tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103700312011-11-17T08:40:50.036-05:00Fr. Greg's JournalFr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.comBlogger231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107753828367324772006-02-07T13:23:00.000-05:002006-02-16T13:24:28.583-05:00

I suppose I'm a student of popular culture, but I'm sure not a professor. I had never heard of Bernstein's "Mass" before last year, and had the opportunity to listen to the entire double-CD while "cruising" with my wife and kids around Cocoa Beach. A parishioner had asked me to listen and give my thoughts (so I'm reproducing the gist here--actually, I'm just touching up a draft I did last Fall).

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1119574707381225042005-12-18T20:32:00.000-05:002006-02-16T13:50:42.840-05:00

After my experiment in blogging ended with the realization I didn't have enough time, I'm back to realizing I still don't have time!Though posting may, and no doubt will, be rare, I'll continue to occasionally do so.My last entry was in the Summer past, when I attended a wonderful and stirring Synod in Orlando. It was an immense privilege to hear the Most Rev'd Gregory Venables preach. "Back to

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107691178303053622005-02-05T07:48:00.000-05:002005-02-06T06:59:38.303-05:00

This is a place marker. I've been working on summarizing and concluding this series, and wanted to keep the posts all together. This allows me to do that (although I'm sure there's a better way)--I'll edit over this in a day or two. (Preview: the gist of the summary is that God is personal, and present. It's not so much a matter of academic or theological debate, but concerns God who closely

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107375488572311852005-02-02T15:23:00.001-05:002005-02-02T16:36:58.200-05:00

Perhaps turning from theological foundations to some stories may help us get a bit (a very small bit) of a handle on this great mystery--of how our perfectly good God can allow evil things to happen. I'll be drawing from the stock of typical examples. First, there is the alarming story of the young screaming, thrashing little boy, terrorized as a burly man pins him down, pressing his head to the

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107325105899556412005-02-02T08:09:00.000-05:002005-02-02T13:21:16.140-05:00

Job chapter 2 repeats the heavenly scene from the first chapter, but Satan ups the ante. He receives permission from God to hurt Job physically this time, but not to kill him. The result: Satan inflicts Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Sores cover the soles of his feet. Sores completely cover all his body, to the very top of his head. I don't know about

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107275910251353082005-02-01T11:15:00.000-05:002005-02-01T13:17:16.186-05:00

God knows right and wrong better than we do. This is how we ended our reflection on the first chapter of Job. We believe this, right? God knows right and wrong better than we do. Simple. Well, the problem is that our hearts, minds, words and actions, reveal that we rebel against this truth every chance we get. We want to call the shots. We want to determine what "the good" is: what is right and

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107259169158670162005-02-01T06:50:00.000-05:002005-02-01T11:08:51.330-05:00

Reflections on Job (you are strongly encouraged to read through the Book): While the Bible first deals with evil at the beginning of Genesis--specifically in the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve--the Book of Job seems entirely dedicated to the problem of suffering and how we struggle to make sense of it all. We'll get back to that first couple, but let's turn our attention to Job for now. Job

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107230903073378692005-01-31T23:08:00.000-05:002005-02-01T11:15:39.853-05:00

[updated] The age-old questions of "why does God allows bad things to happen" and "how can such evil exist if God is good?" have recieved many answers (often termed "theodicies") from many different perspectives. And this problem has certainly received a flurry of attention in the wake of our Floridian hurricanes and the recent Tsunami death-tolls. Though the flurry is abating (people can only

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107126332514545072005-01-30T18:05:00.000-05:002005-01-30T22:24:40.896-05:00

I'm confused by those who say they support our troops, but disrespect all their service and their many deaths as purposeless, wasted (I wish I were exaggerating, but no). I'm not saying the whole Iraq deal is clear-cut, and only good, but as a small tribute to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice this past year, I'll quote at length from Omar, an Iraqi who voted today: "We had all kinds of

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107111860135665492005-01-30T14:04:00.000-05:002005-01-30T21:29:01.110-05:00

Some 30 or more people died, yet I'm honestly very thankful there wasn't more violence. The terrorists were trying their best to create "a river of blood" as they said, and fell short of that goal. Now, my prayers are that Iraq will not devolve into a state of interminable civil war. I don't anticipate the violence dropping more than a little bit--anything less would be welcome. Best case

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107036741395849782005-01-29T17:05:00.000-05:002005-01-29T17:25:22.193-05:00

Shroud of Turin: Old as Jesus? By THE NEW YORK TIMES January 27, 2005 "The Shroud of Turin is much older than the medieval date that modern science has affixed to it and could be old enough to have been the burial wrapping of Jesus, a new analysis concludes. ... In an article this month in the journal Thermochimica Acta, Dr. Raymond N. Rogers, a chemist retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1107014857854183002005-01-29T10:12:00.000-05:002005-01-29T11:57:46.320-05:00

