PLEASE PRAY...

...for a young couple with a difficult pregnancy.

O God, give strength, comfort, and the peace that passes understanding to the young couple and their family and friends, as they wait anxiously through this difficult pregnancy. May the two young people experience the healing power of your love and the love of all those who care for them and care about them. We pray in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Archdeacon Ormonde Plater, who blogs at Through the Dust, called to say that he needs gall bladder surgery, but his heart rate is too rapid, and the doctors want the rate slower before they do the surgery.

O God, may the efforts of the medical staff to slow Ormonde's heart rate succeed, and may all go well with his surgery and recovery so that he may be restored quickly to full health and strength. We offer our prayers in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

FIRE DESTROYS ST MATTHEW'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN HOUMA, LOUISIANA

From WDSU News:

The Houma Fire Department officials are investigating an early-morning blaze that destroyed St. Matthew's Episcopal Church at the intersection of Barrow and Belanger Streets.

The fire was reported around 3:41 a.m. Thursday.
Officials say the church was completely engulfed in flames. Portions of the school and surrounding trees are reported to have been destroyed as well. Witnesses reported seeing flames up to 100 feet in the air.

St. Matthew's Church is on The National Register of Historic Places.

Pray for the rector and congregation of St. Matthew's and for the students and teachers at St. Matthew's school.

Houma, Louisiana, is about 20 miles away from Thibodaux, where I live. I've attended activities at St. Matthew's on several occasions. How sad. St. Matthew's was a lovely old church.

UPDATE: From the Daily Comet:

The full extent of the damage remains unclear, but damage was sustained at the church and the lower building of the school. Houma Fire Department District Chief Chris LeCompte said nobody was in the church or the school at the time.

All that remains of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Houma at daybreak today.

Members of the tight-knight congregation learned of the overnight fire by way of a flurry of phone calls made as the community awakened and encountered firefighters and flashing lights still surrounding the smoke-filled intersection.

Some parishioners, teachers and school workers gathered nearby to watch firefighters work.

Beulah Rodrigue, a church member for 70 years, said she was among a group of ladies who spent the past 11 years on needlepoint work that decorated the sanctuary's prayer kneelers.

Rodrigue peered down Barrow Street this morning, toward the spot where the church's steeple once poked through the trees.

“You can't see the church from here any more,” she said. “To me, (the church) was the star of Houma.”

Updates continue at the Daily Comet website.

UPDATE 2:

But church officials said they will rebuild the historic church.

“The church will be rebuilt. We're not sure what it will look like, but the outpouring of support we've gotten from the community has been very encouraging and affirmative,” said the Reverend Craig Dalferes, pastor of St. Matthew's.

He added that much remains uncertain in the immediate aftermath of the fire. Church administration will meet tonight to decide where the congregation will meet on Sunday. Dalferes said a number of community churches have called to offer St. Matthew's aid.

THE LECTURE

An elderly man is stopped by the police around 1 am. and is asked where he is going at this time of night.

The man replies, “I am going to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body”.

The officer then asks, “Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?”

The man replies, “My wife.”

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

Still, I must tell you that this joke strikes my funny bone a sharp blow.

"IT'S ON THE ALTAR NOW"

Please read Elizabeth Kaeton's post at her blog, Telling Secrets. It's powerful.

HERE WE GO AGAIN - IN OZ

From Pink News:

A teenage lesbian couple in Australia are changing schools after they were barred from attending a ball together.

Hannah Williams, 16, wanted to take her girlfriend Savannah Supski, also 16, to the event at Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar in Melbourne but the Year 11 student was told she could only attend the ball with a boy.
....

She added: ”I put a lot of effort into trying to fix things. I had meetings with principals; looked through the Equal Opportunity Act; all my friends put posters up around the school and the teachers ripped them down. There was an easy solution; they just needed to let me go with my girlfriend.”

Her father Peter made a complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission and met with school officials but decided not to take the case further because Hannah was becoming stressed.

But wait!

The principal of Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar, Heather Schnagl, said the aim of the ball was to encourage girls to socialise with boys and said that all the girls would bring female partners if one was allowed to.

I don't know what to say.

Thanks to Cathy again.

BRILLIANT, JUST BRILLIANT!

Tobias Haller says:

Let the Introduction be the Covenant!

The Introduction reads well as a narrative of who we are as Anglicans.

