benedictus benedicat

Season of travel has begun . . .

It would be impossible in the space of a blog adequately to encapsulate my peregrinations over the past six weeks.  The list is as follows: Pension Committee meetings in Toronto (to my clerical colleagues: despite the markets, the long term performance is still positive); National House of Bishops in Niagara Falls; Implementation Team meeting in Sudbury; Confirmation at St John’s, North Bay; Clergy Conference; Deanery Day and confirmations in Thunder Bay; Clergy Retreat for the Diocese of Ontario; conference on the Anglican Covenant in Toronto; confirmations and ACW Annual in North Bay; and then, yesterday, a joint service at St John’s, Copper Cliff which included parishioners from Christ Church, Lively. 

Each way-point conjures up happy and entertaining memories – like the moment Cassandra Martin bet me $50 I wouldn’t wear my crocs at the confirmation at St Paul’s, Thunder Bay.  (Ha!  The Discretionary Fund appreciates the donation!)  Then there was the privilege of meeting the eminent Anglican theologian, Dr Paul Avis, and Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Bishop of Kaduna in Nigeria and noted scholar of Islam at the Covenant Conference.  The ACW Annual also had some wonderful moments, like the inclusion of a group of women from Thunder Bay via Skype and a sermon in the closing Eucharist by Archdeacon Linda White that was both a lovely tribute to Muriel Newton White and a gospel exhortation.  And our Clergy Conference seemed to hit about the right balance of inspiration and information, worship and fellowship.  Other notable events include the celebration of sixty years of ordained ministry of Dean Emeritus Lawrence Robertson; the 90^th birthday of The Rev. Muriel Hornby and the 80^th birthday of The Rev. Mal Binks; the 10^th anniversary of the ordination to the Priesthood of The Vens Anne Germond, Deborah Kraft and The Revs Mal Binks, Paul Walmsley and Glen Taylor; and the 20^th anniversary of Glen Miller’s ordination to the diaconate.

We have much to be thankful for in the diocese, and I will try to be better about posting photos and updates of goings-on in my goings-out.

 

Unexpected travelling companions

I was surprised and delighted to share a flight from Sault Ste Marie to Toronto yesterday with The Revs Henk and Beth Willems.  They were headed to Frankfurt for a Dutch river cruise.  I was headed to a national House of Bishops meeting.  Guess who got the better deal!

Have a great time, you youngsters!  See you when you get back on May 1st!

An Easter homily

I have been asked if I might share the Easter sermon that I delivered at the Cathedral this morning.  Let me say that the worship was quite glorious, thanks largely to those who participated in guiding us through the liturgy, not least the Cathedral Choir under the direction of Stephen Mallinger.  The Lloyd setting, Easter Anthems, the Bach sonata at Communion, Batten's 'O Sing Joyfully', and the Widor postlude were magnificent!  My humble offering may be found here (pdf).

Χριστός ἀνέστη! 

+Stephen

Grateful for family

Almighty God,
look graciously, we pray, on this your family,
for whom our Lord Jesus Christ
was willing to be betrayed
and given into the hands of sinners,
and to suffer death upon the cross;
who now lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

This is the first collect of Good Friday.  When we pray these words in the intimate community of those who have been our companions on our Holy Week pilgrimage, we are tempted to imagine that we are praying just for ourselves – for the faithful in our parish.  We do think of ourselves as a ‘family’ of sorts.  We have our history and rituals; we have our stories (and our secrets); we have our good will (and our grudges).

As a bishop, my view of the church family has changed.  Although I feel comfortable and welcome at the Cathedral when I am home, most of my Sundays are spent in different churches across the diocese.  Consequently, my perception of the ‘family’ is not especially personal.  And I miss the regular, weekly pastoral contact that parish clergy have with the members of their congregations.  But I do get a view of the church as an ‘extended family’ that few others share, and I am growing in my genealogical knowledge.  Moreover, it is my privilege to enjoy the fellowship of very talented and dedicated pastors and Synod Office staff.  One of the joys of this season is the opportunity to gather with my colleagues in meditation and retreat.  I was grateful to be with the clergy of the Sudbury/Manitoulin Deanery for their Quiet Day on Holy Tuesday at the beautifully refurbished Thorneloe Chapel; and then to join with the clergy of the Algoma Deanery for the annual Maundy Thursday Renewal of Vows service at the Cathedral, followed by lunch at Bishophurst.

