Spirit of the Eagle – September 2013

Rector’s Reflections
Well summer is fading fast and our thoughts turn away from recreation and vacations to the more serious aspects of live. Our focus moves toward preparations for the start of school and getting back to work and making plans for how we will deal with the long months of autumn and winter. The same is true for we Christians as our focus returns from the distractions of summer to how we spread the Gospel and grow our Church. Prior to His Ascension our Lord gave the Apostles the Great Commission, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” God expects growth from His Church and it must become a priority for those of us at St. John’s. To that purpose I have been holding discussions with Fr. Butler and the Vestry for us to gather ideas to stimulate growth. In the coming months we will formulate a plan to accomplish that goal.

To begin, I recently presented a study to the Vestry of 6 Episcopal parishes that I had come across awhile back that were vital parts of their communities. It is dated, because it was conducted in 1988 a time when we still had something in common with the Episcopal Church. However, I thought the information was still valuable because nothing much has changed in the intervening years except technology and the value of money (keep in mind the dollars presented in the accompanying comparison are of 1988 vintage). At least 4 of these parishes had experienced rapid growth and the other two were at minimum essential parts of their communities. Included in this newsletter is a comparison of the 6 parishes and a final column is for St. John’s. At some point in the months prior to our Annual Parish Meeting I encourage you to make your evaluation of St. John’s in comparison to these successful churches to see where we are and where we need to go.

+++Yours-In-Christ, Fr. Bryan Newman+++

Wednesday Night Service Has Returned
Our Wednesday night Holy Communion service has returned and is available to you every Wednesday evening. There is nothing quite like taking a pause from the daily grind at mid-week to refresh ourselves by receiving our ‘spiritual food for our spiritual journey’. I want to encourage all of you who were making the effort to attend Wednesday services, before we took our summer break, to return for this rewarding service. In September we will be celebrating the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and the Feasts of St. Matthew and Bl. Lancelot Andrewes. I hope to see you all there!

The Choir Returns to Practice and Services
The Choir has returned from its summer vacation and are already in mid-season form. Practice is every Wednesday at 7 p.m. As always, we need more choir members and if you would like to make a joyful noise unto the Lord we would love to have you join the Choir!

Vestry Meeting
Our Vestry Meeting for September will be on Wednesday, the 18th, at 7:00 p.m. If you are a member of the Vestry please make plans to be present. Topics of discussion will be growing the parish and our 140th anniversary celebration. This year the Vestry and Rector have decided to forego having a Church Picnic in order to focus all our attention on our 140th anniversary celebration in October. All are welcome.

Healing Service for September
Our monthly Healing Service is Sunday September 15th, after Holy Mass! So if you wish to receive the sacrament of Anointing for healing and offer your prayers for any that are suffering or are ill, please join Fr. Newman at about 11:50 after Mass on the 15th, for this rewarding and reassuring service.

The Flight of the Eagle
I recently learned through Kay Matthews that the Spirit of the Eagle predated even Fr. Stork, although it is evident that it was he who brought the Eagle to prominence and fond memory. It is in his honor and inspiration that we include the ‘Flight of the Eagle’ which is a record of my activities as your pastor over the month just past. Below are the visits and other events I made in the month of August. I prayed with those I visited and gave them Holy Communion and Anointed them when needed.
God Bless, Fr. Bryan Newman

8/16 visited Sally Whalen @ University Hospital
8/18 visited Sally Whalen @ University Hospital
8/23 visited Sally Whalen @ Florence Park Nursing Home
8/25 visited Ethel Fahlbush @ Villa Spring Nursing Home
8/26 visited Lori Seyberth @ her and Rich’s home
8/30 visited Sally Whalen @ Florence Park Nursing Home

Blessing of the Animals
Following an ancient tradition, St. John’s will be conducting our 4th annual ‘Blessing of the Animals’ service on Saturday, October 5 at 11 a.m. Inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and his love for animals, whose feast day is October 4th, the Blessing of the Animals is a demonstration that God’s care and concern extends to our furry friends as well. So remember to bring your beloved pets to St. John’s to receive God’s blessing in the Parish garden.

St. John’s 140th Anniversary Celebration
St. John’s is a parish with a long and storied history and we want to give it the honor it deserves. To that end we are planning a special celebration on Sunday, October 13th, after Holy Mass. Please begin bringing in your St. John’s memorabilia to share with all those who will be joining us on this special day. Also remember that it will be the perfect time to invite family and friends, especially those who may have had some connection to the Parish in the past. There will be a special Coffee Hour and the opportunity to share those golden memories of life here at St. John’s Anglican Catholic Church!

