This first week of Advent we focus on HOPE. The season of Advent is a season of reflection, waiting, and meditation as we ponder life and death, salvation and judgment, heaven and hell, light and darkness as well as peace, joy, love, and all of this culminating in hope and expectant waiting. In this context, we hope in the…
Tomorrow is a very special day for our Church, we honor two kings. First, and foremost, it is Christ the King Sunday where we recognize and focus on the Lordship of Christ and his kingdom. Secondly, this falls on the feast day where we celebrate and remember the namesake of our church, St. Edmund. It…
We continue now with our teaching on our liturgy of Holy Communion (Eucharist) as found in the 2019 ACNA Book of Common Prayer. To put this in context, we have begun the service with the Processional Hymn and the Acclamation. We then focus our hearts together to perfectly love God through the Collect for Purity. This leads us to acknowledging…
This past week we celebrated both All Saints Day (remembering the martyrs, apostles, and doctors of the church) and All Souls Day (remembering the generations of faithful believers that have gone before us). In this context, tomorrow is a very special service of Holy Communion where we remember those that have gone before us and are now…
We now continue our series on exploring our liturgy in the service of Holy Communion. You can find the previous articles on the St. Edmund’s Blog. SIDE NOTE: Holy Communion is also called The Eucharist or Holy Eucharist. The term Eucharist is from the Greek eucharistia which means “thanksgiving.” We are giving thanks and praising God! Let’s start with a brief…
James the brother of our Lord, is also known as James the Just and the first Bishop of Jerusalem. He is not to be confused with James the Great, one of the twelve apostles. This James, the brother of our Lord, was an early leader in the Jerusalem Church during the Apostolic Age. Consider that:…
What is your telos?te·los – an ultimate object or aim.Are you wandering through life without direction? Or do you have a specific purpose and goal? There are a variety of great Christian catechisms that instruct us in the faith. In the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), we have ours, called To Be a Christian. Another one that…
Some from our Parish were in London this past week and took a day trip to get out of London and visit Bury St. Edmund’s where there is a cathedral and the ruins of the abbey where St. Edmund was buried. The picture in this newsletter is from this trip this week. A Hymn for…
As we focus on explaining why we do things the way we do them in Anglican worship, I thought it would be good to bring our focus to the Gospel in the Holy Communion Service. Here are the words of J.I. Packer on this very subject . . . The Gospel is the good news…
The term lex orandi lex credendi is often used to describe modern Anglicanism in which the law of prayer is the law of belief; you believe what you pray. With Cranmer, and the foundation of Anglicanism, it is better understood lex praedicataione lex credendi – the law of preaching is the law of belief. It is through the law…