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Thanksgiving - Holy Baptism and

Many of my colleagues provided music at Thanksgiving Day services this morning. It is one of my favorite services of the whole year.

The Thanksgiving Day Eucharists I've been involved with tend to be a bit smaller than a typical Sunday morning Eucharist.

Definition of the word Eucharist Eucharist is Greek for "Thanksgiving," and is the preferred formal term in the Episcopal Church for Holy Communion.

A few years ago I attended a Thanksgiving Day Eucharist at the Cathedral in Asheville, North Carolina, and the church was completely full! There are other places where going to church on Thanksgiving morning has become "the thing to do".

And so this morning at St. Peter's, while we may not have had as many of the faithful in the pews as some other places, we were probably one of the very few churches (or the only?) that added to their number.

We had two infant baptisms this morning.

The association with Eucharist is an easy one to make. But the association with Baptism also seemed good to us who were gathered at St. Peter's.

There's a hymn that seems to have only appeared in the last two Episcopal hymnals (and nowhere else) that is often sung on Thanksgiving: "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing".

It is our custom to sing a hymn immediately prior to the Baptism, and this was the hymn I chose for today.

At the end of the first stanza we sing "he forgets not his own", which seems fitting.

The second stanza of this hymn seemed to speak more directly to the Sacrament of Baptism than I had previously thought.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;
so from the beginning the fight we were winning:
thou, Lord, wast at our side: all glory be thine!

Hymn 433, stanza 2.
Words: Nederlandtsche Gedenckclanck, 1626; trans. Theodore Baker (1851-1934)

How wonderful that God joins these children to the Church and so ordains and maintains his kingdom.

And that from the very beginning they have won the fight.

For this act we should be truly, unfeignedly thankful.

"O Lord, make us free!"

Labels: Baptism, Communion, Hymn 433

  — 13:10 | 0 remarks  

Halloween - a Christian holiday

This marvelous little article was written by the then Reverend Shannon S. Johnston before his ordination as Bishop of Virginia. It was written for the Parish of All Saints', Tupelo, where he served as Rector, and it still lives on the parish website (source). It is a wonderful foil to those unfortunate souls who believe that Halloween should not be celebrated by Christians.

YES! HALLOWEEN IS CHRISTIAN––WONDERFULLY SO!

When I was a child, I loved Halloween. All of my family participated enthusiastically, decorating our house with witches, devils, black cats, and ghosts. It was innocent fun, filled with imagination and creativity. Looking back, what made Halloween so great for this child was its contrast of silliness and fright, the supernatural and the known, the permitted and the forbidden, the secretive and the public. Halloween was unique; no other occasion was anything like it.

As an adult––and as a priest––I still love Halloween.  And I do mean HALLOWEEN, not a “Fall Festival” or the like. Every year, I carve two pumpkins–one playfully smiling and the other “very scary.”  I love seeing the children’s costumes and making a big fuss over them.  How sad now that Halloween is being spoiled and even taken away from us by the absolutely outrageous ideas that it is “satanic,” pagan, or of the occult.  Such notions are poorly informed, terribly misguided, and absolutely untrue.  There are many materials circulating these days, all pretending some sort of scholarly knowledge and/or religious authority, that strive to show that Halloween is “really” celebrating the powers of darkness.  In response, I must be absolutely clear:  pretenses of authority notwithstanding, these materials are at great odds with centuries of commonly accepted theology, not to mention scholarship with proven accreditation.  The so-called “exposure” of Halloween is nothing more than a skewed, self-serving agenda from various churches that make up only a tiny minority of Christianity, indeed a minority within Protestantism.

Of course I am aware that satanists, Wiccans, and other occult groups are indeed active on October 31. It is also true that some pseudo-spiritualists and some plain ole’ nut-cases use Halloween as an excuse to act out.  NONE OF THIS CHANGES WHAT HALLOWEEN ACTUALLY IS OR WHAT IT MEANS IN THE CHURCH’S LIFE AND WITNESS.  Much of the occult association with the day arose long after the Church’s observances began in the mid 300's.  Our answer to those Christians who bristle at the celebration of Halloween is that we will not allow occultists to steal it away from God’s Church.  Moreover, several Christian observances have pre-Christian ancestry or pagan parallels (the date of Christmas, for example).  Whatever the case, the fact is that the Christian truths proclaimed on such days are not affected.

A big part of the problem here comes from the people who do not understand the Liturgical Year because their churches do not follow it. It’s hard to keep a clear perspective on something so rooted in history and tradition if you belong to a church that has no such roots, or to one that rejects as irrelevant or “suspect” the ancient practices from the earliest Christian centuries.