Thank You Very Much!
I would like to thank you all for the beautiful (and funny) cards, prayers, telephone calls, emails, visits at the hospital and Villa Spring Rehab, your concerns for me and my dog, Sally, gifts of love, and your good wishes. All are very much appreciated. Our Wonderful Good Lord has blessed me with your love, support, kindness, time and generosity. I thank the Lord every day for His love. He is so good to me. I thank Him too for my quick recovery, my marvelous family who were with me with their time, love, support, my church friends, neighbors, and friends. I want to especially thank Fr. Newman for his visits at the hospital and Rehab and for bringing Communion to me.

In Christian love,
Brenda Strong

Spiritual Tidbits for September from Father Tim
On September 25th most of the Anglican Communion commemorates the day on which Lancelot Andrewes died. Archbishop Laud expressed this very simply in his diary, “Monday, about 4 0’clock in the morning, died Lancelot Andrews, the most worthy bishop of Winchester, the great light of the Christian world.” (Laud 3:126) And what a light he was in his time and still is. Those who value the catholicity of the Church and the beauty of holiness in worship, also offer a big thank you on this day as he safeguarded the Catholic heritage in the English Church in its formative years of the Reformation period under Elizabeth I.

Andrewes’ began his ministry (a ministry that was to last fifty years) c.1578, a time when the Puritans were trying their hardest, especially through pamphlets and parliaments to model the English Church on the Genevan (Calvinist doctrine). This would have meant discarding the episcopal and apostolic ministry, the Prayer Book, downplaying the sacraments and dismantling the structure of cathedrals. However their demands were always thwarted by Queen Elizabeth. She and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift) both appointed Andrewes as one of their chaplains, and prevailed on his skills as a preacher and theologian to address many of the issues raised by Puritans in the late 16th century. So his preaching and lecturing, and later on when a bishop, his Visitation Articles, always stressed amongst other things the observance of Prayer Book services to be taken by a properly ordained minister, the Eucharist to be celebrated reverently, infants baptized, the Daily Offices to be said, and spiritual counseling given where needed.

One cannot read Andrewes’ sermons or use his prayers without being aware of the centrality of the Eucharist in his life and teaching. It had been the heart of worship in the early Church when the local bishop and people came together constantly to celebrate Christ’s glorious death, and partake of His most blessed Body and Blood. That partaking fell into disuse in the mediæval Western church and was replaced instead by adoration of the Host at the elevation during the Canon. For Andrewes the Eucharist was the meeting place for the infinite and finite, the divine and human, heaven and earth. “The blessed mysteries … are from above; the ‘Bread that came down from Heaven,’ the Blood that hath been carried ‘into the holy place.’ And I add, ubi Corpus, ubi sanguis Christi, ibi Christus”. We here “on earth … are never so near Him, nor He us, as then and there.” Thus it is to the altar we must come for “that blessed union [which] is the highest perfection we can in this life aspire unto.” Unlike his contemporary Puritans it was not the pulpit but the altar, glittering with its candles and plate, with incense wafting to God, which was the focal point for worship in Andrewes’ chapel.

The reason Andrewes placed so much importance on reverence in worship came from his conviction that when we worship God it is with our entire being, that is, both bodily and spiritually. So it is not surprising that for many in the seventeenth century Andrewes was considered the authority on worship, and so what he practiced in his beautiful chapel, designed for Catholic worship, became their standard for the celebration of the Liturgy. As Andrewes was steeped in the teachings of the Fathers and the liturgies of both Eastern and Western churches it meant that in intention and form he followed the 1549 Prayer Book which reflected the practices and beliefs of the Church for over a thousand years.

As a preacher Andrewes was highly esteemed by contemporaries and later generations. In modern times T.S. Eliot referred to Andrewes as “the first great preacher of the English Catholic Church” who always spoke as “a man who had a formed visible Church behind him, who speaks with the old authority and the new culture, whilst his sermons “rank with the finest English prose of their time, of any time.” As well as teaching the Catholic faith according to the Fathers his sermons also reflected an appreciation of beauty as well as knowledge of commerce, trade, art, theatre, navigation, husbandry, science, astronomy, cosmography, fishing, nature, shipping, and even the new discoveries of the world.

But Andrewes himself would have said, as indeed he did to Sir Francis Walisingham, that his whole life and teaching were indebted to the Fathers, especially the Eastern. One has only to be reasonably familiar with the Fathers, to see how much of their teachings were preached by him. For example: the Cappadocian Fathers on the Eucharist, the Trinity and Christology, Cyprian on prayer, Anselm on sin and Bernard on atonement. There is no doubt therefore that Andrewes saw himself as standing in that long line of Christian tradition embedded in antiquity, and a part of the wonder and loveliness of creation.

