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This week I have been reviewing files and updating some content. In doing so I noticed a few oversights, including the absence of a post for Trinity 23, which will not appear not the calendar in A.D. 2025. I will try to remedy the absence with a new post later in the year. For this week, I refer readers/viewers to the Fr. Ron’s Blog post for Trinity 17 which was produced for September 20th, A.D. 2024. It featured an exceptionally fine 12th C. illumination of the Holy Spirit whispering into the ear of Gregory the Great.

This week I start a new series of posts highlighting the content of the AIC Bookstore. There are more than two dozen volumes covering a wide range of topics, from volumes on each of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Revelation plus special volumes on the Easter and Christmas seasons. Today’s focus is a topical volume which has its origins in my earliest homilies at St. John Chrysostom Anglican Church (now closed) in Richmond, VA. Layman’s Lexicon: a Handbook of Scriptural, Theological & Liturgical Terms, came about out my own frustration in remembering the answers to frequently-asked questions from parishioners and website visitors. I started writing them down, putting them down in file folders with appropriate sources/definitions, etc. My wife Corkie used the entries to create a new graphic for the background of the cover. She created the Holy Spirit graphic based on a sanctuary mural at St. Joseph’s Villa Chapel, Richmond, VA, where the parish met. The volume includes nearly 350 words or phrases ranging from Abba, an Aramaic affectionate word meaning father, to Zoe, the Septuagint Greek word for the name of Eve. All entries in the book are crossed referenced to similar or related topics in the book. In the electronic version of the book cross references are operable internal links.

Some entries, such as Abba includes only 17 lines, while the Hades entry covers nearly four pages. For each entry there are, where appropriate, Scriptural cross-references, notations on where the word or phrase appears in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which helps readers understand more about Anglican liturgical worship. Entries are not encyclopedic in scope but are intended to point a reader to sources for more elaborate definitions and also where interesting images are available. Layman’s Lexicon is a very handy quick-reference resource for any clergyman but also anyone seeking broader knowledge of the origins of Christian worship and belief.

The book, and all our publications, are summarized on the AIC Bookstore page. Each is printed on demand and available only through my Amazon Author Central page. At the back of the book is a summary description of each of the books available.

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

This week I complete the series on the broad topic of liturgical worship as practices in the Anglican tradition and turn to another topic concerning the content and purpose of this site and the AIC in general.

Traditional Anglicans around the world use different versions of the Book of Common Prayer, first produced in the United Kingdom in 1549 A.D. and used for the Whitsunday service in that same year. Here in the United States, most parishes use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which is now in the public domain, having been published more than 95 years ago. In earlier editons I have commented on several virtues of that volume. In this final post, I stress one final characteristic of worship using the BCP. That characteristic touches upon the very nature of liturgical worship. Worship, in its most essential form, as noted earlier, relies of the words and phrases based upon Scripture; the “corporate” nature of such worship, that is, it is a service in which the members of the congregation have met together to worship in a manner which ties together the words spoken by the celebrant and the responses or simultaneous reading of the text. In other words, traditional worship is a joint action which is more than the sum of the individual voices. The historical record shows that this form of worship has been used since the first centuries of the Church Universal. What makes it unique is the spirit of humility in which mankind speaks and sings toward its merciful Creator, acknowledging the supremacy of the Almighty and the absolute dependence of the created upon their Creator for their ultimate salvation. Thank you.

From the three-part Kyrie Eleison:

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Over the last 15 years or more, this site has offered access to traditional understanding of the nature of humankind and its relationship with its Creator. These teachings are offered in several formats. For those who prefer printed materials, the AIC Bookstore offers a unique collection of prayer, reading and study materials, including a separate illustrated volume, with commentary, on each of the four Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles and Revelation and an illustrated volume on the seasons of Christmas and Easter; two versions of the Psalms; instructional books on personal prayer and other volumes. The purpose of these volumes is to make traditional teaching available at reasonable prices. Special category books including the 1928 BCP, a hymnal of traditional songs and hymns, a collection of prayers for use by the laity; and other special books, including Layman’s Lexicon, with definitions of over 340 liturgical and theological words and phrase, and a cookbook.

For those who prefer to learn by listening, we offer MP3 podcasts of traditional teachings for all the Sundays and seasons on the Church Calendar. These are available using from the Podcast Archive page. In additional, there are podcast homilies for each of these occasions, linked from the Podcast Homilies page.

For those who prefer visual resources, many of these same materials are available in video form for all the seasons on the Anglican worship calendar, including complete series for the Saints Days & Holy Days based on the 1928 BCP list of sixteen saints days plus a separate series on more than 30 Christians saints from other worship traditions as well as more saints from the Anglican tradition whose feast days are not found in the 1928 BCP. These are linked from the Digital Library page. As noted above, an MP3 version of the same material is available on the Podcast Archive page. These are arranged in the order of the Church calendar.

Please note that all these resources are also reached using the links found at the top and bottom of the Home and Welcome pages. Except for the bookstore publications, all these materials are available on demand free of charge. Throughout the books and the video series, we have included examples of Christian art across the ages, including mosaics, frescoes, altarpieces, paintings, etchings, lithographs and icons from both the Western and Eastern Church traditions.

