SPEAKER_01: I've got one.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Book of Common Prayer Part 3.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to do this in one Sunday, but we haven't.
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's probably a good thing because again, one of the few relatively unique monikers of the Episcopal identity is in fact the Book of Common Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Now, reminder, relatively unique because there's not one for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: There is the Episcopal Church uses one prayer book, but in the Anglican communion is a different one for Anglicans.
SPEAKER_01: There's one in New Zealand, there's one in South Africa.
SPEAKER_01: So there are, in fact, many prayer books that have minor variances in them, but reminder this is something relatively unique that this was not just for the clergy, this is for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I I do want to slip in.
SPEAKER_01: There is also a bishop's book.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what's in it, because I'm not a bishop.
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like this secret publication.
SPEAKER_01: And I think somebody asked me in here, or at least another time, like, hey, is there an exorcism right?
SPEAKER_01: There is.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the bishop's book.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it's in it, because I don't have that.
SPEAKER_01: Thank God.
SPEAKER_01: Um if people ask me to do exorcisms, I do a house blessing, which is very different.
SPEAKER_01: Um and it may help for you to know.
SPEAKER_01: There also is there are a few supplemental bits.
SPEAKER_01: So this came out, uh, this was sort of drafted in 76, started being used, was really printed in 79.
SPEAKER_01: Just to give you an idea, it's a three-year cycle, usually before things go from being approved to printed.
SPEAKER_01: And then uh there's another book called uh the Book of Occasional Services.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's not in here because those are more occasional that's what's in here.
SPEAKER_01: So actually, in the Book of Occasional Services is a house blessing.
SPEAKER_01: There's different liturgies for things like doing a tenebrae service on um Holy Saturday, which we don't do.
SPEAKER_01: You need like a really fancy candle stand to do that.
SPEAKER_01: My last church had one.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't do it there either, but man, I was like a$2,000 candle holder.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, you and you need something like that to do it.
SPEAKER_01: It's a lovely thing if you do it.
SPEAKER_01: But see, not everyone does it, so it's relegated to the book of occasional services.
SPEAKER_01: There's some other things in there.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever want to thumb through it, I've got one uh happy to share with you.
SPEAKER_01: If I ever come do a house blessing for you, that's where I'll do the blessing from.
SPEAKER_01: So there is a form.
SPEAKER_01: There are services that have been approved by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
SPEAKER_01: More on that in just a second, that are in neither of the books because they're yet to make it into the total reprinting and they show up as appendices.
SPEAKER_01: Um, enriching our worship.
SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned to you there's four Eucharistic prayers in Rite II.
SPEAKER_01: There are two in right one, and then there's two other ones in enriching our worship that aren't in our book, but we can use anything in the Diocese of Texas that the general convictions approve.
SPEAKER_01: So in the summer, you'll see those show up in the bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: Um you won't find them in the prayer book because they're not.
SPEAKER_01: And until they reprint the prayer book, which TBD on that, they are going to revise it, but we don't know when they'll reprint it.
SPEAKER_01: They won't be in the book.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So they're licensed, you can use them, but they're not in the physical book and won't be for a bit.
SPEAKER_01: There's some other things in there, like um uh there's some alternate baptism ones, there's ones um for people in different pastoral situations that again haven't made it into the book.
SPEAKER_01: You can find them all online.
SPEAKER_01: If you're curious to know these contents, you can just hop online and look at enriching our worship, and everything is there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, including, you know, um back in 2009, the General Convention decided that clergy could do same-sex blessings, and there was a blessing rite for same-sex couples that was authorized.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a marriage rite then, it was a blessing rite.
SPEAKER_01: Um you'll find that still there.
SPEAKER_01: And then in 2015, they decided same-sex blessing could also be sacrament of marriage, so they've retuned some of the language in the marriage rite that's available online but not in the printing, because again, they haven't reprinted the prayer book, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: Mostly what they did, in case you're curious, they took the blessing right that was for same-sex couples, very different from the marriage rite in here, and just made it gender neutral so that heterocouples can use it as well.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very different right, actually.
SPEAKER_01: And they also took the one in here and made it gender neutral so that you can pick.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, if you're if you're interested to know, um, in the last uh two years, I've probably celebrated maybe seven marriages, and two people, three, have requested the New Zealand marriage right, not the one in here.
SPEAKER_01: It is very different from our marriage right.
SPEAKER_01: And I you can find it online as well, you don't have to buy the book.
SPEAKER_01: It's just very different language.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's not bad, you know, it's it's just different.
SPEAKER_01: So that's part of what it means to be in the Anglican communion, honestly, is that we have some different emphases in our prayer books and we we kind of share them from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: I think where we left off, did we I think we made it to at the time of death.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, does that sound right?
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're Roman Catholic, you call that last rites.
SPEAKER_01: Last rites.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do last rites in the Episcopal Church, strictly speaking.
SPEAKER_01: We do the sacrament of unction.
SPEAKER_01: And I think I mentioned to you a priest may consecrate the oil for anointing.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need a bishop to do it, and that we don't give people last rites, we commend people to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Because quite honestly, we don't know when somebody's going to depart.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But um, interestingly enough, I did this for somebody this week, and they're still with us.
