Episcopal Church proponents suffer legal setback in Fort Worth

Please read the Bishop's comments on the Friday, June 25, 2010 Texas Second Court of Appeals ruling granting our Diocese's Petition for Writ of Mandamus instructing instructed the 141st District Court to modify its ruling of Sept. 16, 2009, to the effect that there cannot be a second Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and a second Corporation of the diocese.

Here is the PDF link.

Texas Court of Appeals Decision

To the clergy, convention delegates, Executive Council, and vestry members,


We give thanks for the decision just issued by the Texas Court of Appeals in Fort Worth. The decision is posted on the diocesan Web site at http://www.fwepiscopal.org/downloads/CourtOfAppeals062510.pdf

A statement concerning the court's decision will be issued by Bishop Iker on Monday, June 28.

Suzanne Gill
Director of Communications
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

Completion and Truth

I have often said that God will waste nothing.  Everything in His created and spiritual order must be completed, it must "come true."  Jesus makes this point when He promised,

Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the  Prophets.  I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill.  For amen I say to you, til Heaven and Earth pass away, not one jot, or one tittle shall be lost from the Law till all things have been accomplished.  Matthew 5:17,18

Jesus explains here that all things shall "come true."  By using the notion of "all things accomplished" Jesus is speaking about reaching fruition and final purpose.  This is the meaning behind "till all things have been accomplished" that is until all things have reached their final and natural end in God.  The Greek verb translated as "accomplished" means to come into being, to come into fullness.  This can be illustrated in looking at man's life which is to have its perfect consummation and peace in God.  This is the theme of each of the Beatitudes.

Our earthly pilgrimage is time of grace and mercy which God offers to us to work out our earthly life in keeping with His divine plan.  This divine plan for man has been written deep in the human heart by the Holy Spirit; and Scripture acknowledges this by saying that man is created by God and for God; and our heavenly Father never ceases to draw every person to Himself.  The presence of the Cross is ever active achieving God's will of redemption for all persons.  Only in God will we find truth and lasting happiness.

In His parables Jesus compares our earthly life to fallow fields and relationships that must mend and mature and seeds that must be planted in order to grow into capable and sturdy shrubs giving shade to all.  Seeds must die to blossom, lessons must be heard first to be learned, and fields will be seeded and harvested.  God spoke at the beginning of Creation and He shall speak at the close of the age.  God is both Alpha and Omega, the first Word and the last Word, the author of love and of judgment and mercy.

So the completion that Jesus refers to, the "coming to furition" is both internal and external.  He explains that the internal completion is focused on becoming the person God made us to be.  This is the person God longs to love and in our heart of hearts we long to become.  Achieving this becoming is what Heaven is all about.  It is that place where the true and perfect reside.

This talk about things "coming true" is realizing how our basic desire for God is written in the depth of our heart, written in such a way that we know from within that we are created by God and for God and that He never ceases to draw us to Himself.  We must realize that only in God will our soul be at rest and there we find the truth and the happiness we never stop searching for.  Grace is the supernatural help God gives us to help us draw close to our vocation of becoming His adopted sons and daughters.

Becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ means accepting the invitation to vocation to God's family, to live in conformity with His way of life: "For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother, and sister, and mother." (Matt 12:50)

So, our dignity rests on the fact that we are made to live in intimate communion with God.  The Christian life is just this!  This vocation is initiated from the very moment we come into being in our mother's womb.  We "live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28) because God wills this through His love and by means of His eternal love He continues to hold us in existence. We cannot live fully according to truth and come into fullness and completion unless we freely acknowledge God's sustaining love and prayerfully entrust ourself to Him always.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Rosary, and other Marian teachings.

Fr. Klein will make a presentation to the St. Elizabeth's Guild on Thursday, July 8 at 10:30 am.  He will discuss the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in salvation history, the Holy Rosary and he will answer any questions one may have.

This is an invitation for you to join us.  Please come and learn about the greatest woman to has ever lived!

"And with thy spirit."

In the traditional call to prayer the priest bids the people, “The Lord be with you.”  And the people respond “And with thy spirit.”  What does the congregation mean in using these words (the same meaning is in the Rite 2 version “And also with you”)?  Why does the congregation address the priest’s “spirit”?

This phrase is found in Christian liturgy back to 215 AD!  One early example is from St. John Chrysostom (347-407), who was Bishop of Constantinople and a major theologian of early Christianity.  He addressed this liturgical phrase in a homily on Pentecost Sunday.  He said,

“If the Holy Spirit were not in our Bishop [he is referring to Bishop Flavian of Antioch d. 449 AD] when he gave the peace to all shortly before ascending to the Altar to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, you would not have replied to him all together, “And with thy spirit.”  This is why you reply with this expression not only when he ascends to the sanctuary, or when he preaches to you, or when he prays for you, but when he stands at the holy Altar, when he is about to offer this awesome sacrifice [the Holy Eucharist]. You don't partake of the offerings until he has prayed for you the grace from the Lord, and you have answered him, “And with thy spirit,” reminding yourselves by this reply that he [the priest or bishop] who is here does nothing of his own power, nor are the offered gifts [the bread and wine] the work of human nature, but it is the grace of the Holy Spirit present and hovering over all things which makes present to us the mystic sacrifice.”  [Comments are mine].

St. John Chrysostom teaches that this simple address “The Lord be with you, And with thy spirit” is a prayerful profession of faith.  The faith that is being confirmed here is that the bishop or priest by means of his ordination is uniquely configured to Christ and that he is offering the Holy Eucharist just as Christ intends, that is in Persona Christi, or "in the person of Christ" and never by his own resources or worthiness or anything else.

The charism given to the bishop and priest at ordination is given to reach out to each soul and through the words and actions of the celebrant Jesus Christ Himself consecrates and blesses the bread and wine into His very Body and Blood.

What is the basis of this sacramental faith?  It is Christ's own priestly ministry on earth, and the revealed fact that he associated men with Him to learn His teachings, acquire His spirit, receive sacred powers from Him in order to continue His work of salvation until the end of time.  "Behold, I will be with you to the end of the ages."  (Matt 28:20).  It's by means of the sacramental nature of the Church that Jesus makes this promise a reality.

So, when the people of God say, “And with thy spirit,” they are professing our theology of the sacrament of Holy Orders and how in the consecration of the man’s soul at ordination Jesus Christ places an indelible mark upon his soul and making him a priest forever!

The response, “And with thy spirit,” is a key phrase of our faith; it serves to remind us that the Holy Eucharist is not the peoples celebration but it is solely Christ’s Holy Eucharist, it is His gift of His very Body and Blood for the salvation of the world and for the spiritual nourishment and renewal of the people of God.  Fr. Klein