From here:

Balthasar’s theology of Holy Saturday is probably one of his most intriguing contributions since he interprets it as moving beyond the active self-surrender of Good Friday into the absolute helplessness of sin and the abandonment and lostness of death.

In the Old Testament one of the greatest threats of God’s wrath was His threat of abandonment, to leave His people desolate, to be utterly rejected of God. It is this that Jesus experienced upon the Cross and in His descent into the lifeless passivity and God-forsakenness of the grave. By His free entrance into the helplessness of sin, Christ was reduced to what Balthasar calls a “cadaver-obedience” revealing and experience the full horror of sin. As Peter himself preached at Pentecost (Acts 2:23-24; 32-33):

[Jesus] being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you, by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death; who God raised up, having abolished the birth pangs of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it…This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, He pour out this which you now see and hear.

We ought to pause and note the passivity that is expressed here. Christ experienced what God was doing through Him by His purpose and foreknowledge. Jesus was truly dead and fully encompassed within and held by the pains of death and needed God to abolish them. He was freed from death by God, not simply by God’s whim, but because for God it was impossible that death should hold Christ. Christ Himself receives the Holy Spirit from the Father in order that He might pour out that Spirit. Balthasar writes:

Jesus was truly dead, because he really became a man as we are, a son of Adam, and therefore, despite what one can sometimes read in certain theological works, he did not use the so-called “brief” time of his death for all manner of “activities” in the world beyond. In the same way that, upon earth, he was in solidarity with the living, so, in the tomb, he is in solidarity with the dead…Each human being lies in his own tomb. And with this condition Jesus is in complete solidarity.

According to Balthasar, this death was also the experience, for a time, of utter God-forsakenness—that is hell. Hell, then, is a Christological concept which is defined in terms of Christ’s experience on the Cross. This is also the assurance that we never need fear rejection by the Father if we are in Christ, since Christ has experienced hell in our place.

–S. Joel Garver on Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)

On Holy Saturday, the Church contemplates in solemn silence as Christ lays in the tomb.

“The disciple keeps silent in the awareness of our own reactions during those crucial hours in the Lord’s life." – Pope Francis 2018 Easter Vigilhttps://t.co/VAZA9j216m pic.twitter.com/Wz9n3gKJgE

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) April 8, 2023

Holy Saturday is a neglected day in parish life. Few people attend the Services. Popular piety usually reduces Holy Week to one day Holy Friday. This day is quickly replaced by another Easter Sunday. Christ is dead and then suddenly alive. Great sorrow is suddenly replaced by great joy. In such a scheme Holy Saturday is lost.

In the understanding of the Church, sorrow is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. This distinction indicates that it is precisely within death the Christ continues to effect triumph.

–Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983)

Having finished all his work of redeeming the world, having completed his re-creation of humanity, Jesus our God rested on the seventh day.

Today, Holy Saturday, Jesus takes a Sabbath in the tomb for us. pic.twitter.com/WWwAxInZaQ

— Chad Bird (@birdchadlouis) April 16, 2022

O My chief good,
How shall I measure out thy bloud?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one starre show’d thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or can not leaves, but fruit, be signe
Of the true vine?

Then let each houre
Of my whole life one grief devoure;
That thy distresse through all may runne,
And be my sunne.
Or rather let
My severall sinnes their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sinne may so.

Since bloud is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloudie fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sinne:

That when sinne spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sinne may say,
No room for me, and flie away.

Sinne being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sinne take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

–George Herbert (1593-1633)

Christ is taken to be crucified and is nailed to the cross. A 14th Century wall painting at North Cove, Suffolk. Today is Good Friday. pic.twitter.com/Ld6h44cWbL

— Simon Knott (@last_of_england) April 7, 2023

A #MaundyThursday healing miracle performed by the monastic reformer St Gilbert of Sempringham (1083-1189). #medieval #histmed pic.twitter.com/nmboh9rc24

— Katherine Harvey (@keharvey2013) April 13, 2017

The master of the asses asked them why they untied his asses, and in the same way the chief men of every people perversely opposed the preaching of God. But when they saw that the preachers, through God’s power, healed the lame and the blind, and gave speech to the dumb, and raised the dead to life, then they could not withstand those miracles, but all at last turned to God. Christ’s disciples said, “The Lord needs the asses, and sends for them.” They did not say ‘our Lord’, or ‘your Lord’, but simply, ‘the Lord’; for Christ is Lord of all lords, both of men and of all creatures. They said, “He sends for them.” We are exhorted and invited to God’s kingdom, but we are not forced. When we are invited, we are untied; and when we are left to our own choice, then is it as though we are sent for. It is God’s mercy that we are untied; but if we live rightly, that will be both God’s grace and our own zeal. We should constantly pray for the Lord’s help, since our own choices have no success unless they are supported by the Almighty.