SPEAKER_01: We I mean, we sort of know they're probably their time is short on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Um the prayer is something like this Into your hands, most merciful Savior, we commend your servant blank.
SPEAKER_01: Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.
SPEAKER_01: Receive them into the arms of your mercy, and give them rest with the saints of light everlasting.
SPEAKER_01: I could pray that prayer over an eight-year-old child that is not in the throes of death at all.
SPEAKER_01: Commending somebody the Lord is a pretty good prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01: Into your arms of mercy, we entrust your child, receive them.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so that is a little bit of difference you'll see in where the prayer book has gone over uh sort of stereotypes of um, well, actually, where we were, and of the way some of our Roman brothers and sisters do it.
SPEAKER_01: I think I mentioned to you before, I've gone to people who were way out living their hospice uh plan.
SPEAKER_01: Hospice said they were going to be dead in an hour, and here we were like two days later.
SPEAKER_01: I came and said that prayer, and they died on my way out of the hospital.
SPEAKER_01: So there is power in this business.
SPEAKER_01: Hospice says we give people permission to die so that they can, and sometimes I think that prayer gives people permission to die they were seeking.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Um, the burial rites, I think I mentioned to you, you really won't find a better liturgy in the Episcopal Church.
SPEAKER_01: We do this better than we do anything, so much so, right, that George H.
SPEAKER_01: W.
SPEAKER_01: Bush, that was his service, right, one burial uh from from Russ Levinson up at St.
SPEAKER_01: Martin's where they are members.
unknown: What kind of you want?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I'm I'm somewhere around page 500 with the burial service, somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna skip ahead of that because listen, we are, I just I that's all I have to say about burial.
SPEAKER_01: You'll see beginning on page 511 the the ordination rites.
SPEAKER_01: Ordination for bishop and priest and deacon.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about how the church is the ministry of laity, that's everybody, some of which are called to be deacons, some of deacons are called to be priests, and very few priests called to be bishops.
SPEAKER_01: We traditionally inherited from the Middle Ages, honestly, this is our heritage, that it's a hierarchy of ordination, and bishops are more important, and it's most important that we dispense with that.
SPEAKER_01: Bishops are no more important than you or I or Deacon Jenny.
SPEAKER_01: The church is a ministry of everybody, and no part of the body is more important than the other.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, there's many people who say bishops are the heads.
SPEAKER_01: No, Paul says the head is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So a bishop that pretends to be the head of the body is a heretic.
SPEAKER_01: That's really, really important to hear.
SPEAKER_01: If you read through the rites, it'll tell you what bishops do.
SPEAKER_01: And just a reminder: bishops do two things priests don't do.
SPEAKER_01: They ordain priests and they come and confirm people.
SPEAKER_01: Back in the olden days, every church had a bishop.
SPEAKER_01: So they knew everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Now not.
SPEAKER_01: It's this interesting thing that's happened.
SPEAKER_01: The bishops are going to confirm people whose faith they know nothing about.
SPEAKER_01: They're going to have to trust the priest or the deacon, or more often the youth minister to sponsor them.
SPEAKER_01: We'll probably work that out at some point.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the answer to it, but for now, that's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: The bishop lays hands on the confirmant's head, lays hands, because in the scriptures the disciples lay hands on people and they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the symbol comes from, the laying on of hands on the head.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be confirmed or received, that will happen because it's this traditional sign of getting a new breath.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody been to the enthronement?
SPEAKER_01: Bishops are enthroned.
SPEAKER_01: Has anybody been to the enthronement of a bishop?
SPEAKER_01: There will be one soon.
SPEAKER_01: I think I know who will be enthroned.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it will be a really good opportunity to go and see this done.
SPEAKER_01: You'll want to get there early so that there will be a seat, because we won't do it again for a long time, I suspect.
SPEAKER_01: We're electing a new bishop in February, and then her, it has to be a woman, because if there's only three candidates, they're all women.
SPEAKER_01: Her enthronement will probably be within a few months of council, is what I would suspect.
SPEAKER_01: Enthroned.
SPEAKER_01: That's because traditionally a bishop's C diocese, C, is centered in their chair in the cathedral in the rotunda.
SPEAKER_01: We, interestingly enough, have a bishop's seat at St.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas that mimics that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a little weird because my last church didn't have one.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we didn't.
SPEAKER_01: We just the bishop sat somewhere in the chancel.
SPEAKER_01: Um you know who sits in the bishop's seat when the bishop's not here.
SPEAKER_01: The rector does.
SPEAKER_01: When the rector's not here, the associate or the supply sits there, and that's because the bishop owns the church and we supervise on behalf.
SPEAKER_01: Does that sort of make sense?
SPEAKER_01: That's our polity.
SPEAKER_01: Confirmation, ordination.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, when a bishop's present, they almost always celebrate the Eucharist, do baptisms, and sometimes they do weddings.
SPEAKER_01: But those three bits, well, I should say the priests, unlike lay people, celebrate the Eucharist, baptisms, weddings.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we also bless you and forgive you.
