The Days of Elijah

And these are the days of Ezekel,
the dry bones becoming as flesh,
and these are the days of Your servant, David,
Repuilding a temple of praise;
and these are the days of the harvest,
The fields are as white as your world;
and we are laborers in Your vineyard
Declaring the Word of the Lord.

Behold, He comes,
rising on the clouds,
Shining like the sun
at the trumpet call;
Lift your voice,
it's the Year of Jubilee
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes.

Celebration Continues .. I Love the Lord

I love the Lord,
He heard my cry
and pitied every groan.
Long as I live
and troubles rise,
I'll hasten to His throne.

I love the Lord,
He heard my cry
and pitied every groan
O let my heart
no more despair
while I have breath to pray.

Episcopalians from the Diocese of Virginia are at the worship too!

Yes, there's a whole crowd of Episcopalians from the Diocese of Virginia here, joining in the worship and filled with the friendship of Christ our Lord. Greeted them with joy as I returned from the Eucharist. It is a new day!

The Offertory - CANA Style!

We went from R. Thompson's The Last Words of David to this (see above). We are seeing the width and the breath of the Anglican Communion - the historical hymns of faith and the exuberant expressions of joy of the gospel. And now, as the Eucharist continues, we hear the gentle strums of the harp. And not a smugeon in sight.

Sermon by Bishop Martyn Minns, May 5, 2007

Here's the sermon by Bishop Minns.

CANA Installation Celebration: The Gospel of the Lord

John 17:1-9, 18-21

NOTE: We're recording the sermon as an audio - we'll do our best to download that as soon as possible. Stay tuned ... Bishop Minns is preaching right now.

Celebration Continues ...

Bishop Minns has now been installed and the hall errupted into shouts of thanksgiving and applause. Following the oaths, Bishop Minns, Bishop Benna, and Archbishop Akionla kneel in prayer as the Archdeacon prays: God whose grace has called you to this office be your aid, and grant you judgement, knowledge, bouty, purity, lowliness and patience, establish you in righteousness and holiness, and evermore grant you His peace thorugh Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. This is followed with anthem from the choir, O Clap Your Hands, now underway ...

Sorry about the blurry photo - I was sort of hanging off the balcony when I took it. It shows the Bishop as he processes into the hall. Then someone saw me and text messaged me from another part of the hall. Gotta love this century.

Live from CANA Installation Celebration: Procession

Here is the opening procession (off the laptop!) of the opening Procession for the Installation Celebration. As I wait for this upload, Bishop Minns has knocked on the door and is about to come into the church. The Welcome and Bishop's Procession is now underway and the crucifer leading the procession is Rachel Minns. Have now burst into tears and will be back shortly.

Live from the CANA Installation Celebration

We're up in the balcony and blogging from the laptop. This video was taken off the iSight camera on top of the laptop - but the service hasn't even started yet and the people are ready to worship.

The song is the praise song, Days of Elijah.

These are the days of Elijah
Declaring the Word of the Lord
And these are the days of your servant Moses
Righteousness being restored

And though these are days of great trials
Of famine and darkness and sword
Still we are the voice in the desert crying
Prepare ye the way of the Lord!

Behold He comes! Riding on the clouds!
Shining like the sun! At the trumpet call
Lift your voice! It's the year of Jubilee!
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes!

BabyBlueOnline: Live from CANA Installation Celebration

We're here live online at the CANA Installation celebration. The Call to Worship has begun and we've heard Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing with Matt Rogers on sax and Kate Rogers on harp, Take Joy Home with Susan Wheeler, and now Days of Elijah with the musicians from All Saints Church, Lanham, MD. The congegation just jumped to their feet and are joining in the worship - and the service hasn't even started yet!

We've seen lots and lots of friends here ( including Dr. Os Guinness whom we ran into in the hallway). Right now people are arriving and filling the seats as we prepare for this historic event.

















We're up here in the balcony and guess who just arrived!

