Monday ISM Net Round Up

This week the news of the Independent Sacramental Movement is quite varied.

In my regular reads:

Let me lead off with Finding Grace in Ordinary Time’s post on Silence and Honoring the Mystery in Our Lives, an Augustinian’s very Benedictine reminder to all of us who presume to write about spirituality.

At Rumney Marsh Ruminations, Bishop David seconds the sentiment in ‘Tis the Season.

Bože! engages in a dialogue in An Interesting Consideration of Independent Catholicism.

On the left-hand side of the house, the approaching US election and the 50^th anniversary of Vatican II created all kinds of news. 

Queering the Church gives us QueerTheology, Spirituality: An “Old Catholic” Perspective.

The Washington Post discovers Roman Catholic Women Priests, a group whose choice of name remains controversial to many in the Independent Sacramental Movement since it seems to place Old Catholic orders, which have been conferred on women for 75 years, in the position of serving as a vehicle for internal Roman Catholic advocacy.

In a sign of how the ISM has entered the cultural mainstream, The Huffington Post published An Open Letter From the Heart on Marriage Equality by The Rev. Daniel C. Storrs, an ISM priest who blogs at The Body is Many.

Finally, I ran across the blog Priesty and The Witch, which I had entirely missed, via an entry in which co-author Priesty tells of his journey to the ISM, a story which may sound familiar to many of you.

On the more traditional side of things:

Archbishop Jerome Lloyd’s latest pastoral letter argues that the problems of conciliarism set in at Vatican I and we should remember our debt to Archbishop Mathew.

Several blogs carried news of a new Society of St. Pius X of the Strict Observance, which history tells us will likely become one more source of orders for the ISM in ways its founders never imagined.  There was also news of the SSPX's Bishop Williamson, a man who can hold his own with the most colorful vagantes of a century ago.

 And, from the Old Catholic way-back machine:

The Principality of San Luigi offers profiles of the founder of the Order of Antioch, Archbishop Frederick Ebenezer John Lloyd and of The Rev’d James Yorke Batley.

At the same site, there is a notice of a new book on Joseph-René Vilatte.

Finally, Independent Catholic Church offers some vintage photos and video from Brazil on Dom Salomão Ferraz, who was consecrated by Carlos Duarte Costa but participated in Vatican II after returning to the Roman Catholic Church.  (I still haven’t seen a good third-party historical source explaining this.)

I am fairly confident there is something in this news mix for everyone.

ISM Net Round Up

A new Doorkeeper is made in the ICC

It has been a couple of weeks since I have done an ISM news round up. This week, among my regular reads, there's a good bit of news:

At Finding Grace in Ordinary Time, the ICCC’s newest Doorkeeper writes on Living Vocation in the Details of One’s Life.  (Congratulations!)

The Vagrant Vicar takes a serious look at Mental Illness and the ISM.

Bože! has some new pieces and a new look.

Rumney Marsh Ruminations has news of the Prayer Society of St. Florian, which prays for firefighters and first responders.

In the wider world:

Religiscope offers a balanced review of The Underground Church, a book examining the strengths and weaknesses of Roman Catholic breakaway movements.

At As the Sun in Its Orb, Fr. Chadwick, long one of the most interesting bloggers in the Continuing Anglican world, gives An Analysis of the Independents.  He also takes a look at one of my old pieces in Sarabites?.

The Diocese of St. Benedict’s blog now provides the daily reading from the Rule of St. Benedict.

Finally, those of you with an attachment to the Union of Utrecht might take a look at The Way Home.

Monday ISM Net Round Up

It was a busy week in the news.

From my regular reads, we have:

The Vagrant Vicar takes on Baptists in Disguise and Apostolic Succession.
 
At Priestcraft, A word from Dorothy Maclean
 
At Bože!, Icon Sketching.
 
At Carissimi, some background on The Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Around the wider internet, I ran across:

A piece from Ohio.com about the new presiding bishop of the American Catholic Church.
 
A sermon on this Sunday’s readings from St. Christopher’s Old Catholic Church.
 
At Anarchist Reverend, a piece about Catholicism and Anarchy from an Old Catholic point of view.
 
A piece from Catholic Culture about the possible expulsion of Bishop Williamson from the SSPX.  (I add this because I have a pool with some friends on how long it will be before “Williamson” starts turning up with the names Thuc, Milingo, and Duarte Costa in lists of ISM succession.)

Finally, a reminder about the dangers of getting too high on one’s high horse about the failings of the Roman Catholic Church:

Phony Baloney Catholic Bishop, Gets 330 Years

Independent Sacramental Movement Family Reunion 2013

Joseph René Vilatte.