Christ did not command them to lead to him a proud steed adorned with golden trappings; instead he chose a poor ass to bear him, because he always taught humility, and gave the example himself, saying “Learn from me, for I am meek and very humble, and you shall find rest for your souls.” This was prophesied of Christ, and so were all the things which he did before he was born as man…

Read it all.

'Nu sceole we healdan urne palm…': An Anglo-Saxon sermon for Palm Sunday https://t.co/h4hm9XNNOW pic.twitter.com/VO7BdNGcq1

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 10, 2022

These poems speak, as [Philip] Yancey says, to “the guilt and fear and helpless faith that marked [Donne’s] darkest days.” They also answer one of the toughest questions we can face, “In the midst of plague times, how can we give thanks?”

Here are the three poems excerpted by Yancey, with his clarifying revisions of Donne’s eighteenth-century language…

Read it all.

31 Mar 1631: d. John Donne, #poet & cleric in the deanery of St Paul’s London #otd having earlier posed in his own shroud (BM/NPG)

A striking man in his day. Among other things. pic.twitter.com/v1mX30Fy6N

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) March 31, 2023

Almighty God, the root and fountain of all being: Open our eyes to see, with thy servant John Donne, that whatsoever hath any being is a mirror in which we may behold thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Holy Immortal One, who didst bless thy people by calling Innocent from leading thy Church in Russia to be an apostle and light to the people of Alaska, and to proclaim the dispensation and grace of God: Guide our steps, that as he didst labor humbly in danger and hardship, we may witness to the Gospel of Christ wherever we are led, and serve thee as gladly in privation as in power; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, to the ages of ages. Amen.

“Easter Procession of St. Innocent of Alaska” (2010) by Mikhail Shankov. pic.twitter.com/dQu01Q0Dyc

— Jason ☦️ (@baqlavas) September 12, 2020

New every morning is the love
our wakening and uprising prove;
through sleep and darkness safely brought,
restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
hover around us while we pray;
new perils past, new sins forgiven,
new thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If on our daily course our mind
be set to hallow all we find,
new treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
as more of heaven in each we see;
some softening gleam of love and prayer
shall dawn on every cross and care.

The trivial round, the common task,
will furnish all we ought to ask:
room to deny ourselves; a road
to bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love,
fit us for perfect rest above;
and help us, this and every day,
to live more nearly as we pray

Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant John Keble, we may accomplish with integrity and courage that which thou givest us to do, and endure that which thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates John Keble, Priest and Poet, 1866 https://t.co/BmTmViXUHn

Image: Photo by Robert Hawker Peniel Preston, mid 1860s, in the National Portrait Gallery, CC BY-NC-ND, via https://t.co/s2j8rIY9UC pic.twitter.com/I8lSBbbf4o

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 29, 2023

Now a crunch is coming. The churches that make up 45 per cent of our Grade I listed buildings cannot be looked after in perpetuity by the dwindling band of faithful who worship in them. We need, as a nation, to work out how they can be preserved and allowed to thrive.

Churches don’t have any particular right to survive. St Bartholomew the Great can claim to be the oldest surviving extant church in the City of London only because all of those older foundations burned down or got bombed over the years.

We came close — in 1830 the timber store in the nonconformist chapel caught fire and took the whole south side of the church with it. It took decades for the church to be restored. This is the nightmare that haunts every parish priest: that your time in office might be short, but might also be fatal.

Which means we need, as a society, to decide what we want to do with these treasure-houses. How much do we really want them to survive and, if we do, what we want them to do and to be? Or will we decide to let them, rent-free to rain and sheep?

Read it all.