Puzzled

We're off this morning for the celebration at Hylton Chapel. But we are musing over the topic of yesterday's news. We saw the Archbishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Peter Akinola yesterday and he had not received any correspondence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. We also saw that it was Jim Rosenthall who was quoted as a Lambeth spokesman. That's not true - Jonathan Jennings is the Archbishop of Canterbury's spokesman, not Jim Rosenthal. Jim Rosthental works for the Anglican Communion office (otherwise known as the ACC) which is headed by Kenneth Kearon. Those are two different "instruments of unity." They are not the same thing and we know that the ACC is the closest instrument to 815. In fact, close observers know that Rosenthal works with alongside our friends at 815 (we remember seeing Jim Rosenthal and Jim Naughton - and Stephen Bates too - slumming about the National Cathedral together last November). No one has heard from Mr. Jennings and if this letter was so important, why was it delayed until the Archbishop of Nigeria was all ready here? Sure looks like a publicity stunt from our other friends at the ACC. Not exactly early birds are they - and that was either a major screw-up from the Anglican Communion office or Rowan Williams is not as upset as Jim Rosenthal would like him to be. What do you think?

CANA introduces new website

Check out the brand new updated Website for CANA.

Here's a clip (available on the CANA website) of a recent confirmation class which Bishop Martyn Minns taught while visiting one of the CANA churches in Wyoming:

Prayer and Praise

Anglican divisions show in leaders' letters

By Rebecca Trounson
LA Times Staff Writer

Tensions between the Episcopal Church and its critics in the worldwide Anglican Communion have escalated with an exchange of strongly worded letters between the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop and the Anglican archbishop of Nigeria.

The letters involve a planned visit by Nigerian Archbishop Peter J. Akinola to the United States this weekend, in which he is expected to install a bishop to lead congregations that have broken away from the Episcopal Church. The 2.3 million-member church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion and is at odds with much of the rest of the denomination over the U.S. church's more liberal views on homosexuality and other issues.

Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, wrote to Akinola on Tuesday, urging him to reconsider his plans to install Martyn Minns, the rector of an Episcopal church in Fairfax, Va., as bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America at a ceremony Saturday. The network is an offshoot of the Nigerian church.

Jefferts Schori said the installation "would violate the ancient customs of the church" that bishops generally minister within their own jurisdictions, unless permission is granted to do otherwise. Akinola's plans, she said, also "would not help the efforts of reconciliation" between the Episcopal Church and the global communion and would "display to the world division and disunity."

Akinola, who wields considerable influence as head of the Anglican Communion's second-largest province, after the Church of England, responded sharply in a letter posted Wednesday on his church's Web site. He said that the custom to which Jefferts Schori referred was intended to protect the church from false teaching, not to prevent those who cling to Anglicanism's traditional teachings from receiving the care of their bishops.

"I also find it curious that you are appealing to the ancient customs of the church when it is your own Province's deliberate rejection of the biblical and historic teaching of the Church that has prompted our current crisis," he wrote.

And he made clear that he believed the usual protocols were not applicable because of what he viewed as the Episcopal Church's "current unbiblical agenda."

Akinola's visit comes at a crucial moment, as many Anglicans and Episcopalians fear that the 77 million-member communion may break apart. In 2003, long-simmering tensions in the United States and abroad rose when the Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

The situation escalated further in February, when Anglican leaders gave the Episcopal Church until Sept. 30 to state explicitly that it would bar official blessings for same-sex couples and stop consecrating gay bishops or risk playing a reduced role in the Anglican fellowship.

Akinola is to preside over an installation ceremony for Minns at a nondenominational chapel in Woodbridge, Va. Minns was consecrated as a bishop of the breakaway network in an earlier ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria.

In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Minns said there was an urgent need to find a place for theological conservatives, who are a minority within the Episcopal Church. Minns said the convocation, which he said includes about 30 parishes and 50 clergy members, was the result of a "broken relationship" between the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion. He said he plans to work closely with other groups of breakaway Episcopalians to try to bring them together.

"We are what the church used to be," Minns said. "Our desire is not to interfere with what (the Episcopal Church is) doing. We simply don't agree with it."

Akinola's letter is on his church's Web site, www.anglican-nig.org. Jefferts Schori's is available at the Episcopal Church's Web site, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/episcopal life.htm.