But of course, the Collect is really about the ‘family’ of the catholic Church throughout the world.  In the Catechism, candidates are asked, ‘What is the Church?’  The answer is, ‘The family of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit.’  At the spiritual level, we are indeed members of a family, having the same heavenly Father (Ephesians 3.15), sharing a common birth in the waters of Baptism and eating from the same Table.  What is more, it is for this family that Jesus ‘was willing’ to be betrayed.  The Latin phrase in the Sarum liturgy was non dubitavit, which means that he ‘did not hesitate’. 

As we pray for God to look graciously on his family, let us also ask for the grace to be eager in our self-giving, that we might demonstrate our family resemblance to him who did not hesitate to give himself for us.

 

The Lining on the Silver Screen

Once a week, during the six weeks leading up to Easter, Bishophurst is transformed into a movie theatre.  It is the venue of ‘SNL’ – Saturday Night Lent, the brain child of veteran movie watcher, The Rev. Patrick McManus, Incumbent of St Matthew's Church here in the Sault.  Every Saturday night an average audience of about twenty-two people, coming from across the city, gather here to watch a film, and then to discuss it with a view to elucidating Christian themes.  Patrick describes it as ‘where faith and film meet’. 

This year’s theme was ‘The Threat of Resurrection’, and last night the gathering watched ‘The Way’, a recent Emilio Estevez film that tells the story of a father who takes a cathartic walk on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  The journey is a resurrection of sorts for the father, as the tragic death of his estranged son gives birth to new life in him.  The discussion afterwards involved an interview with Mike and Fran Barker who had walked the Camino four times.

Cinema nights are great ways to get people to talk about matters of faith.  A good movie can help us to think more deeply about human nature and the need for redemption.  This year, a similar venture has been mounted by Thorneloe University and Church of the Epiphany in Sudbury.  Called ‘Sinema: Hollywood on the Human Condition’, participants watched movies ranging from ‘The Godfather’ to ‘Kung Fu Panda’ (though the one I specially wished I could have attended was Woody Allen’s, ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ led by Dostoevsky scholar, Bruce Ward).

Movies are often windows on our culture, and thoughtful engagement with them can assist us in framing a Christian response to the questions and challenges presented by the non-Christian world.  And, if you are like Patrick, they can also justify indulging a passion when you should really be working on your sermon!  

Tribute to a good friend

I am in Prince Albert for the funeral of a former parishioner, Clyne Harradence.  He was a very prominent figure in the Church.  How prominent?  Well, the obituaries all mention how he was the Diocesan Chancellor for 42 years, how he was a former Prolocutor of the General Synod, and how he served as the Vice-Chancellor of General Synod for nearly 20 years.  But what sums his stature up best for me was a woman at the Cathedral in Prince Albert who told me that, when she was a girl, she was convinced that the petitions in the service of Morning Prayer went: ‘O Lord, save thy people; and bless Clyne Harradence’!

He was a devout Christian, a devoted servant of the Church, and a great encouragement to his clergy.  At the end of the annual meeting every year, he would rise and say, ‘Mr Dean, I feel we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge how fortunate we are for your leadership!’  A persuasive criminal defence attorney, he would then employ his rhetorical skills in such praise that the decanal sins and ineptitudes of the past year were effectively dismissed, and you thought maybe you should stay on for another year!

And yet, for all of his barrel-chested confidence, at heart he was a tender and a humble man.  He was slightly in awe of clergy, and even when he did not agree with them, he had a profound respect for their office.  I think that this may have to do with the esteem in which he held his father-in-law, Bishop Henry David Martin (1939-1959).  He felt that the priesthood was the highest of human vocations, and confessed to me that he could never be a priest because he wasn’t ‘good enough’.  Indeed, a couple of times a year, as directed in the rubrics, I would read the Exhortation in the Prayer Book, and Clyne would say that it went straight to his heart.

He was not a perfect Christian, and he would have been the first one to tell you this.  But I think that it was the awareness of his imperfections that was at the root of his churchmanship.  He knew that in word and sacrament the grace of God could be found.  I invite you to join me in praying for the abundance of God’s grace on Clyne’s wife, Helen, and the rest of his family and friends.

 

On the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury

Rumours about the impending resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, have been circulating in the press for the past six months.  The confirmation that came on Friday from Lambeth Palace, nevertheless, was unexpected.  As one anticipates the transition and the uncertainty it brings, the image that comes to my mind is the erosion of the polar ice shelf, happening slowly and steadily, but with the occasional dramatic event where a chunk bigger than St Joseph’s Island becomes dislodged and the whole is diminished.