SPEAKER_01: Deacons forgive us, bless us, can do baptisms, can do weddings with the rector's permission, but the deacons don't do sacraments that other other than those two that you can't.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Reminder that the deacon is supposed to represent the needs of the world to the church and the church to the needs of the world.
SPEAKER_01: You'll find all of those sorts of vows in the presentation, in the liturgies for bishop, priest, deacon.
SPEAKER_01: And now we've sort of floated through there.
SPEAKER_01: But do you have questions on those orders?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_01: I'd have to read the canons.
SPEAKER_01: Do the does the house of bishops have to approve a new bishop suffragan?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the the only time recently where this got really sticky was in 2003.
SPEAKER_01: If you know your church history, um the Diocese of New Hampshire elected Gene Robinson without permission to be their bishop.
SPEAKER_01: He was openly gay.
SPEAKER_01: And uh the rest of the church was like, why didn't you ask us first?
SPEAKER_01: And they sort of said, because we don't need your permission, but they did.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so it was this funny thing that happened.
SPEAKER_01: And the House of Bishops, I think, approved him because the precedent of not was going to be.
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't I don't know if I got this right.
SPEAKER_04: That's one reason why I was there with a time limit.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, because he was not by division, but by in the house of vision and close enough to that so we can law.
SPEAKER_04: Not just traditions.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you should know, right, that there are many laws in the United States, and that every state's law varies, and then there's federal law, and then there's canon law.
SPEAKER_01: So they're all very, very, very different.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if there's professional canon lawyers.
SPEAKER_01: Normally a diocese employs somebody called a chancellor.
SPEAKER_01: They will pay them on retainer to do things like employment law, but no attorney learns canon law in law school.
SPEAKER_01: So you'd have to be at a very big diocese to pay someone to specialize in canon law.
SPEAKER_01: We actually probably do that here.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_04: I actually know a guy who's come over from the Roman Catholic Church.
SPEAKER_04: There's a PhD and canon law in the Balaton.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can do that in the Roman Church for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's only one.
SPEAKER_01: Now you know in in there's canon law in the United States, and then every diocese has its own constitution and canons.
SPEAKER_01: We're just like the United States, we're federalist system.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, celebration of new ministry, that's on page 559.
SPEAKER_01: That's when usually you get really excited and you call the new rector and it's called an installation, but that's not the name of the service.
SPEAKER_01: It's new ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, when we were here, I was really happy we didn't do the either one of those.
SPEAKER_01: We did the renewal of ministry.
SPEAKER_01: Because, listen, we weren't doing something new, we were renewing what we already did.
SPEAKER_01: So there's options out there.
SPEAKER_00: Does a deacon automatically become a priest?
SPEAKER_00: Can you be a deacon?
SPEAKER_01: This is really good to know.
SPEAKER_01: Some deacons are deacons for life, uh, and that was their plan.
SPEAKER_01: Some deacons wanted to become priests, and the commission on ministry of the bishop said, nope, you're stopping there.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us are people called transitional deacons.
SPEAKER_01: So I was deaconed, but we all knew, well, we thought anyway, we knew, I was called to be a priest, so it was a transitional diaconate.
SPEAKER_01: Now, once a deacon, always a deacon, but adding to church to the world, world to the church, uh, my call has Eucharist, blessing, and absolution, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we still struggle.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you, every church, every diocese struggles with what do we do with deacons.
SPEAKER_01: Um, the the liturgical role is really clear.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to speak frankly about this.
SPEAKER_01: You know it's a deacon because they wear the stole like a sash instead of like a yoke.
SPEAKER_01: And the deacon usually is the one who dismisses the people and reads the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: My training is if you're preaching, you read the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And I actually prefer that because if I'm preaching on the text, I know how I'd like to read it.
SPEAKER_01: If somebody else reads it, it may undo the liturgy of the sacrament, or rather the liturgy of the word.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't think we need deacons to reach the gospel, read the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I think we need preachers to read the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And that's our Protestant heritage.
SPEAKER_01: Now, look, I just disagreed, and this is recordable.
SPEAKER_01: Um But I don't think we, I mean, the truth is if you have a clergy person, you don't a clergy person can do the whole liturgy.
SPEAKER_01: It can.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need multiple people to do it.
SPEAKER_01: So the real need for deacons is not in in church liturgically, it's representing the needs of the world of the church and vice versa.
SPEAKER_01: We need deacons in prisons.
SPEAKER_01: We need deacons in transitional housing.
SPEAKER_01: We need deacons in, you know, migrant ministry, places that are very easy for us to ignore.
SPEAKER_01: And as I've told you in the past, um it's not that the deacons need to wear the collar for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: I believe we need deacons to wear the collar to make us look good.
SPEAKER_01: You find people doing real ministry, I mean real, life-giving ministry, and we beg them, please be a deacon.
SPEAKER_01: The church needs you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think.
SPEAKER_01: I've seen it done.
SPEAKER_01: I've seen it done where people who were doing diaconal ministry without the collar, without it.
SPEAKER_01: The collar gives us some benefits, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_01: I can walk right through hippologs when I go to a hospital.
