Mother Angelica

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It is true that at a very crucial moment in my life I did not lose my way because of Mother Angelica's counsel and prayer for me.  To have been prayed for by Mother Angelica and to have felt her hands upon me as she prayed was one of the greatest moments in my life in this natural world as that time of prayer overflowed with the love and compassion of Jesus for me in my suffering. I simply do not have adequate words to state how much I feel I owe Mother Angelica for her wisdom, her teaching, her joy, and her uncompromising witness to Jesus and His Church.

The following prayer is an old one put it into English and modified by me as a way of asking Saint Mary the Blessed Mother of Jesus to guide Mother Angelica home to Jesus her Belovèd:

                May Mary the most merciful Virgin Mother of God, 
                   kindest comforter of them that mourn, 
                commend to her Divine Son 
                the soul of His bride, Mary Angelica; 
                that, by the maternal intercession of Mary, 
                   the Spouse of the Holy Ghost, 
                this her daughter Mary Angelica 
                may overcome the pains of death and, 
                   with the Blessed Mother as guide, 
                joyfully reach her longed-for home 
                   within the heavenly realm of God the Father 
                   in the arms of Jesus her belovèd Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, pray for us to the Lord.

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Mother Angelica, pray for us.

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Mother Mary Angelica, pray for us to the Lord.

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Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation

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There is no doubt in my mind that Mother Angelica is one of God's great saints.  I pray that her soul finds perfect respose in the Lord.

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King's College Choir: Jesus Christ is Risen Today

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Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluya

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge

The King's College Chapel Service Book

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Welcome, Happy Morning

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Easter Hymn: Welcome, Happy Morning

St. John's, Detroit

Easter A.D.  2013

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Austin Farrer: Of Heaven and Resurrection

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The following is an excerpt from Austin Farrer's classic Saving Belief :

1. To hope for heaven has nothing particularly selfish about it.  No one ever thought he could keep heaven to himself.

2. Heaven is not a cash payment for walking with God; it's where the road goes.

3. Heaven isn't an optional extra; our belief is nonsense without it.

4. Our reason for believing it isn't that nature points to it, but that it leads us to itself.

I should like to develop the last point a bit.  Heaven is nothing that created nature produces; it is a new creation.  Two consequences follow from this.  The first is, that we have no interest in trying to isolate a piece of us called 'soul', which tends to outlive the body's collapse.  Our immortality is the new gift of God, not the survival of our old nature, whether in whole or in part.  It was pagan Greeks who talked about immortal soul; and with reason; for (to put it shortly) they thought the human spirit was a piece of godhead, able to guarantee immortal being to itself.  The religion of the Bible teaches no such doctrine.  God alone can give us a future.  It is better, then, to talk about the resurrection of man than about the immortality of 'soul'.  Belief in resurrection is belief not in ourselves, but in God who raises us.  It is in fact the acid test, whether we believe in God or not.  A God who raises the dead is a real power; he is not just a fanciful name for the order of nature, whether physical or moral.  A God so identified with the natural order that he adds nothing to it is difficult to distinguish from the world he rules, or from the laws which govern it.

Old Indian thought evaded the issue by making the cycle of the soul's rebirths a part of nature, like the seasons and the tides.  And as the lazy mind need not distinguish the God of the tides from the tides, neither need it distinguish the cycles of rebirth from the God of the cycles.  But when we realise that man's person, the living image of God, is bound to be sucked down in the whirlpool of decay, unless God rescues it; then faith in God begins to mean something.  It alters the whole picture.

Austin Farrer

Austin Farrer

Saving Belief .
pp. 120-121

Library of Anglican Spirituality, Susan Howatch, ed.

“Born in 1904, the son of a Baptist minister, Austin Farrer was ordained an Anglican priest and served in Oxford as chaplain and fellow of both St Edmund’s Hall and Trinity College before becoming Warden of Keble College, a post he held until his death in 1968. Austin Farrer was a renowned preacher, philosopher and biblical scholar as well as being regarded for his humour, originality, eloquence and deep spirituality. His life was rooted in prayer. He wrote, ‘Prayer and dogma are inseparable. They alone can explain each other’.” — from The Diocese of Oxford, Church of England.

