], in the manner of a king, and his entry into Jerusalem, on the royal symbol of a donkey and with the acclaim of “the people”.

Despite these allusions, Scripture also hints that this Savior/King isn’t the royalty most people were expecting. Jesus is born in a manger, “because there was no place for them in the inn”, says Luke. Jesus’ royal anointing is expressed, not in any military action engaging other powers, but in bringing “good news to the poor...and...proclaim[ing] the year of the Lord’s favor”. Finally, Luke presents Jesus, hanging on a cross, outside the walls of Jerusalem, in between two criminals whom, even as he suffers and his life ebbs away, he engages in conversation. Hardly the typical place for a king! Yet, above Jesus‘ head hangs the clear inscription: “This is the King of the Jews”.

“The leaders”, Luke says, witnessing the crucifixion and recognizing the irony of a crucified man, acclaimed as a “king”, repeatedly scoff at Jesus [lit., kept sneering]: “...let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!…”, even as the Pharisees had done earlier, when Jesus taught about the dangers of wealth. “The soldiers” also mock him, continuing the demeaning actions of the “men who were holding Jesus” before his trial, as Luke says. Even one of the criminals sharing Jesus‘ plight joins in the disdainful chorus, “deriding him”, Luke notes, “...saying ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

Three times Jesus is ridiculed and taunted about his being called “The King”, “the Anointed One”, even though Jesus’ whole ministry to the people, not just to his fellow Jews, but to anyone and everyone who came to him, was defined by one thing: bringing God’s love and salvation to, and sharing it with, every person, regardless of status or condition. Yet, in the culture of violence which brought about his own death, which Jesus had predicted, there were many questions, doubts, and much disbelief about his true identity and purpose.

But, as Luke reminds us, there was one exception: the other criminal crucified with Jesus. Unknown and unidentified, he’s depicted as a person who recognizes the truth about what’s happening. He rebukes the other derisive criminal, pointing out that they’re getting what they deserved for their deeds, whereas “this man has done nothing wrong”. He’d heard Jesus say earlier: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Somehow this man recognized that the culture in which Jesus, “the Anointed One”, ministered and lived was one of forgiveness and reconciliation, even in the face of violence and murder. He confesses his own failings: “we...have been condemned justly...we are getting what we deserve for our deeds”, and in humility, he asks only that Jesus not forget him in the “kingdom” after they die. Jesus assures him that in his “reign”, in his “culture”, the “criminal” is already forgiven, that the man and Jesus already share the place where evil and violence give way to mercy, forgiveness and love.

Luke doesn’t tell us how “the people” who were watching responded to any of this. We don’t know what they thought about the taunting regarding Jesus’ saving power; or about Jesus’ conversation with the criminals; or whether, in their minds and hearts, Jesus was who he had proclaimed himself to be. “The people” don’t ever appear again in Luke’s narrative.

So what of us who also “watch” this story? We’re lucky to be the beneficiaries of many centuries of thought and discussion about it since the time it happened. Perhaps no more eloquent commentary from Scripture could be chosen to guide us and teach us about Jesus the Christ who “reigns” with compassion, forgiveness and love, than the passage (Colossians 1:11-20) from Paul’s letter to the Colossian community. Paul helps us to understand that the Crucified Jesus is the Cosmic Christ: that, first of all, in and through our baptismal relationship with God in Christ by the power of the Spirit, you and I are freed from the violence and evil of all “powers” and secondary “rulers” in the universe; and, secondly, that in and through that baptismal relationship, you and I and, indeed, all that has been created, participates in the reign, the culture of Christ. “...all the strength”, Paul says, “...comes from his glorious power…”

In Christ, the Father has “enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light…” The Greek word for “enabled” means “to cause to be adequate, to make sufficient, to qualify”. How many times have you and I felt “inadequate” about ourselves? “insufficient”? “unqualified”? Paul is proclaiming that God, through Christ’s continual forgiveness and love, is always making us adequate, and sufficient, and qualified. In Baptism, you and I have made a huge transition: God has swooped us up, “rescued us” from the power of darkness, and put us in a new place, “transferred us”, into the reign, the culture, the life, of forgiveness, redemption, love. We come into “the light”: the place where there is only honesty, clarity, truth and vision. And in this place we’re never alone. We share “in the inheritance of the saints”, the Communion of God’s holy ones who love us, support us, and are, indeed, our true BFF’s...Best Friends Forever!