SPEAKER_01: I I shouldn't be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01: But doctors and nurses will vi, I mean, they will violate the law because of my uniform.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually kind of grateful that they do, honestly, because it it gives me, gives me, I don't expect them to, but listen, they do it.
SPEAKER_01: I can walk right through the ER during non-visiting hours or right into the ICU.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a family member.
SPEAKER_01: It's a ginormous privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Deacons get that privilege too.
SPEAKER_01: We wear the same uniform.
SPEAKER_01: Now they don't do it for the privilege, they do it because they're already doing the ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And again, they're billboards for who the church should be.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think.
SPEAKER_01: Deacons, a lot of times, you know, they're not paying gigs.
SPEAKER_01: And this is something we have to figure out.
SPEAKER_01: There's lots of heads of school who are deacons, because that's their employment.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not convinced being the head of a private school is representing the church to the world and the world to the church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not convinced of that.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta eat, but this is something we gotta figure out as a church, how do we deploy deacons, you know?
SPEAKER_01: Because I will tell you this without sounding really bad.
SPEAKER_01: Um I went to a Methodist school, and um Methodists have elders and deacons, and in my experience, the diaconate was created frankly for women so they could be second-class citizens in this in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not joking.
SPEAKER_01: Because 90% of deacons in the Methodist church are women.
SPEAKER_01: That's just a shocking number.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll notice that we get to dedicate and consecrate churches.
SPEAKER_01: So this is consecrated ground.
SPEAKER_01: This is deconsecrated ground.
SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure you know that.
SPEAKER_01: This used to be the church.
SPEAKER_01: When we consecrated that sanctuary, we should have deconsecrated this as the sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: That's in the prayer book.
SPEAKER_01: The other thing we get in the book is the entire Psalter, Psalms 100 through 150.
SPEAKER_01: That's because Thomas Cranmer, being a monk, believed in the Psalter as formative prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And he, if you do the daily office, the daily office, that's readings every day, you'll do the Psalter every month.
SPEAKER_01: Once a month.
SPEAKER_01: That's if you do all of it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, now, Roman Catholic monks and nuns, they do the Psalter every week.
SPEAKER_01: All 150.
SPEAKER_01: But remember, they pray seven times a day.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas Cranber has us do it four times a day, four times, and it stretches to a month.
SPEAKER_01: Not really much commentary after that.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is helpful to remember, though, uh, just because we taught it, I'm teaching this Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Bible study on Wednesdays, and um this is really the hymnal in the ancient Jewish tradition.
SPEAKER_01: The hymnal.
SPEAKER_01: There are songs in here that we probably wouldn't sing in church.
SPEAKER_01: Like Psalm 137.
SPEAKER_01: O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy the one who pays you back for what you've done to us.
SPEAKER_01: Happy shall he be who takes your little one and dashes them against the rock.
SPEAKER_01: That's an upbeat praise song.
SPEAKER_01: What's interesting to know, though, is that even though we don't sing songs like that, it's probably to our detriment because those feelings are real.
SPEAKER_01: And think about how this hymn book has feelings of revenge and frustration and disappointment that we're not comfortable singing about because it's depressing.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I worry that when we don't live into the whole Psalter when we pick and choose, we tell people if they feel cheated or abandoned by God or angry that they're wrong and they shouldn't feel that way.
SPEAKER_01: Whereas the Psalter says, go ahead and have the feels, we have them too.
SPEAKER_01: And this is why it's important to read the whole Psalter and not just things like how good it is to live in brotherly unity.
SPEAKER_01: It's like oil running down the head, like dripping off the beard of Aaron.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want oil on my head.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds dreadful.
SPEAKER_01: Reading the whole thing, though, holds these up.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: We know that.
SPEAKER_01: We read on Good Friday.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have songs like that.
unknown: Can we get through all of that in three years?
SPEAKER_01: All the Psalter?
SPEAKER_05: Right.
SPEAKER_01: No, again, because in worship, in worship, we tend to leave certain ones out.
SPEAKER_01: They don't all make it into the lectionary.
SPEAKER_01: And this is true.
SPEAKER_01: The daily office takes you through the Bible in two years, but not all of it.
SPEAKER_01: I've asked you that before because I'm like, boy, today's daily office sure was God.
SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you this: you will never in the lectionary, never, you will never read Judges 19.
SPEAKER_01: That's when the Levite chops up his concubine into twelve pieces and mails her throughout the empire.
SPEAKER_01: You'll never read it in church.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing praiseworthy about that.
SPEAKER_01: But that kind of barbarism happens in our world.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really important to hear.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes it's important to hear that scriptures are not just happy clappy.
SPEAKER_01: They're real, like Basra is real and Abu Garib is real.
SPEAKER_01: Nick?
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think I heard you say you were going to stop with the Psalms, and a couple of things that I found very useful are the prayers and Thanksgiving special.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, I'm not gonna stop with the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: No, that's next.
SPEAKER_01: That's next.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, sorry.
SPEAKER_04: Were they ever read in the church, the dark ones?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the answer to that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly enough, I just told you that bit about Judges 19.
