This week’s post is about the new Podcast Homily for Third Sunday in Lent in our Psalter series of Podcasts. This week’s reading is Psalm 34, a Psalm of David with many memoreable/often-quoted verses, including verse 11, the subject of the illumination from the Stuttgart Psalter. The homily is a little longer than usual, over 15 minutes. The illumination offers detail for verse 11: “Come ye children, and harken unto me * I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (1928 BCP text). A holy man, symbolizing Christ, is seated in front of an altar with children at his feet and four men and three women looking on. The color palate includes blues, greens and reds that would later be featured by the Impressionist school.. The facial expression of each character is unique and very untypical of other works from the same time period. I thank the Wurttemberghische Landesbibliothek for providing access to the image. There are almost 200 other images featured in The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition now on sale through my Amazon Author Central page. All book royalties are donated to the AIC. More information about the book is available on the AIC Bookstore page.

Thanks for your interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

The Second Sunday in Lent brings around another Podcast Homily for Morning Prayer in the new Psalter-based series. This week’s Psalm readings are Psalm 30 and Psalm 32, both attributed to David. In the homily I offer some insight and opinions on the meaning of the verses and, in the case of Psalm 30, cross-reference to a version with fewer archaic words that may not be properly understood in the 21st C.

In the companion book, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, both Psalms are illustrated with illuminations from the spectacular Stuttgart Psalter. Here I’ve included the illumination for Psalm 30, which is a Christological Psalm. Here a centurion and a king are doing what the Psalm commands of the saints in verse 4: “Sing praises unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, * and give thanks unto him for a remembrance of his holiness.”

A revised proof of the newest AIC Bookstore Publication, Easter: The Resurrection of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition, is due back from our printer on Monday, 3/6. If we do not discover anything else that needs changing, we could have the book in print within the next couple of weeks. The finished book has 168 pages and 117 illustrations, including the oldest known illumination of the Resurrection produced in 586 A.D.

Work continues on Angels: the Book. More in a later Blog posting. Meanwhile, attend a church near you tomorrow. If you cannot do so, please consider reading the Hours offices for First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours, plus Vespers and Compline. You can find all these offices in the AIC Bookstore Publication: Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity, available using the Virtual Bookstore link on the Welcome page.

Thank you for your interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

Just a few items of news for site followers.

First, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition is complete and available online. This is book anyone interested in the history of the Church should own. You will have in your hand historic art resources from 820 A.D. to the 16th C. Best effect in reading is achieved by placing the book on a broad, flat surface. This will allow full view of the remarkable illustations from the Stuttgart Psalter and four other Psalter or Prayer Books.

Second, Easter: The Resurrection of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition will go out for proofreading this weekend. I am hopeful we can complete the review and make any changes in time to have the book ready before Easter Sunday.

Third, Angels in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition – for which my working copy is called Angels the Book – is moving along slowly. I’ve been busy placing the text of each reference in Scripture to angel, angels, angels’, messenger and “man” plus the named angels, Gabriel, Raphael & Michael plus Uriel from the non-canonical 2nd Book of Enoch. There are hundreds of these. I’ve placed them, where possible, in context. There is no timetable for this project, which will give me time to find appropriate illustrations. The format will be similar to the Prayer Book and Easter books.

This week’s Podcast Homily for Morning Prayer – Psalter Series – for Quinquagesima Sunday in now online and accessible from both the welcome and Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer pages. The readings for this week are Psalm 19 and Psalm 23. The illustration is a detail from the Bohun Psalter (3rd Qtr. 14th C., Ms.Egerton 3277, Folio 16, British Library, London, England), showing Goliath in the camp of the Philistines inside the capital letter C at the start of Psalm 19. The artists who produced the Bohun Psalter used the opening letters to take readers through the Old Testament histories. The illustration from Psalm 23 is a Christ figure from the Stuttgart Psalter.