Yesterday tentative dates were announced for an Independent Sacramental Movement Family Reunion, which dovetails nicely with the post from a couple weeks ago on finding fellowship in the ISM. 

Some of us from fairly diverse corners of the movement gave the idea of creating some unstructured space to get to know one another a test run over my ordination weekend and found we liked it.  John Plummer, known to many of you as the popularizer of the term ISM, suggested that we try it on a bigger scale.

You'll find full information on an invitation page on Facebook. 

You might think of the proposed weekend as being closer to Burning Man than to a church convention.  There will be no central organization or official events.  People are invited to come to Asheville, North Carolina over the July 4 weekend and organize worship, social time, and interest groups either before hand or on the spur of the moment.  The purpose is simply to strengthen the bonds of fellowship, not to conduct business or make grand proposals.

Here's a bit more information from the Facebook page:

Where:  Asheville, North Carolina
When: Friday, July 5, - Monday, July 8, 2013 -- Or thereabouts. Come and go as you wish!


* The Independent Sacramental Movement (or Independent Catholicism, Old Catholicism, Autocephalous/Non-canonical Orthodoxy, Free Sacramentalism, Alternative Anglicanism, the world of the Wandering Bishops, etc.) is a big, complicated, and sometimes dysfunctional family – and we love it! Despite our considerable differences, we are related to each other, sharing a history and a devotion to sacramental practice. Some of us thought it would be fun to vacation in the same place with the intent of hanging out together. The best opportunities for support and collaboration often arise from friendship, regardless of jurisdictional membership or theology.

Sunday Net Roundup

Bishop Timothy Cravens of the ICCC

Later in the week I will have a few photos from the Ozarks and a couple of devotional pieces on the Assumption, but today I have a few pieces from around the internet.

First, from Thoughts at Large from a Bishop at Large, an excellent sermon from last Sunday by Bishop Timothy on being a living tabernacle.  Here's a snippet:

Through the power of the Spirit, and by the indwelling of Christ, we are then “rooted and grounded in love”.  We cannot hope to have any lasting fruits of our faith if we are not deeply rooted and grounded.  Too many Christians go about, their actions goofy and ungrounded, because they have not taken the time to pray, the time to be still and know that God is God, the time to allow the love of God root them and ground them.  It is only as we experience this rooting and grounding in love that our actions can begin to blossom forth, and bear witness to the love of God for a sinful and suffering world.

Continue reading.

 At Rumney Marsh Ruminations, there are two pieces by Bishop David on polity and being a small church.

In Thinking Small, he writes:

Evangelism: Looking out the Window Versus in the Mirror

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

-Matthew 9:35-8

It’s a truism in business that your best new customers are your old customers—that it is easier to capture existing consumers in a particular niche than to entice new people into a particular market.  It is why we see so much business news on market share.

We may have taken this a bit too much to heart in the Independent Sacramental Movement.  We often become so focused on building our share in the existing market, that we may overlook the majority of people around us who are waiting for the good news.  We focus so intently upon how to improve our share of progressive former Roman Catholics, Continuing Anglicans, Western Orthodox, or a particular group marginalized in the religious mainstream—all-too-often a group to which we ourselves also belong--that we forget there’s a big world of people out there who have never experienced a relationship with Jesus Christ or the grace of the sacraments.  We often become so inwardly focused that we more closely resemble archaic hobbyists than we do representatives of a kingdom that is not of this world.  This also leads to the ugliness of recruiting clergy and laity from other bodies whose only fault is that they are not our own group.  At its worst, this comes to look about as dignified as Scottish clans conducting cattle raids, minus the blue body paint. 

We often pay a disproportionate amount of attention to those within the fold and too little to those outside of it.  We worry that there is some new cleric or community down the road that will be a threat to our own group or some group halfway across the continent that is too similar to our own.  However, if we look beyond those who are already inside the fold and stretch ourselves beyond the assumptions of a fixed sum game, things may begin to look quite different.

Sarabites, Schisms, and Finding Fellowship in the ISM

The third and worst kind of monks is that of the Sarabites, who have not been tried under any Rule nor schooled by an experienced master, as gold is proved in the furnace, but soft as is lead and still in their works cleaving to the world, are known to lie to God by their tonsure. These in twos or threes, or more frequently singly, are shut up, without a shepherd; not in our Lord's fold, but in their own. The pleasure of carrying out their particular desires is their law, and whatever they dream of or choose this they call holy; but what they like not, that they account unlawful.

