I KNOW IT'S STILL EASTER, BUT...

GLOBAL FACTS ABOUT SEX


AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT:


FACT:

79,000,000 people are engaged in sex - right now.


FACT:

58,000,000 are kissing.


FACT:

37,000,000 are relaxing after having sex.


FACT:

1 odd person is reading this blog.


YOU HANG IN THERE SUNSHINE......


Doug strikes again!

CHRIST IS RISEN! ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!

 

GRECO, El - "The Resurrection" - 1577-79
Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, Toledo

EASTER COLLECT

Almighty God,
through your Son Jesus Christ
You overcame death and opened to us
the gate of everlasting life;
grant us so to die daily to sin,
that we may evermore live with him
in the joy of his resurrection:
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.

(New Zealand Prayer Book, p.593)

Painting from the Web Gallery of Art.

HAPPY EASTER!

 

 

 

From Doug and me to all of you.

TENEBRAE RESPONSORIES

 

MadPriest at Of Course, I Could Be Wrong posted a Hipcast of a lovely version of the Holy Saturday Victoria: Tenebrae Responsories. You may want to have a listen. I liked the music so that I bought the album from eMusic.

CHRIST IN THE TOMB

 

HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger - "The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb" - Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:12-16

Not a pretty picture, is it? Click on the painting for the enlargedment. The painting shocked me upon first view, but it seems a realistic portrayal of a decaying body.

Note on the painting from the Web Gallery of Art:

Portraits apart, this is perhaps Holbein's most striking image. Since Dostoevsky's observations in the nineteenth century, which dwelt on the forbidding aspects of physical decay and bodily corruption, the painting has been seen as the product of a mind steeped in the apocalyptic horrors that were unleashed by the first phase of the Reformation. But what is known of Holbein's phlegmatic interpretation of the human condition belies this interpretation. Modern authorities suggest that Holbein intended to stress the sheer miracle of Resurrection and its imminence, since the minutely-observed level of decay in the gangrenous wounds suggests that we see Christ's body three days after death.

An inscription in brush on paper, 'IESUS NAZARENUS REX IUDAEORUM', borne above the painting by angels holding the instruments of the Passion, precludes its use as a predella panel (at the base of an altarpiece), as does our viewpoint of the body. Instead, a role as an object of contemplation, a reminder of Christ's sufferings and mortification and his subsequent triumph, is suggested. Such practices flourished from the late middle ages and account in part for the many representations of the dead Christ from Lombardy (the Bellinis in Venice also produced several). Mantegna's famous version grapples with artistic as well as religious problems in its dramatic foreshortening, which are not fully resolved. By contrast, Holbein's draughtsmanship appears masterly.

An unverified tradition asserts that a drowned body fished out of the Rhine served the painter as a model for the figure of Christ lying in the tomb. Even if it is not true, the legend is a telling testament to the terrifying realism of Holbein's depiction of a corpse in a state of rigor mortis.

NO BLESSING FOR YOU

Ruth Gledhill in the Times:

Like a Druidic emissary from Tuatha Dé Danaan, the mythic inhabitants of Ireland, the Archbishop of Canterbury will lob a spiritual depth charge at Pope Benedict XVI on Monday when he damns the Catholic Church in Ireland as having lost all credibility.

Dr Williams also reveals on the BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week that he is withholding his blessing from Anglicans who choose to take advantage of the Pope’s offer of a special home in the Catholic Church for disaffected Anglicans. “God bless them. I don’t,” he says, witheringly.

Ruth also comments on Fr Cantalamessa's sermon at the Good Friday service which the pope attended on Good Friday.

His [Dr Williams] difficulties are as nothing compared with the child abuse tsunami that threatens to drown Roman Catholicism. Yesterday it got a whole lot worse for the Roman Catholic Church when the Pope’s personal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, likened accusations against the Pope and the Church in the sex abuse scandal to the “collective violence suffered by the Jews”.

H/T to Марко at Amictus Sindone for the link to the Times.

UPPING THE ANTE

From the New York Times:

A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack.
....

Benedict sat looking downward when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said.
....

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi stressed that Father Cantalamessa’s sermon represented his own private thoughts and was not “an official statement” from the Vatican.

