Christ Archives - All Saints Anglican Church, Charlottesville VA

April 7, 2014 By Fr. Spencer

This Week at All Saints

Mass Schedule for the Week of Passion Sunday (April 6, 2014)

7, Feria
8, Feria
9, Feria
10, Feria
11, St. Leo the Great
12, Feria

+ Daily Mass is celebrated Monday through Saturday at 12:15 p.m. You and your family members are all remembered by name at the Altar of God every week. Please take an All Saints parish prayer list home with you & remember your fellow parishioners in your prayers!

+ This Wednesday School and Agape meets, April 9 at 5:45 p.m. Classes begin at 6:30 and run till 7:15 p.m. This is our last Agape till the fall but we will have a concluding potluck on Wednesday April 23 when we will recognize our children’s participation and attendance in Wednesday School. Plans for Vacation Bible School for the children of the parish and their friends is already underway and if you are interested in helping out please contact Jackie Jamison.

+ Our final Wednesday study of Francois Fenelon by Chris James:
April 9 – Simplicity

+ All Saints Men’s Group meets Tuesday April 8, 7:00 a.m. in the undercroft.

+ Leo the Great, born in 400 and he died November 461, was one of the truly great Popes and Doctors of the Church. His writings (both the sermons and the letters) are mostly concerned with theological questions concerning the person of Jesus Christ (Christology) and his role as mediator and savior (Soteriology). This is partially connected to the Council of Chalcedon in which Roman legates participated in Leo’s name. Subsequently, through numerous letters addressed to bishops and members of the imperial family, Leo incessantly worked for the propagation and universal reception of the faith in Christ as defined by Chalcedon, also in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. Leo defends the true divinity and the true humanity of the one Christ against heretical one-sidedness. His Tomb of Leo is a letter he wrote to the council in which he stated with precision the Orthodox doctrine of Christ. His Tomb was read out loud in council and the moment is captured for us in the written acts of the council: “After the reading of the foregoing epistle, the most reverend bishops cried aloud, ‘This is the faith of the fathers, this is the faith of the Apostles. So we all believe, thus the orthodox believe. Anathema to him who does not thus believe. Peter has spoken thus through Leo. So taught the Apostles. Piously and truly did Leo teach, so taught Cyril. Everlasting be the memory of Cyril. Leo and Cyril taught the same thing, anathema to him who does not so believe. This is the true faith. Those of us who are orthodox thus believe. This is the faith of the fathers.’” Leo took up this topic also in many of his sermons, and over the years he further develops his own original concepts. A central idea around which Leo deepens and explains his theology is Christ’s presence in the Church, more specifically in the teaching and preaching of the faith (Scripture, Tradition and their interpretation), in the liturgy (sacraments and celebrations), in the life of the individual believer and of the organized Church, especially in a council.

+ Schedule for Holy Thursday & Good Friday
April 17, Maundy Thursday
12:15 pmLow Mass
6:30 pm Maundy Thursday service
8:00 pm Vigil of the Holy Hour

April 18, Good Friday
9 a.m. Good Friday morning prayer
12 p.m. Noon prayers
3 p.m. Good Friday evening prayer
6:30 p.m. Mass Pre-Sanctified Gifts

+ Our next Monday morning Bible study will meet April 14, 2014 in the Undercroft. For further information about the Monday morning Bible Study please contact Priscilla King, 540-456-6458 – kingplk@gmail.com.

+ All Saints parishioner may obtain a Mass card from the Church office. A Mass card is a greeting card given to someone to inform him or her that a deceased loved one or friend was remembered and prayed for at a weekly Mass. It is a specifically Christian way to express one’s love. Call Julie McDermott at the Church office (434-979-2842) and she will help you fill out the form. The celebrant will sign the card and we will mail it from the Church to the family of the loved one.