As the Agent of Creation, Jesus the Christ, God’s Son, is the icon,”the image”, of the God whom we can’t see here below. In Jesus the Christ, however, we do see God. Every human being and all of creation has its origin, begins, in Him. And, Paul says, “all things have been created through him and for him...in him all things hold together…” Wherever we encounter things or human beings speaking to us of what Jesus the Christ is and does -- loving, forgiving, ministering to, accepting -- there we “see” not only Jesus the Christ, but the unseen Father and the life-giving Spirit, and we see the Church, the assembly of “the people” gathered to make Him, who is the Head of the body, present among us.

As the Agent of Redemption, Christ summarizes, encompasses, embodies, the fullness of Who God is. Christ is the beginning, the continuation, and the end of all life. Christ is the “first”, Number 1, in everything: first in priority, first in importance, first in origin, first in order, so that nothing in the entire universe exists outside of Christ’s/God’s domain.

So, in this “Culture of Christ”, what is God up to? What’s God’s agenda? What’s the bottom line? Two things, Paul says: first, in this beloved Son who is Jesus the Christ, who is above, beyond, and ahead of all that is created, God “was pleased to dwell ”; and secondly, “through him God was pleased to reconcile to [God]self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

As you and I, part of the people of God, the Church, today think back over this past year, what have we understood, seen, heard? More importantly, how has what we’ve observed, dealt with, and heard moved us to react to Jesus the Christ? “Who do you say that I am?”, Christ continually asks us, and “What have you done, what will you do, to bring into being my culture, my reign of peace, mercy, forgiveness and love?”

St. Hild[a] of Whitby (614-680)

From Book IV, Chapter 23: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 

by the Venerable Bede of Jarrow

Of the life and death of the Abbess Hilda.

"In the year after this, that is the year of our Lord 680, the most religious handmaid of Christ, Hilda,abbess of the monastery that is called Streanaeshalch, as we mentioned above, after having done many heavenly deeds on earth, passed thence to receive the rewards of the heavenly life, on the 17th of November, at the age of sixty-six years. Her life falls into two equal parts, for the first thirty-three years of it she spent living most nobly in the secular habit; and still more nobly dedicated the remaining half to the Lord in the monastic life. For she was nobly born, being the daughter of Hereric, nephew to King Edwin, and with that king she also received the faith and mysteries of Christ, at the preaching of Paulinus, of blessed memory, the first bishop of the Northumbrians, and
preserved the same undefiled till she attained to the vision of our Lord in Heaven.

When she had resolved to quit the secular habit, and to serve Him alone, she withdrew into the province of the East Angles, for she was allied to the king there; being desirous to cross over thence into Gaul, forsaking her native country and all that she had, and so to live a stranger for our Lord’s sake in the monastery of Cale, that she might the better attain to the eternal country in heaven. For her sister Heresuid, mother to Aldwulf, king of the East Angles, was at that time living in the same monastery, under regular discipline, waiting for an everlasting crown; and led by her example, she continued a whole year in the aforesaid province, with the design of going abroad; but afterwards,
Bishop Aidan recalled her to her home, and she received land to the extent of one family on the north side of the river Wear; where likewise for a year she led a monastic life, with very few companions.

