Coming home catholic: Rediscovering my catholic faith in the Episcopal Church (James Shire, SHH '12)

There is a point in the liturgy that sums up everything, the Law, the Baptismal Covenant, the creeds, everything:

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

What does it mean to be catholic? Some would say that it means being Roman Catholic, being in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Others would say it means holding onto the apostolic tradition of orthodoxy. The word catholic is derived from the Greek word katholikos, which means universal. How can you call yourself universal if you deny people access to the sacraments?

How can you call yourself universal if you deny that people have a call to ministry just because they are gay, married, or a woman? How can you call yourself universal when you are disconnected with the laity, with the people of God, with your flock? The answer is that you can’t call yourself universal very well. What in essence happens is that you claim to be universal, but on your terms. Universal means including all people, and inviting all people to ministry and the sacraments. It is inviting everyday people to be involved in the decision-making processes of the church. It means accepting all people as the Body of Christ

Today I have been received into the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Instantly people would think I am refereeing to the Roman Catholic Church, but I am not. Instead, I speak of the Episcopal Church. This church claims the mantle of catholic, and I have found it to be an institution that represents the catholic Church.

I grew up Roman Catholic. Though from an early age, I was endlessly fascinated with Church history, theology, and faith, I never really had the best of connections with the Roman Catholic Church. After a long period of apathy ending with the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s involvement in Prop 8, I turned from the church. I believed that the hierarchy was hypocritical and unable to recognize the harm that they cause to people.

After a period of time, I started attending evangelical churches. I enjoyed it at first, but I found the services to be distant and not really connecting to anything. I never connected with the four songs and a sermon method of worship. After being made to feel unwelcome in the churches that I attended. With no place to turn, I started attending an Episcopal Church.

When I was there, I felt as if I had come home. The warmth of the congregation, the vibrancy of the liturgy, the invitation for all to the altar, it all made me realize that this was what it meant to be universal, to be Catholic. I can never be more thankful for the priest there, and all that she did for me in those few months I was there.

In my time in Thailand, I grew to depend on the Book of Common Prayer app I had for my iPod in order to find any sense of fulfillment and discipline in my prayer life.

When I returned to Hawaii, I started attending an Episcopal Church near my home.There too did I find a sense of belonging, even though I spent a short period of time there. I am grateful for the priest there, and all she has done to make me feel like I have a home when I am there.

During my time working and worshiping at an Episcopal church, I fully embraced being catholic. They showed me that you can be catholic without Rome. And they have challenged my theology in new and interesting ways. I am gratified for the opportunities that the priests there have given me.

In this past year of attending the Episcopal Church, I have learned many things, but one thing stands out is that Jesus loves everyone, Jesus accepts everyone. Our response to this is to do the same: love everyone and accept everyone.

There is a point in the liturgy that sums up everything, the Law, the Baptismal Covenant, the creeds, everything:

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

To follow this means we are living out the commands of our faith. To follow this means we are living out orthodoxy. To follow this means to be catholic.

We invite all people to the Baptismal font, for we are all invited to share into the death and resurrection of Christ. We invite all people to the altar because we are all invited to be the body of Christ. We are a living faith, for we are in a living Body of Christ, it means that we will grow, and change, and move more and more to that ideal of God, of the Church, and of what it means to be universal.

We sometimes fall short, we sometimes fail, we often disagree, but we still work more and more towards the ideal that Christ set forth. We recognize that compromises are necessary for unity, but that if we sacrifice people in the sake of unity, we deny our greater unity. Doctrine and theology are important, but not so important that we deny people access to the love and grace of Christ just to maintain our sense of “purity.” The Episcopal Church has made many mistakes, but it keeps moving forward knowing that: “There is one Body and one Spirit; There is one hope in God's call to us; One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; One God and Father of all.”

We are all the children of God; we are all in the family of God. And we have a responsibility to love one another. That is what it means to be catholic, to love one another, without condition. When we love one another, we love God, for as Jesus says “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” It is one and the same thing. We fulfill the catholic mantle when we do this.

And so I walk forward once again into a new beginning, into the family of the catholic Church.

An April Fools’ Palm Sunday (James Shire, SHH '12)

I cannot help but say I had a lot of fun today. This Palm Sunday was quite possibly the most joyous and exciting experiences I have had in church; perhaps in someway it reflects the excitement and joy that people had when Christ entered Jerusalem. The procession with the hymn All glory, laud, and honorset the mood for the day. And you know what, it was, dare I say, fun. And I am not just saying this because I am trumping my church’s horn; I had to keep a straight face while singing and suppressing a smile while in the procession (lest I look to happy in Christ Church).

There is one thing that struck me today, today is not just Palm Sunday, but it is also April Fools’ Day. There is something to be said about that, that at the end of Lent, and in the sadness of the days to come in Holy Week, there is foolish defiance of the powers of the world in Palm Sunday that is but a foretaste of the Resurrection of Christ.