Posted without commentary.

MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

 

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) 1954, by Salvador Dali

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
....

Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

(Psalm 22:1-2, 9-11)

In a wonderful essay at the Daily Episcopalian, Christopher Evans reminds us to connect the Incarnation (which is more than a pretty story!) to the Crucifixion. My heart leaped as I read, because I find that connection somewhat lacking in the present day liturgies. When Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem for the purification ceremony, old Simeon had a word or two to say:

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

(Luke 2:33-35)

In his essay, Evans says:

In working to correct an imbalance, it seems that now we want little to do with a pained and suffering God; with a God who nurses, shits, and bleeds; with a God who identifies with flesh, blood, and bone definitively. The Nativity, the Incarnation, is reduced to sweet manger scenes and gifts of sweets. The cross is an after thought to the joys of Easter. We want nothing of the Creator who, in J.S. Bach’s words for St. John’s Passion, dies.

But without this bodiliness, this fleshliness, the Resurrection becomes a ghostly thing.

That God came down, that God took upon God's own self the human form to become one of us, to live as we live, to struggle as we struggle, to love and take joy in human companionship, and, finally, to suffer and die, and to be raised up, flesh and blood, is the miracle of Christmas, and the miracle of Easter, and the miracle of our salvation.

As Evans says:

It is this fleshly God, Jesus Christ, who goes all the way for us that captures my heart and imagination, that makes utterly awesome the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Communion of Saints, the Creation, the Holy Communion.

Amen!

"MY EPISCOPAL CHURCH"

Title and video "borrowed" from Ann at What the Tide Brings In.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - GOOD WILL

Good will that is purchased is worth nothing at all.

A REMINDER - JESUS IN LOVE BLOG SERIES

From the The Jesus in Love Blog:

A queer version of Christ’s Passion is running in daily installments this week from Palm Sunday through Easter. Each daily post features a queer Christian painting and an excerpt from the novel Jesus in Love: At the Cross by Kittredge Cherry.

The paintings of our friend Doug Blanchard, aka Counterlight, are featured in the series, along with other artists.

MARIE'S LETTER TO THE POPE

From Marie Fortune at the FaithTrust Institute:

In fairness to the Pope, there is probably nothing he could have said to the church in Ireland that would be sufficient to bring healing to the thousands of survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of pedophile priests. Too little, too late. I don’t think anyone ever imagined the numbers of victims, the numbers of abusive priests, and the material (not to mention the spiritual) cost facing the Roman Catholic Church. But as the crisis erupts again in Europe and the U.S. with serious questions being raised about the Pope himself, one has to wonder if the men in charge have learned anything in the past 20 years. It would appear not.

If the Vatican were to ask me for advice on how to handle this situation (which they will not), here are my ten steps to justice and healing....

Read Marie's advice to the pope. I can't think of one word that I'd want to add.

Thanks to Ann for the link.

MAUNDY THURSDAY

 

"Sacrament of the Last Supper" - Salvador Dali

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the* covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’

(Mark 14:22-25)

HOLY THURSDAY

Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

William Blake - Songs of Experience

But he [Jesus] answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’

(Mark 6:37)

WENCHOSTER CALENDAR - APRIL

 

 

In her regular feature in the Pharisaios Journal, "The Word From Wormingdale", Canon Daphne Pullover reflects on the season:

Easters that fall after the start of British Summer Time give us lighter mornings in which to contemplate the encounter in the garden between a weeping woman and a stranger. It always reminds me of a walk I took one early morning across the meadows at the back of the village and adjacent to the river. The mist was rising and the usual path looked unfamiliar. As I came down to the old footbridge I sensed rather than saw a figure standing on it, but I still jumped with fright when it turned round and lifted its arms above its head. “Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed as I fell backwards on to the grass. The figure advanced towards me as I lay spread-eagled on the damp sod. I felt a warm flush as it reached out a gnarled hand towards me to help me up. “Morin’ Reverend,” said a familiar voice. “Did oi startle ‘ee?” Recognition was instant, and I gently cuffed Sam Pharlap round the ear. “What are you doing down here you old beggar?” I said. “You frightened me half out of my wits.” It turned out that Sam was engaged in his usual pursuit of pheasant boggling, an old Wenchostershire tradition dating back to the 16th century.

