NOT AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE

From David@Montreal:

M'Dears:
a call last evening from my sister Joanne with the incredible news that the tumor on Jacques' pancreas has shrunken to less than half its earlier size.

Jacques and Marion returned to the Gaspe about a month ago when the Montreal hospital was able make arrangements to continue his treatment locally, and incredibly he's actually returned to working on renovations on a friend's house (part-time).

he's got a couple more treatments in the current round, and then Marion will be taking him to Toronto to be checked out by the leading specialists in Canada are incredulous

those of you who have been so faithfully upholding Jacques and Marion in prayer will remember late last year Jacques spent almost two months in emergency & intensive care and had been given less than a month to live.apparently the specialists are all confounded by this, however we unspecialized folks are literally singing praise to the Source of All Life Healing

love always-always Love

David

Very good news, David. Thanks be to God and all who cared for and prayed for Jacques.

BOSCO WRITES WHILE WARY

Says Bosco Peters at Liturgy:

I have tended to be wary about devoting much energy to the Anglican “Covenant” here. I do not see much value in debates that generate more heat than light. We can so easily get distracted – making majors out of minors…

But then Bosco goes on to devote a little energy to the Anglican Covenant, not a lot, just a little. And I, who have blathered on and on about the covenant, have said nothing even one tenth as excellent, clear, to the point, and which covers as many bases as Bosco does in his post. It seems there is much to be said for writing while wary. I'll have to try it some time. Please read Bosco's post.

"TINY CHURCH FINDS ORIGINAL KING JAMES BIBLE"

From CNN Belief Blog:

Hilmarton, England (CNN) - A little English village church has just made a remarkable discovery.

The ornate old Bible that had been sitting in plain view on a table near the last row of pews for longer than anyone could remember is an original King James Bible - one of perhaps 200 surviving 400-year-old original editions of arguably the most important book ever printed in English.

In fact, the Bible at St. Laurence Church in Hilmarton, England, was sitting right under a hand-lettered sign saying it was an original.

The sign said it had been found in "the parish chest" in 1857, that the cover had been added, and that it was the second of the two impressions published in 1611 - the year of first publication.
....

The people of St. Laurence Church are now trying to raise money to build a special case so they can keep their Bible in use and on regular display.

That would make the church more or less unique so far as Goff knows, although she speculated that there just might be a few village churches still using their 400-year-old Bibles.

"It's possible there are one or two churches that have gone on doing it and they just haven't thought to say," she said.

"People are now beginning to realize the value of this particular edition. This is the 400th anniversary and there is a lot more emphasis on it," she said.

"They value it. They want to keep it and they want to use it."

I love stories like this one from St Lawrence, of treasures hidden in plain sight in very ordinary places.

Thanks to Ann V. for the link.

SUITABLY AMBIGUOUS

Today she decided to be suitably
ambiguous, so you can think whatever
you'd like about her.

From StoryPeople.

A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND

From NOLA.com:

The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, the Lutcher native and peace activist excommunicated three years ago for publicly supporting the ordination of women as Catholic priests, now faces expulsion from his religious order and from the priesthood as well, his superiors have told him.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. It's surely the loss of the Roman Catholic Church and the Maryknoll Fathers. I've long had Fr Roy's quote on my sidebar: "Silence is the voice of complicity.".

Bourgeois and Mike Virgintino, a spokesman for the Maryknolls, a missionary order of priests, confirmed that “with much sadness” the order earlier this month served Bourgeois written notice that he must publicly recant his support for women’s ordination by Saturday.

Without his compliance, a second warning will be issued, followed by the Maryknoll’s request to Rome that Bourgeois be dismissed from the order and “laicized,” or defrocked after 38 years as priest, Virgintino said.

Bourgeois said in an interview from his home in Columbus, Ga., he cannot, as a matter of conscience, recant his belief that women are called to the Catholic priesthood.

“They’re asking me to tell a lie,” he said. “To exclude women from the priesthood is a grave injustice to women, to the church, and to God.”

The authorities in the Roman Catholic Church, indeed, do a grave injustice to women to deny their call to serve as priests. Perhaps, we can persuade Fr Roy to serve in the Episcopal Church.

He worked as a Maryknoll missionary in Latin America. Living among impoverished peasants in Bolivia -- where he was kicked out -- and later in Guatemala and El Salvador, he came to feel that American foreign policy’s support for their governments was deeply anti-Christian. His anger coalesced around the School of the Americas, an Army institution at Ft. Benning that Bourgeois and other activists said taught Latin American military officers techniques, including torture, for suppressing the poor.

Defenders of the school, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, said the school taught military officers the values of democracy.

Bourgeois founded an organization called SOA and for years traveled the country speaking out against the school and building support to have Congress to close it. He has been arrested at least three times and served nearly four years in jail for trespassing on the base during protests. He described his support for women’s ordination as a justice issue, of a piece to the rest of his life’s work, rather than a theological issue. (My emphasis)

Amen! I view my support for equality in the policies on ordaining women and LGTB persons as a matter of justice.

From "About us" at SOA Watch:

SOA Watch is an independent organization that seeks to close the US Army School of the Americas, under whatever name it is called, through vigils and fasts, demonstrations and nonviolent protest, as well as media and legislative work.