The bottom line is Halloween’s relationship to All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1), one of the Church’s seven “Principal Feasts.”  The celebration of any Principal Feast may begin on the evening before––thus, Christmas Eve, Twelfth Night (before Epiphany), Easter Eve (the Great Vigil), etc.  Halloween is simply the eve of All Saints’ Day, which is also a baptismal feast.  The great truth behind Halloween’s revels is that which we declare at every baptism: “YOU ARE SEALED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT IN BAPTISM AND ARE MARKED AS CHRIST’S OWN FOREVER.”

The most important thing to remember is this: Halloween is the time when Christians proclaim and celebrate the fact that Satan and the occult have no power over us and cannot disrupt our relationship with our Lord and Redeemer, as long as we live faithfully to Christ.  We show this by making fun of such pretenders, lampooning them in their face.  This is why our costumes and decorations certainly should be witches, devils, and ghosts.  In the victory of Christ, Christians are privileged to do this and we must not be timid about it!

Ours is not a fearful faith, cowering from the prospect of falling unawares into Satan’s grasp.  In God’s grace and your faithfulness, you ARE Christ’s own forever.  Nothing supersedes that fact.  Halloween is therefore one of the boldest Christian witnesses, precisely because of its highly public, graphic, and lampooning nature.  Personally, I suspect that those who cannot embrace this are living a fear-driven and even insecure faith.  If so, they have bigger problems than the highjinks of Halloween.

In Christ,
Shannon+

Labels: All Saints' Day, Baptism, Christianity, Halloween, Shannon Johnston

  — 07:00 | 0 remarks  

do something - it's time to A simple question:

Why does the National Cathedral flout the canons of the Episcopal Church without repercussion?

If you worship at the National Cathedral, you read this invitation to Communion: "All who seek God and a deeper life in Christ are welcome to receive Holy Eucharist."

These are admirable sentiments, but they are in conflict with Canon I.17.7: "No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church."

There is no mention of Baptism in the invitation to Communion given at the National Cathedral. But earlier this month General Convention stated that "The Episcopal Church reaffirms that baptism is the ancient and normative entry point to receiving Holy Communion". (Resolution C029).

It seems like a place calling itself the "National Cathedral" would, in particular, want to be normative in regard to the customs of the church as a whole.

I'm picking on the National Cathedral here, but the service leaflets of many other Episcopal churches have similar statements. And yes, I do believe this and other similarly-worded invitations are designed to subvert the intent of Canon I.17.7.

Meanwhile, the Diocese of New York has decided to go ahead with the liturgical blessing of Same-sex relationships and not wait for the Advent, 2012 start date prescribed by Resolution A049 (lines 46 & 47).

These are two instances of open disobedience and disregard for the particulars of our governing legislation that I'm aware of. I'm not trying to be overly-legalistic here, I just honestly wonder what the point of having General Convention is if the results don't really matter on the local level. Why include an Advent start date if some bishops will authorize same-sex blessings before then? Why require Baptism for Holy Communion if churches consistently offer invitations to those who are not baptized?

To be crystal clear, I am not advocating any kind of Baptism ID card check at the Communion rail -- nor, I believe, is anyone else -- but I do think it's irresponsible to issue an invitation to Communion without mentioning that it is baptized people who are eligible to receive in this church.

Our current Prayer Book references the centrality of Baptism at every opportunity. I think that 30+ years after its publication this should be clear in our liturgical behavior as well (and our liturgical spaces too, but that's another rant). Yes! Let's Baptize people, just like Jesus commanded, and let's make it a Big Deal.

I often listen to the webcasts of services of Holy Eucharist from St. Thomas, New York (it's an occupational hazard), and their invitation to Communion on Easter Day is very clear: all baptized Christians are welcome. In this situation, I've heard the rector immediately go on to say something to the effect of "if you're not baptized and would like to be, please let me know after the service. I would be happy to arrange that for you."

Baptism is freely available to all who desire it. By extension, and normally following the sacrament of Holy Baptism, Holy Communion is also.

If there is any point to keeping this distinction in our Canons, it seems that it's time to do something about non-canonical Communion invitations. I would suggest that diocesan bishops should make contact with those parishes who issue irresponsible invitations to Communion, whether in print or in person.

From what I understand, the Congregational Church (UCC) is one in which pastors and congregations can make these kinds of on the local level. In the Episcopal Church my understanding is that the authority to make these decisions lies with the triennal General Convention and the decisions are carried out by the bishops and everyone under their authority.

As our Presiding Bishop recently said, "If we're aware that there are people coming to the table who have not been baptized, it's time to do something."

I agree.

Labels: Baptism, Communion, Episcopal Church, National Cathedral

  — 15:38 | 2 remarks