SPEAKER_01: My wife went to a non-denominational church in Seattle, and that was the scripture in the sermon one day, and it was all a PowerPoint, and she said it was the most powerful thing she's ever seen in her life.
SPEAKER_01: Because that story in Judges 19 ends with the question consider this, has such a thing ever been done in Israel?
SPEAKER_01: And and the pastor used this as sort of this call to consideration of the needs of the world and to social justice.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife said, you know, it's like the first time church ever acknowledged to a heightened degree what was going on by Robert Mugabe.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, she didn't tell me what the images were, but she just said, like, this was a non-denominational church, and they did it on a screen, this thing.
SPEAKER_01: Wish I'd seen it.
SPEAKER_03: Is there a reason they leave them out?
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's edifying.
SPEAKER_03: There is a growing tradition I've caught within the Episcopal Church.
SPEAKER_03: There's a lectionary year before whatever.
SPEAKER_03: And I think that churches are a lot of lectionary out.
SPEAKER_03: And so once every four years, or once every three years, so you not always you're not always missing this the same traditional lectionary, but they can pull that in instead because of recognizing that we're missing out on a whole section.
SPEAKER_03: It's like pulling a sugar coating.
SPEAKER_01: It can be that way.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, listen, I mean, today they go to throw Jesus off a hill.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not really edifying.
SPEAKER_01: But it but I think chopping people into pieces is slightly less edifying.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, you don't we don't really read the story about the prophet Elisha calling she bears down to maul teenagers, you know, because that just maybe I could have used more of that story.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we could only do that with the bishop's permission.
SPEAKER_01: This is the important thing.
SPEAKER_01: The lectionary, I don't need the bishop's permission between track one and track two.
SPEAKER_01: If I deviate from the readings for the day, I do need the bishop's permission.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pretend today, instead of the readings appointed today, I wanted to celebrate the the feast of St.
SPEAKER_01: Switherin.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I have to have the bishop's permission, even though that's a real feast day with real readings, to eclipse the reading of the day, I have to have the bishop's permission.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you had wanted to do the um the presentation at the temple, I don't need the bishop's permission, I can do that, because that's today.
SPEAKER_01: I can do either thing.
SPEAKER_01: I can do Epiphany 4 or I can do Jesus' presentation at the temple.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's would that would be weird to do.
SPEAKER_01: We've already talked about him behaving as an adult, so let's just keep going on that trajectory.
SPEAKER_01: But we have to reason that out.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you there's a church in our area that doesn't use the lectionary any Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the the the priest goes by what he believes the people need, and the bishop gives that authorization.
SPEAKER_01: It's not bad, it's just different.
SPEAKER_01: It's different.
SPEAKER_01: You may say, isn't the point of this so that we can all be on the same page?
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the point.
SPEAKER_01: I think part of this is so we can be on a similar page.
SPEAKER_01: Because to be honest, even if the scripture is the same, the sermon is radically different.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: We're on similar pages.
SPEAKER_01: We're not really on the same one.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there are some great prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, any other thoughts about the Psalter?
SPEAKER_01: There are some great prayers and thanksgivings that follow.
SPEAKER_01: And this I think is really, really an interesting part, probably the most neglected part of our prayer book, but maybe one of the most helpful ones.
SPEAKER_01: Because again, I think there's times when we want to pray for something and we're not really sure of the right words to use.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, honestly, uh like on the 4th of July, I want to say God bless America.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, like I think there's like it's important that when we receive God's blessing, we do something with it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01: I think that's part of our national responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: So I sure do want God to bless America, but I want America to be a blessing to the world.
SPEAKER_01: Finding that balance is what this does very well.
SPEAKER_01: I hope that makes sense to you, you know.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, God doesn't bless people so they can become fat and live luxuriant lives.
SPEAKER_01: The point of blessing is to share it.
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the oldest narrative.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I have a lot of pride in being an American citizen.
SPEAKER_01: I do.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my dad instilled that in me as a young kid, and I'll tell you, having been in lots of countries, I still think this is the best place in the world to live.
SPEAKER_01: But that comes with responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the part of prayer that becomes very important is help us to use our responsibility well.
SPEAKER_01: Again, you'll find that.
SPEAKER_01: There's prayers for the world, for the human family.
SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously, there's prayers for national life.
SPEAKER_01: And then I love this.
SPEAKER_01: We don't say, God help the Democrats win.
SPEAKER_01: We say, God mentor our elected officials, help them to pursue the righteousness and dignity of every person.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I love about our church.
SPEAKER_01: It is not partisan, it's not even bipartisan.
SPEAKER_01: It prays for justice and dignity to be raised up by all officials.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we should pray.
SPEAKER_01: We should, listen, friends, we should never pray that our candidate win.
SPEAKER_01: That's idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: We should pray that the government pursues dignity and justice and righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Now we think we know who will do that better than the other candidate, and we vote.
SPEAKER_01: We do.
SPEAKER_01: But our prayer is not that we get our candidate, it's that the government does this for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: I hope that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: As a young person, I didn't get that mentorship, and it's here.