(in Irish)
Siulaigi a chairde, siulaidh liom
Mar cheo an tsleibhe uaine ag
imeacht go deo
D’ainneoin ar dtuirse leanfam an tsli
Thar chnoic is thar ghleannta
go deireadh na scrib’

Seo libh a chairde is canaidh liom
Lionaigi’n oiche le greann is le sport
Seo slainte na gcarad ata imithe uainn
Mar cheo an tsleibhe uaine,
iad imithe go deo

(English translation)
Wander my friends, wander with me
Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally
Despite our weariness, we'll follow the road
Over hills and valleys, to the end of the journey

Come on my friends and sing with me
Fill the night with joy and sport
Here's a health to the friends who have gone from us
Like the mist of the green mountain, gone forever

A Letter from the Archbishop of Anglican Church in Nigeria to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church

BB NOTE: The following letter is from Archbishop Peter Akinola in response to Schori's letter of April 30.

2nd May, 2007

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori,
Episcopal Church Center
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017, USA

My dear Presiding Bishop:

My attention has been drawn to your letter of April 30th ostensibly written to me but published on the Episcopal News Service website.

In light of the concerns that you raise it might be helpful to be reminded of the actions and decisions that have led to our current predicament.

At the emergency meeting of the Primates in October 2003 it was made clear that the proposed actions of the Episcopal Church would “tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level, and may lead to further division on this and further issues …” Sadly, this proved to be true as many provinces did proceed to declare broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church. Since that time the Primates have established task forces, held numerous meetings and issued a variety of statements and communiqués but the brokenness remains, our Provinces are divided, and so the usual protocol and permissions are no longer applicable.

You will also recall from our meeting in Dar es Salaam that there was specific discussion about CANA and recognition – expressed in the Communiqué itself – of the important role that it plays in the context of the present division within your Province. CANA was established as a Convocation of the Church of Nigeria, and therefore a constituent part of the Communion, to provide a safe place for those who wish to remain faithful Anglicans but can no longer do so within The Episcopal Church as it is currently being led. The response for your own House of Bishops to the carefully written and unanimously approved Pastoral Scheme in the Communiqué makes it clear that such pastoral protection is even more necessary.

It is my heartfelt desire – and indeed the expressed hope of all the Primates of the Communion – that The Episcopal Church will reconsider its actions – and make such special measures no longer necessary. This is the only way forward for full restoration into fellowship with the rest of the Communion. Further, I renew the pledge that I made to your predecessor, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, that the Church of Nigeria will be the first to restore communion on the day that your Province abandons its current unbiblical agenda. Until then we have no other choice than to offer our assistance and oversight to our people and all those who will not compromise the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 1:3)

You speak in your letter of centuries old custom regarding diocesan boundaries. You are, of course, aware that the particular historical situation to which you make reference was intended to protect the church from false teaching not to prevent those who hold to the traditional teaching of the church from receiving faithful episcopal care. It was also a time when the Church had yet to face into the challenge of different denominational expressions of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I also find it curious that you are appealing to the ancient customs of the church when it is your own Province’s deliberate rejection of the biblical and historic teaching of the Church that has prompted our current crisis.

You mention the call to reconciliation. As you well know this is a call that I wholeheartedly embrace and indeed was a major theme of our time in Tanzania. You will also remember that one of the key elements of our discussion and the resulting Communiqué was the importance of resolving our current differences without resorting to civil law suits. You agreed to this. Yet it is my understanding that you are still continuing your own punitive legal actions against a number of CANA clergy and congregations. I fail to see how this is consistent with your own claim to be working towards reconciliation.

Once again please know that I look forward to the day when this current crisis is behind us and we can all be reunited around our One Lord and only Saviour Jesus the Christ. Until then be assured of my prayers for you and The Episcopal Church.

In Christ,

The Most Revd. Peter J Akinola, CON, DD
Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of all Nigeria.

Celebrating the Life and Witness of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria

Today we are celebrating the life of one of our heroes here at the Cafe: Athanasius of Alexandria. Everyone lift up their glasses and mugs in toast! To Athanasius!

I first learned of Athanasius when I took Systematic Theology from Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry several years ago. On this day when a certain Presiding Bishop is writing funny little letters, it is good to reflect on this courageous leader who fought hard and suffered much for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Athanasius (296-373 A.D.): Athanasius served as presbyter and bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius is best known for his defense of the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity at the ecumenical Council of Nicea (325 A.D.). Before the Arian controversy called into question the deity of Christ, Athanasius wrote two apologetic works, Against the Gentiles and On the Incarnation of the Word. He continued to defend orthodoxy and denounce the Arian heresy throughout his life. This resulted in his being banished from his church four times. His last years were spent peacefully.