The announcement of Archbishop Rowan’s appointment to the See of Canterbury in 2002 was greeted with much hopefulness.  I remember the former Primate, Michael Peers, telling the Council of General Synod how wise his selection was.  ‘He is a man of deep learning and piety,’ he said, ‘and he is a poet.  The Church needs poets.’  Archbishop Peers’s optimism was shared across a remarkable spectrum of the Church.  While some were suspicious of his professorial pedigree and commitment to creedal orthodoxy, and others lodged protests because of his speculations on the nature of human desire and its implications for sexuality, many saw him as a worthy champion of their cause and a servant of a deeper unity.  Someone recently described the expectancy in messianic terms: ‘He was seen as the new Gregory the Great.’  Well, I doubt if even Gregory the Great could have met such sanguine expectations in these days of political wilfulness in the Church. 

Gregory wrote, ‘All who are superiors should not regard in themselves the power of their rank, but the equality of their nature; and they should find their joy not in ruling over others, but in helping them’ (Regula Pastoralis, ii.6).  Archbishop Rowan, in my experience at least, did not come across as an authoritarian.  I have never heard him lecture his episcopal colleagues or make personal attacks.  His meditations before the last Lambeth Conference sought, rather, to build up.  Quoting Tertullian, he said, ‘A Christian alone is no Christian’, and he urged his brothers and sisters to rediscover common prayer through covenanting with one another.  We are bishops-in-community, he said, and, in our need for one another we have an opportunity to display a view of leadership that is anti-individualistic and presents an antidote to the world’s growing fragmentation. 

His appeal was not a political one.  To be sure, the substance of much of his talks related to the brokenness that was evident in the Communion.  But his vision is theological to its core, growing out of convictions regarding the love of God as manifest in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – a love that challenges and transforms.  His commitment to that love involved the application of his considerable intellectual gifts in thinking imaginatively about Christ’s birth, death and resurrection, and the Church’s sacramental life.  I have wondered how the Church might have lived the past ten years differently if it had really engaged his thinking – if it had read Dostoevsky and Merton with him, if it had explored art and poetry with him, if it had prayed with him before the icons.  I don’t say this because I agree with his theological perspective at every point.  But, as with every truly seminal thinker, he supplies us with a Christian vocabulary and frame of reference that could have been more fruitfully employed in the way we deal with our disagreements.  In my view, the failure of the Church to respond to his leadership over divisive matters has more to do with our own self-righteousness, lust for power and autonomy, and theological laziness, than any political ineptitude on his part.

And so, I view his departure with some wistfulness.  I won’t deny a bit of envy too.  There are worse fates than retiring to a mastership in a Cambridge college.  But, as a colleague, I will miss his sincerity, his compassion, his humour, and his theological insight as the Communion continues to struggle for identity and community.

 

How cool is the Prayer Book?

I confess that I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I agreed to be a speaker at the Cranmer Conference in North Bay this past weekend.  But I honestly couldn’t resist the earnest enthusiasm of Kayla Krasnor and Will Stennett in making the request.  Advertised as an event featuring ‘serious discussion and lots of traditional Anglican Book of Common Prayer services with glorious music, splendid food, and captivating speakers’ this Cranmer Conference replicated similar conferences held in different parts of Canada since 2006.  While in my case it would be hyperbole to describe the speakers as ‘captivating’, the gathering did feature excellent discussion, delicious food and moving worship.  And what made it most interesting was the fact that the conference participants were all young people – those between 19 and 29.  And there were twenty-five.

The theme of the conference was ‘How Firm a Foundation: the Bible and the Prayer Book’.  I delivered three talks, the first treating what the Reformers meant when they referred to the Bible as ‘God’s Word written’ (Article XX).  This was followed by a session on ‘The Bible in the Prayer Book’, where we saw just how permeated the Prayer Book is with Scriptural quotes and allusions.  And then I spoke about ‘The Bible and the Prayer Book’ where we examined Scripture’s place in the lectionary as a curriculum in the school of discipleship.  The discussion demonstrated just how important Scripture and liturgy are to the conference goers and confirmed for me why worship leaders need to take biblical preaching and liturgical presidency seriously.  Jay Koyle provided an excellent example of the former when he spoke at the final banquet on the significance of words.

One of the most moving parts of the weekend was actually using the BCP for services of Evensong, Morning Prayer, Compline, and, at the main service at St John’s Church, Confirmation and Holy Communion.  Our use of plainsong in reciting the Psalter was especially effective.  The discipline of fitting the words to simple musical lines in ancient modes had a way of making us pay closer attention to the thoughts of the psalmist.  The conference included an extremely fine lecture on the history and use of the psalter by our guest organist, Aaron James.  Aaron is a doctoral student at Eastman in Rochester, NY, and won this year’s National Organ Playing Competition in Hamilton.  Aaron was our organist on Sunday when it was my privilege to confirm conference organizer, Kayla Krasnor.  Kayla became a Christian while studying music in London, Ontario.  It was announced at the service that she will be the new interim choir director at St John’s.

