I have begun research for a Ph.D. that I am pursuing in Romania. My area will be Church History, but more specifically American Church History. I have a theory that I would like to explore and see what comes of it. The theory is this. Communism affected the church in America both in it’s formation and in it’s decline. Continuing along this train of thought, some hold that during the time of communism, specifically during the 1970’s the Orthodox Church in America was very close to uniting in one cohesive group. Then the wall came down and more immigration began and we retreat back to our ethnic corners. So this is the theory. Communism slowed down immigration and the church started to become more indigenous, or more American, and with the fall of communism the church became more ethnic and less American. Not that any of those things are bad on their face, just a theory.
Things have been quiet around the old place. Not much is happening, but I think this is the calm before the storm. Wednesday night we had a liturgy for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. I like evening liturgies. The sun beginning to set and people singing. It’s nice. I wish more people would come to liturgy during the week, but we had a nice group there. Saturday will see some construction here at the church. We need to remove some short walls around the outside of the church to prevent water from coming in. I don’t understand all that stuff but the people who do say it needs to be done so off we go. Perhaps there should be a class or two in seminary about all this stuff.
I got myself involved in a little online snit. I belong to several yahoo groups about different things. One of them has to do with Eastern Orthodoxy. What I have found is this group seems to be full of people who want to be part of the orthodox church but for some reason have started their own branch. I am amazed at how many bishops there are out there. So I got into it with this guy, who claims to be a bishop. I guess I should not have, but I have been reading about American Orthodoxy and I just cannot understand why we can’t just all become one. I mean in this little town we have three Orthodox Churches. The town can barley support one and we have three, all different jurisdictions. I will never understand.
that’s my rant for the week.
9/11
Today is the 5th day of remembrance of the events of 9/11. I remember exactly where I was when I heard what happened. It was my first year in seminary as well. I would hope that we all pause from our busy schedule today and say thank you for the brave men and women of the fire, police, EMT’s ect. as well as your troops still serving in the Middle East. We owe them that much.
Two years ago I became a Fire Dept chaplain for many reasons. One of those reasons was the example of Fr. Mychal Judge. Fr. Judge, a Franciscan Priest, was the chaplain for Engine Company 1/Ladder Company 24 FDNY and was the first casualty. Fr. Judge ran to the be with his guys in their moment of need. Now I serve a small town, and we don’t have any large buildings like the World Trade Center, but my guys put their life on the line everyday to keep the citizens of our community safe. I would like to think that I would have the same sense of duty that Fr. Judge had and run to be with my guys in their moment of need. I wear a silver bracelet on my wrist engraved with the name of Fr. Mychal Judge and he is constantly in my thoughts as I hear to “tones” go off and I rush to be with my guys.
There is a story in today’s Boston Globe about teachers and blogging. I wish bloggs were the thing when I was teaching.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Yesterday I gave the GPS system a work out and set my sites on Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This city is located 30 miles east of Albany New York. I set the little device to take me on the back roads and that it did. I think it took me more than two hours to get there, but I took the highway back and it was only an hour. Nice ride and a beautiful day. There is a little OCA parish there in the town St. Nicholas. Looks like a nice place. Might have to visit again.
Sunday Thoughts
This past Sunday we had a pretty good crowd in the church, and some of the regulars were in attendance. Usually people go away for the weekend but most people seemed to be around. It was good to see some people back from their summer off from church.
This week the theme was giving up. I should say that the Gospel verse for this Sunday, Riches and the Kingdom is often miss understood. In the story, Jesus tells the man to go and sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow me. I don’t believe that Jesus is asking each of us to do this. I believe that Jesus is telling us not to love our possessions more than we love life, or more than we love God. Possessions are okay as long as they do not rule our life. For the man in the story it would seem that he loved his possessions more than God. We should be careful not to amass more than we need, and we also need to remember the poor. If any of you have a big plasma TV that you feel you need to divest yourself of let me know, it would look great in my TV room.
Red Sox
So it would seem that the Red Sox season is over. We are like 1,000 games behind the Yankees and now we begin to look forward to football season. It just was not in cards, so to speak, for the Sox to win this year. Many injuries and other things and now it is all over. Still a few more games to play, but just for fun now. I did look last night to see what tickets were selling for. The only seats available for the game tonight at Fenway were selling for $85.00 Man I can remember when it was like $20 and that was expensive. Oh well, it’s now a rich mans game. Of course we can only get the games on NESN so you have to have cable to watch them on TV. I guess you can always listen to them on the radio.
St. Giles
Today is the anniversary of the death of St. Giles patron saint of Edinburgh and Elgin in Scotland. More information can be found at the catholic encyclopedia site.
In short, this saint was born on Athens and moved to France. He established a monastery and set about to serve to beggars and down trodden in the area. Nice guy I think and maybe we all can learn something from his life.
Forgiveness
Yesterday the Gospel passage was about forgiveness. This is a hard lesson for people to learn. As Christians we have to forgive those who have harmed us. Some of us tend to carry a grudge around with us for years and we are never able to let go. Sometimes the harm is so devastating that we can not give it up. However, if we do not give this up, it harms us in a spiritual way. Spiritual sickness will sink in and we find ourselves being very negative towards many things. We all need to find away to forgive. In the Lord’s Prayer we as to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So it would seem that we are forgiven in the measure that we forgive. This was the theme of the Gospel passages yesterday. Pray for those who have harmed us, and pray that we are able to find the grace to be able to forgive.