Over the Passover in Jerusalem in Jesus’s time, it is likely that the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, requested more troops to enter the city to maintain order. Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims for the feast, a feast that celebrates the freedom of the Jewish people from enslavement by another empire long ago, a feast celebrated by a people that were somewhat defiant of Roman rule. So there was probably a concern that in the atmosphere of celebrating liberation, an uprising may occur.

These troops probably would have entered in with standard military procedures and ceremony complete with pomp and circumstance, and with there commanding officers on horseback, displaying the full power of Rome. Around the same time a backwater hick from Galilee named Jesus enters in on a donkey. The donkey is nowhere near as majestic as a horse, and an animal that is known for being stubborn.Yet here he is in the midst of what must be a foolish image, a grown man riding a donkey that probably does not want to be bothered, being proclaimed King of Israel, the Son of David. The crowds lay their robes and cut palms to lay in the street and shout Hosanna in the highest! His entry into Jerusalem almost seems laughably defiant towards the powers that be; and yet his entry into Jerusalem begins to call into foolishness the powers of the world.

And yet, it almost seems foolish that Jesus is entering into the very den of those seeking to kill him. Nevertheless, he rides on. Not on a warhorse or a steed like the Romans, but on a donkey.

The foolishness of his entry seemingly becomes apparent. After his arrest, we see the crowds turn on him, people proclaiming him king soon call for his crucifixion, possibly in hopes that if they scream the loudest, no one would know they were there laying palms before his path. The foolishness of our fears is revealed. We don’t want to be seen as defiant, because defiance means scorn and derision, and in Jesus’s case, death. To soothe our fears, we call ourselves foolish for even thinking such thoughts as to challenge the status quo. We call foolish those seeking to challenge the powers of the world, and we dismiss too quickly their work, and go about our business as if nothing is wrong.

But even upon the cross, bearing the world’s pain, sorrows, sins, oppression, injustice, and evils, Christ overcomes the darkness of the world. Death could not take him, Hell and the grave could not contain him, and thus the foolishness of Hell and Death are revealed, and now are no more. What started as a foolhardy, joyous, and defiant entry into Jerusalem becomes the salvation of the world.

And so, may you all have a blessed and happy April Fools’ Day.

The Agape Feast (Aleithia Burgess, Saint HIlda's '12)

To me, our house dinners seem so healthy, a habit that is utterly sane. They may very well be my favorite part of this entire program, and not just because we all happen to be pretty good cooks. 

Tonight I cooked dinner for my housemates. This is a regular occurrence in our house: we eat together here at least three times a week. Sometimes we invite a guest or two to join us, sometimes it’s just us. Usually we are eight, which seemed like a lot of people to cook for at the beginning of the year but now has become normal. Tonight, two of our eight had made other plans and did not join us. We saved them some leftovers, but their presence was missed.

To me, our house dinners seem so healthy, a habit that is utterly sane. They may very well be my favorite part of this entire program, and not just because we all happen to be pretty good cooks. (Which, incidentally, we are—the cookbook is forthcoming.) We are eight very different people, with different backgrounds and experiences and interests, and yet we all gather together to share our food and to enjoy one another’s company. For some of us, this is a well-known ritual, something we’ve been practicing since before we can remembers. Others of us are less practiced. Still, we all are able to come to the table: our table.

I see these dinners as a tangible metaphor of what we mean by ‘Christian fellowship’. All of us are different, yet we are brought together by the love and grace of God, brought into communion with Himself and with each other in the breaking of bread: “This do in remembrance of me.”

Our community is young, and small, and far from perfect. In a mere five months, we have experienced more drama and conflict than I care to remember, some of it silly and some of it serious. Yet in spite of our brokenness, we are a community, and for every moment of suffering we have experienced, there have been at least two moments of joy. And in a strange way, I am learning to be thankful for the suffering as well, for it is through those difficult experiences that we are made stronger, and drawn closer together. When we join hands before the meal, I need look no farther than across the table to see something—someone—I am thankful for. We ask God to bless the food and the hands who prepared it, but it is all of us who are blessed.

It is also a tradition in our house that whoever cooks the meal may read something afterwards. Sometimes it’s a short story or a poem or a selection from a longer work. This is what I chose for this evening.

PILGRIMS’ HYMN

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

 Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

(Michael Dennis Browne)

Thee, Thy, and Thou: On Language and How We Talk about God (Jordan Trumble, Saint Hilda's '12)

In my struggle to articulate my understanding of the Divine, I welcome the opportunity to use language that I understand but is also out of the ordinary for my everyday speech and writing.  I only use thee, thy, and thou to talk about God.  And I like it that way.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the past few months thinking about the language we use to talk about God, both in personal and corporate settings.  If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I’ve been working through my issues with “inclusive” language and the overall limitations of our language to communicate about the Divine.  As part of my own personal piety, though, I’ve also been thinking a lot about very specific words we use in Episcopal liturgy, the words I say every morning at Morning Prayer and several times a week at Mass.