Down in the church the aisles are heavy with scent from the arum lilies, and the tower damp with the perspiration of the ringers. Warm spring breezes blow across the churchyard, stirring the small posies of flowers that people have laid on the graves of their loved ones. Homely Easter traditions – flowers and bells and remembrance and feasting. The Gospels speak of the same things – the women bringing scented spices and oils to the tomb, the feast of fish and honeycomb in the Upper Room, bread and wine at Emmaus, no doubt with flowers placed on the table by the innkeeper’s wife. In the vestry the choir practice their celebratory anthem, and I hear the steady clicking of the organist’s metronome atop the piano.

William Wordsworth’s wild daffodils spread themselves in the new churchyard grass and on the Village Green. Seagulls winging inland from the coast swoop and wheel low above the greening crops, ever looking for their Easter feast. I can see them still from my bedroom window. Such energy – the flying of miles for a small snack, so unlike human energy, exhausted after a day’s hike from Jerusalem to Emmaus – just one thing on their mind – refreshment, and then maybe more conversation with their odd companion. Then after the disappearance such renewed vigour in their hurrying back to the city. The Easter tales are all go, scurrying hither and thither, such tales to tell.

Low Sunday is always an anti-climax, but this year I shall be busy for there is to be a family reunion in Wenchoster. Second cousins I have not seen for decades will meet me in the Thorpe Hotel for lunch. Aunt Phoebe is coming all the way from Nantucket to be with us, and Aunt Geraldine is flying in from new Zealand. We will be a merry gathering, and as it is to take place in a respectable County hotel, we will, of course, be wearing hats.

Aunt Phoebe, my mother’s youngest sister, always reminds me of Aunt Ada Doom in Cold Comfort Farm, who took to her bed after seeing something nasty in the woodshed. Phoebe took to her bed for a year following the break-up of her marriage to Grigori Stanislaus. She had been warned about his predilection for vodka, but when she came home one evening to find him in bed with a goat it was all too much for her. Even now she cannot abide vodka. To my mother she was always the proverbial black sheep of the family. The following day I shall take them on a tour of the sights of Wenchostershire. We shall wander through the Gussetts and explore Balldrop Down.

I am always exhausted after the liturgical round of Holy Week and Easter, and I look forward to a few days off afterwards. There will be time to attend to the garden, recovering after the harsh winter. Kevin will turn up with his implements and together we will turn over the beds.

MAUNDY THURSDAY

 

 

In the merry month of May, I shall be visiting the Diocese of Wenchoster. Bishop Roderick Codpiecium invited me to be his guest, and I simply could not refuse his gracious invitation.

"HE DESCENDED INTO HELL"

In the Church Times, Giles Fraser, Canon at St. Paul's in London, writes wonderfully on Jesus' descent into hell.

THE Bishop of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe, the Rt Revd Pierre Whalon, has just returned from a visit to Haiti. He preached at St Paul’s the other day, and came to lunch with us afterwards, where he told a story about how bad things are in Port-au-Prince.

He spoke of coming across an open pit of bodies that people were also using as a rubbish tip for house hold refuse. All he wanted to do was climb down into the pit and clear out the rubbish. That is to be my abiding prayer thought for this year’s Holy Week.

Christ jumps into the pit of death to claim even the grave for his victory. With this last act, the victory over death, Christ is the Lord of all. There are no corners of human experience that cannot be redeemed by his love.

Although the words, "He descended into hell," are present in The Apostles' Creed, today we tend to slide over the words without giving them due attention. Read Giles' entire post, and you might change your mind.

PERFUME AND BETRAYAL

Doorman-Priest posted a fine reflection for Holy Week based on Chapter 14:1-11 in Mark's Gospel. Especially, take note of DP's words on the implications of the story of the unnamed woman who anointed Jesus with costly perfume.

Some of the wisest words ever spoken to me were the advice from a friend to read the Bible as though all of the stories and teachings apply to YOU. And, to me, that includes the Judas story, which DP speaks of in his post.

TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS FROM INSIDERS

From E. J. Dionne at TruthDig.com:

How in the name of God can the Roman Catholic Church put the pedophilia scandal behind it?

I do not invoke God’s name lightly. The church’s problem is, above all, theological and religious. Its core difficulty is that rather than drawing on its Christian resources, the church has acted almost entirely on the basis of this world’s imperatives and standards.

It has worried about lawsuits. It has worried about its image. It has worried about itself as an institution and about protecting its leaders from public scandal. In so doing, it has made millions of Catholics righteously furious and aggravated every one of its problems.
....

The church needs to show it understands the flaws of its own internal culture by examining its own conscience, its own practices, its own reflexes when faced with challenge. As the church rightly teaches, acknowledging the true nature of our sin is the one and only path to redemption and forgiveness.
....

But defensiveness and institutional self-protection are not Gospel values. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”
....

The church needs to cast aside the lawyers, the PR specialists and its own worst instincts, which are human instincts. Benedict could go down as one of the greatest popes in history if he were willing to risk all in the name of institutional self-examination, painful but liberating public honesty, and true contrition.

And then comes something even harder: Especially during Lent, the church teaches that forgiveness requires us to have “a firm purpose of amendment.” The church will have to show not only that it has learned from this scandal, but also that it’s truly willing to transform itself.

I don't know about history giving Benedict the title of the greatest pope ever, but if Benedict followed Dionne's directives, he could move the church well forward to recovery. It seems to me that criticism and suggestions for a change of direction from within the fold of the Roman Catholic Church carry greater weight than those from outsiders, which the hierarchy can defend with charges of persecution as it is reported that Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, of the Diocese of Brooklyn, did at the Chrism Mass last night.

I do want to take a moment to speak about The New York Times mischaracterization of the role of the Holy Father when he was Archbishop of Munich and then Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The fact is that the paper omitted significant facts with respect to the case of a certain priest in Wisconsin. The reality is that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith did not have competency over Canonical Trials in 1996 when the case is believed to have first been referred to Cardinal Ratzinger. Moreover, the priest in question, a Father Murphy, was in the midst of a Canonical Trial. He died before a verdict was rendered. The case of the priest in the Munich Archdiocese also is presented as a definite error of judgment when all the facts are not known.

This evening, I am asking you to join me in making your displeasure known to the editors. I might even suggest cancelling our subscriptions to the New York Times, but we need to know what the enemy is saying. Enough is enough! Two weeks of articles about a story from many decades ago, in the midst of the Most Holy Season of the Church year is both callous and smack of calumny. I ask you to stand up with me and send a message loud and clear that the Pope, our Church, and our bishops and priests will no longer be the personal punching bag of the New York Times.

Don't deal with the problems; attack the messenger. The New York Times is the enemy. When you have the poorest of defenses, go offensive and attack the critics. Dionne chooses the better path in confronting the problems head on and suggesting Gospel solutions that just might work to begin the long climb upward to restore the reputation and moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

Thanks to IT for the link to Dionne's column and to Whiteycat for the link to the article on Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio's sermon.

BIBLICAL CARTOONS FOR HOLY WEEK

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Lisa.

ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH WELCOMES YOU

 

From Fr Randall Balmer at Religious Dispatches:

I have no authority whatsoever to speak for my Church, nor would I presume to do so. But as an Episcopal priest, I call on my ecclesiastical superiors to make a special overture to Roman Catholics who are disgruntled by the pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church; scandals that increasingly point to the complicity of the man in charge of the Vatican, Benedict XVI.

My reference here, of course, is to the declaration last fall by the very same Benedict seeking to lure conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians to the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican sensed an opening, especially with those Episcopalians (and former Episcopalians) who were still fuming over the consecration of V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire, the refusal of the Episcopal Church to foreswear same-sex marriages, and the ordination of gays and lesbians and even (still!) the ordination of women.
....

Last October, the Vatican offered disgruntled Anglicans and Episcopalians the opportunity to bring their music and liturgy with them to Rome. I’m not sure what we can offer disaffected Roman Catholics—except for the honesty and the integrity of facing difficult issues and asking vexing questions, such as sexual identity in relation to the New Testament mandate of love. Not everyone will agree with the answers we choose, but I’m proud to be associated with a Church willing to address those questions.