O God, the font of resurrected life, draw us into the wilderness and speak tenderly to us, so that we might love and worship thee as did thy servant James Solomon Russell, in assurance of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In 1899 a relatively obscure priest working in a City Mission in the slums of South Boston was compiling a book on prayer from articles he had written for the Saint Andrew’s Cross, a magazine of the recently established lay order of the Protestant Episcopal Church known as the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. Seven years before, this celibate priest had left the Order of the Cowley Father’s whose House was just across the Charles River in Cambridge. Although he left the order over a dispute between his superior, Fr. A. C. A. Hall and the Order’s Father Superior in England, the young priest never left the inward embrace of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience—even less did he leave behind the spiritual disciplines of the religious life he had learned so well under Fr. Hall’s steady hand. Somewhere between his pastoral and social work among the sordidness and squalor of the South End—replete with red light district, street waifs, immigrants and vagrants— and his late night vigils of intercessory prayer or early mornings spent in meditation, not to mention the full round of parish duties, he found the time to write. In the final chapter of his little book, With God in the World, he wrote words that now appear as strangely prescient for his own life: “Men—we are not thinking of butterflies—cannot exist without difficulty. To be shorn of it means death, because inspiration is bound up with it, and inspiration is the breath of God, without the constant influx of which man ceases to be a living soul. Responsibility is the sacrament of inspiration. . . . The fault of most modern prophets is not that they present too high an ideal, but an ideal that is sketched with a faltering hand; the appeal to self-sacrifice is too timid and imprecise, the challenge to courage is too low-voiced, with the result that the tide of inspiration ebbs and flows.” He was to parse this belief taking root in his soul, with the phrase “the inspiration of responsibility”. Within two short years he would have the opportunity to test these words with his life.

His name was Charles Henry Brent, born the son of an Anglican clergyman from New Castle, Ontario in 1862. How Charles Brent, a Canadian by birth, came to be a priest in of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and under the episcopacy of the renowned Phillips Brooks, and later, the almost equally celebrated Bishop William Lawrence, is itself an interesting story we haven’t time to explore. Suffice to say that God seemed to be grooming through the seemingly quixotic twists and turns of providence a bishop not merely for the church or for one nation, but for the world—a man, of whom it could be said, he was Everybody’s Bishop.

You may find Part One there and Part Two here. Take the time to read it all.

#OTD March 27, 1929
Death in Lausanne, Switzerland, of Charles Henry Brent, an Episcopal priest active in the ecumenical movement. Two years before his death, he had presided over the 1927 World Conference on Faith and Order, in Lausanne, Switzerland. pic.twitter.com/NgUT4qgI34

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) March 27, 2022

In the past few weeks, the Christians of the world have been holding their first major conference in some 500 years for the specific purpose of seeing what can be done about unifying Christianity as the sum of its world-wide parts.

Preparation. Today the parts (denominations) number 200-odd, all of them organized as distinct entities. The practical necessity of relating so many parts, of discovering identity among so many entities, was established by the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. The logical necessity was established later the same year, at a convention of the Episcopal Church in Cincinnati. The man who then proposed a world conference on Faith & Order lived to see such a conference actually held, after 17 years of preparation, and to preside over it as chairman, at Lausanne, Switzerland, the past three weeks.

Chairman Brent. This man was Bishop Charles Henry Brent of the Episcopal diocese of Western New York. Canadian-born and educated, naturalized in the U. S., an obscure worker in the awkward robes of the Cowley Fathers among the poor of Boston, later (under Bishop Phillips Brooks) an Episcopal rector who was made a missionary bishop and sent to the Philippines because of his earnest simplicity, rugged strength and adaptability among people of other races, it was Bishop Brent who confirmed General Pershing in the Philippines and subsequently became Chaplain-in-Chief of the A. E. F.

First in war, first in peace, Bishop Brent had had experience in handling international conferences, as president of opium parleys at Shanghai (1909) and The Hague (1911). He declined the bishoprics of Washington, D. C., and New Jersey, to preserve for his world ministry the freedom of action he enjoys at Buffalo, N. Y. When his world ministry reached its peak this month, he was not content merely to preside over the hundreds of churchmen he had brought together, but went with them into their councils; explained, directed, adjusted and dictated daily despatches on their progress to the New York Herald Tribune.

Read it all (requires subscription).