May 9, 2012 By Fr. Spencer

The Accuser of the World

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

Here is the situation. The Last Discourse presents us with the Beloved Disciple’s account of Jesus’ last evening with his disciples. John continues putting before the reader the overwhelming sadness in the room, Jesus’ constant references to returning to his Father, and this new information that once he returned to his Father, he would send the Paraclete. “Your hearts are full of sadness.” They hardly understood anything Jesus was saying and it would be sometime down the road before the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit would give them insight into what Jesus calls “the way of all truth.”

For a moment let us examine the meaning of the word “Comforter.” The Greek word in the text is Paraclete. Literally it means “one called alongside to help” and so we get English translations like Advocate and Comforter. The identity of the Comforter is the Holy Spirit. If we look at how the Paraclete functions in this passage this is what we get: Beginning sometime soon after the events described in the Farwell Discourse, He will essentially stand in for Jesus till the General Resurrection. He will bring back to the Apostles’ memory the words of Jesus and he will give them insight into their meaning. He will enable the apostolic eyewitnesses to function as Apostles. But it appears that the overarching work of the Paraclete will be to act as the defense witness for Jesus in the context of his trail before his enemies. Furthermore it is as though Jesus’ trial before the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and Pilate (which from their point-of-view is only hours away) will not be over when Pilate delivers his verdict, but when God delivers his final verdict.

Furthermore, our participation in Christ is to be so through going – note his prayer in John 17 “I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them… “ And again, “For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.” Our identity is so radically altered by our participation in Christ that his trial is our trial and our trial before the world is his trial. It is as though we stand accused alongside Jesus and he stands accused alongside us in the world so that the allegations brought against us in this world are tantamount to re-trying Jesus. But we have nothing to fear. Because the Holy Spirit will defend us just as Jesus had said: “When they haul you into court do not worry about defending yourself for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that same hour what to say.” It is not enough that the Holy Spirit will act as our Advocate; He will also turn the tables and prosecute those who brought charges against Jesus and those who presumed to judge his disciples. In his defense of Jesus and in his defense of Jesus’ disciples, the Holy Spirit will shine a light on this world’s bankruptcy of truth and legitimacy.

So first, the Accuser of the World, the Holy Spirit

“will prove that the world is in sin…”

The Paraclete will show the disciples that the enemies of Jesus are all guilty of the sin of deliberate disbelief in Jesus. Our Lord himself said,

“The Light has come into the world, but men have preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil.”

These evil deeds are specifically the refusal to believe in Jesus and the collateral damage that entails that disbelief. That sin reaches its sickening conclusion in the Cross. But further the Paraclete will show that the sin of unbelief is not limited to that historic circle of evil men who put Jesus on trial. No! That very sin of unbelief is the sin of the world today. We may think that is a bit harsh. After all we may reason, “Just because a person does not believe in Jesus doesn’t mean they are hostile toward him.” If they are not hostile it is because they think it silly to believe in such nonsense or they do not know the historic Jesus.

“(He will prove) the world is not righteous, because I go to my Father”

The Paraclete reveals that the world’s sense of justice is in fact immoral because Jesus is innocent of the charges laid against him. Before and during his trial he was accused of blasphemy for claiming to be equal with God. “I and my Father are one.” He was guilty not only of astonishing arrogance, but he was a sinner, a deceiver and blasphemer according to his enemies. They were sure he was not God’s son and sentenced him to death. But in fact, he tells his disciples repeatedly that he is returning to his Father. The Paraclete will come to the disciples only after he has returned to this Father. And that is what happened. On Pentecost Peter and the other Apostles took it to the street in Jerusalem and proclaimed Jesus’ as the Saviour of the World. Only a few months later St. Stephen himself, full of the Holy Spirit, as he was about to be stoned to death in Jerusalem, bore witness to Jesus’ innocence and victory:

“I see the glory of God, and Jesus standing right next to his Father.”

Finally the Paraclete will prove that in judging Jesus guilty and not believing in him, the world’s judgment has recoiled upon itself.

“(He will show that) the world is judged, because the prince of this world is judged…”

His enemies thought they had victory. But in the Cross Jesus confronted the prince of this world and Jesus now stands justified before his Father. In his Resurrection he has conquered death and hell and it is the world that is found guilty.

