This morning I uploaded Episode One in our newest Seasonal Video series, Eastertide: From Resurrection to Ascension. The episode includes 17 illustrations from the 13th to the 19th C. (with a photograph from the 21st C.), mostly Resurrection imagery. Artists include, in order of use, fresco-makers at Constantinople, James Tissot, William Holman Hunt, Giotto, fresco-makers at Milan, Byzantine icon-painters, and Russian Orthodox icon painters, including the celebrated Andrei Rublev, from the 15th to the 18th C. Regular viewers will have noticed the change in the series graphic from Portrait to Landscape orientation. This became necessary when I switched production of videos from the version of iMovie on my iPad to the enhanced version on my Mac. The “Ken Burns effect” program on the Mac, which has many additional features, especially in the area of multi-source soundtracks, is strongly biased toward Landscape imagery. Viewers will easily see the difference in the way the images scan during the video. For those especially fond of icons: the image in the title graphic is one of the best, most carefully drawn representations of the classic “Harrowing of Hades” depiction of Christ, standing on the destroyed gates of Hades and the pit with the “keys to Hades and Death,” lifting Adam (in white) and Eve (in red) from Hades. The figure with halo at left center (near the tip of Jesus’ right hand) is John the Baptist, observing in his status as the Last Prophet of the Old Testament. The blue oval is a classic representation of the Glory of the Lord, sheckinah in Hebrew.
Watch the Video. Listen to the Podcast version
The program, which runs just over 29 minutes, begins with a discussion of the history of the Feast of Feasts from its origins in the early Church both Eastern and Western to 20th C. liturgies in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The program continues with a discussion of the meaning of Easter and its central place in Christian theology, followed by prayer books services for Easter Day, including the changes to Morning Prayer and the two sets of Collect, Epistle and Gospel readings for the day. Also included is information about seasonal music for Easter from The St. Chrysostom Hymnal and cross-reference to other AIC programs and publications appropriate for Easter Day observances.
Episode Two, focused on Easter Monday and Tuesday and the First, Second and Third Sundays after Easter is almost complete and should be available in video and podcast versions on or before April 2nd.
I’ve posted new links on the Welcome page to Part I and Part II of the Good Friday program as well as the new Eastertide episode for Easter Day. You can similate the experience of a Good Friday 12 Noon service by opening Part I of In the Cross of Christ I Glory and pausing at the appropriate times between Noon and 3 PM (which obviously requires also opening Part 2 after the completion of the prayers for the Fourth Word. Part Two resumes the program with Fifth Word for 1:55 P.M. Again I think the parishioners of Holy Cross REC for providing the voices for the “all saying together” sections and the responses, including the Amens.
I am exploring the movement of all our videos from YouTube to Vimeo, owing to Google’s increasing anti-religious bias. I also intend to drop my Twitter channel, for the same reason. Unfortunately, Facebook is important as a vehicle for reaching a broad audience around the world. I will continue to post church-related links on both my personal and AIC pages at Facebook. I do not make any personal information posts on my Facebook page and do not use its Messenger program.
As always, thank you for your interest in and support for the AIC’s online ministry. Your consideration in sharing links and messages with friends, family, business associates and others does help the AIC reach more people, especially those who do not have a local source for traditional Christian teaching and liturgy.
Glory be to God for all things!
In the earlier podcast versions I read both the Verse and the Response lines and said the Amen. In the new video version, I enlisted the help of the congregation at Holy Cross Reformed Episcopal Church in North Chesterfield, VA. I thank them for their enthusiastic participation. They and I speak the opening Confession (left), repeated at the start of each section); the opening Verse and Response that includes the Lord’s Prayer; the internal transition Verse and Response (see below) in each of the seven parts; the closing Verse and Response which includes the Nicene Creed; and, throughout, the Amen for each prayer. To enhance the viewing experience and make it as much as possible like participation in the original 3-hour program, I have inserted an Intermission slide between
each of the sections, with the instruction to pause the video. Each transition slides notes the starting time of the next section.
The video version includes 117 slides, each with an illustration. There are about 48 different illustrations, ranging from the oldest known representation of the Crucifixion from around the mid-6th C. in Northern Mesopotamia (part of modern Syria), to mosaics, frescoes, watercolors, engravings, and paintings from the 6th through the 18th C. in the Western and Eastern Church artistic traditions; and, from the 19th C., stained glass windows. One of these windows, a stunningly-beautiful piece at St. Gertrude’s Church, Stockholm, Sweden, is used as the transition slide that marks the start of the Verse and Response for each part of the program. For the Confession slide, I inserted a Christ Pantokrator mosaic (top left) from the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople commissioned by the Byzantine Emperor Justininian in the 6th C. The picture credit lines are not mentioned in the narrative, both to save time and to avoid distraction from the meaning of the text and the solemn mood of the presentation.
Episode Three in the AIC Seasonal Video series, Lent A.D. 2018, was uploaded this morning to our You Tube and Podbean channels. The focus of the episode is Fifth Sunday in Lent (Passion Sunday), Sixth Sunday in Lent (Palm Sunday), and Holy Week (Monday before Easter through Easter Even). The text includes historical background plus commentary on all the Collects, Epistle, “For the Epistle” and Gospel readings plus a selection of seasonal music from The St. Chrysostom Hymnal.
An offshoot arising out of the production of Episode Three was an idea that came to mind very, very early in the morning a few weeks ago. I pondered it carefully and when I got up and went to my Mac I tried to assemble my thoughts on how to implement the idea. When I retired from the pulpit ministry a few years ago, I had intended to make the 3-hour presentation for Good Friday, In the Cross of Christ I Glory, into an AIC Seasonal Video presentation. Other projects (podcasts, videos and books) overwhelmed me and I just never got around to it. In the Cross of Christ I Glory has been available only in the Podcast Homily versions recorded in 2014-2015 A.D. and presented in eight parts. The program was built upon the foundation of a 1946 A.D. presentation for Good Friday by Bishop William Moody, which I augmented with comments by the Very Rev. George Hodges from his Good Friday services and lectures from 1904 A.D. To this base I added material for the mini-homilies accompanying the seven words from the Cross from the homilies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory of Nyssa.
With Episode Seven in The War on Christianity I conclude my discussion of the Te Deum Laudamus in its function as a First Line of Defense for any Christian in the world’s on-going battle with Christianity. The focus of the discussion is Part Two (“Thou art the King of Glory: though “numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting”) and Part Three (“O Lord save thy people” through “let me never be confounded”). I close the episode with an exploration of the Scriptural origin and usage of “confounded,” especially in the sense of its meaning as not letting oneself get led away from Christian Truth.
In other news, I’ve decided to produce a video version of In the Cross of Christ I Glory, the three-hour Good Friday meditations I developed and used in my former parish. The videos will be produced in however many parts are required to keep each episode to under 35 minutes. There will be Intermission slides between each of the segments so that viewers can pause the video until the appropriate hour. There will be no separate podcast versions, since Podcasts of an earlier version are already available from the Podcast Homilies page:
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