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Kiri te Kanawa: I know that my Redeemer liveth

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I know that my Redeemer liveth

MESSIAH - Georg Friedrich Händel

Dame Kiri te Kanawa, soprano

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Sir Georg Solti, KBE, conductor

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Contemporary Song: Nicole C. Mullen "My Redeemer Lives"

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My Redeemer Lives” by Nicole C. Mullen

Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning?

And who told the ocean you can only come this far?

And who showed the moon where to hide till evening?

Whose words alone can catch a falling star?

Chorus:

Well I know my Redeemer lives

I know my Redeemer lives

All of creation testifies

This life within me cries

I know my Redeemer lives

The very same God

That spins things in orbit

Runs to the weary, the worn and the weak

And the same gentle hands that hold me when I’m broken

They conquered death to bring me victory

Now I know, my Redeemer lives

I know my Redeemer lives

Let all creation testify

Let this life within me cry

I know

My Redeemer

He lives

To take away my shame

And He lives

Forever I’ll proclaim

That the payment for my sins

Was the precious life He gave

And now He’s alive and

There’s an empty

Grave!

And I know

My Redeemer lives

He lives

I know

My Redeemer lives

Let all creation testify

Let this life within me cry

I know my Redeemer

I know

My Redeemer lives

I know my Redeemer lives

I know, that I know, that I know, that I know, that I know

He lives

My redeemer lives

Because He lives I can face tomorrow

He lives

I know, I know

He lives

I spoke with Him this morning!

He lives

The tomb is empty

He lives

He Lives! I’m going to tell everybody!

Lady Day and Good Friday: 3 Poems by Anglicans

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Reflecting upon Lady Day and Good Friday falling upon the same day, Father Zuhlsdorf included the following on his blog today, 3 poems by Anglican faithful:

It also occurred in the year 1608. That day, the poet John Donne, one of the Metaphysical Poets, penned a magnificent poem.  He contrasts the two experiences of our Lady.

Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day.  1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;
At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these!
As by the self-fixed Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the other is and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or ‘twas in Him the same humility
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He had made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:
Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

Another poet, George Herbert wrote a poem in Latin reflecting on our life through Christ’s death:

In Natales et Pascha Concurrentes

Cum tu, Christe, cadis, nascor ; mentemque ligavit
Una meam membris horula, teque cruci.
O me disparibus natum cum numine fatis !
Cur mihi das vitam, quam tibi, Christe, negas ?
Quin moriar tecum : vitam, quam negligis ipse,
Accipe; ni talem des, tibi qualis erat.
Hoc mihi legatum tristi si funere praestes,
Christe, duplex fiet mors tua vita mihi :
Atque ubi per te sanctificer natalibus ipsis,
In vitam, et nervos Pascha coaeva fluet.

Christina Rossetti has this:

Good Friday
Christina Rossetti

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
  That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
   And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
   Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
   Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
   Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
   I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
   But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
   And smite a rock.

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Reproaches - José Ángel Lamas

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POPULE MEUS de José Ángel Lamas (1775 1814)

Catedral de Caracas - Venezuela

Ensamble/Orquesta: Camerata Barroca de Caracas 

Isabel Palacios, dir.

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2 Collects, Palm Sunday & Maundy Thursday

Repost

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I have thought a great deal this last week about the treasury of prayer found in the collects of the Church. They do what most of us would like to do when we pray: address God, confident that He is listening, recalling some aspect of the life of Jesus and the Sacred Scriptures and relating those to a need that we have, and finally offering up the prayer in God's Name and to the Glory of the Holy Trinity. Below are 2 collects I treasure and pray often throughout the year, one for Palm Sunday and the other usually paired with Maundy Thursday in Holy Week and every Thursday each week of the year:

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O GOD, who in a wonderful Sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy passion: Grant us so to reverence the Holy Mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever know within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

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Consumed, a film

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Sometimes a film will communicate a truth that cannot be communicated otherwise.  For some reason people in the USA do not seem to understand the danger of Genetically Modified Organisms, but perhaps this film will help take the blinders off for some:

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O Bread of Heaven, Beneath This Veil

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Holy Mass in the Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood 

of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 

City of Westminster, England, 18 September 2010

O Bread of Heaven

Words: St Alphonsus Liguori

Translation: Rev. E. Vaughan C.SS.R.