When word got around about the conference, a group of over-29s wanted to get in on the action.  So a lunch was organised at St Brice’s Church on Saturday that brought out over forty people from a number of the churches in the deanery.  Following a brief talk on the theology of the Prayer Book, folks asked questions about the future of liturgy in the Church.  They were pleased to hear that the Prayer Book appealed to some of today’s youth and expressed the hope that there might be a resurgence of interest in the BCP.

The organizers tell me that the Cranmer Conference was a great success, with an attendance beyond what they had dared to imagine.  This confirms my impression that the BCP continues to inspire a younger generation, even as we approach the 350^th anniversary of its publication.  But I am not surprised.  The BCP has been called the Bible arranged for daily prayer.  Its language transcends the prosaic, echoing the honesty and insight of generations of saints from the earliest period of the Church’s history who have struggled to follow Jesus Christ, and who have found grace in his word and sacrament.

Muskoka Meanderings

Friday I headed back to Muskoka.  Where in most places congregations thin out in the summer, in Muskoka parish life is busier.  I arrived in Rosseau just in time to enjoy a gourmet meal prepared by The Rev. Peter Simmons.  Peter had auctioned off a dinner in the Rectory as a fundraiser and kindly allowed me to crash the party.  Cedar planked salmon, roast vegetables and carrot cake were on the menu and provided the perfect accompaniment to a delightful evening.

Saturday morning Peter and I paid a visit to Muskoka Woods, a Christian youth resort in Rosseau.  There we were shown around by Ellen Duffield, a parishioner at The Redeemer  and the main visionary behind the resort’s new project they call the Leadership Studio.  With a team of management experts, the Leadership Studio facilitates a programme of experiential learning that fosters both creativity and humility.  We tiptoed around groups of teens who were asking questions about the need for change in the world and how they might act as agents of change.

What a contrast with the afternoon, however.  I rendezvoused with the Revs Tom Cunningham and Barbara Graham at Fenbrook Institution in Gravenhurst.  Fenbrook is a federal medium security correctional facility accommodating some 450 male offenders.  An Anglican service is held there once a month, and Barbara suggested that I accompany them and bring a message.  I used to visit the Saskatchewan Penitentiary regularly when we lived in Prince Albert and found Fenbrook much less oppressive in appearance.  The institution was built in 1998 and the ranges were scattered about the property in what look like independent buildings, whereas Sask Pen is an old Victorian structure that resembles what you might see in an old prison movie.  Barbara has been leading worship services and Bible studies at Fenbrook since it opened.  Her diaconal ministry there is enhanced by the fact that the facility has a high Inuit population (ten of the fourteen that attended our service were from the North), and she and her husband spent many years serving the Anglican Church in the Diocese of the Arctic.  The inmates’ respect and affection for her was evident, and her ministry there has been recently recognised by an award from Correctional Service Canada.

But prisons are prisons.  They breed boredom and desolation.  One fellow I spoke with said that he was not doing well there, that he could feel himself deteriorate, in spite of the efforts he was making to retain his sanity and be engaged in the life of the chapel community.  He doubted that he would ever be released from prison, thanks to Harper’s ‘tough on crime’ legislation, and even if he were released, he said that he had nowhere to go, since his family had abandoned him.  I suggested that God always has a purpose for us, wherever we are (trying to drive home one of the points of my sermon on Romans 12.2).  But he struggles with a deep sense of shame and believes that he is not worthy to be used by God.  His despair elicited my compassion, and I will pray for him.  My visit furnished a reminder that God’s children languish as much in prisons they make for themselves as they do in the prisons made for them by others. 

Saturday night I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Bracebridge called ‘The Monastery’.  Its appointments and comforts rival a luxury hotel, and the hosts were most welcoming and generous.  But I confess that the reason I chose to stay there is because I was curious to see what had become of the ‘House on the Hill’, the former retreat centre established by the Society of St John the Evangelist (the Cowley Fathers) in 1927.  When the Fathers departed in the early 1980s, the property was divided and the buildings converted into single-family dwellings.  I stayed in the former Retreat House (now B&B), which stands between the former Chapel and Refectory.  I was glad to see that the buildings are in good nick and that the owners of ‘The Monastery’ were intent on honouring the legacy of the place.  But it was also a melancholy experience.  As I walked between the crosses marking the graves of many of the humble and pious brothers buried next door, I gave thanks for their faithful dedication to God’s work in the diocese.