As always, thank you for your interest in our site. Please help spread the news by sharing links with others and encouraging them to subscribe to the AIC various presences on the web, including Fr. Ron’s Blog on the Podbean site and following the site through WordPress.com.

Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

My Podcast Homily for Fourth Sunday after Epiphany has been posted and is now available using links on the Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer page and the Welcome page. The focus of the homily is on Psalm 66, Jubilate Deo, a Psalm attributed to King David. The illustration is from the Bohun Psalter and Hours, prepared in southeast England, most likely London, in the 3rd Quarter, 14th C. for Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford (Ms. Egerton 3277, Folio 44v, British Library, London, England), showing the last half of Psalm 66 at the top and the start of Psalm 67 with an illuminated capital letter at left center and the start of Psalm 78 at bottom left.

In our new book, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, the Psalm is also illustrated with three illuminations from the Stuttgart Psalter, made in the Scriptorium, Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Parish, circa 820, probably under the patronage of the new Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (Latin: Carolus Magnus). Charlemagne was crowned at Rome on Christmas Day, 800 A.D. with his teacher and religious mentor Alcuin of York at his side. Charlemagne, King of the Franks since 1768, had first met Alcuin in Parma, Italy, around 781. He appointed Alcuin as Abbot of the monastery of St. Martin, Tours, France, in 1796 and placed him in charge of the religious education of the members of the king’s court at Aachen.

As always, thank you for your interest in and support of the online ministry of The Anglican Internet Church. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

The Podcast Homily in our new series of homilies for Epiphany based on the appointed Psalm reading is now available using links on the Welcome/Home and the Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer pages. This week’s Psalm reading is Psalm 42 (Quemadmodum) and Psalm 43 (Judica me, Deus), which are the opening Psalms of Book Two in the Prayer Book Psalter. These two Psalms are beautifully illustrated in our upcoming book, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, which sent for a final proof this week, with proof arrival anticipated for Monday, 1/23. If no glitches are found, we could have the book in print and available from my Amazon Author Central page before Fourth Sunday in Epiphany, the final Sunday in the season in A.D. 2023.

In the book, readers will find three beautiful and inspiring illustrations of Psalm 42, including a representation of the “my soul” (Vulgate Latin: anima mea. Psalm 42: 1, 2, 8). Also found in the book is an image of Psalm 43 from Les Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry (or The Very Rich Houres of the Duke de Berry) prepared by the Limbourg brothers for John, Duke of Berry, between 1412 and 1416), which is folio 61v, Musee Conde, Chantilly, France, via Wikipedia Commons.

In additional news, our seasonal book, Easter: The Resurrection of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition is almost complete with 168 pages and about 120 illustrations. It should be in print well before Easter Day.

As always, thank you for your interest in and support for this online ministry.

Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

My Podcast Homilies in the Psalter Series are now uploaded through First Sunday after Epiphany. Since there was no First or Second Sunday after Christmas in A.D. 2022, for the Blog posting I have skipped forward to Epiphany (Day) and First Sunday after Epiphany. The Podcast Homilies for the two missing Sundays have been uploaded to the Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer-Psalter Series page.

In order not reduce the value and impact of the Prayer Book Psalter – Picture Book Edition, which should be available during January pending receipt of a replacement image from the British Library, I’m only showing one illustration from the Stuttgart Psalter. On page 132 of the book I include an explanation of which verses are being illustrated. The book will have this image plus 163 other illustrations from the Stuttgart Psalter and another 49 images from other historic Psalters through the 16th C.

Meanwhile, work continues on Easter: The Resurrection of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition. As of today, there are 166 pages with 113 illustrations from 586 A.D. to the 21st C. I am waiting on an image from the collection at the British Library and permission from an American company for the use of an image from its website.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. I hope you will tell others about the resources now available on this site.

Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

Yes, I know that in 2022 the First Sunday after Christmas is replaced by the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord, but that does not mean that the publication of our new Podcast Homilies – Psalter Series will not post episodes for both First Sunday after Christmas Day and Second Sunday after Christmas Day. The Psalm appointed for First Sunday after Christmas Day is Psalm 145, one the the six doxologies which end the book of Psalms. On this occasion there are two illustrations, a page from the Stuttgart Psalter, produced circa 820 A.D. in the Scriptorium at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris, and the Psalter of Henry VIII, which is Ms. Royal 2 A XVI, British Library, London, England, produced around 1640 but possibly a decade earlier. Both illustrations will be used in the new AIC Bookstore Publication, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition.

I am pleased to report that progress on the Psalter book has gone extremely well and much faster that I thought possible. The book will be published in a single volume with 450 pages plus color cover. The proofreading and corrections are complete, but there are some technical issues to be resolved and a higher-quality replacement image ordered from the British Library for an illustration of Psalm 81 from the Lucas Psalter, made in Belgium between 1480 and 1490. I hope we can have the book in print during Epiphany season, which begins on Friday of the coming week.

To all who follow this web site, on behalf of The Anglican Internet Church, Inc., I wish each of you a Happy New Year for A.D. 2023.

Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

The appointed Psalm reading for Christmas Day is Psalm 89:1-30. In the Podcast Homily I explore the traditional understanding of the Psalm, especially its Christological symbolism. I’ve attached three illustrations. The first is an illumination on Psalm 89, verses 6 to 14a, from the Stuttgart Psalter, in which Christ stands at center with King David at left and two Hebrew scholars on the right. The second is the upper portion of an 11th C. mosaic of Isaiah at Neo Moni Monastery, Chios, Greece. The third is an illumination of Luke writing his Gospel from the Ada Gospels. The Podcast Homily for the series will be posted on both the Welcome/Home page and the Podcast Homilies – Morning Prayer pages by the end of the day on Friday, Dec. 23rd.

Stuttgart Psalter, circa 820 A.D., Cod. Bibl. Fol.23, Folio 103v, Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany. The image is used with Psalm 89 in the AIC Bookstore Publication, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, to be published early in 2023 A.D. As it stands now the book will have 448 pages with over 200 illustrations from 820 A.D. to the 16th C.

I’m also pleased to report progress on the proposed book, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition. Three proof copies are in circulation for purposes of proof-reading and general commentary. It seems it is possible to publish the book in a single volume. It is now possible that the book could be available earlier in A.D. 2023 than I thought possible.

Thank you for supporting the AIC into its second decade on the Web. On behalf of everyone associated with the AIC, I wish each of you a Merry Christmas.

The Podcast Homily for Fourth Sunday in Advent, now linked from the Welcome and Podcast Homiles-Morning Prayer pages, is focused on the appointed Psalm reading for the day, Psalm 80, a lament by the sons of Asaph concerning bad things happening to the faithful and the endurance of those who maintain their faith in the Lord. This image will be used on page 232 of the new AIC Bookstore Publication, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, to be published during Epiphany season 2023 A.D. The book in its present form has 163 images from the Stuttgart Psalter plus another 49 images from twenty-two other Psalters or Books of Hours from the 10th to the 16th C.

The Podcast Homily for Second Sunday in Advent was uploaded to our Podbean site earlier today. There are links to it on the Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer and Welcome pages.

The appointed Psalm is Psalm 25 and the illustration for the episode is from the Psalter of Henry VIII, made for King Henry in southeast England, probably London, between 1540 and 1541. Some scholars date the work to a decade or more earlier.

Early next year I expect to publish a companion book with about 450 pages in two volumes, with illustrations from 23 historic documents. In its present form there are illustrations of pages from eight Psalms from the Psalter of Henry VIII. For each Psalm, the opening letter will be a colored scroll and initial designed by Corkie Shibley for this publication. I’ve been busy this week inserting the Scroll/Initial letter in the book.

As always, I thank you for interest in the AIC and its web site. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!