Music: Tynemouth - H. F. Hemy

Performed by: Westminster Cathedral Choir

O Bread of Heaven, beneath this veil

Thou dost my very God conceal:

My Jesus, dearest treasure, hail!

I love Thee and, adoring, kneel;

Each loving soul by Thee is fed

With Thine own Self in form of Bread.

O food of life, Thou Who dost give

The pledge of immortality;

I live, no 'tis not I that live;

God gives me life, God lives in me:

He feeds my soul, He guides my ways,

And every grief with joy repays.

O Bond of love that dost unite

The servant to his living Lord;

Could I dare live and not requite

Such love - then death were meet reward:

I cannot live unless to prove

Some love for such unmeasured love.

Beloved Lord, in Heaven above

There, Jesus, Thou awaitest me,

To gaze on Thee with endless love;

Yes, thus I hope, thus shall it be:

For how can He deny me Heaven,

Who here on earth Himself hath given?

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An Armenian Sanctuary Prayer

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Deacon
[...]  And again for peace 
let us beseech the Lord. 
Let us praise the Almighty God, 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who has made us worthy to stand 
in this place of glorification 
and to sing spiritual songs; 
may the Almighty Lord, our God, 
save us and have mercy upon us.

The Prayer in Sanctuary

Celebrant

In this holy abode and in this place of glorification, 

in this dwelling place of angels, 

and in this Temple of purification, 

before these God-accepted and resplendent holy symbols 

and before this holy sanctuary, 

we all humble ourselves and worship You with awe; 

we praise and glorify

Your holy, wondrous and triumphant Resurrection, 

and together with the heavenly hosts 

we offer You praise and glory 

together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, 

now and always forever and ever. Amen.

from The Badarak, pp. 21-22

The Sacred Music and the Divine Liturgy

of the Armenian Apostolic Church

Glendale, California, 1997

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St. Isaac the Syrian: The Compassionate Heart

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Via the Reverend Canon A.M. Allchin of + Memory Eternal +


Saint Isaac the Syrian writes:

    An elder was once asked 'What is a compassionate heart?'

    He replied, 'It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons and for all that exists.

    'At the recollection and at the sight of them such a person's eyes overflow with tears owing to the vehemence of the compassion which grips his heart; as a result of his deep mercy, his heart shrinks and cannot bear to hear or look on any injury or the slightest suffering of anything in creation.

    'This is why he constantly offers up prayer full of tears, even for the irrational animals and for the enemies of truth, even for those who harm him, so that they may be protected and find mercy. He even prays for the reptiles as a result of the great compassion which is poured out without measure - after the likeness of God - in his heart. '

The heart of compassion: 

daily readings with St Isaac of Syria 

A.M. Allchin

(London 1989), p9. 

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Offertory Prayer, India, BCP 1960

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An Offertory Prayer from the 1960 Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon:

Then shall the Priest say:

Let us pray.

                       All things come of thee, 

                       and of thine own do we give unto thee, 

                       O Creator of the world, 

                       who art ever adored by the holy Angels. 

                       We humbly beseech thee to accept at our hands 

                       these (alms and) oblations, 

                       which we present at thy Holy Table, 

                       and with them the offering of ourselves 

                       to the service of thy Divine Majesty; 

                       through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The People may say this Prayer with the Priest.

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Our Lady of Sorrows Litany (Anglican)

An Anglo-Catholic litany

Be merciful, O Lord, to us sinners, and at the pleading of thy mother, sorrowing in thine agony and sharing in thy bitter cup, O Jesus mercy.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Be merciful O Lord, to us sinners and at the pleading of thy mother, suffering in thy sufferings and bruised with thy stripes, O Jesus mercy.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Be merciful, O Lord, to us sinners, and at the pleading of thy mother, who saw thee crowned with thorns and robed with shame, O Jesus mercy.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Be merciful, O Lord, to us sinners, and at the pleading of thy mother, whose love unvanquished trod thy way of sorrows, O Jesus mercy;

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Be merciful, O Lord, to us sinners, and at the pleading of thy mother, whose soul was pierced beneath thy Cross, O Jesus mercy.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Eric Milner-White

The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady

"Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercy on me."