Sunday morning I was pleased to participate in the morning services at St Thomas’, Bracebridge.  After the first service, I had a bit of breakfast with the three adult women who had been preparing for confirmation, and one more who was reaffirming her faith.  It was most heart-warming and encouraging to hear their testimonies.  Their Rector, Kelly Baetz, beamed at them like a proud mother hen, and yet I know that she also sees herself as a fellow traveller on the path of discipleship.  This is one of the reasons why she is such an effective Priest.  The sermon treated the theme of discerning God’s will (Rom 12.2), and, in reflecting on the story of the Cowley Fathers, I mused that God’s will can bring us to some interesting places.  One of those being confirmed, Bev Van Der Jagt, will be moving to Sudbury in October and will take up a role as Part-time Pastoral Assistant at St John’s, Copper Cliff, and Christ Church, Lively.

While I was doing my rounds I received an e-mail from the Rev. GailMarie Henderson informing me that a service of Evensong was being held at St John’s, Ravenscliffe, with Canon George Sutherland officiating, the Rev. Don Clark preaching and Mr Ross Brock and choir leading the music.  The church was full and the service was beautifully led.  But I was captivated by Father Don’s sermon.  He spoke of joy, distinguishing it from mere happiness and what the world offers in the way of contentment.  As he drew illustrations from his own life it struck me that we should have a diocesan policy that those who had been ordained fewer than fifty years should not be allowed to preach on the subject.  Father Don will celebrate his sixtieth anniversary next year.

Another weekend of celebration

Fawna and I were honoured to be asked to participate in the wedding of Rachel Laurenti and Cameron Adams in Whitefish Falls on Saturday.  Rachel was a modern languages student at Laurentian who lived in the Thorneloe Residence and then, during her final year in L’École des sciences de l’éducation, in our basement suite in Sudbury.  She was dating Cameron throughout that time and, although he never actually lived at either place, we saw him all the time.

Rachel is a bright and vivacious young woman, with a deep faith and infectious curiosity.  Cameron is a kind, handsome, gentle and affable young man.  The two of them, however, are adventurous souls.  After graduation they took positions in the school system in the northern town of La Ronge, Saskatchewan.  Rachel taught, while Cameron organised community sports and recreation activities for the youth.  Fawna and I know La Ronge, having lived in northern SK before moving to Sudbury.  With a population of about 3,000, La Ronge is very cold in the winter and, typical of remote prairie communities, it struggles with high unemployment and problems arising from addiction.  With a median age more than ten years younger than the Canadian average, the sort of work Cameron and Rachel undertook was of real benefit to the community.

We were a little anxious about Saturday’s weather.  An outdoor wedding had been planned and the early forecasts spoke ominously of rain.  But we needn’t have worried.  The afternoon was bright and hot, and the vista of Lake Huron's North Channel in the background competed in beauty with the quaintest church.  It was also great to get caught up with a dozen or so Thornelovians who came from far and wide to support the happy couple.

But the clouds could not contain themselves on Sunday!  All of the Manitoulin Island churches came together for their first joint service, which was held in a pavilion in Kagawong.  On our drive in a light rain began to fall.  And I began to doubt.  ‘This is Manitoulin Island,’ I thought, ‘where everyone is on holiday.  They’re going to take a look outside and decide to stay put.’  I might have been Peter in our Gospel reading (Mt 14.22-33).  But they came.  And they came.  They packed the pavilion, and another twenty crowded under the cook tent set just yonder.  I heard someone say that we had 130 altogether – from Gore Bay and Kagawong and Little Current and Manitowaning and Mindemoya and Silverwater.  We had folks from southern Ontario and Ohio, someone from Thunder Bay, and even a couple from the Sault(!).  The Eucharist was beautifully arranged and prepared by Jay Koyle beforehand, and then capably implemented by The Rev's Paul Walmsley, Bain Peever and our musician, Dorothy Anstice.

And then the Bishop began to preach.  And what began as a light patter of rain on the tin roof became a steady drone.  The homily turned into a shouting match, and by the time of the prayer at the end, I had to cup my hands to holler my petition to the heavens.  There was a look of both amazement and delight in the congregation as we worshiped together, deafened by the pummelling of the rain, but conscious of God’s Spirit in this spectacular moment when the natural and supernatural met.  ‘Let’s do this again next year!’ was the refrain as we enjoyed the after-service barbecue.