Antiphon on Canticle 12: A Song of creation

                             Saturday Antiphon on

                             A Song of creation 

                                     Canticle 12: 

        

        God 

        saw 

        every-

        thing

        that 

        he 

        had 

        made 

        and 

        behold, it was very good. 

* Hilary 

 Bishop of Poitiers 

 315-367 

“prolific writer 

on Scripture 

& doctrine, an 

orator, anda

poet to whom 

some of the 

earliest Latin hymns 

have been attributed.”

  

The perfection 

of learning is 

to know God 

in such a way

that, though 

you realize he

is knowable, yet 

you know him 

as indescribable.

Hilary of Poitires

Monday, December 11, 2017*

  Amos 7: 8

          

See, 

I  

am 

setting 

a 

plumb 

line

among 

my

people 

    *Thomas Merton 

Cistercian monk, contemplative, author, seeker. Born in England in 1915,  “Fr Louis” found his home as a Cistercian monk, contemplative and seeker in Kentucky in the US, and died in a freak accident in Bannock Thailand on December 10, 1968 while attending a conference of interfaith monastics. He was praised by the Dali Lama praised as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian. 

“In Louisville, 

at the corner 

of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping dis-trict, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved 

all those people, that they were mine and I 

theirs, that we could not be alien to one an-

other even though we were total strangers….

There is no way of telling people that they 

are all walking around shining like the sun.” 

                               March 18, 1958

Saturday, November 11, 2017*

                                          Antiphon: Psalm 75

             God 

             does 

             not 

             judge 

             by 

            what 

            the 

            eye 

            sees, 

           but in truth and equity. 

Also. it is Veterans Day, a national hoiliday that used to be Armistice Day marking  the end  of WWI on 11/11/1918,  which dove-

tails nicely with  

* Martin, 397, 

Bishop of Tours,  

According to legend, 

when asked by a poor 

man for alms in the 

name of Christ, the  

young Martin, a 

Roman soldier and 

a catechumen, Martin, 

cut off part of his military cloak with his sword and gave it to the beggar.  The following night Jesus appeared to Martin  clothed in the half cloak.  

Thursday, October 12, 2017

                _____________Psalm 133:1 

O,

how 

good 

and 

pleasant it is when 
brothers & sisters live together in unity.

                                ***  

The translation said “brethren,”  but that linguistically  leaves  out out half of humanity.

One said “God’s people” and that also is too exclusive, implying a tribal God (a kind of "mine's bigger than yours"attitude) rather than the One Creator God (an impulse that still surivives in a virulent form in funadmanetlaism of every stripe.) I think what Jesus, he whom we Christians  believe to be God made vsisble  & who came came to “break down the dividing walls of hostility between us,” would say "brothers and sisters." For that is what we are.  (The children's hymn I sang at St Matthew's Day School "Black and yellow, red, white, they are precious in his sight" was teaching a child-acccessible inclusivity that is foundational to our understabnding of others, and all the more critical since all I saw day in and day out was the latter.....  Our  1979 BCP   still trnalates the word as brethren. (But 'you know what we mean' not longer suffices, and I am no gender neutral Nazi….  Yikes! That has a new and revolting relevance in America today!)  But a tenacious  disbelief in the  the eqiuality of the sexes - amd deeper than that, quite apart from gender and sexuality itself,  he dignity of perosnahohod - is still alive and well even in our own country, when women can be (and are) grabbed by any body part and sexually used by those in positions of power. 

 

Monday, 9 October, 2017*

             _______________Psalm 106:7_  

In 

Egypt 

they

did 

not 

consider your marvelous works, 

nor remember the abundance of your love

*Wilfred 

Thomason 

Grenfell, 

1856-1940,

medical 

missionary in Iceland and the Bay of Biscay.

(Stamp issued 1941, the year after his death.) 

                 Sometimes

               the truth is just 

            as plain as the pyramids 

          and we walk past them every 

        day missing the point:  “Dear One, 

have you been with me so long and you still do not see?”

Towatd evening on a hot muggy Tuesday afternonn, th elast in AUgust

____________________Mark 13:28,33

Jesus 

said, 

“From 

the

fig 

tree, 

learn

its lesson….  Beware, keep alert…" 

Wednesday, July 4, 2017*

                                                 ________Canticle 11_ 

     Arise, 

     shine, 

     for 

     your 

     light 

     has 

     come 

     and  

     the glory of the Lord 

             has dawned upon you

"the worst 

of all deaths 

is this-that

the loving 

soul be 

cowardly 

toward love."

*Hadewjich 

of Antwerp, 13th c Flemish poet & mystic 

(not on the Episcopal calendar) 

Midweek, June 28, 2017*

                  __________________Canticle 11__ 

Arise, 

shine 

for 

your 

light 

has 

come, 

and the glory of 

the Lord has dawned upon you

*Irenaeus

  Born in 

  Smyrna

 Turkey. 

  Bishop 

  and  

  theologian, 

  ca 130-200. 

Only the God who created human beings could also saved us, 

and only 

that which 

was truly  

assumed (humanity in the Incarna-tion) could also 

be redeemed.   (Which sure 

sounds decidedly Irenaean)                               

                            

Tuesday evening

                                         Luke 20:25

render  
unto 
Caesar

the things
that are Caesar's

                       and unto God 

    the things that are God’s.  

Tuesday, 13 June, 2017 *

                                               ___________Psalm 61:3 

           

         

         

            you 

            have 

            been 

            my 

            refuge, 

            a strong tower  

                against the enemy___________

     *GK 

Chesterton 

  1874-1936, 

 English   

 writer, 

Christian apologist, poet, phil-osopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, biographer, & literary and & critic. 

“When it comes 

to life, the 

critical thing 

is whether 

you take things 

for granted 

or take them with gratitude.”

                                                     36th Annual 

                                  G.K. Chesterton Conference 

                     July 27-29, 2017 University of Colorado 

Tuesday 30 May , 2107*

                           _____Psalm 97:1a, 2a_

The 

Lord 

is King; 

righteous-

ness & 

justice 

are the foundations of his throne_______

* the feast of 
  Jeanne d'Arc, 
   1412-1431   
mystic & soldier 
who died at age 19

  “I am not afraid..... I was born to do this.” 





       may we, 
       encouraged 
       by the compan-
      ionship of your 
      saints, give our-
      ourselves to the
      struggle for justice in our time
_______________Collect