Celebrate Advent the Anglican Way

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Advent-2018-Mini-TitleAt the AIC we teach the concept of celebrating the Church Calendar.  Each season has its own focus and now that Advent is here, Anglicans should celebrate their heritage.  Here are a couple of suggestions:

The AIC Great “O” Antiphons videos for each of the last seven days in Advent, with prayers, antiphons, illustrations and music. Program length: 10-12 min.   Podcast versions in MP3 format are linked from the Podcast Archive page.

December 18th – O Sapientia

December 19th – O Adonai

December 20th – O Radix Jesse

December 21st – O Clavis David

December 22nd – O Oriens

December 23rd – O Rex Gentium

December 24th-Emmanuel

 

 

 

 

New Testament: Gospels – Episodes 32 to 35

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Christ-Good Shepherd-Ravenna-5thC
I Am the Good Shepherd, Byzantine mosaic, 1st half, 5th C. A.D., Mausoleum of Galla Placida, Ravenna, Italy.  The Yorck Project: 10,000 Masterworks.

Keeping with the pace started last week, I’ve uploaded four more episodes in the New Testament: Gospels series.  This week’s uploads are Episode Thirty-two, Episode Thirty-three, Episode Thirty-four and Episode Thirty-five.  In these four episodes I complete my discussion and commentary on the “I Am” declarations in the Gospel of St. John, including the Bread of Life; The Living Bread; The Light of the World; I Am From above; I Am not of this world; Before Abraham Was, I Am; I Am the Door; I Am the Good Shepherd; I Am the Resurrection and the Life; I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and, finally, I am the True Vine.

As always, selection of a featured illustration is difficult, with so many choices across four episodes.  This time I selected another example of early Byzantine art in the west at Ravenna, Italy.  The photograph was used in the Yorck Project’s DVD: 10,000 Masterworks.   The DVD is accessible online, but be prepared: there are actually more than 10,000 images, which are arranged alphabetically, some by title and some by artist.

Watch Episode Thirty-two.           Podcast version of Episode Thirty-two

Watch Episode Thirty-three.      Podcast version of Episode Thirty-three.

Watch Episode Thirty-four.       Podcast version of Episode Thirty-four.

Watch Episode Thirty-five.        Podcast version of Episode Thirty-five.

The next group of four episodes, 36 to 39, are about the Seven Signs in the Gospel of St. John, treating those six which are unique to St. John’s Gospel first, followed by the last two, which appear in the Synoptic Gospels.   These are complete and will be featured here during the week of Nov. 10th, when the featured illustration is a 15th C. fresco of the Raising of Lazarus from a church in Greece.

The next group, also of four, 40 to 43, is focused on Unique Themes, Details & Events in the Gospel of St. John, beginning with Themes; followed by Details of Content; followed by unique mentions of Places and People, including Cana and Samaria; Peter; Nathanael; Philip; Andrew; the Samaritan Woman (Photina).   These four are complete and will be featured here during the week of Nov. 17th, when the featured illustration is a mid-19th Eastern Orthodox Christ Pantokrator image in Romania.

The final two episodes are complete in script and slides but still need a voice track.  The voice track will be recorded during the week of Nov. 10th with release during the week of Nov. 24th.  They are focused on more unique details & one five unique events in the Gospel of St. John, including the Visit of Nicodemus; the Restoration of the Adulterous Woman; Foot Washing on Maundy Thursday; the institution of the Sacrament of Penance/Confession; and Jesus’ Breakfast the the Seashore with the eleven remaining Disciples; and, ending with some summary slides on all four Gospels and the series.  The featured illustration will be a splendid mosaic of Jesus washing St. Peter’s feet from the tradtion of the Eastern Church.

In other news, I have upgraded the illustrations throughout the AIC Web Site and fixed (I hope) some glitches in spacing that in previous attempts don’t want to stay fixed.  I’ll be very surprised is they stay fixed.  I think I need some help from the technical people at WordPress.com.

As always, thank you for your interest and support.  May God bless you in all that you do in His Name! Amen! Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

 

Bible Study Videos: Episode Fourteen

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Luke-with Symbol-2nd Version- Gospel of Otto III
Luke the Evangelist with his traditional symbol, the Ox, an illumination strongly influenced by the Byzantine-style, from The Gospels of Otto III, made at the Benedictine Monastery on Reichenau Island, Lake Constance, Southern Germany, in the mid-11th C. The original is at the Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany.  Public Domain (Yorck Project: 10,000 Masterworks).

