Here I go again, but I thought you would like to know.

The so called "health care legislation" passed in 2010 has directed the Obama administration to create a list of preventive services for women that all new health care plans must cover without deductibles or co-payments. You guessed it. If this goes through health insurance plans could soon be required to offer female patients free coverage for prescription birth control along with a “the full range” of federally approved contraceptives, devices, and sterilization procedures. All free for the asking.

Why is this bad? Well for one thing this legislation makes pregnancy and children (and family life) a disease and a woman's fertility is a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible. Second, it shows no respect for human life and human dignity. Life is not sacred. Third, the use of contraceptives and any such devices is immoral. By contraception I mean the intentional use of a drug, chemical, device or procedure that will prevent pregnancy by acting directly and deliberately against the fertility cycle. Contraception denies God's gift of life and the goodness of fertility and family life. It's a deep lie against personal dignity and marriage. It turns the body into a "temple of a lie" and denies that God wants our body to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit. Contraception violates our human nature in the deepest way possible. Contracepting is like enjoying a delicious meal and then vomiting it up so that you don't gain weight, and yet you can fully satisfy the appetite and cravings (binge-purge gluttony). Contraception is sexual gluttony.

Fouth, this legislation will encourage contraception which will encourage the sinful behavior of cohabitation, the sins of adultery, fornication, pronographical behavior, and more. This legislation encourages profound sins and creates the illusion of absolving people of the need to behave in a moral and Godly way. It takes away "the chance of embarrassing consequences."

I know that what I have said here will "cut across the grain" for some folks. But any Christian who knows his or her faith and knows Christian history should never be offended.

The present day dismantling of marriage and family life is clearly the outgrowth of a culture increasingly defined by serial monogamy, cohabitation, children born and raised out of wedlock, divorce-ready prenuptial agreements, pornography, abortion and contraception. A truthful analysis always shows that the root of the problem, more than anything else, is contraception. A contraceptive culture is a divorce culture, a cohabitation culture, an adulterous culture, a pornography culture, a same-sex “marriage” culture, a narcissistic and pleasure-seeking culture, because all these "cultures" or "life-styles" refute and deny a coherent biblical and historic understanding of marriage, family life, children, human dignity, or even what sex is, or who God is.

It may suprise some to learn that up to 1930 both Protestants and Catholics alike clearly taught that contraception, abortion and all forms of sexual promiscuity were morally evil. Since apostolic times the Church has articulated the moral evil of all of this, as did Judaism. Are we any better off now that people's minds have changed? Study after study provides a clear demonstrable link between the contraceptive mentality promoted since the 1930’s and the abortion and death industry mentality of the present day.

But simply denying God and acting as one wishes is never a solution. In fact it's a very dangerous place to be in. This position brings death to our soul. Let us pray for our legislators that they will not permit this horrendous provision into the health care of this country. It will never be caring for people's health... in fact it will never be caring at all.

The Word of God in Written Form: the Bible.

Just reading the Bible in its original form is not very easy. First you have language and many “language idiosyncrasies” to overcome. Then you have the writing style. The Bible was written originally in “uncial” style. This type of writing consists of writing in all capital letters with no connection between letters, no spaces between words and sentences, no periods or comas and not chapters or verses or chapter headings, etc. It would look like this:

INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWASWITHGODANDTHEWORDWASGODHEWASINTHEBEGINNINGWITHGODALLTHINGSWEREMADETHROUGHHIMANDWITHOUTHIMWASNOTANYTHINGMADETHATWASMADEINHIMWASLIFEANDTHELIFEWASTHELIGHTOFMENTHELIGHTSHINESINTHEDARKNESSANDTHEDARKNESSHASNOTOVERCOMEITTHEREWASAMANSENTFROMGODWHOSENAMEWASJOHNHECAMEASAWITNESSTOBEARWITNESSABOUTTHELIGHTTHATALLMIGHTBELIEVETHROUGHHIMHEWASNOTTHELIGHTBUTCAMETOBEARWITNESSABOUTTHELIGHTTHETRUELIGHTWHICHENLIGHTENSEVERYONEWASCOMINGINTOTHEWORLD

In our modern translations we have no problem reading John 1:1-9. All aspects of grammar need to be applied in addition to figuring out what the word means and how it is being used. But this style of “uncial” writing was popular until around 800 AD.

