Anyone up for a chat thread?

Archepiscopal visit with confirmations, receptions, and ecumenical guests for Advent 1:




The service ran 1:35. We did the Processional, Great Litany, Confirmations, Receptions, Antecommunion with the recitation of the Decalogue and Athanasian Creed, Bishop's sermon, and Holy Communion. And we just about filled our little chapel.

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Prayers for Fr. Tom, the fellow to my immediate left in the picture a few posts above. He celebrated Holy Communion with us on Christmas day and then had a massive heart attack that evening or in the overnight period. Today he underwent open heart surgery. I have not heard the outcome of the operation yet. Cn. Paul went to the hospital Tuesday and gave him the unction of the sick. I have not been able to visit him yet. Hopefully he is still with us.

H

Paidiske said:

Happy new year! May the year to come be filled with blessings for all of you.

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Happy new year.

Fr. Tom underwent a successful operation and was released from the hospital Tuesday. I visited him once while he was in the hospital and will stop by his house sometime before Sunday to check on him. We live close to each other in the same small city.

I also have a catechumen to work with right now. He told me he did not have his own Bible, so I ordered a small case of Bibles to give away in such situations.

My new daughter's baptism is scheduled for Sunday, and the Archbishop will be present. He deferred celebrating and preaching to our ministry team. Dcn. Jason, the other deacon in our deanery, is also going to come down for the service. It is my Sunday to preach and no doubt, it will be some of the finest exercise of homiletics since the days of John Crysostom or at least John Mason Neale. My texts are Romans 6:1-11 and Mark 1:4-11.

Today is a snowy day for us, as a Nor'easter with snow has blanketed our part of the country with fluffy white quietness. Many activities are cancelled and places of business are closed. No choir rehearsal tonight, and some necessary-but-unpleasant outdoor chores will have to be postponed. My son in high school is home today, and my daughters are home on break from college, meaning that we're all taking a pause in our frantic lives to have a relaxed family day together. Pancakes for breakfast, mugs of hot chocolate in the afternoon. Snow days are a wonderful Sabbath.

The opposite here in Queensland low to mid 30’s Celsius and regular summer thunderstorms

From Epiphany I/The Baptism of Christ (and Dolores)

(w/ Godmother/mother/father/sister)

(the homily)

(Our team of servers and clergy for the day, L-R: Jed, Joel, Me, Can. Paul, Abp. Thomas, Dcn. Jason, John)

I began to wonder if our priest was reading a dissertation on the eucharist by ++Peter Jensen as he sermonized today. Too Protestant for my taste. Couple that with his decision that he needs to retrain our rather more ritualist assisting priest to not incorporate elements of the Missal and it was a rough day today. I had that 'two steps forward, one step back' feeling.

Paidiske said:

Now I want pancakes!

It's going to be warm here too; 29 celsius (84 fahrenheit) which I find very pleasant.

Mostly a quiet day but this afternoon I'll go and take a Eucharist at a convent in my city. I do that once a month, and it's always very special. The atmosphere of focussed communal prayer in the convent is just something you never get in a parish.

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Are there a lot of monastics in your neck of the woods?

Hey Paidiske, It might be a good idea to pin this thread.

Ive been thinking a lot about who we are at an atomic level. I find it so incredulous that we are carbon, potassium, sodium hydrogen, nitrogen (plus other elements), and these atoms have arranged in a manner whereby the atoms itself have self-awareness as a collective. How did a bag of chemicals gain awareness of itself. And what is it in those chemicals that makes me who I am. Its easy to go straight to the brain because certainly losing a leg doesn't change who I am , but injuring the brain does. So am I the movement of sodium and potassium across the cell membrane of neurons? Am I the composite of the equivalent of ones and zeros in the hard drive of a computer. Because the moment my brain is injured or dies, that sodium and potassium which generates electrical potential in my neurons, is disrupted and its at this point I cease to be me..... so what does that mean when thinking about sirituality