Thanksgiving Day + 1

Thanksgiving Day + 1, 2014
November 28

Dear Friends,

I identify this day above as :"Thanksgiving +1" not only because of leftovers and the continuation of shopping that began last evening.  More importantly I use that nomenclature for this day because this is Day 1 of our common work in bringing closer a day for which all will be able to give thanks: a lasting day in which racial justice is real in more than words.  Or to put it another way, a day in which what we are committed to as a nation is genuine among us: equal justice for all.

Blessings this Thanksgiving Day +1,
John+

The Very Rev. Canon John McGinty
Canon for Formation
Diocese of Long Island

Mercer Programming Survey - Will you take a moment?

Sunday

November 16, 2014

Dear Friends,

At our diocese's just-completed positive and empowering Convention, we enjoyed the hundreds of visits you made to the Mercer School of Theology table.

We are working hard to offer support to the great work in Christian formation, ministry, and mission that you are doing in the parishes of the Diocese of Long Island.  Within those parishes, as Bishop Provenzano reminded us in his address, our churches are present as centers of worship and mission.  As our Convention speaker Father Michael Battle beautifully reminded us, our churches are places where community, compassion, and change can thrive.

To help us know at Mercer how we can effectively support you, will you take 5 minutes to complete an online survey we have prepared?

I mean it when I say that your opinion counts.  There is no better way for us to chart a positive and helpful course in making a school of theology count for something in 2014 and beyond than to ask you who are - have you thought of yourself in this way? - living theology everyday on the streets and in the pews by carrying out what you believe in your words and in your deeds.

So please take a moment now to click on the phrase Mercer Survey below and help us continue to build and improve, to carry Mercer School's own mission into the future:

Mercer Survey

Gratefully,

John+

The Very Rev. Canon John P. McGinty

Dean, Mercer School of Theology

  

Convention 148 Long Island

November 13-15, 2014

Dear Friends,

Friday and Saturday of this week the Diocese of Long Island's 138 congregations will gather at Convention with our Bishop. There we will review our life together and together plan for the immediate and long-term future.  There we will be reminded of what it means to be the church in this place and time. There we will encourage one another in believing, in hoping, and in loving.

Wherever you are, your prayers for our gathering are highly valued.  Thank you.

We will be tweeting highlights and reflections from the Convention @MercerTheology.

As always, can access an up-to-date listing of Mercer fall theological/spirituality events today at:
tinyurl.com/MercerFall14


Blessings,
John McGinty+

The Very Rev. Canon John P. McGinty
Dean
Canon for Formation 

Francis, Some Bishops, and Yves Congar: there's noise in the house next door

November 10, 2014

Dear Friends,

Reports about the US Roman Catholic Bishops response to the initiatives and spirit of Pope Francis feel a bit like looking into someone else's house when and where you shouldn't.  And yet, the more conservative of the US RC bishops seem to be quite open in expressing their reticence and concern about the papal trajectory.

I hear in the background of these two voices - the one belonging to Francis and the other to some bishops - two approaches to Christian teaching and to church/society relations that are expressed in every generation.

Those bishops in the opposition, if one dare say such a thing, sound primarily concerned about staying the course. keeping things steady, affirming what has been said and done in past days (including the recent past).  A primary concern is doctrinal purity, what is truth, and the putting that forward with energy, whatever be the current pitch of society and culture.  There is a real caution here, not to say a fear of change.

Pope Francis gives voice, it seems, principally to another perspective.  Without sacrificing anything of the past, his attention is fixed on the current moment and state of affairs and toward the future.  God has placed him, I suspect he would say, in this position and ministry at this particular moment in church and world history. there to lead according to the deepest instincts of faith.  Here there is openness to saying and doing things in admittedly new ways, in order to express the faith effectively in a radically changed (and changing) context.  Here I see also, and this is the key, a trust in the presence and action of God here and now and among present leaders, not only in the past and in the persons of past leadership.

In the introduction to his work on The Meaning of Tradition, the 20th Roman Catholic ecclesiologist Yves Congar, a Dominican priest, wrote the following: 

Paul Claudel compared tradition with a man walking. In order to move forward he must push off from the ground, with one foot raised and the other on the ground; if he kept both feet on the ground or lifted both in the air, he would be unable to advance. If tradition is a continuity that goes beyond conservatism, it is also a movement and a progress that goes beyond mere continuity, but only on condition that, going beyond conservation for its own sake, it includes and preserves the positive values gained, to allow a progress that is not simply a repetition of the past. Tradition is memory, and memory enriches experience. If we remembered nothing it would be impossible to advance; the same would be true if we were bound to a slavish imitation of the past. True tradition is not servility but fidelity.

Yves Congar was silenced by the Vatican in the period prior to the calling of the second Vatican Council.  During the Council he emerged as a theological expert of great weight and influence.  In this movement, the same struggle ongoing now between pope and (some) bishops is seen.  

