…One hundred or 150 years from today, the generations then may look back at ours and wonder about how unenlightened we were in some spheres of life.

Take Church leadership: they will wonder about how come a people who lived in the age of air travel, the Internet, and pinhole surgery, had for long been so blind to the obvious ”“ that the strength of the Church, across its main denominations ”“ Catholicism, Anglicanism, Pentecostalism (CAP) ”“ in the late 20th and through the 21st Centuries lay in the Global South, and that is where its leadership should come from…

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Lyrics:

1. Behold me here, in grief draw near, Pleading at Thy throne oh King.
To Thee each tear, each trembling fear, Jesus Son of Man I bring.
Let me find Thee, Let me find Thee.
Let me find Thee, Lord of mercy King of grace.

2. Look down in love, and from above, With Thy Spirit satisfy.
Thou hast sought me, Thou hast bought me, And thy purchase Lord am I.
Let me find Thee, Let me find Thee.
Let me find Thee, Here on earth and then on high.

3. Hear the broken, scarcely spoken, Longings of my heart to thee
All the crying, all the sighing, Of Thy child accepted be.
Let me find Thee, Let me find Thee.
Let me find Thee, Wounded healer, suffering Lord.

This was the offertory for worship where I was this past Sunday–listen to it all; KSH.

Grant, O Lord, that in thy wounds we may find our safety, in thy stripes our cure, in thy pain our peace, in thy cross our victory, in thy resurrection our triumph; and, at the last, a crown of righteousness in the glories of thy eternal kingdom.

A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 121

Coverage of the service which took place this morning:

Multilingual Order of Service here

Articles:
+ Video – Vatican Radio Discussion: Everyone’s Pope NEW
+ Vatican News – Pope: Homily for inaugural Mass of Petrine Ministry [full text]
+ Vatican Radio – Pope Francis: Holy Mass for inauguration of Petrine Ministry
+ Vatican News – Tomorrow, Mass of Inauguration of Bishop of Rome’s Petrine Ministry
+ Archbishop of York to Attend Inauguration Mass of Pope Francis
+ ACNS – Communion delegation for inauguration of Pope Francis
+ CofE – Statement from the Bishop of Guildford

Other Information:
+ Vatican Radio
+ Vatican Site

As you know over the years I have shared with you my thinking about how the Gospel of embrace might be felt by those who are gay. I am beginning to wonder how the church historians of the 22nd Century will view our current debate. I think it may seem then to them extraordinary that the litmus paper test of orthodoxy centred on whether or not one had a generous attitude to those who are gay. I believe that there is a difference between heterosexual union and same gender intimacy and that it is appropriate to maintain that difference in the language we use. But if the Church now recognises Civil Partnerships to be a just response to the needs of gay people then surely the Church now has to ask the question whether or not it can deny the blessing of God to that which is just.

Furthermore, if we take 1 Corinthians 7 seriously and acknowledge truthfully that there is a proportion within society and in the Church who are naturally gay in that they have not chosen this as a disposition but find it both a given and a genuine expression of their sexuality why should we deprive them the biblical discipline of being able to channel their sexuality into a committed relationship of mutual trust and love.

Read it all and there is a press release here

An historic first will grace the mass, March 19, that will inaugurate the pontificate of Pope Francis . After nearly 1,000 years, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople will attend the inauguration of the Pope of Rome.

Delegates from more than 20 Christian churches and ecumenical organizations announced their attendance. However, the presence of His Holiness Bartholomew I is of historic significance.

Considered “first among equals” in the Eastern Orthodox Communion, the Patriarch of Constantinople has not attended the installation of a Pope of Rome in more than 950 years, since Constantinople split from Rome in 1054.

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A stone’s throw from the River Tigris, in the heart of Baghdad, stands an Anglican church with an immaculate green lawn and an English vicar, the Revd Canon Andrew White.

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In 2008, I began to consider the idea of writing a new biography of Lewis, which would try to do justice to his Irish roots, get the institutional complexities of his Oxford period right and explore how he initially discovered Christianity and then became one of its leading public advocates. I decided to do the job properly, and spent fifteen months reading everything Lewis had published in chronological order – including the vast collection of letters recently assembled and edited by Walter Hooper. This, I thought, would help me understand the flow and development of both Lewis’s ideas, and allow me to choose some good quotes to include in the text. After a few months, I began to realize that something was wrong…

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