SPEAKER_01: It's here in the prayer book.
SPEAKER_01: There are prayers for you.
SPEAKER_01: There's devotions, there's prayer for meals, there's prayers for the poor and neglected, which is a bigger category than just homeless people.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what these do.
SPEAKER_01: They open our mind up.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, we also need to consider migrant workers and refugees.
SPEAKER_01: We also need to consider, uh, I hope you get what I'm saying, expands who it is we consider to belong in that category.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever need guidance, there are two guidance prayers.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this phrase: deliver us from all false choices.
SPEAKER_01: That comes in guidance prayer number two, that's number 58.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I love to make false choices.
SPEAKER_01: And then there are some Thanksgivings that are really, really helpful.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, we we don't sometimes we don't use these, frankly, as often as we should.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but there's this phrase from the first Thanksgiving that, you know, I I I can only kind of pray uh half-heartedly, but just as a great phrase.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
SPEAKER_01: What a way to live a more graceful, grateful life is to live into that phrase.
unknown: Which one is that?
SPEAKER_01: Uh that comes on page 836, the general thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: You'll find it one, two, three, the fourth paragraph down.
SPEAKER_01: The third paragraph, this is a great thing for you perfectionist type A people.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for setting us a task which demand our best efforts and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.
SPEAKER_01: A great prayer at a moment to just pause and be grateful instead of looking for the next thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: These are lovely things.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, if you want something to do this Lent, pray the general Thanksgiving every day.
SPEAKER_01: See what changes in you.
SPEAKER_01: Even if you don't do morning prayer every day, just do one every day.
SPEAKER_01: Great, great way to start and expand your consideration of the way God's functioning in your life and the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's kind of like the Catholics and Medina.
SPEAKER_02: Like if you do it so many days in a row, I've always got to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You know, what I've heard, I've heard different rules on this, but I've heard essentially it takes 21 days to start to make a new habit.
SPEAKER_01: Your brain starts to coat this new pathway with a little bit of myelin, which speeds up the nervous reaction like times 50,000 starts, right?
SPEAKER_01: So after three weeks, you sort of start to speed up the traveling of the neurons.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it takes more and more and more to really, you know, coat that connection.
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it seems like there's something to that.
SPEAKER_01: Lent is 40 days, it's actually 47 because it doesn't count Sundays.
SPEAKER_01: So if you think about it, you get two chances to make new habits and five days to spare.
SPEAKER_01: The next thing that comes is catechism.
SPEAKER_01: Now you know every um a catechism really is a call and response.
SPEAKER_01: They have one in Judaism.
SPEAKER_01: It's called the Passover Haggadah.
SPEAKER_01: That's where you say, why is this night different from every night?
SPEAKER_01: Because in this night we were delivered from Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we eat flat bread?
SPEAKER_01: Our bread didn't have time to rise.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we eat bitter robes?
SPEAKER_01: We remember the bitterness of our oppression.
SPEAKER_01: You do that every Passover.
SPEAKER_01: You must do it.
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is something that you're used to, depending on your parish, might have had to memorize.
SPEAKER_01: It's called the catechesis of the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: It is no longer required.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not exactly sure why, but the answer is it's an outline of faith, not the outline of faith.
SPEAKER_01: This becomes really important.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a definitive creed you must subscribe to to be good Episcopalian.
SPEAKER_01: It is an outline.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever wonder, what's the point of the sacraments?
SPEAKER_01: It's in here.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to know what do we, what do we kind of tend to think about God the Father, it's in here.
SPEAKER_01: What do we think about sin and redemption?
SPEAKER_01: It's in here.
SPEAKER_01: What is sin?
SPEAKER_01: Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.
SPEAKER_01: What's redemption?
SPEAKER_01: The act of God which sets us free from the powers of evil, sin, and death.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it just goes like that.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to sign a line at the end saying you believe that.
SPEAKER_01: It's an outline of faith, and it can be very, very helpful to compare your faith to this one.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you at the end of this, you may say, this left out five topics of my major interest.
SPEAKER_01: You probably should feel that way.
SPEAKER_01: You probably should.
SPEAKER_01: And that's really just fine.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer and worship, sacraments, Eucharist, the Christian hope, you'll find.
SPEAKER_01: Then there is a few pages of historical documents.
SPEAKER_01: They include the Athanasian Creed.
SPEAKER_01: If you thought the Nicene Creed was long, um, let me tell you, the Athanasian Creed is in like six-point font and is two pages long.
SPEAKER_01: It's really long.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll find preface from the first book of common prayer and the um the uh what is it, the articles?
SPEAKER_01: The articles of religion that were uh part of our our church in 1801.
SPEAKER_01: And then you'll find tables for um how to calculate Easter.
SPEAKER_01: You may not know this.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do Easter on Passover, we don't.
SPEAKER_01: It's based on like lunar cycle, etc.
SPEAKER_01: And then you'll find the lectionary and the daily office, and that's the prayer book.
SPEAKER_01: Did I leave any interest out for you in the prayer book?
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do in our last few minutes is go backward, and Jenny, I think, is going to do this with you next week, an instructed Eucharist, but I want to go back to the seven sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now we we typically say there's seven.