Saint Margaret Clitherow
Catholic Martyr of the Reformation Era

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Fr. Hunwicke: Monday in Holy Week, 1937

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Dear Reader, this is a little encouragement to read Fr. Hunwicke's blog of today regarding the Monday in Holy Week, 1937 following Palm Sunday's surprise release of ,,Mit brenneder Sorge'' by Pope Pius XI.  Fr. Hunwicke is never afraid to say what others even fear to think:  Click here to go to Fr. Hunwicke's blog.

Long live Christ the King!
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A Holy Week Prayer for the Church

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O GOD of unchangeable power and eternal might: 

Look favorably upon thy whole Church, 

that wonderful and sacred mystery; 

by the effectual working of thy providence, 

carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; 

let the whole world see and know 

that things which were cast down are being raised up, 

and things which had grown old are being made new, 

and that all things are being brought to their perfection 

by him through whom all things were made, 

thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; 

who liveth and reigneth with thee 

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer, 1979

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Saint Ephrem, Doctor of the Church: The Blessed Mother of Jesus the Lord

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Mary, Mother of the Eucharist by Tommy Canning

Saint Ephrem the Syrian, called  The Harp of the Holy Spirit, writes concerning the Blessed Mother of the Lord:

Mary says to God’s people:

‘Come, all you who have discernment,

vocal advocates of the Spirit,

prophets who beheld hidden things in your true visions;

you farmers who sowed seed, and slept in hope,

rise up and rejoice at the harvest.

Look: in my arms I clasp the wheat-sheaf of life

that provides bread for the hungry,

that feeds the needy. Rejoice with me,

for I carry the sheaf full of joys.’

Blessed are you, O Mary, daughter of the poor,

who became Mother of the Lord of kings.

In your womb he has dwelt

of whose praise the heavens are full.

Blessed be your breast, which has nourished him with love,

your mouth which has lulled him

and your arms which have held him.

You have become a vehicle to bear a God of fire!

Blessed are you, O Mary, 

you have become the home of the king.

In you, he who has power has taken abode,

he who rules the world.

You came from the tribe of Judah;

You descended from the family of David.

Illustrious is your lineage.

For you, though remaining virgin,

have become the mother of the Son of David.

Blessed are you, O maiden,

who have borne the lion cub spoken of by Jacob.

He humbled himself and became a lamb,

destined to ascend the Cross to deliver us.

He prefigured you, the tree,

which providing the kid, spared the life of Isaac.

Blessed are you, O blessed one, since through you

the curse of Eve has been destroyed.

From you has come the light

which has destroyed the reign of darkness.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian

Doctor of the Church

4th century A.D.

Who, on Christ's dear mother gazing, 
Pierced by anguish so amazing, 
Born of woman, would not weep? 
Who, on Christ's dear Mother thinking, 
Such a cup of sorrow drinking, 
Would not share her sorrows deep?

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Eva Ugalde: Miserere

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Eva Ugalde: Miserere

Cor de Noies de l'Orfeó Català 

Directora Buia Reixach i pianista Josep Surinyac

Concert a Hondarribia el 2009 amb Javier Busto de director

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King's College, Cambridge: My Song Is Love Unknown

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Palm Sunday: Gloria, Laus, et Honor

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The Deller Consort, 1972

Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit,

Rex Christe, Redemptor:

Cui puerile decus prompsit

Hosanna pium.

Israel es tu Rex, Davidis et

inclyta proles:

Nomine qui in Domini,

Rex benedicte, venis.

Coetus in excelsis te laudat

caelicus omnis,

Et mortalis homo, et cuncta

creata simul.

Plebs Hebraea tibi cum palmis

obvia venit:

Cum prece, voto, hymnis,

adsumus ecce tibi.

Hi tibi passuro solvebant

munia laudis:

Nos tibi regnanti pangimus

ecce melos.

Hi placuere tibi, placeat

devotio nostra:

Rex bone, Rex clemens, cui

bona cuncta placent.

Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church  Palm Sunday 1994 Grampian Television broadcast of The Sunday Service

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