Tobias posted the text of the Introduction to the Anglican Covenant. What do you think?

No, no! I'm not telling how much Tobias pays me for my cheerleading.

THE CHURCH MOUSE STRIKES AGAIN

From Bishop Richard Chartres of the Diocese of London:

"Earlier today I met with the College of Bishops to discuss the way ahead. With immediate effect the Bishop of Edmonton has agreed to assume responsibility for the pastoral care of those clergy and parishes who before today related to the Bishop Fulham.

"In addition Bishop Peter will work on the constitution and other issues involved in establishing a Society both for those already identified as 'Fulham Clergy and Parishes' and for others, whatever their position on the churchmanship spectrum, who are loyal to the Church of England and share similar concerns about its theological direction alongside a commitment to growth in co-operation with the majority in the Church who support the consecration of women to the episcopate." (My emphasis)

The Church Mouse says:

Now that really is new. It begs a whole heap of questions. Since Forward in Faith and Reform have already announced their intentions to start up societies, we run the risk of having more societies for Anglicans opposed to women bishops than we actually have Anglicans opposed to women bishops.

Excellent!

Read the rest of Mouse's post, as he questions how the media could miss the really big story.

When Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was so very busy meddling in the affairs of the Episcopal Church here in the US, telling our bishops how to be bishops, advising our representatives at General Convention how to vote, and warning us against giving consents to Bishop Mary Glasspool, I tried to warn him that he should be tending to his own garden, as I could see that the weeds grew up and threatened to get out of control. Alas, he did not pay attention. As we say here in south Louisiana, "Tant pis".

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

FROM THE AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION

The Christmas season is here once again and with it comes the annual battle over two simple words, "Merry Christmas". That's right, every year the American Family Association engages in a culture war over this divisive issue. We actively monitor businesses that have decided to profit from Christ's birth but refuse to acknowledge it in their advertising and promotional materials. (My emphasis)

One way you can join us in this yearly battle is to purchase our "Merry Christmas" buttons. When you decide to wear our button, you have decided to engage in this timeless battle between the culture of the world and Christianity. Join with AFA and others like us who have decided to be a witness for Christ and share the good news of "God With Us".

Imagine the impact that a tiny little button could have if shared with the right person at the right time. Please don't let this opportunity to be a witness for Christ slip by. Won't you partner with us in saying "Merry Christmas" to everyone you meet?

Order your buttons Today!

No, my readers, no link. If you want the Christmas button to say "Merry Christmas" to everyone you meet, you will have to find it on your own. And it's not a bit too soon to wear it, because, not only is Christmas upon us in early November, the battle to save Christmas has begun, and good Christians are arming themselves with their buttons beginning right now. Of course, just because you're fighting the battle to save Christmas by wearing your button, you're not off the hook from wishing everyone you meet "Merry Christmas" starting today. Remember Big Brother AFA is watching you.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

STORY OF THE DAY - REAL HERO

Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me,
but try waking up every morning &
loving the world all over again. That's
what takes a real hero.

From StoryPeople.

AS THEY FLAP THEIR WAY TO ROME

From Stephen Bates in the Guardian:

How will cradle-Catholics welcome the Anglican flying bishops, their colleagues, wives and retinues currently flapping towards Rome and its blessed ordinariate? Well, it hardly behoves someone who is pretty lapsed these days from spurning their gracious presence, but I know enough still-practising Catholics to appreciate that the Anglicans' much delayed arrival at the departure terminal will not be greeted with unalloyed joy and unconfined rapture.

To say the least!

What makes Catholics suspicious is, if Broadhurst and his ilk were so convinced of their Catholicism, what has taken them so long to convert? They could have done so at any time. It would have been arduous, conceivably long, possibly lonely, maybe even difficult and certainly low-profile, but it would have had an integrity which seems lacking now that they have had so long to get used to the single issue motivating them now: the ordination of women as bishops, so long after they were first consecrated priests.

Bates' entire opinion piece is wonderful. Do read it all.

Stephen Bates once practiced the faith, but he was agnostic when he was asked to cover religion for the Guardian.

But still, sneakingly, when I took the editor's offer, I hoped my faith would return and I could appreciate the old belief.

But after years covering religion for the newspaper, his agnosticism was only reinforced. A sad commentary, not on Stephen, but on those of us who claim the name Christian. Read his story.

H/T to Thinking Anglicans.