O Gladsome Light
Choral Evensong: Sunday May 28 5:00 p.m.
The upcoming consecration of our new Bishop, John Taylor, reminded me once again that Episcopalians (in general) are big on two things: ritual and tradition. While the consecration promises to be full of pomp and circumstance, we will be offering another treasured Anglican tradition of a more contemplative kind: Evensong.
This evening prayer service dates back to the founding of the Church of England. Settings of the traditional canticles (the Song of Mary and Song of Simeon, or “Mag and Nunc”) have inspired composers from Thomas Tallis up to the present day. The service can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it, but its timelessness is a balm for the soul. (And the refreshments afterward don’t hurt either!) Our service will be the classic Anglican “middle way” – always tasteful, but not too fancy!
So come enjoy the evening light through the stained glass, chant the responses to the prayers, and let the busy-ness of the world fall away into “prayer time”. Come join us – you’ll be glad you did!
Following the Evensong:
We’ll gather for wine, cheese, and fellowship following the Evensong.
7th Sunday of Easter:
Sunday of the Ascension
Thou has raised our human nature
on the clouds to God’s right hand:
There we sit in heavenly places
there with thee in glory stand.
Jesus reigns adored by angels
Man with God is on the throne;
mighty Lord in thine Ascension,
we by faith behold our own
Hymn #215
From Pope St. Leo the Great, one of the most important Church Fathers, died in 461. Leo is most remembered for his “Tome” a document he sent to the Council of Chalcedon that what instrumental in helping the Council define the two natures of Christ that we affirm in the Nicene Creed. Because of his writings on the Incarnation, we often hear excerpts from him at Christmas Midnight Mass.
The days between the Lord’s resurrection and his ascension, my dear friends, did not pass by without purpose: great mysteries were established in them, and great truths were revealed. During these days, the fear of the horror of death was taken away, and the immortality of the body as well as the soul was made known. During them the Lord breathed on all his apostles and filled them with the Holy Spirit; and to Peter above the others he entrusted to them the keys to the kingdom.
It was during this time that the Lord joined the two disciples as their companion on the road to Emmaus, and by rebuking them for their timid and fearful hesitation dispelled the darkness of uncertainty for all our minds. Their enlightened hearts received the flame of faith; lukewarm before, their hearts now burnt within them as the Lord unfolded the Scriptures to them. As they ate with him, their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread, opened much more happily to the revealed glory of our nature than were the eyes of the first members of our race who were filled with shame at their sin.
Throughout this time between the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, the Lord in his providence fulfilled one purpose, taught one lesson, set one consideration before their eyes and hearts of his followers; namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ, who was truly born, truly suffered, and truly died, should be recognized as truly risen. The apostles and all the disciples had been filled with fear by his death on the cross, and their faith in the resurrection had been hesitant; but now they gained such great strength from seeing the truth, that when the Lord went up to heaven, far from feeling sadness, they experienced great joy.
Indeed, they had a great and mysterious cause for rejoicing. For in the sight of a vast company of the faithful human nature was exalted above the dignity of all the creatures of heaven, passing beyond ranks of angels, raised above the seat of the archangels, to receive an elevation that would have no limit until it was admitted into the eternal Father’s dwelling, to share the glorious throne of him whose nature it had been united in the person of the Son.
New Reading Group: Thursday, June 1, 7:00 p.m.
Fr. Bob will lead a group in reading The Religious Potential of the Child, by Sofia Cavalletti. This is the foundational text for our spiritual formation program for our children called The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This reading group is for people seeking to understand more deeply how the life of faith develops in children and how adults can facilitate, that is cooperate with God in what he is doing in the depths of their children. The group will meet in Fr. Bob’s office. This coming Thursday we’ll have an overview of the book and some demonstrations of the insights contained in it. Fr. Bob has books available. Get a hold of him if you need one.
Working our Way Through the 95 Theses.
2017 is the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the Church door in Wittenberg Germany. What started out as suggestions for a discussion of desired improvement, a polite way of saying reforms of Church life became the catalyst for the Reformation which caused a fair amount of turmoil to say the least.
In honor of this anniversary we at Church of the Angels are working our way through our own 95 Theses in an effort to improve our Church life and do it in a way that is not so disruptive.
Several of the Theses have been addressed.
#78: The carpet in the Church basement, and on the stairs has been cleaned two weeks ago. That includes the special world map carpet set aside in the Children’s babysitting area.
#79: The upholstery of the furniture in the Parish Hall Living Room has also been thoroughly cleaned.
#35: The Church computer is in the process of being upgraded. Fr. Bob has reluctantly given up the Latin Mass of Windows XP for the Language of the People Windows 10.
We’ll keep you posted as to all the progress.
Emmaus Road Monday, June 5, 7:00 p.m.
Emmaus Road concluded its reading of Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ. We now move on to a new book, Simple Gifts: Living Lessons From a Shaker Villiage, by June Sprigg. The book is available from Amazon
Here’s a description :
In Simple Gifts, June Sprigg tells the story of one of America's last Shaker communities--Canterbury Shaker Village, in Canterbury, New Hampshire--during its twilight years, and of its seven remarkable "survivor" women, who were among the last representatives of our longest-lived and best-known communal utopian society. As a college student Sprigg spent a summer among them, and here she gracefully interweaves the narrative of their lives with the broader history of Shakers in America as she shows us how her experiences there affected her own life and opened the door to her creativity.
Gleaning information from old records and journals that she pored over that summer and later, Sprigg brings to life the generations of Canterbury Shakers from the eighteenth century to the present--their customs, their architecture, their spirituality. She also explores the social and cultural forces and the internal imperatives and tensions that caused membership to decrease, all of which, by 1972, brought the community to crisis.
Chronicling the daily life of the village as she found it, Sprigg uncovers the affirming energies of the Shakers--the prominence of mutual love and respect, the devoted tradition of mothering surrogate children, and, above all, the surviving women's spirited eccentricities. She reveals the Shakers as individuals--their personal histories, their wildly different beginnings, what they gave up to join the Shaker community, and, more important, what they gained.
Through her lively text and drawings and her intimate connection with the community, Sprigg brings us close to its people with a book that both enlightens and inspires.
Emmaus Road will not meet Monday May 29, being Memorial Day. We’ll start again on Monday June 5
Food For Thought:
On the Food For Thought Table this Sunday two articles especially appropriate for the end of the Easter Season.
1. The first is a short segment from Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey’s book The Resurrection. Ramsey was the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury and served from 1956 to 1974. In this short piece he shows how what Christians understand by our hope in the Resurrection is so much more vast than what most people think of as the afterlife.
2. From The New York Times, “We Aren’t Built to Live in the Present Moment.” Cognitive scientists are beginning to discover something Christians have always known but which until now psychologists were not aware: Our lives are determined not by our past, but by our future. Humans are future directed beings, anticipating and making provision for what is to come. We are not the prisoners of our past traumatic or otherwise. Often people suffering from depression have an impoverished sense of what their future could be.
These two pieces dovetail nicely and reinforce the meaning of Easter