STORY OF THE DAY - HALF NAKED

only half-naked in her dream that night
because everybody else was completely
naked & she just had to be different &
when she woke up, she finally figured
out why she spent most of her free time
by herself.

From StoryPeople.

MR CATOLICK - "MR SENTAMU DOES IT TO THE GAY COMMUNITY"

MrC reviews Mr Sentamoo's recent work and offers his thoughts.

From Mr CatOLick. A transcript may be found at Mr C's blog and on YouTube.

Mr C reminds us in the video:

Mr Sentimoo’s Christ might go down well in some places, but then so does the death penalty for gays. This is not what Jesus came to teach us and people who talk in this way are playing a very dangerous game with other people’s lives.

Words have consequences.

HOUSEWORK

From Kennilynn on Facebook. H/T to Erika.

MADPRIEST'S NEW PROJECT: "NEW WORDS FOR HOLY COMMUNION"

From Jonathan Hagger aka MadPriest:

HERE IT IS!

My new project.

A monthly, downloadable resource providing prayers, intercessions, acclamations, biddings and blessings for use in the eucharistic services of the church.

Each issue will contain material for every Sunday and every principal feast during the month.

All the material is strongly linked to the gospel reading of the day based on the Common Lectionary. It is a truly international and ecumenical resource but it also provides extra material for national peculiarities such as Mothering Sunday in England.

I have tried to reflect, in a modern way, the words and meter of our traditional prayer books. I have also made sure that the new words will fit seamlessly into all orders of service so that congregations will not be confused or worried about changes and innovation.

For a sample copy of the material for the
Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary

CLICK HERE.

I read the sample copy of the service for the Annunciation of Mary, and it is, as it has already been described, "quite good". Jonathan adds:

Please feel free to print it and use it. It's already formatted for A4 paper in nice large print so even oldies with poor eyesight, like me, can read it easily in church.

The cost of each monthly issue is only £2.49 (just less than $4.00 U.S.). It is available by monthly subscription but you can cancel your subscription at any time - there is no minimum subscription period. Payment is via PayPal but you do not need a PayPal account of your own to subscribe. Subscribers will be sent each new issue approximately one month before the month covered.

Subscribe at Jonathan's blog, Of Course I Could Be Wrong...

WHAT A CATCH FOR NACC!

From No Anglican Covenant Coalition:

COALITION ANNOUNCES PROFESSOR DIARMAID MacCULLOCH AS PATRON

LONDON – The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley, Moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, has announced the appointment of Oxford University Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, DD, as a Patron of the Coalition. Professor MacCulloch joins the Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee and the Rt Rev Dr Peter Selby, who were appointed last June.

“I’m thrilled that Professor MacCulloch has agreed to accept this appointment,” said Crawley. “As one of the acknowledged experts in the English Reformation, he has a very clear understanding of how the centralization of authority in the proposed Anglican Covenant is at odds with fundamental Anglican ecclesiology.”

“Anglicanism was born in the Reformation’s rejection of an unwarranted and unhistorical over-centralization of ecclesiastical authority,” according to Professor MacCulloch. “This pernicious proposal of a Covenant (an unhappy choice of name if you know anything about our Church’s history) ignores the Anglican Communion’s past, and seeks to gridlock the Anglican present at the cost of a truly Anglican future.” (My emphasis)

MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church, and Fellow of St Cross College, in the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy and co-edits the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. He has written several books on Christian history and the English Reformation, including the award winning Thomas Cranmer: A Life and The Reformation: A History. His most recent book, A History of Christianity: the First Three Thousand Years, won the 2011 Cundill Prize. He devised and presented the BBC television series based on that work. MacCulloch received a knighthood earlier this year for his services to scholarship.

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition is an international group of Anglicans concerned about how the proposed Anglican Covenant will radically change the nature of the Anglican Communion.

The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley (England)
Dr Lionel Deimel (USA)
The Revd Malcolm French (Canada)
The Revd Lawrence Kimberley (New Zealand)
The Revd Canon Hugh Magee (Scotland)

In my book (which I have never written), MacCullough is a god in the pantheon of historians of Christianity. Several years ago, I read The Reformation by the author, and I am presently about two-thirds through MacCullough's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Both works are masterful, and I recommend them highly. Don't expect a dry historical account when you start to read. The books carried me rapidly along, even when I knew what happened next. MacCullough intersperses the history with interesting and sometimes amusing anecdotes about the characters that people the periods he describes.

MacCullough, who was not always well-treated by the Church of England, says:

I was brought up in the presence of the Bible, and I remember with affection what it was like to hold a dogmatic position on the statements of Christian belief. I would now describe myself as a candid friend of Christianity.
....