SPEAKER_01: Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters say there's seven as well.
SPEAKER_01: We're slightly different because this is what makes us Protestant.
SPEAKER_01: We say there are two major sacraments and five minor sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: A sacrament, if you're wondering, what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: This is where we get it out of the catechism.
SPEAKER_01: A sacrament is an outward and spiritual sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
SPEAKER_01: An outward and spiritual sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
SPEAKER_01: The seven we have, the two majors, Eucharist, baptism, and then the five minors.
SPEAKER_01: These two are for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: The minors you don't, I don't want to say have to do, but they may not be for you.
SPEAKER_01: They include ordination, either the diaconate, the priesthood, or to the bishopric, confirmation, unction, that's anointing with oil, right?
SPEAKER_01: Reconciliation, we talked about that.
SPEAKER_01: It used to be called confession, but it's not just that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just that.
SPEAKER_01: And um marriage.
SPEAKER_01: So clearly, right, not everybody's called to be married.
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody decides to receive unction.
SPEAKER_01: You see how that goes, but we we do tend to wait baptism and Eucharist.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it a funeral?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but it's not.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you honestly, I think there are many, many, this I think is really helpful.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about this with scripture.
SPEAKER_01: There are many books that have been formative for you in your own life and Christian journey.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you to kill a mocking bird.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what justice was all about.
SPEAKER_01: That's the character I want to be.
SPEAKER_01: Why isn't that in the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Because, well, we decided that the Bible is the most basic contents, and we'll add our own chapters and books.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's probably the same with the sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll tell you, I think teaching is a sacramental ministry.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that with all my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Because my teachers, particularly my good ones, you know, they really were outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual graces to me.
SPEAKER_01: Coaching can be sacramental ministry.
SPEAKER_01: It's not always.
SPEAKER_01: I've had terrible coaches who were the opposite of sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: They taught me to be petty and they taught me to dislike myself.
SPEAKER_01: But I've had coaches who embodied God's love for me in the way that they coached.
SPEAKER_01: And you may say, well, that's how coaching's different.
SPEAKER_01: It can be negative.
SPEAKER_01: But friends, there's people who have had abysmal experiences at the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_01: Abysmal ones.
SPEAKER_01: So I think these holy tools can be very effective depending on how they're wielded.
SPEAKER_01: And I do think there's ones not in the list.
SPEAKER_01: But let's talk about the ones who are in the list, shall we?
SPEAKER_01: You'll get to hear more about the Eucharist next week, but just broadly saying this.
SPEAKER_01: Does anybody know what Eucharist means?
SPEAKER_01: Eucharist means thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Who's giving thanks?
SPEAKER_01: Both of us are.
SPEAKER_01: We're giving thanks for God, and Eucharist is when God gives thanks for us.
SPEAKER_01: Eucharist is when God says, I am so glad you were born.
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully, out of God's thanksgiving, we then return our own.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think it's really important.
SPEAKER_01: I love this parish who participates in this.
SPEAKER_01: I remember when I came, I brought this I own it blessing because I'd heard it once, and we did it for a month, and I said, I'm thinking about stopping that.
SPEAKER_01: And people said, Don't you ever stop that.
SPEAKER_01: And I love that about you all, because I think that's really representing God's thanksgiving for you.
SPEAKER_01: And God's grateful enough to offer you a seat at God's table.
SPEAKER_01: And that's very biblical, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because on the Last Supper, Jesus invites Judas.
SPEAKER_01: He knows Judas is going to betray him.
SPEAKER_01: He knows it.
SPEAKER_01: And Judas is invited.
SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty high theology of who God is grateful for.
SPEAKER_01: Even traitors.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty sacramental, don't you think?
SPEAKER_01: Pretty sacramental to include people who you know are going to betray you.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think so.
SPEAKER_01: The reason I think that is because it's bigger than I am.
SPEAKER_01: I would not do that.
SPEAKER_01: I would exclude and publicly shame.
SPEAKER_01: And God's not that way, you see, because God's greater than we are.
SPEAKER_01: Baptism is this bit, right, because Jesus did it.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did it.
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it's I I we we preached on this uh recently.
SPEAKER_01: Baptism means and can mean lots of great things.
SPEAKER_01: Um I sort of learned as a little boy that if you didn't get baptized, you were going to hell.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I learned that because I belong to a church called the Independent Christian Church.
SPEAKER_01: The Church of Christ also believes that.
SPEAKER_01: So you could be a good, faithful person, but if you don't get, and this is I think really important, if you don't get the right magic, then you're you're not acceptable to God.
SPEAKER_01: And I I know Episcopalians who believe that, and I didn't want to say bad on them.
SPEAKER_01: I just I worry about I worry about that.
SPEAKER_01: I worry that we believe God needs some special water in order to love us.
SPEAKER_01: That's something I might need, but I can't imagine God's that way.
SPEAKER_01: You know, so we have many, many ways we can do this.
SPEAKER_01: Um, John the Baptist did not baptize babies.
SPEAKER_01: He did not.