Indeed Andrewes was a man of prayer and learning whose preaching and piety was noted as far away as Venice. Each day of his life, from 4.am to noon was spent in prayer and study. It is a shame that very few Anglicans know anything about this most important divine during the Reformation period in England, or of their heritage. The period in which Andrewes lived was perhaps “the golden years” of what became known as Anglicanism.

•••

Summer is coming to a close quickly! Before long the beautiful colors of fall, the “wonder and loveliness of creation”, will burst forth in all their glory. Like Andrewes, we at Saint John’s stand in that long line of Christian tradition embedded in antiquity, and have so much to offer those who are lost in the world with no spiritual guidance. As the beauty of fall approaches, offer up your prayers and invite a friend or loved one to come worship at our altar in Saint John’s, glittering with its candles and plate, with incense wafting to God (well I’m still lobbying for this last one), which was the focal point for worship in Andrewes’ chapel. God bless you and have a wonderful and holy September!
~Father Tim

•••

September Spirituality Class
Please join us on the 29th of September when we continue our discussion of the Lord’s Prayer using the book Abba and the seven phrases of our Lord’s Prayer as a means to propel the self toward union with God. This class we will cover the final two chapters “Prevenience” (lead us not into temptation) and “Glory”. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. May that strange directive power of which from time to time we are conscious as the controlling factor of life have pity on our weakness and lead us out of confusion into peace.”

“Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. Before that reality, that majesty, that energy, that splendor, his [mankind] own needs, his own significance, vanish.” Evelyn Underhill, Abba

I hope to see you in the Spirituality Class this September! Bring a family member!
~Father Tim

•••

Christ, the bright Sun, rose in the heavens of the most high Trinity, and in the dawn of His glorious mother, the Virgin Mary; who was, and is, the dawn and daybreak of all graces in which we shall rejoice eternally. John of Ruysbroeck, Adornment of Spiritual Marriage, Chapter 33.

•••

“We do not grow bored with eating and sleeping everyday, for we soon feel hungry or sleepy again, otherwise we should grow bored with it. Likewise if we do not hunger for spiritual things we find them boring: hunger for righteousness,’ eighth beatitude.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 941

Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. St. Matthew V: 6, 10

Ask yourself over and over in September; “Do I hunger for righteousness?” ~Father Tim

September Birthdays & Anniversaries
Joanna & Jim Barnett – Anniversary – September 5
Jerri Lenz – Birthday – September 8
Ben Hayes – Birthday – September 8
Gary Blade – Birthday – September 14
Rich Seyberth – Birthday – September 16
Anne Marie & Kevin Hess – Anniversary – September 18
Lori Seyberth – Birthday – September 20
Don Prigge – Birthday – September 24
Louise Becker – Anniversary – September 25
John Lipscomb – Birthday – September 26
Joyce & Jack Murray – Anniversary – September 29
Kathy Wieland – Birthday – September 29

Jr. Warden’s Report
Now that we have the new parish hall roof installed, there is still a problem with water leaking into the Sacristy as well as moisture penetrating the underside of the east wall near the top of the large stain glass memorial window. At our August 21 Vestry Meeting, we unanimously agreed to obtain 3 bids for the repair of the stone mortar and for the waterproofing of our entire building.

While it may appear (to some) that “the Vestry has been on a spending spree the past couple of years”, I can assure you that couldn’t be further from the truth. Truth be told, our Church had been handcuffed with an unattainable budget for many, many years to the point where zero maintenance was affordable. As a result, almost all capital gains from the O’Rourke Fund were used to bail us out year after year instead of taking care of our building.

That being said, we now have a budget that is 60% of years past, making it possible to address necessary repairs due to those years of neglect. As long as we can continue to honor our current tithes and continue to see some growth in our parish, we should be okay for many years to come.

Serving on Vestry can sometimes be a thankless job, but one of our duties to you and to God are to see to it that His house is worthy of Him. Please keep in mind there are going to be 3 vacancies for Vestry that will need to be filled at this year’s Annual Parish Meeting on November 10. If you would be interested in filling one of these positions, please don’t hesitate to contact Fr. Newman or any member of the Vestry.

“When the solution is simple, God is answering.” – Albert Einstein

Until next month,
Mike

It’s a Boy!

Congratulations to Jerri and Tim Lenz on the arrival of their 2nd grandson, Logan Alexander Lenz, who was born on August 22, weighing nearly 8 pounds! Mom Kristi and Logan are doing just fine.