I was ordained Deacon. But, being a gay man, it was just impossible to proceed further, within the conditions of the Anglican set-up, because I was determined that I would make no bones about who I was; I was brought up to be truthful, and truth has always mattered to me. The Church couldn't cope and so we parted company. It was a miserable experience.

From Wikipedia.

The Church of England still has trouble coping with gay clergy who are open and honest about their sexual orientation and relationships.

Disclosure: I am a member of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition.

H/T to Ann Fontaine at The Lead.

HOW MANY TIMES MUST I SAY THIS?

From Ross Douthat in the New York Times on the evils of the new rules of Obamacare:

But sometimes the state goes further. Not content with crowding out alternative forms of common effort, it presents its rivals an impossible choice: Play by our rules, even if it means violating the moral ideals that inspired your efforts in the first place, or get out of the community-building business entirely.

This is exactly the choice that the White House has decided to offer a host of religious institutions — hospitals, schools and charities — in the era of Obamacare. The new health care law requires that all employer-provided insurance plans cover contraception, sterilization and the morning-after (or week-after) pill known as ella, which can work as an abortifacient. A number of religious groups, led by the American Catholic bishops, had requested an exemption for plans purchased by their institutions. Instead, the White House has settled on an exemption that only covers religious institutions that primarily serve members of their own faith. A parish would be exempt from the mandate, in other words, but a Catholic hospital would not.

Ponder that for a moment. In effect, the Department of Health and Human Services is telling religious groups that if they don’t want to pay for practices they consider immoral, they should stick to serving their own co-religionists rather than the wider public. Sectarian self-segregation is O.K., but good Samaritanism is not. The rule suggests a preposterous scenario in which a Catholic hospital avoids paying for sterilizations and the morning-after pill by closing its doors to atheists and Muslims, and hanging out a sign saying “no Protestants need apply.”

Ross, I ponder that, and I am not at all disturbed that the Roman Catholic hospitals and universities will need to provide all types of health care to all of their employees. Not one bit. Have you pondered that some communities have only a Roman Catholic hospital to serve them and that not all of their employees are members of the RCC? Why should everyone who works in the community hospital have to play by Roman Catholic rules? What about the common good?

Furthermore, Ross, have you pondered the fact that Roman Catholic hospitals and universities already provide coverage for contraceptives in health care packages? See below from NPR. How does the church square the coverage that is already offered in some states with their consciences? Whatever the reasoning of the powers in the case of the states which mandate coverage for contraceptives, the same powers should apply that reasoning to the hospitals and universities in the rest of the country under the new rules for health care coverage.

From NPR:

But while some insist that the rules, which spring from last year's health law, break new ground, many states as well as federal civil rights law already require most religious employers to cover prescription contraceptives if they provide coverage of other prescription drugs.

While some religious employers take advantage of loopholes or religious exemptions, the fact remains that dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities currently offer contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance packages.

"We've always had contraceptive birth control included in our health care benefits," said Michelle Michaud, a labor and delivery nurse at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif. "It's something that we've come to expect for ourselves and our family."

Dominican is part of the Catholic Healthcare West System. A spokeswoman for the 40-hospital chain confirmed that it has offered the benefits since 1997.

Ross takes it further. The way of Obamacare is a slippery slope that leads to what? Armageddon? A dark future surely.

The White House attack on conscience is a vindication of health care reform’s critics, who saw exactly this kind of overreach coming. But it’s also an intimation of a darker American future, in which our voluntary communities wither away and government becomes the only word we have for the things we do together.

Ross, I doubt that. I doubt much of what you write.

That Douthat, along with David Brooks, writes for the Yew Nork Times, the newspaper of record, continues to amaze me. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I believe the paper could hire better opinion writers from the freshman class of a school of journalism.

PAY ATTENTION!

Of course, I think of our friend Kirstin Paisley, but it doesn't have to end that way.

Thanks to Paul (A.)

WHAT STEPHEN SAYS...

I report. You decide.

Click on the picture for the larger view.

'THE BLESSED COMPANY...'

From Donald Schell's essay titled 'The Blessed Company of All Faithful People', Part II at the Daily Episcopalian:

Just what do Episcopalians mean by “salvation?” A lot of different things, of course. I think salvation has little to do with “where we end up” and everything to do with God’s work reconciling us to each other and to God, moving closer to our embrace of one another in God now and forever.

Amen! Read the rest of Schell's essay, which is excellent, along with the commentary, which is quite good.

STORY OF THE DAY - GODDESS

I do much better as a goddess, she said,
since my secretarial skills have always
been limited

Oh yes. Quite true.

From StoryPeople.