After this she was made abbess in the monastery called Heruteu, (Hartlepool) which monastery had been founded, not long before, by the pious handmaid of Christ, Heiu, who is said to have been the first woman in the province of the Northumbrians who took upon her the vows and habit of a nun, being consecrated by Bishop Aidan; but she, soon after she had founded that monastery, retired to the city of Calcaria, which is called Kaelcacaestir (Tadcaster)by the English, and there fixed her dwelling. Hilda, the handmaid of Christ, being set over that monastery, began immediately to order it in all things under a rule of life, according as she had been instructed by learned men; for Bishop Aidan, and others of the religious that knew her, frequently visited her and loved her heartily, and diligently instructed her, because of her innate wisdom and love of the service of God.

When she had for some years governed this monastery, wholly intent upon establishing a rule of life, it happened that she also undertook either to build or to set in order a monastery in the place called Streanaeshalch, and this work which was laid upon her she industriously performed; for she put this monastery under the same rule of monastic life as the former; and taught there the strict observance of justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, and particularly of peace and charity; so that, after the example of the primitive Church, no one there was rich, and none poor, for they had all things common, and none had any private property. Her prudence was so great, that not only meaner men in their need, but sometimes even kings and princes, sought and received her counsel; she obliged those who were under her direction to give so much time to reading of the Holy Scriptures, and to exercise themselves so much in works of justice, that many might readily be found there fit for the priesthood and the service of the altar...

...Thus this handmaid of Christ, the Abbess Hilda, whom all that knew her called Mother, for her singular piety and grace, was not only an example of good life, to those that lived in her monastery, but afforded occasion of amendment and salvation to many who lived at a distance, to whom the blessed fame was brought of her industry and virtue...

...When she had governed this monastery many years, it pleased Him Who has made such merciful provision for our salvation, to give her holy soul the trial of a long infirmity of the flesh, to the end that, according to the Apostle’s example, her virtue might be made perfect in weakness. Struck down with a fever, she suffered from a burning heat, and was afflicted with the same trouble for six years continually; during all which time she never failed either to return thanks to her Maker, or publicly and privately to instruct the flock committed to her charge; for taught by her own experience she admonished all to serve the Lord dutifully, when health of body is granted to them, and always to return thanks faithfully to Him in adversity, or bodily infirmity. In the seventh year of her sickness, when the disease turned inwards, her last day came, and about cockcrow,
having received the voyage provision of Holy Housel, and called together the handmaids of Christ that were within the same monastery, she admonished them to preserve the peace of the Gospel among themselves, and with all others; and even as she spoke her words of exhortation, she joyfully saw death come, or, in the words of our Lord, passed from death unto life.

That same night it pleased Almighty God, by a manifest vision, to make known her death in another monastery, at a distance from hers, which she had built that same year, and which is called Hacanos. There was in that monastery, a certain nun called Begu, who, having dedicated her virginity to the Lord, had served Him upwards of thirty years in the monastic life. This nun was resting in the dormitory of the sisters, when on a sudden she heard in the air the well-known sound of the bell, which used to awake and call them to prayers, when any one of them was taken out of this world, and opening her eyes, as she thought, she saw the roof of the house open, and a light shed
from above filling all the place. Looking earnestly upon that light, she saw the soul of the aforesaid handmaid of God in that same light, being carried to heaven attended and guided by angels. Then awaking, and seeing the other sisters lying round about her, she perceived that what she had seen had been revealed to her either in a dream or a vision; and rising immediately in great fear, she ran to the virgin who then presided in the monastery in the place of the abbess, and whose name was Frigyth, and, with many tears and lamentations, and heaving deep sighs, told her that the Abbess Hilda, mother of them all, had departed this life, and had in her sight ascended to the gates of eternal light, and to the company of the citizens of heaven, with a great light, and with angels for her guides. Frigyth having heard it, awoke all the sisters, and calling them to the church, admonished them to give themselves to prayer and singing of psalms, for the soul of their mother; which they did earnestly during the remainder of the night; and at break of day, the brothers came with news of her death, from the place where she had died. They answered that they knew it before, and then related in order how and when they had learnt it, by which it appeared that her death had been revealed to them in a vision that same hour in which the brothers said that she had died. Thus by a fair harmony of events Heaven ordained, that when some saw her departure out of this world, the others should have knowledge of her entrance into the eternal life of souls. These monasteries are about thirteen miles distant from each other..."