Now with all three of these actions, the Paraclete infuses courage into the disciples in those critical early days after our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension and especially after the persecutions began. But I want to underline this: the courage, the resilience, the strength Jesus promised in the Paraclete was meant for the whole Church in time and space and not just the disciples who were with him that evening.

Imagine what it was like for these little parishes scattered all over the world when the last of the apostolic eyewitnesses died. The Apostle was a living cord joining the Church to Jesus of Nazareth. As long as they were present these apostolic eyewitnesses could interpret the meaning of the gospel narrative, the meaning of Jesus’ very word and deed for every situation the Church faced. For example, these apostolic eyewitnesses would have to interpret the meaning of the persecution of the Church after the deaths of James and Stephen. They gave voice to what Jesus would have said about the existential realities and exigencies they were facing, many of which were horrible.

Imaginatively place yourself in one of these tiny parishes that had grown up around the apostolic eyewitnesses. What do you think would happen when these eyewitnesses began to die? James died in Jerusalem in 62 AD. Stephen too. Paul was beheaded in Rome around 66 – 67 AD. Around the same time St. Peter was crucified. It is the universal testimony of the Church that last Apostle to die was the Beloved Disciple, John. He was a very old man and he died around the year 100 AD. Now that is amazing since that date is within a handful of years backward or forward for the ministry of St. Polycarp who had spent a good deal of time with John. That would also be contemporaneous with the life of St. Ignatius of Antioch, whose letters we have.

Now when the Beloved Disciple finally died I imagine it was a major crisis for his churches, not unlike what he and the other disciples had experienced when Jesus informed them that he was returning to his Father. As long as Jesus was with them they were safe. In the same way, as long as John was alive he was a sure interpreter of everything Jesus said and did. John’s own disciples – the deacons, priests and bishops he had ordained could return to him time and again to asked questions and obtain his directions. They could hang out with him like Polycarp did. John had been a companion of Jesus. When John laid his hands upon you, you knew that those very hands had touched and had been touched by the hands of Jesus Christ.

What got these little parishes through the crisis of the death of the Beloved Disciple? I will tell you what got them through. It was that document he had written and re-written, and rewritten which final form we know as the Gospel of John. And in particular the Farwell Discourse. Yes, these apostolic eyewitnesses were the Pillars of the Church, living links between Jesus of Nazareth and the baptized. But it was not merely their own memories or even their own personal experiences that made them the trustworthy interpreters of all that Jesus did or said. No, it was not merely their personal experiences, it was the gift of the Holy Spirit that not only quickened their memories of the words of Jesus, but also gave them, as it were, Jesus’ own interpretation of his words and deeds – that made them reliable. The Church at first probably placed her confidence in the personal experiences of the Apostles, but in time Holy Mother Church came to place all her confidence the gift of the Holy Spirit. She came to understand that the Paraclete guided the eyewitnesses, like the Beloved Disciple, and he would continue to guide the Church and her members after the death of the Beloved Disciple. The Paraclete indwells Church and all her members. And because of that, those men and women who buried the Beloved Apostle and Ignatius and Polycarp, and those of us here today who believe in Jesus and kneel to receive his Body and Blood are as close to Jesus as were the apostolic eyewitnesses themselves. That is what the Church believes.

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

February 22, 2012 By Fr. Spencer

Ash Wednesday Sermon

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Lent begins with the remembrance of our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness. Every Lent we hear the same old stories that have encouraged Christians since ancient days. A demon is cast out of a little girl; another demon attacks Jesus with lies about his motives; and soon we shall hear of Christ’s own Passion and how Satan entered into Judas to accomplish his dirty work. Satan means to wreak the work of God. There is one thing for sure – Satan is no Gnostic. He knows the worth, the weakness, the shame and the glory of the material world – especially this piece of matter we call our bodies. And he hates flesh.