(For his feast day) Charles Henry Brent cover story in Time, August 29, 1927 https://t.co/4batzXLWFS@TIME #churchhistory #ecumenism #missions #christianity #history #parishministry #clergy pic.twitter.com/ayzHHMZllU

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 27, 2021

Heavenly Father, whose Son did pray that we all might be one: deliver us, we beseech thee, from arrogance and prejudice, and give us wisdom and forbearance, that, following thy servant Charles Henry Brent, we may be united in one family with all who confess the Name of thy Son Jesus Christ: who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Phillipines, and of Western New York, 1929 https://t.co/I09wiw0Xfw

Portrait photo by Unknown photographer, 1901-1918, in the National Portrait Gallery, London (CC BY-NC-ND) pic.twitter.com/eZMTKoLHz2

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 27, 2023

And so his question to all those who have the freedom to speak in the Church and for the Church is ‘who do you really speak for?’ But if we take seriously the underlying theme of his words and witness, that question is also, ‘who do you really feel with?’ Are you immersed in the real life of the Body, or is your life in Christ seen only as having the same sentiments as the powerful? Sentir con la Iglesia in the sense in which the mature Romero learned those words is what will teach you how to speak on behalf of the Body. And we must make no mistake about what this can entail: Romero knew that this kind of ‘feeling with the Church’ could only mean taking risks with and for the Body of Christ – so that, as he later put it, in words that are still shocking and sobering, it would be ‘sad’ if priests in such a context were not being killed alongside their flock. As of course they were in El Salvador, again and again in those nightmare years.

But he never suggests that speaking on behalf of the Body is the responsibility of a spiritual elite. He never dramatised the role of the priest so as to play down the responsibility of the people. If every priest and bishop were silenced, he said, ‘each of you will have to be God’s microphone. Each of you will have to be a messenger, a prophet. The Church will always exist as long as even one baptized person is alive.’ Each part of the Body, because it shares the sufferings of the whole – and the hope and radiance of the whole – has authority to speak out of that common life in the crucified and risen Jesus.

So Romero’s question and challenge is addressed to all of us, not only those who have the privilege of some sort of public megaphone for their voices. The Church is maintained in truth; and the whole Church has to be a community where truth is told about the abuses of power and the cries of the vulnerable. Once again, if we are serious about sentir con la Iglesia, we ask not only who we are speaking for but whose voice still needs to be heard, in the Church and in society at large. The questions here are as grave as they were thirty years ago. In Salvador itself, the methods of repression familiar in Romero’s day were still common until very recently. We can at least celebrate the fact that the present head of state there has not only apologized for government collusion in Romero’s murder but has also spoken boldly on behalf of those whose environment and livelihood are threatened by the rapacity of the mining companies, who are set on a new round of exploitation in Salvador and whose critics have been abducted and butchered just as so many were three decades back. The skies are not clear: our own Anglican bishop in Salvador was attacked ten days ago by unknown enemies; but the signs of hope are there, and the will to defend the poor and heal the wounds.

Read it all.

Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Oscar Romero to be a voice for the voiceless poor, and to give his life as a seed of freedom and a sign of hope: Grant that, inspired by his sacrifice and the example of the martyrs of El Salvador, we may without fear or favor witness to thy Word who abideth, thy Word who is Life, even Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be praise and glory now and for ever. Amen.

St Oscar Romero was assassinated #OTD 24 March 1980 while saying Mass in San Salvador Cathedral. He had been a champion of human rights and social justice, and an outspoken critic of the military regime. His memorial in Southwark Catholic Cathedral, London. pic.twitter.com/XVt9VBnWdO

— Simon Knott (@last_of_england) March 24, 2023

Almighty God, who willest to be glorified in thy saints, and didst raise up thy servant Gregory the Illuminator to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia: Shine, we pray thee, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth thy praise, who hast called us out of darkness into thy marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

#OTD March 23, 332
Gregory the Illuminator, who converted a nation before Constantine even embraced Christianity, dies. A missionary to his homeland of Armenia, he converted King Tiridates, and much of the kingdom followed suit. pic.twitter.com/1IJO2pXEkm

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) March 23, 2023

Almighty and everlasting God, the source and perfection of all virtues, who didst inspire thy servant James de Koven to do what is right and to preach what is true: Grant that all ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may afford to thy faithful people, by word and example, the knowledge of thy grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates James DeKoven, Priest, 1879 https://t.co/KvUQBNQEMg

A priest & educator who taught at Nashotah House & Racine College (now The DeKoven Center https://t.co/nPAViHbmdE), he was a leader of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Episcopal Church. pic.twitter.com/bGvr0rawC9

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 22, 2023

Almighty God, who didst give to thy servant Thomas Ken grace and courage to bear witness to the truth before rulers and kings: Give us also thy strength that, following his example, we may constantly defend what is right, boldly reprove what is evil, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and ever.