These words from the prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict might serve as a compendium of the charges and dismissals most often laid against those of us who are members of the ISM, sometimes with justice, sometimes from guilt by association, and, most often, with no more justice than they can be laid against the members of any other religious body.

A plethora of preening prelates.

Though the days of solo operators with grand titles and grander aspirations are fading, a certain ambivalence about authority and accountability remains.  Many of us have had unpleasant experiences of the exercise of authority.  Some look for greater formal union to bring order out of chaos and do their best to distance themselves from colorful figures past and present.  Others look to the example of Christian Anarchism and advocate radical autonomy.

Whatever the approach, accountability remains a problem.  To whom are we accountable beyond ourselves or our small communities, not only in terms of doctrine, but in discipline and basic decency?

As I began to think about public ministry, one of my consecrators jokingly asked whether it wouldn’t be wise to make it clear that Facebook binds me in the bonds of charity and gossip with a number of other bishops and actually I think there is something to that.  When asked about the latest scheme of union, one of my other consecrators, with whom I speak at least once a week, is fond of saying, “Why don’t we all just get together and pray and get to know each other and see what happens?”  (He’s a far smarter fellow than I let on that he is.) 

Mass Media: Using Social Media to Pray

St. Isidore of Seville, Patron Saint of the Internet.

In a movement where bodies are often small and dispersed, technology often comes to the fore in bridging distances and building partnerships.  There are numerous blogs and Facebook groups in addition to pan-ISM directory sites such as the Independent Sacramental Movement Database. There are numerous Flickr galleries and YouTube videos showing off our communities.  (We have probably all heard the joke that no ISM ordination is valid until pictures of it are posted on the internet.)

All of these are important, but I’ve wondered for some time how we can use technology as a resource for prayer and building community, as a way not only to talk about how we should pray or to show pictures of our communities in worship—not that we don’t all love seeing those—but to use social media to support and create worshipping communities.

The two best examples I’ve found come, somewhat ironically, from the more traditional end of the worship spectrum.

The first is the streaming mass from Msgr Jerome Lloyd, OSJV on UStream.  Here the viewer, will find a traditional Mass with sermon streamed daily.  For those cut off from physical community, this apostolate is a godsend. 

The second ministry I recommend is without video, but is a bit more interactive.  Fr. Michael Shirk of the Independent Catholic Christian Church coordinates that body’s Divine Infant King Apostolate for Traditional Liturgy.  Every Tuesday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, this body offers Vespers and Compline via conference call according to the Sarum Use.  A Yahoo group offers updates on service times as well as a documents section where the liturgies can be downloaded in a handy booklet format.

If you have any other examples of how people in the ISM are using technology to foster prayer and build community, drop me a line at saintrafes@gmail.com.

Monday Roundup: St. Ignatius, Thank You, and New Articles

The Altar of St. Ignatius Loyola at the Gesu in Rome, one of the Eternal City's more serious pieces of ecclesiastical bling.

The Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola

Today is the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola.  I do not have a particularly deep devotion to St. Ignatius, but this prayer has been a favorite since the time I used to say a version of it each day as an associate of an Anglican religious order:

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess, You have given me: I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

Thank You

I also wanted to take a moment this morning to say thank you to all of those who have sent along words of encouragement or recommended St. Rafe’s to others, especially the bloggers at Bože!, Rumney Marsh Ruminations, Thoughts at Large from a Bishop at Large, Priestcraft, and all of those who’ve shared links on Facebook.

New Articles

A few new pieces have come online over the last few days that seemed worth passing along.  Putting up a link here isn't necessarily a statement of whole-hearted agreement or endorsement--I'll tell you if it is. Instead, these are the things I've run across that seemed to me as if they might be of wider interest to the ISM community.

At Rumney Marsh Ruminations, there is a new Statement on Membership, providing a very thoughtful piece on one jurisdiction's self-understanding that may be of interest to others in thinking about how we define our communities.

At Finding Grace in Ordinary Time, there is an excellent meditation entitled Creedally Orthodox: The Freedom to Live Faith with Deep Intentionality, reflecting on doctrine, authority, and personal responsibility in the ISM in general and the Independent Catholic Christian Church (ICCC) in particular.

Also from the ICCC at Thoughts at Large from a Bishop at Large comes Welcoming All Baptized Christians to Communion, a thought-provoking short piece on communion and the Real Presence.

Finally, at the Vagrant Vicar, who never pulls his punches, there is a new piece titled Validity: When the Holy Spirit Stays Home, addressing the historically vexing question of “valid” holy orders in the ISM.

The interior of the dome at the Gesu.