IMMACULATE CONCEPTION BVM

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

6:00 pm

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Procession and High Mass in the Presence of a Greater Prelate

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Mass in C - Baldassare Galuppi

Ave Maria - Igor Stravinsky

Adam Lay Ybounden - Boris Ord

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Grace and St Peter's Church

Baltimore, MD

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http://www.graceandstpeter.org/

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All are welcome. There will be a reception following the Mass.

St Paul of the Cross and the Anglican Church

It is customary to speak of the ‘dreary eighteenth century.’ Owing to the deadness and
artificiality of the times, the era fully deserved to be so designated. Yet even in so bleak an
age, the grace of God could and did produce Saints. One of these chosen souls who, in
this inauspicious time, rose to sanctity was Paul Daney, now known as St Paul of the
Cross. From his earliest youth his heart was given to God. The Passion of our blessed
Lord was the principle subject of his meditations. A desire to share in that Passion caused
Paul to choose a life of mortification. Others, attracted by his sanctity, joined him in his
retreat, and so came into existence the austere Congregation of the Discalced Clerks of
the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, commonly known as the
Passionists.

Strange to us are the workings of God’s Spirit. Italian though he was, Paul felt himself
strongly impelled to pray for England, the cold, rationalistic, Protestant England of his
day. “O England! England!” he would exclaim. “Let us pray for England. I could not help
doing it, even if I wished, for as soon as I begin to pray, that unhappy kingdom comes
before me. I remember her every morning in the Holy Mass, and have done so for forty
years. What may be God’s intentions for that kingdom, I know not. Well, let us pray on,
and leave the issue in God’s hands.”

Surely God heard the prayers of His Saint. Not sixty years elapsed after the death of Paul
in 1775, before the commencement of the Oxford Movement, when England’s Church
began to wake from her long sleep. While the awakening was of a different kind from what the
Saint had in mind, it happened, as it so often does, that God answered His servant
according to His own infinite wisdom, and did not permit Himself to be hedged in by the
limitations of the vision even of a Saint. But none the less are Anglicans to be grateful for
the prayers of St Paul of the Cross, and we can be sure that he who prayed so earnestly on
earth still prays for us from his place in heaven.

From Athletes of God, by the Rev’d S. C. Hughson, O.H.C.

The Annual Requiem Mass of the Guild of All Souls

Saturday, 14 November, 2009

11.00 a.m.

St Paul's Church

2430 K Street NW

Washington, D. C.

The sermon will be given by Father Frederick S. Thomas, SSC, Rector of Grace & St Peter's Church, Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of the Guild's Council.

“WHERE IS YOUR FATHER NOW?”

This is especially appropriate in this Month of the Holy Souls.

By the Rev’d H. A. Wilson, vicar of St Augustine’s, Haggerston, London

To Stanley, aged ten, recently bereft of his father.

Where is your father now? “I believe,” you say in the Creed … and that people in church say aloud together “in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Let’s think together about what these great old words mean.
The Church is not a building, like St. Augustine’s; it is a society, a club, a fellowship. Its members are those who have been baptized. And it is not only in this world. Once a Christian, always a Christian; once a member of the Church, always a member of the Church, even beyond your mortal body’s death. In this world the Church is Militant. “Let us pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church militant (military, fighting) here in earth,” says a priest at the altar. To it belongs every baptized person whose soul is still living in his or her body. But your father’s life on earth has come to an end. His soul and body have been separated. But his life has not ceased. He still lives, and will always live, somewhere. And he is still, as he always will be, a member of the Church. He was a good man. Has he gone to hell – the place of eternal misery and punishment, intended only for those who have no use for God and the things of God, who deliberately chose not to be good here? Of course he has not.