Episode Fourteen is the 3rd in the New Testament: Gospels Bible Study Video series to be focused on the Gospel of St. Luke.  Topics include more on the Nativity, with special emphasis on the third angelic “annunciation,” this time to the shepherds; the last 2 of 4 unique songs in the Gospel of St. Luke, the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis; plus the prophecies of Simeon and Anna.  The episode includes 8 illuminations in colors and gold on parchment from the 11th C. and 3 from the 13th C.; 2 frescoes from the 13th C. and one from the 14th C.; a spectacular mosaic of the Holy Family registering according to the decree of Quirinius from the 1st Qtr, 14th C. near Constantinople/Istanbul; 1 enamel from the 15th C.; 1 oil on canvas from the 15th C; and 2 watercolors from the 19th C.  Nearly all of these are not widely-seen.  They were found in recently-digitized collections in England, Germany, Italy, Spain and Asia Minor.  I hope viewers enjoy seeing these inspiring works of faith as much as I have enjoyed searching archives to find appropriate images and help them into public view on the Web.

Watch the Video on our YouTube channel.              Listen to the Podcast hosted on our Podbean channel.

It was difficult to decide which illustration to include in this Blog posting,  The one which really sums up the concept of “behold” as used by St. Luke is from the Gospels of Otto III, one of the Holy Roman Emperors who followed in the line of Charlemagne, crowned HRE at Rome in 800 A.D.  I used it in a blog posting in June A.D. 2018.  The work was painted at the Reichenau monastery, Reichenau, Germany, the same facility where the Bamberg Apocalypse was made between 1000 and 1020 A.D.  Everything the reader/viewer should “behold” flows fantastically above St. Luke’s head in nearly every color imaginable, but especially red and yellow.  The original is at the Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany.  This image came from the Yorck Project: 10,000 Masterworks, made available on a DVD in the early 21st C.

Meanwhile I have been continuing to work on Episode Thirty-two and Episode Thirty-three, on the Gospel of St. John.  My wife, Corkie, and I did take time off to celebrate our 47th anniversary with a trip to Roanoke and Lexington, VA.  We paid homage to Roanoke’s famed Black Dog Salvage, bringing home two pieces of furniture.  We enjoyed our stay at the Robert E. Lee Hotel and dinner at the Southern Inn Restaurant (directly across Main St. from the hotel).  Corkie drove the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Roanoke and Afton Mountain/Rockfish Gap, west of Charlottesville.  The views from the many lookouts across the Shenadoah Valley were truly spectacular.  I must not leave out our lunch visit to another Roanoke landmark, The New Yorker Delicatessen and Restaurant on Williamson Road where I had a real Reuben and Corkie feasted on a liverwurst (the real thing) on rye.

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As always, may God bless you in all that you do in His Name! Amen!  Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

Bible Study Videos – Episode Thirteen

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Annunciation-Meister_der_Braunschweig-Magdeburger_Schule_1275
THE ANNUNCIATION.  The Archangel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin presented in tempera and gilt on vellum, circa 1275 A.D., attributed to the Master of the Braunschweig-Magdeburg School, from the Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria, as reproduced in The Yorck Project: 10,000 Masterworks. Public domain.

In what I think is the best episode yet in the revised and expanded version of the AIC Bible Study Video series, New Testament: Gospels is now available.  Episode Thirteen features many rarely-seen illustrations from the 11th, 13th, 18th, 19th and 2nd Qtr 20th C. to aid in viewer/listener comprehension of the Gospel of St. Luke.

Watch the Video.          Listen to the Podcast

The focus in Episode Thirteen is on the second and best known of three “annunciations” in the Gospel of St Luke, in this case “The” Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin by the Archangel Gabriel; the first two of 4 songs in the Gospel of St. Luke, the Magnificat and the Benedictus, the latter occasioned by the birth of John the Baptist and the loosening of the tongue of Zacharias.

Personally, I really miss the congregational singing of the Benedictus (as well as the Jubilate Deo and the Te Deum laudamus).  No musical instrument, no matter how well played can equal the emotional feeling of united voices singing the theological songs.

I have completed both the sound and pictures for Episode Fourteen and will complete the video and upload it next week.  I am currently prepared the slides and script for Episode Thirty-two, on the Gospel of St. John.

As always, thank you for your interest and support.  May God bless you in all that you do in His Name! Amen!  Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

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New Testament: Gospels – Episode Two

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Matthew-Writing-Codex Aureus-Stockholm-c750-Detail1-PCAEpisode Two in the revised edition of the AIC Bible Study Video series, The New Testament:Gospels, is now available in both video and podcast formats.  The episode, an introduction to the Gospel of St. Matthew beginning with its history and the genealogy of Jesus, includes four images of St. Matthew not often seen by the general public. The best of these, at left, is an illumination of St. Matthew from the Codex Aureus of Canterbury, made around 750 A.D. in England in the region of Canterbury.   The Codex Aureus (Golden Gospel) was stolen by Viking raiders in the 9th C. and bought back through a monetary ransom payment later the same century.  Where it resided between then and its movement to Spain in the early 16th C. is unclear.  Two centuries later, in 1690 A.D. it was bought by the King of Sweden and since then has resided at the Konigliga Bibliotek (Royal Library), Stockholm, Sweden. The Codex is also known as the Codex Aureus of Stockholm.  The image is from the Yorck Project’s CD collection, 10,000 Masterworks through Wikipedia Commons.  I adjusted the image using perspective and other correction methods in Photoshop.

