In talking about Gregory the Illuminator (who we remember today) Sam talks about evangelism (and how we approach it) in a way I find on target and helpful. (It reminds me of Hugh Majors saying you had to be in a relationship with someone for years before you knew them well enough to share your faith with them!) Sam talks about how Gregory shared his faith “in the halls of authority, where he managed to convert a king.” It wasn’t converting the king that Sam admires. It was sharing his faith at home. (more…)
March 23, 2011
Evangelism (via Sam Portaro in Brightest and Best)
Posted by johnmangels under Religion | Tags: Evangelism, Sam Portaro |Leave a Comment
January 5, 2011
Epiphany Thoughts (from Sam Portaro)
Posted by johnmangels under Epiphany | Tags: Sam Portaro |Leave a Comment
I continue to find Sam Portaro’s “Brightest and Best” a wonderfully insightful and challenging book about our saints and seasons in the Episcopal Church. This morning, I read his thoughts on The Epiphany of Our Lord (which is tomorrow). He starts by noting that the number of the “kings” is three by tradition (probably because the “kings” brought three gifts), but that we don’t really know their number — it is never given to us. And he continues by noting that the term “magus” was “often a contemptuous name for itinerant magicians and entertainers.” We like the idea that the wise and mighty (“kings”) of the world recognized Jesus. But they could just as easily have been “a troupe of wandering artists whose whim to follow a star brings them to the cradle of Jesus.” And he talks about the “exotic, mysterious, and wonderful” possibility that “some simple and foolish people, drawn to the side of the manger, might surrender everything to the unknown child therein.” (more…)
December 29, 2010
Christmas 2010
Posted by johnmangels under Christmas | Tags: by John Mangels, Christmas, Sam Portaro |Leave a Comment
Yes, I know. For most people, Christmas started around Thanksgiving and ended on December 25. Many of the mega churches started holding their Christmas services weeks before Christmas Day. But, for me (at least “officially” for all Episcopalians and others who celebrate a traditional “liturgical” year) Christmas is a season that begins on December 25 and continues through the evening of January 5 (The Epiphany is January 6, when the three “kings” come with presents for the baby Jesus). So I’m really in the middle of my celebration of Christmas. (more…)
September 29, 2010
St. Michael and All Angels
Posted by johnmangels under Church Year, Saints | Tags: by John Mangels, Saints, Sam Portaro, spiritual search, St. Michael and All Angels |[2] Comments
Do I believe in angels?
I found myself asking this question this morning as I prepared to read Matins in the church office. And I wasn’t sure I could answer the question.
Certainly I believe in angels in the root sense of the word, the idea that there are messengers from God. (more…)
August 18, 2010
Thoughts on Following Jesus Today
Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God, Uncategorized | Tags: by John Mangels, Incarnation, J. Robert Wright, Sam Portaro, spiritual search, St. Helena, William Porcher DuBose |Leave a Comment
Today is my brother Fred’s birthday.
It is also the feast day for St. Helena (the Emperor Constantine’s mother, and the most prominent active Christian of her day), who is the patron of the Order of St. Helena – who’s breviary I am using. I’m exploring the possibility of Associate status with them. So it’s a first class feast for me these days.
Helena is not in the calendar of the Episcopal Church. William Porcher DuBose is remembered today on that calendar. I found myself quite taken with what I read about him.
In “Brightest and Best” Sam Portaro writes that DuBose, who was born in 1836, was “one of those persons born seemingly ahead of his time … At the heart of his faith DuBose held a tenacious and fundamental belief in the Incarnation, the premise that in Jesus Christ God places before us not just the image of what it means to be human, but the very person who fulfills God’s intention for humankind. Dubose would have had little patience for our spirtualizations of Jesus that make him an oddity, the exception rather than the rule of what we are to be.” (more…)
July 19, 2010
Holy Women, Holy Men (Celebrating the Saints) – More Saints and More Saints
Posted by johnmangels under Saints | Tags: by John Mangels, Holy Men, Holy Women, Incarnation, Saints, Sam Portaro |[3] Comments
I have been enjoying “Holy Women, Holy Men (Celebrating the Saints)” — which replaces and greatly expands (and also edits) the old “Lesser Feasts and Fasts.” We added just over 100 new names to our (optional) calendar. And it’s been fun seeing who’s now included. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the great opponent of slavery and the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (the best-selling book of the nineteenth century — Lincoln is supposed to have said, upon meeting her, “So this is the little lady who started this great war!”) is there. (more…)
June 28, 2010
Cyril, Irenaeus, Heresies and Saints
Posted by johnmangels under Christian Unity | Tags: by John Mangels, Inclusion, Kathleen Jones, Saints, Sam Portaro |Leave a Comment
Well, today we remember Irenaeus of Lyons (c.125-202). And while I was looking that up in Kathleen Jones’ “The Saints of the Anglican Calendar,” I noticed I’d underlined a lot about Cyril of Alexandria (376-444). I checked, and Cyril (unlike Irenaeus) is not in the calendar of the Episcopal Church – not even in the expansion (by about 100 names) that came out of our last General Convention. In my mind, this may well be a good thing.
About the only good thing in the book about Cyril is that he was “a champion of orthodoxy.” But he also refused to consider any doctrine not found in the early church fathers. And that denies God’s continuing revelation. I have a problem with that. (more…)
May 26, 2010
Augustine of Canterbury and the Via Media
Posted by johnmangels under Christian Unity, Episcopal Church | Tags: Anglican Communion, by John Mangels, Episcopal Church, Inclusion, Sam Portaro, spiritual search |1 Comment
Well, today we commemorate Augustine of Canterbury. And I have to admit, I don’t normally think of him when I think of the Anglican via media. But, at Gregory’s direction, rather than adhering strictly to the Roman rite, he made at least some allowance for Celtic practices that were ongoing when he arrived. And, as our first Archbishop of Canterbury, that had to help set a tone. (more…)
May 19, 2010
Dunstan and the Sacred and the Secular
Posted by johnmangels under Church Year, Looking for God, Personal | Tags: by John Mangels, Daily Office, Dunstan, Personal, Sam Portaro, Seeing God, St. Helena Breviary |[4] Comments
Ok. So I’m back from my (CREDO 2) conference in Virginia, and trying to get back into the swing of things. And for me that includes reading the daily offices (out of the St. Helena Breviary). So I’ve been reading today about Dunstan (who was born in 910 C.E. and died in 988 C.E.).
This morning I read the commentary from Brightest and Best (where it was commented that when clergy travel without their collars they often annoy people who want them “belled like a cat” so that they know their normal, every day lives are being interrupted by an emissary from the spiritual life). And I’ve been thinking since about the sacred and the profane in Benedictine thought (more…)
November 26, 2009
Early Advent
Posted by johnmangels under Advent | Tags: Advent, by John Mangels, Personal, Prayer, Sam Portaro |1 Comment
Well, I feel like I’m in Advent already!
Yes, I know, it’s still Thanksgiving Day, and Advent doesn’t come until this Sunday. But at our service this morning, after talking a little about Jamestown and the first Thanksgiving Day, I shared a little reflection by Sam Portaro (again from Bightest and Best) where he links Thanksgiving Day and Advent. He begins with today’s gospel and the image of the lilies of the field. And he links those to Mary and her pregancy which is a major piece of what we remember in Advent. (more…)