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were massacred in El Salvador. A U.S. Congressional Task Force reported that those responsible were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Recently, I noted the feast day of Óscar Romero and the martyrs of El Salvador.

Fr Roy's home town, Lutcher, Louisiana, is across the Mississippi River, not far from Thibodaux, and he has family there, including his 97 year old father. He is a homeboy whom I have long admired.

AND THIS IN MY INBOX MARKED "URGENT!"

This is the second time we are notifying you about your fund worth of $2.7 Million Via Atm Visa Card,Re-Comfirm your name,Address/tel is needed.
Dr.Paul Edward

Dr Paul, I wouldn't mind the $2.7 Million, but I won't be sending my information. Sorry.

MAYBE LATER

Well! Thus far today, I've had little time to blog. After a morning routine doctor visit, Grandpère and I will head out in a half hour or so to the book fair at our grandson's school. GP wanted to go out to lunch, but I said, "No." I need down time between events.

At least today's doctor visit did not put me out of commission for the rest of the day, as did my Tuesday visit to the dentist. Seriously, I believe the novocaine went to my brain, because I slept 4 hours Tuesday afternoon, I slept all night, and I was still sleepy yesterday. Today I'm feeling more like my usual low-energy self.

HOB MEETING - TWEET NO MORE!

A tweet from the meeting of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church now taking place in at the Kanuga Conference Center in North Carolina about a comment by the Rt Revd Paul Kim, Archbishop of Korea, who is a guest at the meeting.

The Covenant is "colonialist" document. It does not free the Asia church but keeps it controlled by English church.

From Ann Fontaine at The Lead.

The tweet was captured before tweeting at the meeting was stopped due to concerns about confidentiality.

FEMALE STUDENT ALLOWED TO WEAR TUX TO PROM

From the Daily Comet:

When Monique Verdin wears her rented tuxedo to the Ellender High prom Saturday night, nobody will stand in her way.

Terrebonne Parish school officials said Monday they are backing off enforcement of a school-based rule — also contained in policies at the district's other three high schools — that mandates tuxes for boys and gowns for girls.

Verdin, 19, and her father, Jody Bergeron, were told Friday by the school's principal, Cory Butler, and high-schools supervisor Tony Authement that the teen would be allowed to buy a ticket to the prom but barred from entrance if she wore a tuxedo.

Authement confirmed Friday that the district planned to enforce the rule. On Monday, however, he said attorneys advised him the stance would be difficult to defend in court.

“We are going to allow her,” Authement said. “It was an easy call,” said attorney Berwick Duval, who represents the School Board. “It's a First Amendment issue.”

“It's a good thing,” the teenager said. “They shouldn't have put me through so much trouble like that.”

On Monday, when I read the previous story that Monique would not be permitted to attend the prom wearing a tuxedo, "based on long-held tradition", I said to Grandpère that the decision by the school authorities very likely would not stand and, indeed, it did not.

Monique should not have been put through so much trouble. The school authorities would have done better to seek legal advice before they insisted that the rule would be enforced, then they would not have had to back away from their initial decision.

Authement said the rules mandating gender-specific dress for proms will likely be scrapped altogether.

A wise decision.

Terrebonne Parish is just south of Lafourche Parish, where I live.

LAY ANGLICANA - A VOICE FOR THE LAITY IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Lesley at Lesley's Blog received the email below from Laura Sykes, a retired Lay Worker in the Church of England, concerning the Anglican Covenant. Laura graciously permitted me to post her email here at Wounded Bird.

I share your incomprehension that such an obviously destructive measure (to the Church of England as much as the Anglican Communion) should have got as far as it has. I also share your concern that we seem to be sleep-walking into acceptance, not wanting to rock the boat or ‘upset poor ++Rowan’.

In my view, it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that the bishops overall will be in favour of the Covenant – and this is why I find the Wakefield result worrying. Although the overall vote was against, you will have seen that both bishops were in favour. Although I know we have some bishops on our side, it seems to me that it is the old problem of turkeys being disinclined to vote for Christmas. First, and most obviously, it is ++Rowan who is largely responsible for their future careers and, secondly, the Covenant seeks to reassert the authority of the hierarchy to which they belong. The same considerations could also be said to apply to the clergy but luckily there are enough brave & independent-minded clerics around who are true to the moral demands of their calling, if I can put it that way. (My emphasis)

Here's the link to the report in the Church Times on the vote in the Diocese of Wakefield.

THE first English diocesan synod to debate the Anglican Covenant has rejected it. On Saturday, in Wakefield diocese, the vote was lost in the Houses of Laity (10 for, 23 against) and Clergy (16 for, 17 against, 1 abstention). Both Bishops voted for its adoption..

As I see it, Laura's view of the situation in the dioceses in the Church of England is correct. If the covenant is to be defeated, it will be up to the lay people, with, in some dioceses, the help of the clergy.

Laura set up a website, Lay Anglicana, for the laity in the Church of England to share opinions about the adoption of the Anglican Covenant. If you would like to speak your piece or are simply interested in learning more about the covenant and the discussions surrounding it, check out the website.

You may help by spreading the word about Lay Anglicana and by using the "Donate" button at the site to help with expenses associated with their efforts.