The second ancient image is equally magnificent, a page from a Gospel book produced by the Ottonian dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors in the late 9th or early 10th C. from Cotton Ms Tiberius A II, in the collection of the British Library, London, England.   The third, circa 950 A.D., also comes the Ottonian period, from the collection of the New York Public Library.    The fourth is closely-related to the start of the reign of Charlesmagne, the first emperor of the revived Holy Roman Empire in Europe, crowned by the sitting Pope in 800 A.D.  The source is the Harley Golden Gospel, made in Aachen, Germany, around 800 A.D. from Ms. Harley 2788, also in the British Library, London.  Most of us in the Western Church do not give enough credit to Charlesmagne’s commitment to the spread of Christianity into the Germanic territories.  His sponsorship resulted in the creation of some of the finest religious art in the Western Church.

Watch Episode Two.    Listen to Episode Two.

Episode Three, focused on more of the genealogy of Jesus and St. Matthew’s theme of the life of Jesus as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy,  will be released next week.  The episode features more remarkable images of St. Matthew and other religious art.

As always, may God bless you in all that you do in His Name!  Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

The New Testament: Gospels – Episode One

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NT-Gospels-Title1-rev

After repeated delays for technical reasons, Episode One in the revised AIC Bible Study Video series, The New Testament: Gospels, is now available in both video and podcast version.   The new version is the third to be produced.  The first was a series of live videocasts from my former parish.  The second edition was introduced in A.D. 2015 after my retirement from pulpit ministry at Epiphany A.D. 2014.

Version Three includes many improvements, including a revised format more consistent with the style of the more recent AIC videos; many more examples of historic art from the 6th through the 20th C. from archives which have been digitized for wider audiences; and more direct quotations of Scripture, especially in the episodes on the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, which were the earliest in the series presented in a different format than later episodes.   The series retains the original focus on teaching for the Laity and the informal style of presentation.

Watch the Video of Episode One                   Listen to the Podcast of Episode One

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Luke Writing from Ms Harley 5785, Folio 187v, perspective correction applied, British Library, London, England.

Among the examples of historic art included in Episode One is Luke Writing His Gospel, an illumination in tempera and gold on parchment produced in the region of Constantinople in the late 11th to early 12th C.  I applied perspective correction to the original image from Ms Harley 5785, Folio 187v, British Library, London, England.   Our archive now includes nearly a thousand such images from libraries, museums, churches, and government archives in England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and the United States.   These historic images are both beautiful and instructive on the spiritual message in the scenes depicted.  I have included works in nearly every artistic medium, including icons, frescos, mosaics, oil paintings, watercolors, etchings and engravings.  All examples which have been modified for correction of perspective and other flaws with the objective of presenting a finished work more like its original shape are so identified in the credit lines.  Examples from many libraries and other sources can only be used for non-commerical purposes.  I have removed the links to all video and podcast versions of the earlier series.

The text and slides for Episode Two through Episode Sixteen, the latter including material from the opening chapters of the Gospel of St. Luke, have been completed.  Each needs to be converted into video form, which is a multi-step and time-consuming process, but I hope to release one episode per week throughout 2019 A.D. until all 45 episodes in the series are complete.   Things that can upset the schedule include the temptation to go back into finished work to add historic art more recently discovered.

As always, thank you for your interest and support.  Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

Lessons & Carols for Christmas Eve

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Lessons and Carols-2018-Slide3The revised version of our unique Christmas Eve video, Lessons & Carols for Christmas Eve is now available in video and podcast format.  Many of the “new” historic Church art images added to our other programs have been incorporated, as well as new voice responses for the opening words, which repeat the closing antiphons for the companion series, The Great “O” Antiphons (also now available in seven revised episodes linked from the Digital Library and Podcast Archive pages.  My thanks to Fr. Ken Mills and his congregation at Holy Cross Anglican, Midlothian, VA for providing the voice responses.

Watch the video

Listen to the Podcast

My next Blog posting is about the revised edition of The Twelve Days of Christmas, which is now available through links on the Digital Library and Podcast Archive pages.

Revised Great “O” Antiphons Series

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Yesterday I uploaded all seven revised episodes of our Seasonal Video series, The Great “O” Antiphons.  The series is available in video through our YouTube channel and in podcast versions through links on the Podcast Archive page.   The A.D. 2018 revisions modify the presentations style, introduce many of the examples of Church art, especially those from Western Europe between the 9th and the 15th C., and offer new voice responses.    Each episode includes a hymn.