The Meaning of Tradition, incldentally, is still well worth a read by any Christian interested in the interplay of present, past, and future in the life of the Christian community.  It was re-published in 2005 and actually chosen this year 2014 as an Amazon Editors' Favorite Book of the Year.  You can read Congar's entire introduction to the book here -http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/congar_introtradition_dec04.asp

That's what I see going on in the house next door.

      
As always, can access an up-to-date listing of Mercer fall theological/spirituality events today at:
tinyurl.com/MercerFall14


Blessings,
John McGinty+

The Very Rev. Canon John P. McGinty
Dean
Canon for Formation

Review and Recommendation: Rowan Williams' "Being Christian"

November 3, 2014

Review and Recommendation: 
Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer, by Rowan Williams   

In Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer (Eerdmanns, 2014) former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has done again one of the things he does best.  In a slim volume of just over eighty pages that could be read through a Sunday afternoon, he has re-presented in fresh and accessible language the basic theology of four of the fundamental realities of, precisely, ‘being Christian.’   The content is rich while the language is such that it can be heard, understood, and appreciated by both the professor of theology and her aged grandmother.  What Rowan Williams does is remind us in plain words that yet ring with authenticity of what we know, of what we need to know, and of what we perhaps more often than imagined need to be reminded.   

These words were first strung together as part of a series of Holy Week lectures open to the public at Canterbury Cathedral.  That lineage does them no harm at all.  Williams’ seemingly native ability to speak of deep things in a simple tongue, respecting both the varied backgrounds/expectations of his hearers and readers and the importance of his topic is displayed here to the benefit of all.   

Baptism. 
The identity of the baptized person is revealed here, not surprisingly, as related directly to the identity of Jesus Christ.  The baptized person lives in the ‘neighborhood’ of Christ, and this means immersed in the brokenness of the human world.  There the baptized shares Christ’s roles as priest, prophet, and king.  Filled with the Spirit, unafraid even of one’s own sin, the baptized are effectively called to vital solidarity with one another and with the world.  Rowan Williams’ language opens up what might otherwise be taken for granted of this sacramental moment many experienced before they could speak: “Perhaps baptism really ought to have some health warnings attached to it: ‘If you take this step, if you go into these depths, it will be transfiguring, exhilarating, life-giving and very, very dangerous.’”  

Bible. 
Here God speaks and here we are constituted essentially as a listening people.  What we hear is what we need to hear for our salvation.  What we hear we understand in its fullness in the light of Jesus Christ.  What we hear reveals to us who we ourselves are and who God calls us to be.  The author deals masterfully with the question of the historicity of Scripture, of the place of tradition, and of what it means to hold these texts in common with others.  “The whole thing is a gift, a challenge, an invitation into a new world, seeing yourself afresh and more truthfully” in the light of God’s Word.  

Eucharist. 
In the sacrament, revealing the sacramentality of everything, Jesus affirms his desire to be with us.  In the Eucharist God’s hospitality to us is revealed, and we in turn are invited ourselves to live hospitably, repenting of our wrongdoing, admitting our hunger and opening to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  Williams’ wonderful essay on the Eucharist here is worth the reading for a myriad of reasons, and his definition of thanksgiving, provided seemingly in passing, is alone worth the price of admission.  

Prayer. 
“Growing in prayer . . . is growing in Christian humanity.”  Rowan Williams invites Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Cassian to offer us insight into this growth.  Within their own proper emphases, all concur that praying is allowing Jesus to pray in us, to address the Father in the Spirit.  Prayer calls us to justice, and to make it real, we must commit to stay with it, to go on praying.    

Each chapter ends with questions suitable for discussion, and there are helpful resources for further reading provided at the conclusion of the book.   

For parish adult education groups, for those seeking to understand Christianity, for those whose practice of the Christian life has weakened over time, for ministers of Gospel and Sacrament seeking refreshment for their own hearts and minds: all of these can benefit by spending an afternoon with Rowan Williams’ Being Christian.   

Grade: 4.5 out of 5.     
      
As always, can access an up-to-date listing of Mercer fall theological/spirituality events today at:
tinyurl.com/MercerFall14

Blessings,
John McGinty+

The Very Rev. Canon John P. McGinty
Dean
Canon for Formation

Holiness: then, now, always

November 1, 2014

Dear Friends,

Today is All Saints Day.  For me this is the day that proclaims and celebrates the wonderful partnerships - amazing in their diversity - that can and do exist between human potential and divine faithfulness.

All the saints who have gone before us, publicly celebrated and privately loved, lived out the invitation to holiness in the midst of times and a human world as violent and messy and confusing as the one we know and attempt to navigate day-by-day.

The good news there is fairly obvious: it is possible to become a saint here and now.  Even here,  Even now.

Today we celebrate the men and women who have lived saintly lives.  Part of the celebration is to do the same ourselves.

As always, can access an up-to-date listing of Mercer fall theological/spirituality events today at:
tinyurl.com/MercerFall14

Blessings,
John McGinty+

Dean
Canon for Formation 
Diocese of Long Island