Then, has he gone to heaven? I do not think so; and I do not believe that you think so either. For heaven is the place of absolute perfection, in which where is neither sin nor any trace of it. Please God, your father will reach heaven one day; but I think that, just because he was a good man here, he himself would be the first to say that he does not deserve to go there – yet. Our Lord teaches that the “faithful departed” go at death to a place between earth and heaven, that is neither; and that there they are, as you might say, in A Souls’ Hospital, being made fit for the heaven that they have earned. This is The Church Waiting – or, as it is sometimes called, Expectant (which means the same thing) – in paradise or purgatory (“purging,” “purifying,” “cleansing”). But it is still the same One Holy Catholic Church. And the Church in heaven is The Church Triumphant, The Church Victorious; the glorious company of the holy angels and the Church’s heroes and heroines (Our Lady, St. Augustine, St. George, St. Michael, and all the rest): still in the same one Church, founded by our Lord, for all people everywhere at all times – this is what “Catholic” means – both on this side of death, and on the other side of it: God’s great one family. So you see what is meant by “The Communion of Saints.” “Communion” means “fellowship.” “Saints” means “the baptized,” in whatever part of the Church they are. The Lord Jesus is the elder brother of us all. All the baptized, in this world, in purgatory, in heaven, are brothers and sisters in Christ.

Our Lord once said that the Church is like a house. It has three floors: militant, expectant, triumphant; but it is all under one roof. On the ground floor are you and I; militant against, fighting against, sin and temptation. On the first floor are the holy dead, the faithful departed, in God’s hospital, being made perfect and fit for heaven; and we here can help them very much by going to Requiem Masses (“may they rest in peace”) on their behalf, and by saying our prayers for them. It may also be – and I think it most likely – that they too are helping us by their prayers, though we cannot be quite sure of this yet. On the top floor, up in the sunlight, always seeing God face to face, are the members of The Church Triumphant; the men and women, boys and girls, who were once people in this world, just like us, but have now done with fighting, have won the battle, have lost all trace of sin and imperfection, and are young and well and happy again in the visible presence of God – and know that they will never, throughout eternity, leave him. We are in communion and fellowship with them too. We do not pray for them: there is no need. But we often ask them, our brothers and sisters, to pray for us – and for our dead on the middle floor – that we may all one day be where they are. …

“The Resurrection of the body.” This means your body, old boy, and your father’s too. Not only our Lord’s body on Easter Sunday; it was earlier in the Creed that you said that you believed in the resurrection of that. But yours; and mine. Because we are Christians, we believe that some day and some how, after death, our souls and bodies will come together again, and be reunified for ever. St. Paul has written a lot about this; you will read about it when you are older. … So, you see, you need have no fear of you and your dad being unable to recognize one another when you meet again on the top floor. So, cheer up, old man. That same St. Paul says that, because we are Christians, we are not to be “sorry, as men without hope” for those who have died. Because we are men, and because we had – and still have, and always will have – such fathers, we are to be always their good sons, living the sort of lives they would have us live, forgetting them never. All will be well, in God’s good time. Keep smiling. You have not lost your dad. God never wastes anything that he has made; and he made you and him. No love is ever lost; for “God is love.” God simply loves your love of him, and of your father. Go on loving both, until this life of yours ends too; and then you will find, as have millions of Christians before you, that it is all right – and always was all right, really.


From Fr Wilson’s book East Window. Fr Wilson was noted for his many publications, including the famous Haggerston Catechism and his descriptions of life in an East End London parish. Early in his ministry he was involved in the Anglo-Catholic Congresses in 1920 and 1923.

Benedict XVI on the Limits of Papal Infallibility

From Father Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes:

Since this topic is again a bit of a talking-point, I will (again) quote
some words of Cardinal Ratzinger, which seem to me the most remarkable
observation made on Papal powers - by someone who subsequently became Pope - for
well over a thousand years.

"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope
really could do anything ... especially if he were acting on the mandate of an
ecumenical council ... In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined
the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the
guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to
the Tradition of Faith ... Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its
lawful development and abiding integrity and identity ... The authority of the
pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition."

Since this is how Benedict XVI sees papal power, how can any
catholic-minded person have any objection to it?