#OTD 19 March 1711: death of Thomas Ken, non-juring bishop and hymn-writer. pic.twitter.com/D2SKsYXqdm

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) March 19, 2023

ZENIT spoke with Father Tarcisio Giuseppe Stramare of the Congregation of Oblates of Saint Joseph, director of the Josephite Movement, about Tuesday’s feast of St. Joseph the Worker….

ZENIT: What does “Gospel of work” mean?

Father Stramare: “Gospel” is the Good News that refers to Jesus, the Savior of humanity. Well, despite the fact that in general we see Jesus as someone who teaches and does miracles, he was so identified with work that in his time he was regarded as “the son of the carpenter,” namely, an artisan himself. Among many possible activities, the Wisdom of God chose for Jesus manual work, entrusted the education of his Son not to the school of the learned but to a humble artisan, namely, St. Joseph.

Read it all.

Joseph the Carpenter
Georges de La Tour, c. 1645
Saint Joseph Feast pic.twitter.com/d5ijdfBFZv

— Marysia (@marysia_cc) March 20, 2023

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates Joseph of Nazareth https://t.co/2INOQAFrYr

Image: Window, designed by Edward Woore (1934-5), depicting Joseph with Jesus & Mary in Joseph's carpenter's shop. Originally in St Saviour's, Leicester, now in @stainedglassmus at @Ely_Cathedral pic.twitter.com/e3O7MkQbJL

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 20, 2023

Strengthen, O Lord, we beseech thee, the bishops of thy Church in their special calling to be teachers and ministers of the Sacraments, that they, like thy servant Cyril of Jerusalem, may effectively instruct thy people in Christian faith and practice; and that we, taught by them, may enter more fully into celebration of the Paschal mystery; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop, Doctor of the Church (386)

As a simple priest he instructed catechumens during Lent. His teachings are saturated with Holy Scripture, his primary surviving work is a collection of 23 catechetical lectures for Baptism. The Arians exiled him thrice. pic.twitter.com/6Gh3lHuyop

— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) March 18, 2023

A fleet of OF 50 Currachs (longboats) weaved its way toward the shore, where a young Roman Brit and his family walked. His name was Patricius, the 16-year-old son of a civil magistrate and tax collector. He had heard stories of Irish raiders who captured slaves and took them “to the ends of the world,” and as he studied the longboats, he no doubt began imagining the worst.

With no Roman army to protect them (Roman legions had long since deserted Britain to protect Rome from barbarian invasions), Patricius and his town were unprepared for attack. The Irish warriors, wearing helmets and armed with spears, descended on the pebbled beach. The braying war horns struck terror into Patricius’s heart, and he started to run toward town.

The warriors quickly demolished the village, and as Patricius darted among burning houses and screaming women, he was caught. The barbarians dragged him aboard a boat bound for the east coast of Ireland.

Patricius, better known as Patrick, is remembered today as the saint who drove the snakes out of Ireland, the teacher who used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and the namesake of annual parades in New York and Boston. What is less well-known is that Patrick was a humble missionary (this saint regularly referred to himself as “a sinner”) of enormous courage. When he evangelized Ireland, he set in motion a series of events that impacted all of Europe. It all started when he was carried off into slavery around 430.

Read it all.

Happy St Patrick's day: here's St Patrick asleep on a knoll.#StPatricksDay2023 ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️
BL Royal 20 D VI; Wauchier de Denain, Lives of the Saints; 13th century; France, Central (Paris); f.213v @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/TuQ2A2BJ1F

— Ennius (@red_loeb) March 17, 2023

Almighty God, who in thy providence didst choose thy servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of thee: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

#OTD 17 March: feast of St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. pic.twitter.com/Z9NmJcqJvC

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) March 17, 2023

Most Gracious God, who hast bidden us to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before thee; Teach us, like thy servants Vincent and Louise, to see and to serve Christ by feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick; that we may know him to be the giver of all good things, through the same, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Vincent de Paul, Priest, 1660 & Louise de Marillac, Vowed Religious, 1660 https://t.co/FHXiOJCGff

Image: Depiction in Sedan Hospital Chapel of the 1st 2 Sisters of Charity being sent to help run the hospital. Photo: G.Garitan, CC BY-SA 4.0 pic.twitter.com/FoD2sUkErk

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 15, 2023

Were there any particularly transformative moments for you while listening?

I think that, first of all, the depth of Scripture and theology was amazing. There were times that I would stop and say, “Boy, this church had decades of teaching at this level.” This immersion just comes up in his preaching all the time. He gets the big picture.