From this simple example we can well understand why Bishops carefully oversaw the translation of the Bible. Bibles for the most part were handwritten by monks from roughly 405 to 1452 or until the invention of printing in 1450.

I just thought you’d like to know.
Fr. Klein

St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us!

ONE THOUSAND FIFTEEN HUNDRERD AND SIXTY SEVEN years ago St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 - 444) died. He was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He came to the Episcopate when Alexandria was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading supporter in orthodox Christology of the later 4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the First Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople. He is a Doctor of the Church.

In his work titled “On Union with the Holy Trinity” he writes: “Our communion in the divinity of Christ means our union with the Trinity, which in its turn allows the divine nature to pervade and permeate us, just as fire heats a piece of iron and makes it glow. All we have to do after believing in Christ and discovering our communion with him is to give the divine, ineffable beauty of the nature of the Trinity the chance to dawn within us, to glow and to shine.
Ascetical struggle is nothing but an attempt to be in conformity with the Holy Spirit, which is actually within us, and to be in harmony with the thought of Christ, which actually fills us. The Holy Spirit, which God gives us as soon as he dwells in us, qualifies us for acquiring the likeness of Christ, and consequently, we become a real image of the Father. When we acquire the likeness of Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we become “sons of partnership,” and when we partake of the divine nature as sons with Christ we become in union with God through the Holy Spirit."

St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us!

The first Book of Common Prayer was printed in 1549. To celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity and our Prayer Book Tradition we will celebrate the Holy Eucharist using this historic liturgy Sunday, June 19th at the 11:15 AM service.  A service booklet with the liturgy included has been prepared.

A Brief History
Henry VIII had the liturgies of the Church said in Latin throughout his reign, even after his separation from Rome. However, once Henry died and the young Edward VI attained the throne in 1547, the stage was set for some very significant changes in the religious life of the country. One such change was producing in English the first Book of Common Prayer. It is generally assumed that this Prayer Book is largely the work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, but as no records of the development of the prayer book exist, this cannot be definitively determined.

The 1549 Book of Common Prayer was not created in a vacuum, but derives from several sources such as the ancient Sarum Rite which was the Latin liturgy developed in Salisbury in the thirteenth century and widely used in England, and a reformed Roman Breviary of the Spanish Cardinal Quiñones and a book on doctrine and liturgy by Hermann von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne.

There were a number of books required for all the Latin liturgies. The priest's part of the Mass was contained in the Missal, which is the book on the Altar. The Mass also required a book for the choir, and another which gave the unique parts for each day; not only did the lections change from day to day (as they do now), but there were also many other differences (prayers, etc.) from one day to another.

The Latin Missal was divided into two parts: the Ordinary, and the Canon, the latter corresponding approximately to the Eucharistic Prayer we know today. The Canon was fairly similar among the three or four Uses employed in England; the Ordinary less so. Although this Sarum Missal was one of the main influences on the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, there are more differences than similarities.

While the general outline of the service, and many of the prayers of the Canon are quite similar, many other parts, particularly the rubrics involved with the priest's actions, were drastically changed and simplified.

The 1549 BCP was in use only for three years, until the extensive revision of 1552. Many of the 1552 BCP were made as compromises to keep peace with the growing presence and influence of "English Puritan's".  "Puritans" were a grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries.  They actually were an activist movement within the Church of England dating back to around 1564. They by in large felt that the English Reformation had not gone far enough, and that the Church of England had retained too much Catholic theology and liturgical practice.  "Puritans" formed into and identified with various religious groups advocating greater "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group piety.

Puritans adopted an anti-Catholic and Reformed theology that was developed by Martin Luther, John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli and others. In church polity, over all Puritans advocated for separation from all other Christians, in favor of autonomous gathered churches. These separatist and independent strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a Presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church.  We still see this "separatist" attitude in modern day Protestantism.  The bottom line here is that since 1552 forward the Church of England and Anglicanism struggle to retain a consistent and right understand and practice of its Apostolic and Catholic faith and legacy.

However, much of the 1549 BCP tradition and language remain in all this historic  Prayer Books of today.  Please join us as we explore our Anglican liturgical legacy.

Parish Family BBQ

Parish Family BBQ. Saturday, June 18 starting at 4:00 pm. Spread the word! Plan to be with us and bring your friends and family! Sign-up sheet in Mitchell Hall or call or email the Parish Office. Bring food to share and enjoy great BBQ. For more information see Kendall Collins Smith