For the past year and a half, I’ve attended an Episcopal parish that has Holy Eucharist, Rite I as its primary Sunday service.  For those unfamiliar with the Episcopal tradition, Rite I is the more traditional liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer.  Although the overall structures of Rite I and Rite II (the more modern) liturgy are the same, the language of Rite I is noticeably different.  Second-person pronouns in Rite I liturgy are thee, thy, and thou; lessons “endeth,” and we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, whereas, in Rite II, we use “you” and “your;” lessons “end,” and we simply confess that we have sinned against God.

It’s probably unsurprising to hear that Rite I isn’t very popular in the Episcopal Church anymore.  There are a number of parishes that stick by Rite I as their primary liturgy, but most people find it dated and unappealing in this age of praise bands and projector screens.  Thee, thy, and thou don’t translate well into many people’s understandings of God.

(To be entirely fair, one of the other main arguments against the use of Rite I liturgy is that many people find the gendered language to be offensive.  I get it.  It offends a lot of people.  But I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel alienated when I hear the word “man” instead of “human” or “person.”  I just don’t.  Thus, I’m not going to delve into the topic of gender-neutral language today.)

Aside from the problem of gendered language, I have heard two other main arguments against using Rite I that I think are worth addressing.

1) In the past few months, I’ve heard a number of people say that they don’t like Rite I language because it doesn’t meet people where they are.  I don’t actually know what to say to this other than that it is an absurd statement.  Of course, it doesn’t meet everyone where they are but, then again, what does?   The traditional language of Rite I liturgy certainly meets many people where they are; to say that it doesn’t is to make a sweeping generalization.  If Rite I liturgy didn’t meet people where they are, there wouldn’t be people in the pews (or chairs, as it were) on Sunday mornings in the many parishes that continue to use this liturgy.

2)I’ve also recently had several people tell me that they dislike Rite I because the liturgy of the Church is supposed to be in the language of the people and the traditional language (subtext: “old-fashioned”) isn’t of the people.  This critique makes sense to me; I certainly want to know what is going on in the liturgy at church.  At the same time, though, is Rite I language really so different that the meaning is lost?  If you answer “yes” to this question, I think your English teachers might have failed you.  I love the language of Rite I because it is beautiful and poetic (as opposed to the often-inelegant language of parts of Rite II and other liturgical resources [Enriching Our Worship]).  Furthermore, I love the fact that it isn’t exactly typical everyday language.  In my struggle to articulate my understanding of the Divine, I welcome the opportunity to use language that I understand but is also out of the ordinary for my everyday speech and writing.  I only use thee, thy, and thou to talk about God.  And I like it that way.

Of course, I don’t mean to say that everyone should necessarily use Rite I; it doesn’t work for everyone but it does work for me.  I recognize that we will never all agree about the language we use to talk about God or what are the best liturgical resources.  Once again, though, I’m reminded to be conscious of the limitations of our language to communicate about the Divine, of what we are communicating with the limited language we have, and that we all communicate in different ways.

Loneliness (Aleithia Burgess, Saint Hilda's '12)

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of loneliness. Perhaps this is an impossible task. Mainly, I wonder how much loneliness is a product of circumstances, and how much it is a condition of the spirit. Do I feel lonely because I lack a particular kind of friendship in my life, or because I am dissatisfied in some way with the friendships that I do possess? Maybe ‘possess’ is too strong a word here, for a true friendship is something that coexists between two people, both contributing their part but neither capable of encompassing the whole.

Anyway, I wonder if too often we are striving after an ideal, seeking something that does not—cannot—exist in this imperfect world. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have known so many wonderful people, some of them briefly and others for longer periods of time. I have had more friends than many people, and I have also seen many of those friendships fade; this is the greatest blessing and curse of mobility. Yet despite knowing such wonderful people, I have never been able to shake a quiet, persistent sense of separation, of separateness. If you were to ask me, “When was the last time you didn’t feel lonely?”; I’m not sure I could give you an answer. Like I said, I suspect this has little to do with the quantity or quality of my friendships, and more likely reveals something about my own soul.

But perhaps I am not so alone in my loneliness as I might suppose. Surely there are others who feel this way. Maybe—is this too grand a claim to make?—this thing I am describing here is actually just the human condition. It could be that we are lonely because we expect too much, and we would have better luck if we were to look at things the other way around. If I wish to cultivate a meaningful friendship with you, perhaps I ought to start with the assumption that you are ultimately unknowable to me in your entirety. (Can I even fully know myself?) I cannot know you completely, but I can know you at least in part. And we procede from there.