Carson Clark: I ♥ Anglicanism’s Global Orientation

Northern Plains connection: he came from Min-ae-SOH-tah (once).

Miniblog #58: I ♥ Anglicanism’s Global Orientation « Musings of a Hard-Lining Moderate

"I’ve only been Anglican since this past summer. Before that I spent a year seriously wrestling with God, grappling with my wife’s and my spiritual needs, assessing my culture, and exploring the tradition. Surveying the evangelicals around me, it was frustrating that so many were clearly guilty of believing, thinking, and acting more as Christian Americans than American Christians."

I'm going to miss this prayer

This week's Collect (Book of Common Prayer 1979) is beautiful, and I have been blessed through praying it each day:

Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

here's the traditional version,

Most loving Father, who willest us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all our care on thee who carest for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which thou hast manifested to us in thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

It is placed for the 8th Sunday after the Epiphany, which doesn't happen most years. Epiphany has more Sundays when Easter (which moves about with the lunar cycle) falls late, and this year Easter is about as late as it can go.

I am trying to find the origin of this prayer. I found one site that credited it to this Oxford Professor. If it was composed by him, it obviously wasn't in the first Books of Common Prayer or the 1662 version, which is official for the Church of England.

Anybody know more? When and where did it enter liturgical use?

I'm going to miss it until we have another late Easter and 8th Sunday after Epiphany some year.

Ah ha! So that's where that Jesus kid got it...

This must have been observed by other folks but I'm too lazy to Google it.

As I read Morning Prayer today, these verses

One thing have I asked of the LORD; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life; To behold the fair beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. (Psalm 21:5-6)

suddenly reminded me of Jesus' answer when his followers asked for a lesson on how to pray:

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. (Luke 11:9-10)

The "ask" and the "seek" are there word for word, and the Psalm's "seek him in his temple" certainly suggests knocking on the temple door.

This should should not surprise me. Jesus quoted Psalms frequently, praying from Psalm 22 in his final moments on the cross.

After his resurrection, he told his followers

"These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures... (Luke 24:44)

What a joy to hear his voice in this morning's Psalms, opening my mind to better understand his way of prayer.

Feedback from a Bible Study

We are offering an intergenerational class, using the Faith Stepping Stones curriculum.

The current Bible overview has 8 sessions, so we started here in late Epiphany, will run it as the Lenten series, and conclude with study of the New Testament in the first weeks of Easter season.

Got a Facebook message from one of the moms who attended with her family last night:

"(Our elementary age daughter) was telling us in the parking lot that she had the best time ever and she loves her Bible. She said that she loves to be able to highlight and write in it and is very proud that it is all hers. She was reading me passages out of it and telling me how excited she is to learn more."

Because we don't have altar flowers during the solemn days of Lent, we are having folks make Sunday thank offerings and memorials toward purchasing new study Bibles for the parish kids. For at least one young lady and her family, that was a winner!

All thanks, praise and glory to God.

Worth reading: "Forgiveness" by Larry D. Ellis

Forgiveness: Unleashing a Transformational Process

I just finished this and highly recommend it for personal or group study. Pretty good fare for Lent if you are still searching!

This is a decidedly Christian book - it is not a generic discussion of forgiveness but an honest look at the full message of Jesus. As a result, Ellis does a great job of separating cultural myths and platitudes from the God-centered teaching of Jesus.

A key idea is that we learn to "agree" with God - to see things as God sees them, even when we aren't up to acting on the agreement. He is honest about the hard work that true forgiveness involves, but inspires hope in the transformative power that God makes available through forgiveness - beginning in our hearts as we confess our need for and receive God's forgiveness.

Ellis is well read Biblically and theologically, and blessedly expresses this in language clear enough for any reader.