Human and human-minded as men were, therefore, to whichever side they looked in the sensible world, they found themselves taught the truth. Were they awe-stricken by creation? They beheld it confessing Christ as Lord. Did their minds tend to regard men as gods? The uniqueness of the Savior's works marked Him, alone of men, as Son of God. Were they drawn to evil spirits? They saw them driven out by the Lord, and learned that the Word of God alone was God and that the evil spirits were not gods at all. Were they inclined to hero-worship and the cult of the dead? Then the fact that the Savior had risen from the dead showed them how false these other deities were, and that the Word of the Father is the one true Lord, the Lord even of death. For this reason was He both born and manifested as Man, for this He died and rose, in order that, eclipsing by His works all other human deeds, He might recall man from all the paths of error to know the Father. As He says Himself, "I came to seek and to save that which was lost.".
- Athanasius

LATER - FROM THE "SOME THINGS DON'T CHANGE AND PERHAPS KJS SHOULD CHECK HER HISTORY AND THE DATE BEFORE MAKING SUCH STRENUOUS PRONOUNCEMENTS" FILE: "But before the appointed time arrived, the bishops assembled together, and having summoned Arius to attend, began to examine the disputed topics, each one amongst them advancing his own opinion. As might have been expected, however, many different questions started out of the investigation: some of the bishops spoke against the introduction of novelties contrary to the faith which had been delivered to them from the beginning. And those especially who had adhered to simplicity of doctrine argued that the faith of God ought to be received without curious inquiries; others, however, contended that ancient opinions ought not to be followed without examination. Many of the bishops who were then assembled, and of the clergy who accompanied them, being remarkable for their dialectic skill, and practiced in such rhetorical methods, became conspicuous, and attracted the notice of the emperor and the court. Of that number Athanasius, who was then a deacon of Alexandria, and had accompanied his bishop Alexander, seemed to have the largest share in the counsel concerning these subjects."

From "Chapter 17. Of the Council convened at Nicæa on Account of Arius," Ecclesiastical History (Book II) by Sozomen (c. 375-c. 447).

"The Arians assert that after the death of Alexander, the respective followers of that bishop and of Melitius held communion together, and fifty-four bishops from Thebes, and other parts of Egypt, assembled together, and agreed by oath to choose by a common vote, the man who could advantageously administer the Church of Alexandria; but that seven of the bishops, in violation of their oath, and contrary to the opinion of all, secretly ordained Athanasius; and that on this account many of the people and of the Egyptian clergy seceded from communion with him. For my part, I am convinced that it was by Divine appointment that Athanasius succeeded to the high-priesthood; for he was eloquent and intelligent, and capable of opposing plots, and of such a man the times had the greatest need. He displayed great aptitude in the exercise of the ecclesiastical functions and fitness for the priesthood..."

From "Chapter 17. On the Death of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, at his Suggestion, Athanasius receives the Throne; and an Account of his Youth; how he was a Self-Taught Priest, and beloved by Antony the Great," Eccelesiastical History (Book II), by Sozomen (c. 375-c. 447).

Learn more here.

On the Corner of Connecticut and R

From Starbucks on the corner of Connecticut & R N.W.

We're trying out a different Starbucks today. Like many major cities in the world, there is a Starbucks almost on every corner in this part of the city. We thought - since the weather was so good - that we'd venture just a bit further up Connecticut. It's amazing what a couple of blocks will do either way. If I leave my office and walk down Connecticut just a block or two we are in the spill-over of the K Street Corridor. Heading up this way is an entire different group and virtually no hint of the K Street Corridor at all. I'm not sure who al these people are - Tourists? Students? Stray Protestors? Scientoligists? (their HQ is just just across the street from here in a spooky brick fortress near Cosi's). There are businessmen every where - but they look decidedly different from the K Street Lobbyists that stalk about Connecticut and K. Wow, there's a guy looking like Jerry Garcia and he's carrying on quite a conversation with himself. Oh, wait, he's got a bluetooth thingy in his ear. There is always a thin line between the K Street Lobbyists and the Street People. The crossroads is the fountain at Dupont Circle. One never knows what some of these Street People were doing six months ago.

Song of the Day