He sees how things go together at a level of depth that you would go, “That’s not profound.” But the profoundness is that he puts the pieces together. There was a sense that he wasn’t preaching at but … was standing alongside and that we are together learning under the authority of Scripture.

In one sermon, he said, “I think the great difficulty any Christian communicator or preacher has today is to have the courage to face the applications of Scripture in their own lives.” He applied Scripture to himself before he came to anyone else.

Then, in another sermon, he talks about the hallmark of authentic evangelicalism. And I’d be curious to know how John would deal with that today, given what’s happened to the term. But back then, it was the high view of Scripture and Scripture being applied to the realities of the current world.

He would say, “The hallmark of authentic evangelicalism is not that we maintain the traditions of the evangelical elders. It is rather that we are prepared to reexamine even the most long-standing evangelical traditions in the light of Scripture, in order to allow Scripture, if necessary, to judge and reform our traditions. Evangelical traditions are not infallible; they need to be reexamined. They need to be judged. They need to be reformed.” Well, that’s a statement that I think rings true today.

Read it all.

John Stott: ‘Evangelical Traditions Are Not Infallible’

The late theologian’s sermons are going digital, thanks to one of his family friends.

The public will soon have access to a digital collection of hundreds of John Stott’s recorded sermons and transcripts spanning five… pic.twitter.com/O6j2id2afC

— Lagrimas DeMadonna (@lagrimasshop) March 14, 2023

Most gracious God, by the calling of thy servant James Theodore Holly thou gavest us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led thy people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom thou callest from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti, Dominican Republic, 1911 https://t.co/mD07kHRiRT

Holly went to Haiti as a missionary in 1861 & was the 1st African-American bishop in the Episcopal Church when he became Bishop of Haiti in 1874 pic.twitter.com/WOOxtdzGH9

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 13, 2020

O God, whose Spirit guideth us into all truth and maketh us free: Strengthen and sustain us as thou didst thy daughter Harriet Tubman. Give us vision and courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that worketh against the glorious liberty to which thou callest all thy children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates Harriet Ross Tubman, Social Reformer, 1913 https://t.co/imm5spc4A8

Image: Carte-de-visite portrait (1868/9) by Benjamin F. Powelson, in the Collection of @NMAAHC shared with the Library of Congress. Public Domain (CC 0) pic.twitter.com/O0Jz5DSWLN

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 10, 2023

But our argument in reply to this is ready and clear. For any one who condemns those who say that the Godhead is one, must necessarily support either those who say that there are more than one, or those who say that there is none. But the inspired teaching does not allow us to say that there are more than one, since, whenever it uses the term, it makes mention of the Godhead in the singular; as ‘In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead’ Colossians 2:9 “; and, elsewhere ‘The invisible things of Him from the foundation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead Romans 1:20.’ If, then, to extend the number of the Godhead to a multitude belongs to those only who suffer from the plague of polytheistic error, and on the other hand utterly to deny the Godhead would be the doctrine of atheists, what doctrine is that which accuses us for saying that the Godhead is one? But they reveal more clearly the aim of their argument. As regards the Father, they admit the fact that He is God , and that the Son likewise is honoured with the attribute of Godhead; but the Spirit, Who is reckoned with the Father and the Son, they cannot include in their conception of Godhead, but hold that the power of the Godhead, issuing from the Father to the Son, and there halting, separates the nature of the Spirit from the Divine glory. And so, as far as we may in a short space, we have to answer this opinion also.

What, then, is our doctrine? The Lord, in delivering the saving Faith to those who become disciples of the word, joins with the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit also; and we affirm that the union of that which has once been joined is continual; for it is not joined in one thing, and separated in others. But the power of the Spirit, being included with the Father and the Son in the life-giving power, by which our nature is transferred from the corruptible life to immortality, and in many other cases also, as in the conception of “Good,” and “Holy,” and “Eternal,” “Wise,” “Righteous,” “Chief,” “Mighty,” and in fact everywhere, has an inseparable association with them in all the attributes ascribed in a sense of special excellence. And so we consider that it is right to think that that which is joined to the Father and the Son in such sublime and exalted conceptions is not separated from them in any.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Gregory of Nyssa, was Bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia from 372 to 376 and from 378 until his death in 395. Gregory, his elder brother Basil of Caesarea, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus are collectively known as the Cappadocian Fathers. pic.twitter.com/acMHEaQix4

— Duncan Irvine (@DuncanIrvine1) March 8, 2023