God loves flesh. God became flesh. The best Satan can do is to steal flesh. I have suggested before that Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the Hannibal Lector movies are Satanic in the sense that they portray how he lives, and moves and has his being. The devil hides behind masks of flesh. That’s essentially what he did to Judas – the Bible says, “then Satan entered into Judas.” He took Judas by violence.

He hates flesh. He who led the angels in hymns to God; he who said in his heart that he would rise above his Creator; he who was perfect in beauty, walking upon stones of fire – he is a showman, a movie star, a phony, a fake, a counterfeit. Created as pure thought, “a thinking thought,” he stormed in and possessed Judas. All he could do, all he can ever do, is to mask himself in the human flesh he loathed.

But God the Father loves flesh. God the Son became Flesh. Mary assented: “Let it be!” she declared to another Angel. Jesus delights in the work of God. He taught us to pray for what God is already sending our way before we pray: God’s rule over the whole Creation, just as He rules over Heaven. One day his Kingdom will come irrevocability, once and for all. He will wipe every tear away. He will heal every broken heart. We will love one another. The material world, including our own bodies, will not be treated as husk to be shucked off and cast away. No, no, no! Far from that, in the Kingdom of God, you, body and all, as I have often said – will burst into full blossom!

Listen: your body is not your enemy but the body is a poor master of the person because of the wound of concupiscence. What is that? It is “the disordered desire to satisfy our sensual needs.” But what does that have to do with our bodies? Concupiscence is a wound quickly experienced in our flesh. One moment you are not hungry, and then suddenly you feel you are starving to death. You feel it in your body. Same thing with lust. Same thing with a sore throat or the flu. The body is a poor master of the person simply because it functions like a receiver of temptation. It is like a cell phone set on vibrate. You are working away all day long, you forget to eat and then your sugar level drops and before you know it you are vibrating. And then your body begins screaming, “feed me!”

“And afterward Jesus was hungry…”

How could Jesus be hungry? Because he was a real man of flesh and he depended upon the material world for his own life. But he is different from us because his body and his perfectly natural, good, blessed sensual needs were not ruling his life. Why not? Because his human faculties: his intelligence, his volitional life, his passions, his appetite – his instinctive human desires, his physical life, all orbited, like planets elegantly balanced around a center of gravity that holds. Do you know what that center is? That Center around which all Jesus’ human facilities orbit with such poise, grace, goodness and balance is his Love for his Father. His perfect Love for his Father is his Center. His perfect love for his Father is like the Sun in our solar system that gracefully orders the planets and provided just enough light and just enough heat to support life on this green earth. Jesus’ love for his Father orders everything in his life. And this is the end of all spiritual programs, of all spiritual direction, of all the liturgies and all the masses ever offered up and all sermons every preached: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all they soul, and with all they mind.”

The Bible narrates our sorry failures and our splendid efforts to love God. But it is our Lord’s own battle with the Tempter in the wilderness that is ever present in the collective consciousness of the Church. It is there in the wilderness that our Lord, like a Knight defending the honor of his Lord, his Father, recapitulated Adam’s temptation and reversed his Failure. The account that will be read from the Gospel this coming Sunday could have come only from lips of Jesus himself. He won the day there in the wilderness and we too may learn to fight our battles, not as all alone, but as brave soldiers in Christ’s Church.

Lent reminds you that you have been baptized and infused with heavenly virtues. You have another chance to own it and to love it and to grow and appropriate those virtues. You may have been baptized as a baby or baptized as an adult. It doesn’t matter – God by that very materialistic action has made you a well-equipped soldier. Jesus’ wilderness defeat of Satan was not effortless; it was not effortless for the Apostles and it will not be effortless for us. But we are an army of well-equipped soldiers of Christ. So here we are at the beginning of another Lent. This is springtime for the Church. You have been baptized! You are God’s offspring.

The Epistle for Quinquagesima says it:

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things…”

Put away childish things. Be an adult. Take responsibility. Husband your own heart. This evening as we approach the throne of grace, as we come to the altar of God to receive the body and blood of Christ our God – pray he will toughen our resolve to fight as Christ’s soldiers.