And for anyone ready to swim the Tiber in the other direction, you’re welcome in my parish anytime.

I'm proud to be associated with the Episcopal Church, too. All are welcome in my church, St. John's Episcopal Church in Thibodaux, LA. Not a few in my congregation, including me, are former Roman Catholics.

I am speaking only to those who have already determined to depart. If you wish to remain in the Roman Catholic Church to fight the good fight, then I urge you to stay where you are, and I give you my blessing.

Note: I do not speak for my church on my blog. The opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.

MY NOT VERY GOOD LENT

 

This year, I've not kept a very good Lent. I am not any longer settled in my mind about the meaning of a good Lent. I think, for me, it's not so much about giving up something I like, as it is about doing something good and positive. I made two Lenten resolutions: to be on time to Sunday services and to attend the Lenten meditations on Thursday evenings at my church. I've kept the resolution to arrive in good time on Sunday pretty well. I've was a little late only once. I failed the Thursday test across the board. In my conscious mind I wanted to attend, but I forgot every single Thursday.

In addition, I've been playing around in my mind with confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. I've reached one conclusion: Jesus was wise to teach us to forgive 70 times 7. I take Jesus' words on forgiveness seriously. Whether I forgive or not is a choice, but if I choose to hold on to resentment and unforgiveness, I know that I do wrong. I believe that forgiveness begins with an act of the will, which step I can only take with the help of God's grace. I've come to understand that forgiveness does not consist in feelings - warm and fuzzy feelings toward those to whom I extend forgiveness. However, I pray that my feelings will eventually line up with my will to forgive. When and if the feelings come in line, the entire process becomes easier.

I've also learned that once I've forgiven an offense, it's not necessarily a done deal forever and ever, amen. I realize that, at times, I must forgive the same damned offense over and over. That's when Jesus' answer to the question of how many times we must forgive comes alive. For me, the key is not to be defeated when hard feelings return toward the person who committed the offense that I thought was settled and forgiven, but to forgive all over again. I speak of persons both living and dead.

Do I wait to forgive until the person who offended asks forgiveness? Jesus did not, therefore I must not either. Besides, some people never ask forgiveness. Those pesky words in The Lord's Prayer, in which I ask God to forgive me as I forgive others simply do not go away, however much I would sometimes wish them to.

In purely human terms, I believe that harboring resentment and unforgiveness is unhealthy to the point of being poisonous.

Perhaps the "playing around in my mind with confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation" will serve as a home Lenten meditation.

Thus endeth the sermon.

And I cheated by getting your attention with a cartoon sent by Ann. Please forgive me.

JESUS AND MO

 

Thanks to Lisa.

From Jesus and Mo.

Permission under Creative Commons use.

BREATHTAKING!

From the Times:

A defiant Pope Benedict XVI indicated yesterday that he would not be intimidated by the clerical sex abuse crisis now engulfing the Church and threatening to undermine his authority.

Speaking during Palm Sunday Mass, he said that faith in Christ “helps lead us towards courage which does not allow us to be intimidated by the chatter of dominant opinions”.
....

Father Lombardi said: “The recent media attacks have without doubt caused damage. But the authority of the Pope and the commitment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith against sex abuse of minors will come out of this not weakened but strengthened.”

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, defended the Pope, saying that he was at the forefront of efforts to tackle the problem of clerical sex abuse. The archbishop told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: “The Pope will not resign. Frankly there is no strong reason for him to do so. In fact, it is the other way around. He is the one above all else in Rome that has tackled this thing head on.” (My emphasis)

The RCC tries the "putting facts on the ground" strategy. Just keep saying the words, and they will come to be true. The magic words will not work this time around. The pope and his close advisors are in denial about the damage to their moral authority, which is in shreds at the present time. New revelations of older abuse will probably continue to come to light. The pope's problems are not behind him, and he and his advisors will need to come out of denial if the church is to make a new beginning and the powers in the church restore to themselves any sort of credibility.

H/T to Mark Harris at Preludium for the link to the article in the Times.

COME ON!

Stolen from Ann at Facebook.