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Also noteworthy in this connection is the Papal Coronation oath in use for centuries, which contains the same idea that the Supreme Pontiff cannot, to suit his fancy, alter the Tradition of the Church or add anything not congruent with it. But we already knew that, didn't we?

All Souls at Grace and St Peter's

Grace and Saint Peter's Church

707 Park Avenue

Baltimore, MD 21201

http://www.graceandstpeter.org/

ALL SOULS DAY

Monday, November 2

Low Masses:

11:30, 12:00, 12:30

Solemn Requiem Mass and Absolution at the Catafalque

6:00 pm

Missa pro defunctis - Cristobal de Morales

Followed by a dinner, to which all are welcome.

Thanks to Fr John Alexander for the image.

First, let me again apologize for the lack of posting here. There are other things to be done, and we must press on.

Two announcements: Our old friend (?) Bishop Pookie, Titular Archbishop of Bangor, Maine, has been invited to pontificate at the Annual Mass and Meeting of the St Thomas Cranmer Society for the Promotion of Heresy and Schism this February at a parish church yet to be determined. In addition to Bishop Pookie, the key-note speaker will be Bishop J.S. Spong, to whom no fruit shall ever be given (sorry - inside joke).

In addition, the fine blog Anglican Wanderings is back. Please see the link in the sidebar.

ANGLICANISM

Please read this explanation of the term Anglicanism by Fr John Hunwicke, SSC.

Anglicanism is a nonsense religion, a dim, pathetic, ridiculous superstition, developed within the last 150 or so years. It relates to what is doctrinally distinctive about those in communion with the See of Canterbury. Sometimes it is expressed in terms of a via media: some sort of Middle Way between the excesses, on the one side, of Protestantism, on the other side, of Popery.

Sometimes it appears in the form of an idea called the Branch Theory, in which Christ's Church is composed of three Branches: the Roman; the Greek; and the Anglican. No explanation is ever thought necessary as to why the 'Monophysite' Syrian Orthodox Christians who meet in S Thomas's are not a 'branch', or why the Methodists, or the Swedish Lutherans, or the Moravians, are excluded. Little consideration is ever given to the possibility that the Great Latin Church of the West might be deemed a Via media between those Western ecclesial bodies, including the Anglicans, who were exposed to the 'Reformation' with its radical denials of Tradition and of Sacramentality, and the Orthodox.Sometimes this 'Anglicanism' is constructed by looking at the Prayer Book and the Articles. Sometimes, by examining carefully the writings of those divines, Caroline or Tractarian, who attempted to modify the damage done to the Provinces of Canterbury and York by the 'Reformation'. In each case, the unspoken assumption is that Anglicanism started with the breach from Rome. You have the bizarre situation in which Anglicans cheerfully claim to be the ancient Catholic Church of this land, yet if you asked any of them "Who founded the Church of England?", 95% would reply "Henry VIII". (I regarded it as a triumph of my 6-year ministry in Devon that, after I put that question onto a pub-quiz, my parishioners were a little uncertain whether the answer on Father's answer-sheet would be S Gregory or S Augustine.) The legal position in English law of the Church of England is that she was founded in 596; yet pretty well anybody would tell you that she started with the breach from Rome.

Funnily enough, there is a distinctive doctrine of the poast-Reformation Church of England, yes, just one; or rather, there was until comparatively recent times: the doctrine of Royal Supremacy. In a raw and murderous form under Henry VII, this meant that the Monarch could change the doctrine of the Church upon a moment's whimsy or confiscate the chalice in each parish church if he found himself strapped for cash. In the more gracious period of the Stuarts, when the C of E, instead of resenting the tyranny of the Tudors, rather welcomed the patronage and protection of a kindlier dynasty, this transformed itself into the dogma of Passive Resistance: that even a bad monarch ought to be resisted by nothing more violent than passive non-collaboration. This is what distinguished Anglicans from both Protestant and Popish dissent. Neither Catholics, nor Evangelicals, nor Liberals, make this the basis of their understanding of 'Anglicanism' nowadays.The sooner that 'Anglicanism' is shovelled into the trash-can of History, the better.