"Be Glad and Rejoice Forever In What I Am Creating..."

It's been a busy last few days, so I'm way behind on the blog. Sunday morning I was thinking about some of the Scripture passages for Proper 28, in particular from Isaiah 65:17-25 and Luke 21:5-19.  Lotta talk about creating "new heavens and a new earth", about rejoicing and delighting in the people, about no more weeping being heard. That was Isaiah. Luke's message was more of a "downer": talk about no stone being left upon another, of wars and insurrections, of nations and other entities squabbling among themselves, of earthquakes, famines, plagues -- even talk of being arrested, persecuted. Well, I have to confess, that was a bit like reading the morning newspaper these days!

I'd just returned from our Diocese's 100th Convention which, though it had distinct moments of great joy and celebration, was also tinged with the memory of the recent fire which devastated the River City Food Bank in Sacramento, and did a pretty good job also on our adjacent Office of the Bishop. Bishop Beisner lost most of his vestments. All but one of the portraits of our previous Bishops were lost, not to mention things like stationery, computers and other essential office equipment and furniture, plus some of the personal items of all our supporting staff members. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."

In addition, at the Convention we were asked to approve the dissolution of St. Mark's Parish, Yreka, whose Vestry unanimously voted for the action. The congregation had dwindled to a very few, and there weren't enough leaders to carry on the work. We all experienced a noticeable hush when the vote was taken. A sad moment.

Nevertheless, I personally felt that there was a distinctly positive tone in the Convention deliberations overall, a growing sense that, with all the change about us, we're being asked to change, to explore unfamiliar territory in our ministry and mission all over the Diocese, in every area. Along with that, it seemed apparent that there's a willingness to strike out in that direction, motivated by the consistent reminder of Bishop Beisner, ever since his consecration: "Focus on the mission; stay together; keep moving forward in the name of Christ."

I returned from Convention, motivated particularly by the words and example of our young leaders, clergy and lay, within the Diocese. Our new, of one year, Youth Coordinator, Monica Romano, gave an exceptional reflection to the Convention: realistic, born of her experience this past year in moving about the Diocese, rooted in the Gospel message and in the person of Jesus. If her spirit is any indication, and I believe it clearly is, there is definitely hope.

Which made another passage, from Isaiah 12, come alive for me: "Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for God is my strength and my might..." Whatever God is creating in this place, it is good, it is very good!

To Be A Praise of Glory

From a letter to Abbé Angles, curate of the Church of St. Hilaire, Dijon, and a  friend of Elizabeth and her family from the time she was about 9 years old:

"I am going to tell you a very personal secret: my dream is to be 'the praise of His glory.' I read that in Saint Paul and my Bridegroom made me understand that this was to be my vocation while in exile, waiting to go sing the eternal Sanctus in the City of the saints. But that requires great fidelity, for in order to be a praise of glory, one must be dead to all that is not He, so as to be moved only by His touch, and the worthless Elizabeth does such foolish things to her Master; but like a tender Father, He forgives her, His divine glance purifies her and, like Saint Paul, she tries 'to forget what lies behind and press on toward what is ahead.' How we feel the need to be sanctified, to forget ourselves in order to belong wholly to the interests of the Church...Poor France! I love to cover her with the blood of the Just One, 'of Him who is always living to intercede and to ask mercy.' What a sublime mission the Carmelite has; she is to be mediatrix with Jesus Christ, to be another humanity for Him in which He can perpetuate His life of reparation, sacrifice, praise, and adoration. Oh, ask Him that I may be equal to my vocation and not abuse the graces He lavishes on me; if you knew how fearful that makes me sometimes...Then I cast myself on Him whom Saint John calls 'the Faithful and True,' and I beg Him to be Himself my fidelity!..."