The parable of the Sower and Seeds (Luke 8) makes me think of many elementary school science projects; simple experiments, straightforward, unsurprising results--stuff that everyone should know about how the world works. Of course, Jesus is giving no new hypothesis or theory concerning sowing and seeds, but rather, revelation concerning what the Kingdom of God is like. The Kingdom is like

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106915864731518722005-01-28T07:37:00.000-05:002005-01-28T08:13:38.623-05:00

A snippet into the life of All Saints: The men are cooking breakfast for the women's fellowship today at church. On the menu are pancakes, sausages, chocolate croissants (made from scratch...by whoever supplies BJ's), scrambled eggs and bagels. This is something we do every other month or so and is always a learning experience for the guys in the kitchen. My highest enthusiasm for this morning,

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106835029833119442005-01-27T08:05:00.000-05:002005-01-27T09:52:28.026-05:00

At All Saints Church we have Mass and Pot-luck dinner every Wednesday night, and last night I was reflecting on both 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and Matthew 20:1-16 for the homily. I'm pretty sure it was Peter Toon who pointed out the parallel truths to our seminary class that "It's never too late to be castaway and never too late to be rescued." Remarkably, St. Paul writes, (vs. 27) "So fight I, not

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106759761889347482005-01-26T13:16:00.000-05:002005-01-26T13:51:03.760-05:00

[I was asked to comment on women's ordination by CM in the comment section below, and thought it deserved its own entry, and some minor edits] Yes, we [in the Anglican Province of America and the REC] do not ordain women to the priesthood. As for further comment, I'm not sure how much information you want, or where your starting point is in thinking about this issue. I hope this helps: Affirming

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106736904482250542005-01-26T06:55:00.000-05:002005-01-26T06:10:12.446-05:00

Septuagesima Sunday has passed, the first of the three pre-Lenten weeks (meaning c. "70 days out"(till Resurrection Sunday)) and so we've begun orienting ourselves toward Easter in the Church Year. It's come comparatively quickly this year and part of me has been saying, "Too fast! Couldn't we have had more green? (Epiphanytide)." It's now Wednesday, and while my discomfort had only been

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106672176587648072005-01-25T11:56:00.000-05:002005-01-25T12:19:07.703-05:00

Here is the link to the article I cited in the previous post; it begins: "ABEOKUTO, Nigeria (1/19/2005)--Two bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church and the archbishop of the Anglican Province of America an independent Anglican communion, were invited recently by the Primate of Nigeria the Most Rev. Peter Akinola to engage in talks to deepen relationships between the Anglican entities..." One

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106671156912504162005-01-25T11:39:00.000-05:002005-01-26T06:23:21.560-05:00

Very Positive News: As reported elsewhere on the web, our Bishop, ++Grundorf (FYI, the ++ signifies the equivalent of Archbishop), along with two REC bishops (+Sutton and +West) met with the Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola. ++Akinola leads the largest Province of the Anglican Communion (England may have more on the books, but only half the attendance of Nigeria--which has about 20 Million of

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106591317784965402005-01-24T17:27:00.000-05:002005-01-24T16:32:10.063-05:00

I've not time to do so now, but I would love to put together (or link to the best) FAQ's on varied topics such as Anglicanism, Liturgy, Islam, prophecy, ubiquitious Parish issues. I'd like Anglo-Catholics and Prayer-Book Catholics to have balanced (neither elitist nor libertine) information on Scripture, the world, and the Church. And I'd like to bring balanced information to Prayer Book

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106591212858486902005-01-24T13:25:00.000-05:002005-01-24T13:26:52.856-05:00

I have quite a few decisions to make and petty details to work out; these will include deciding whether to host this blog on all-saints.us or linking to blogspot or blogger or the like. I am well along in the process of redesigning all-saints.us (much of the ground-work was done last year)--and while it is not much effort to create a simple page for blogging/journaling, I wouldn't undertake the

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106591116349861142005-01-23T19:23:00.000-05:002005-01-24T13:25:16.350-05:00

Main points from parable of wheat and tares (Mt 8:24-): Let us trust (and fear) our highest Authority with ruling people in or out of the Kingdom; and secondarily let us trust God-given authorities, as being, well, God-given. I think Christ was addressing a "puritanical" attitude amongst the disciples. When we embark on such judgment; either ruling people out *OR IN* [very prevalent today] we are

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106590818452640102005-01-21T13:37:00.000-05:002005-01-24T13:20:18.453-05:00

Why blog? It seems like a wise way to maximize time/impact/reach. I have not read much of other Pastor blogs, but am impressed with what I've seen. I've only once been to Mark Roberts' site, a few times to Donald Sensing and a few more to Pontifications (author?). Also, I visit almost weekly Christopher (last name?) "Midwest Conservative Journal" and Kendall Harmon's T-1-9, and monthly, "First

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10370031.post-1106590742293359512005-01-20T13:16:00.000-05:002005-01-24T13:19:02.293-05:00

Welcome to the new blog site of Fr. Greg! This will be a learning experience for me, and I hope the learning curve is not too steep.

Fr. Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09911973902382822504noreply@blogger.com0