Things

Sorry for the lack of posts. Since nobody reads this anymore, I doubt it has caused much concern or despair.

It seems that the General Convention is going on right now. So far, it's proving to be even more ridiculous than usual, but we expected that. I still think Bishop Ackerman had the right idea about all of this. He suggested at the Lambeth Conference last summer that if The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are really serious about funding the Millennium Development Goals they'd cancel the Lambeth Conference and General Convention, and give the millions of dollars it takes to put them on to the United Nations. But no. The General Convention goes on as usual, for far longer than it need go on, costing far more than it need cost, while the deputies and bishops all revel in their cocktail parties and vacation time at Disney Land. There have been resolutions presented year after year calling for a curtailment of General Convention, but few seem interested. I suppose it's just a chance to get together and congratulate each other on how progressive and inclusive they are. I'm not really paying any attention to it. There's so much on the internet to read and watch but it's all extremely boring and silly, when not scandalous and horrifying. It hasn't been at all hard to ignore it.

Meanwhile, in the real world, real people are praying the Rosary, going to Mass, saying their prayers, and getting on with the business of living a Christian life.

For more edifying, intelligent, and interesting reading, please visit Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes. There you will find a wealth of excellent posts on a variety of subjects ranging from Anglican Catholicism to the Liturgical year.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!

St John Fisher, pray for us!

St Thomas More, pray for us!

St Pius V, pray for us!

GRACE AND ST PETER'S CHURCH, BALTIMORE

SUNDAY IN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Sunday, 14 June 2009

10:00 am

High Mass, Procession, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Mass for 3 Voices - William Byrd

http://graceandstpeter.org/

CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION, NEW YORK
CORPUS CHRISTI

High Mass, Procession, & Benediction

Thursday, 11 June 2009

7:00 pm

Sermon: Father Paul Baggott,

Vicar of Our Most Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell, London

Music: P. Narcis Casanoves (1747 - 1799)

Missa a 6 Veus, Lauda Sion, Tantum ergo (North American Premieres)

A reception follows.

Whitsunday E & B

WHITSUNDAY
May 31, 2009

10:00 a.m. Procession and High Mass
Mass of the Quiet Hour - George Oldroyd
Come Holy Ghost - Thomas Attwood

4:30 p.m. Solemn Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
Followed by the Parish Picnic to which all are welcome
Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D Major - Herbert Brewer
Come Holy Ghost, The Maker - Cedric Thorpe-Davie
Preces & Responses - Heathcote Statham

Grace and Saint Peter's Church
707 Park Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

Fr John Hunwicke, SSC, of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, offers a series of posts about the separation of the Church of England from the Apostolic See of Rome, the 450th anniversary of which is on June 24 of this year. In the second post, he offers a very reasonable suggestion for commemoration of that sad day. See his excellent blog here: Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes

Ascension Day

ASCENSION DAY

Holy Day of Obligation

Thursday, May 21, 2009

12:00 Noon Low Mass

5:30 Confessions

6:00 p.m. Procession and High Mass

Followed by a dinner. All are welcome.

Grace and St Peter's Church

Monument Street at Park Avenue

Baltimore, Maryland

St John Before the Latin Gate

Here's an edifying hymn for your celebrations today:

Through Rome's infuriate city,

From Caesar's judgment chair,

The drag Christ's loved Disciple,

The Saint with silver'd hair.

In boiling oil they plunge him,

The flame forgets its might,

And sends him forth anointed,

And stronger for the fight.

To desert Island banish'd,

With God the exile dwells,

And sees the future story

His mystic writing tells.

So may Christ love and teach us

To suffer and to die,

That, of His Death partaking,

We then may reign on High.

All praise to God the Father,

All praise to God the Son,

All praise to God the Spirit,
Eternal Three in One. Amen.