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

The readings for Trinity 16, including comments on the changes to the original Collect by Archbishop Cranmer, the Gospel reading (Luke 7:11-17) (The Raising of the Son of the Widow of Nain), and St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians (Ephesians 3:13-21) were discussed and illustrated in my Father Ron’s Blog posting for September 12, A.D. 2024 and are also discussed in Episode Seven in the video series, Trinitytide: the Teaching Season, found on the Video Archive page with a podcast version found on the Podcast Homilies page.

This week I have been very busy trying to update the maintenance of my yard, somewhat neglected owing to joint discomfort and procrastination, before the first frost arrives. I have not had time to continues the series of posts on the broad topic of Liturgical Worship. I will once again emphasize that “worship” is the operative word; that is, compared to other descriptive words including praise, joy and song in the list of priorities. Next time, I will focus on more of the repeated uses of Old and New Testament verses in the Holy Communion liturgy in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

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

The Church’s celebration of the Feast Day of St. Bartholomew fell on a Sunday this year for the first time since A.D. 2014. It will not do so again until A.D. 2031, 2036 and 2042. The Collect for the Feast of St. Bartholomew in the Anglican tradition was composed by Archbishop Cranmer in 1549 and revised for the 1662 B.C.P.

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who didst give to thine Apostle Bartholomew
grace truly to believe and preach thy Word; Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church
to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same;
through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. Bartholomew is named in all three synoptic Gospels but not in the Gospel of John. Since St. John includes two references to Nathaniel (John 1:45-51 and 21:2) and does not mention anyone called Bartholomew scholars assume that the two men are one and the same. In St. John’s account he is described as a native of the village of Cana in Galilee (John 21:2). Early Church scholar Eusebius wrote in the 4th C. that Bartholomew evangelized in present-day India, although some modern scholars insist that he preached in modern Saudi Arabia and not India. The relics of St. Bartholomew were moved to Rome and installed at the Cathedral of San Bartolomeo (Latin spelling) on the banks of the Tiber by Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. The location was said to have been used previously by pagans as a medical center. From than connection arose the modern usage of the saints name in association with hospitals, including renown St. Batholomew’s Hospital in London, England.

There are more illustrations and commentary in Episode Thirteen of the AIC Video series, The Lives of the Saints, First Series, with a podcast/MP3 audio version linked from the Podcast Archive page.

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

Apologies to regular site visitors for the absence of new posts for several weeks. It’s been a somewhat lazy summer, trying to catch up on personal and Church affairs since returning from a vacation in Hawaii in early June. My garden got ahead of me and my muse for writing these posts deserted me.

This week’s post is something of a “catching up” with topics I had planned to wrote about. At the top of the list is the broad subject of Liturgical Worship. In today’s world given to transitory things, a tendency toward single and trendy topics, 21st C. people seem to prefer things short and snappy and which do no make too many demands upon our time. As an Anglican, I find that set version of worship helps focus the mind and heart on truly important issues rather than that which is transitory. I was reminded of this in happening upon a “worship” service in a public location in which the focus seemed purely on expressions, spoken repeatedly, on the phrase “we love Thee.”

Instead, I offer on this occasion a catena, or collection of Scriptural verses, based on Psalm 5:1-3, 7-8, & 12-13, which focuses on the two-way aspects of faith and worship. It appears as the first of two Psalm readings in the Third Hour Office, in Hear Us, O Lord: Daily Prayers for the Laity. Information about the book is found on the AIC Bookstore page. Like all AIC books it is available through my Amazon Author Central page. In the book it is formatted as below in responsive reading style. The text does not include verse numbers because the WordPress system assumes that a number is part of a list and the text reverts to the left margin and does not include small caps letters, which are used for “Lord” in verses 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9. Psalm 9 is traditionally credited to King David.

Ponder my words, O Lord,
Consider my mediation.
O hearken thou unto the voice of my calling, my King and my God:
For unto thee will I make my prayer,
My voice shalt thou hear betimes, O Lord;
Early in the morning I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
But as for me, in the multitude of thy mercy will I come into thine house;
And in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness, because of mine enemies;
Make thy way plain before my face.
And let all them that put their trust in thee rejoice:
They shall ever be giving of thanks, because thou defendest them; they that love thy Name shall be joyful in thee:
For thou, Lord, wilt give thy blessing unto the righteous,
And with thy favourable kindness wilt thou defend him as with a shield.

In future posts in this series I will focus on specific aspects of Liturgical Worship in the Anglican tradition.

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

Sunday, June 29th, is the Feast Day of St. Peter. The readings appointed for the Feast of St. Peter are rarely heard in Anglican Sunday worship, but it did on Sunday, June 29, A.D. 2025. This is because the Feast of St. Peter rarely occurs on a Sunday. It last appeared on a Sunday in A.D. 2014. In the Second Quarter of the year it will appear again only in A.D. 2031, 2036 and 2042. The image above appears in a high-resolution version as Illustration No. 75, in the AIC Bookstore Publication, The Gospel of Matthew: Annotated & Illustrated, which is available through my Amazon Author Central page, with details shown on the AIC Bookstore page. It was also used in Slide 33 in Episode Three of the AIC Christian Education Video series, Trinitytide: the Teaching Season.

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