The series follows the model of the original service from the Latin tradition in the 12th C.  After 9th centuries., there still is no better teaching service offering instruction in the Christian Faith.

Dec. 18th – O Sapientia (Wisdom)
Dec. 19th – O Adonai (Lord)
Dec. 20th – O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
Dec. 21st – O Clavis David (Key of David)
Dec. 22nd – O Oriens (Dayspring)
Dec. 23rd – O Rex Gentium (King of Nations)
Dec. 24th – O Emmanuel (God with us)

Visit the Digital Library page for the videos

Visit the Podcast Archive page for the podcasts.

Later this will I will release the new Podcast Homily for Fourth Sunday in Advent and the new version of Lessons & Carols for Christmas Eve.

May God bless you in all that you do in His Name.  Amen.  Glory be to God for all things! Amen.

Christmas: the Nativity of Our Lord – Episode Two

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The Holy Family Flees to Egypt, miniature in colored inks and gilt on paper, Book of Hours, c. 1430 A.D. Netherlands. MSS Additional 50005, British Library, London, England,  Perspective correction applied.

Episode Two in the AIC Seasonal Video series, Christmas: the Nativity of Our Lord is now available in both video and podcast versions.  Episode Two is focused on the Collect, Epistle and Gospel readings for First Sunday after Christmas Day and Second Sunday after Christmas Day, plus the 17 hymns or carols of Christmas in our St. Chrysostom Hymnal and which are not in the venerable 1940 Hymnal or are arranged to different tunes.

 

Watch the video.       Listen to the Podcast.

Episode Two completes the cycle of having a teaching video for every season on the Anglican Church Calendar from the start of Advent through the end of Trinity season with Sunday next before Advent.    Videos for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Gesims (or Pre-Lent), Lent, Easter (up to Ascension), Trinity Sunday and Whitsunday plus Whitsuntide, Trinity season are now linked from the Digital Library page with Podcast versions linked from the Podcast Archive page.  All programs are displayed in calendar order, with Advent at the top and Trinity at the bottom.  The video versions include illustrations in the form of icons, frescoes, painting, murals, mosaics, paintings, etchings, photographs, illuminations, engravings and miniatures from the religious traditions of both the Western and Eastern Churches.  In each series you viewers and listeners will find cross-references to Other AIC Resources on the same topics, key words, and phrases.

In other on-going work, I’ve been updating the Podcast Homilies series, originally produced in 2015 A.D. based on 12-minutes homilies I read at my former parish.  The revised A.D. 2018 version will include additional material plus cross-referencing to Other AIC Resources on similar topics, words, or phrases, including our Seasonal, Christian Education and Bible Study videos and our AIC Bookstore Publications.   The new versions should be available well before the start of Advent season.  Also in production are revised versions of The Great “O” Antiphons for Advent; Lessons & Carols for Christmas Eve; and The Twelve Days of Christmas series.

As always, thank you for your interest and support.  Please consider clicking on the Follow Anglican Internet Church banner.  You’ll be asked to enter your email address so that our site provider can send you notice of each new posting.  Please be assured that we do not share email addresses with another other organization or jurisdiction.

May God bless you in all that you do in His Name!  Amen!  Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

 

The Podcast Homilies Rebuild

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Just a little bit of introspection today.  I thought readers might want to know what’s in store for 2019 A.D. at the AIC web site.  With the coming completion of the Seasonal Video series (with Christmas: The Nativity of Our Lord‘s Episode Two in late October), attention turns to restructuring the Podcast Homilies platform, last changed early in 2015 A.D.

The Podcast Homilies page grew out of the 12-15 minutes homilies I delivered before my retirement from pulpit ministry.  The PH series is primarily focused on the Epistle and Gospel readings for the Sundays in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.   The restructuring will involved integrating the Podcast Homilies into the inventory of teaching material available through Other AIC Resources.    For each of the Podcast Homilies I will add mentions of where the verses cited in the script are used in the 1928 B.C.P. liturgies and also cross-referencing each homily to where the same words, phrases, concepts, subjects are treated in Other AIC materials.

When the project is complete, hopefully by late Winter 2018-2019 A,D., readers and listeners will be able to take full advantage of the greatly-enlarged library of materials available on or through the AIC Web Site.  For example: in a homily which includes a reading from the Gospel of St. Luke, there will be cross-references to where the same reading appears in our Bible Study video series New Testament: Gospels; the appropriate Seasonal Video series with episode number; appropriate Christian Education series (Nicene Creed; Lord’s Prayer; Lives of the Saints; The War on Christianity); appropriate AIC Bookstore Publications, especially Layman’s Lexicon.

As always, thank you for your interest and support for this online ministry.  May God bless you in all that you do in His Name!  Amen!  Glory be to God for all things!  Amen!