SPEAKER_01: And baptize doesn't mean sprinkle, it means submerge.
SPEAKER_01: We started baptizing babies because we were afraid of original sin.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, John Wesley wrote this really interesting thought.
SPEAKER_01: He says there are different kinds of grace in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And the one he really talks about at baptism is God's prevenient grace, which means God's inescapable grace.
SPEAKER_01: You may not even know it's there, but before you even make choices, God's grace surrounds you.
SPEAKER_01: And baptism is a sign of that, which is why we do it to infants.
SPEAKER_01: And then your adult confession is a confirmation.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we've come to do.
SPEAKER_01: Could you get baptized and confirmed at the same moment?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, you could.
SPEAKER_01: Because baptism's for adults too.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think it becomes really important does God need the sacraments or do we need them?
SPEAKER_01: Does God need the priest to do stuff for you to have grace?
SPEAKER_01: Or is the stuff signify help us live into discover God in all these corridors of our lives?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to answer.
SPEAKER_01: Answer that question because I don't know if there is an answer to that question.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you, we decided a long time ago that even if the priest is a dirtbag, God's grace happens through the sacrament, not through the clergy.
SPEAKER_01: That said, if you knew your priest were a child molester, I think you would think twice about their sacramental authority.
SPEAKER_01: Can I be honest about that?
SPEAKER_01: So we live in that, we do live in that tension.
SPEAKER_01: We do.
SPEAKER_01: The church says the grace happens no matter who I am or who Jenny is, because that's the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: But we're people.
SPEAKER_01: Five other sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: Anointing with oil.
SPEAKER_01: Like I've told you, I do this a lot.
SPEAKER_01: Anytime somebody asks me to pray for them, especially if they're sick or worried, I almost always say immediately, can I anoint you with oil?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you've had it, again, the the connection to the other person, the connection to God, I just feel like it's so much stronger than we say, yes, I'll pray for you, and then we leave.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just for the sick, it's for the worried.
SPEAKER_01: It's for people who are doing a marathon tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not limited to just one category.
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing about sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: They're not just there in one tight box.
SPEAKER_01: They're really there to embody and signify God's grace in all places.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's to our detriment that we don't more openly receive it.
SPEAKER_01: Because again, the more we can receive the church's institutional sign of God's grace, the more we can receive God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: I hope that makes sense, what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, it's not magic.
SPEAKER_01: And I won't, the day before a marathon, pray that you'll get your personal record or that you won't get hurt.
SPEAKER_01: The prayer is pretty straightforward.
SPEAKER_01: You'll find it in the prayer book.
SPEAKER_01: My brother or sister, I anoint you with oil in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, and lay hands upon you, beseeching God to nourish you with grace, especially in moments of blank doubt, peace, anxiety, hitting the wall, whatever it is we're praying for, to drive away from you all sickness of mind and body so that you might know the healing power of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that for people who are on their deathbed.
SPEAKER_01: And for me, it doesn't mean that God is going to clear up their stage four ovarian cancer right there.
SPEAKER_01: There are other sicknesses of mind and body than just cancer.
SPEAKER_01: Do you get what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: Now, I could be praying for that outcome, and that's the beauty of the prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It can mean many, many things.
SPEAKER_01: I've already told you about reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about this a long time.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just confession.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just for your deathbed.
SPEAKER_01: It's an opportunity for you to tell a human being what you're most worried about, even if you didn't do anything morally wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And hear them say, God will put that away from you, live away from the past, and into the present and the future with God.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never done it, you might consider doing it.
SPEAKER_01: It's an interesting prayer.
SPEAKER_01: They told us to do it before we were ordained to the priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: I did.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to know the person I confessed to didn't listen.
SPEAKER_01: And it was not an effective sacrament for me.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: I did it recently with a priest because frankly, there was relational grief, not bad decisions or wrong ones.
SPEAKER_01: I just had grief.
SPEAKER_01: And the priest listened and embodied God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so it can go either way.
SPEAKER_01: Marriage can be a sacrament.
SPEAKER_01: It sure can be.
SPEAKER_01: I know marriages that have nothing praiseworthy in them.
SPEAKER_01: You probably know those too.
SPEAKER_01: I try to say no to those people who ask me to celebrate their wedding.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't want to go over this too much, but I will never officiate a wedding.
SPEAKER_01: If there's nothing to celebrate, I won't do it.
SPEAKER_01: If there's something to celebrate, then I can stand before people I don't know with integrity and say the church is blessing this couple because they have this going for them.
SPEAKER_01: I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do it lightly because marriage is not to be entered into lightly.
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the liturgy.
SPEAKER_01: Confirmation can be a sacrament.
SPEAKER_01: I think the goal of confirmation is we say, I intend.
SPEAKER_01: Just like we say on a pledge card, we don't know our financial future for the year, but our intention is to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Confirmation's that moment, too, where we say, with all that I know today, I intend to live into these vows of walking with God.
SPEAKER_01: It could change.
SPEAKER_01: Something could happen to your faith in life.
SPEAKER_01: And just honestly, it could.
SPEAKER_01: But confirmation is a milestone.
SPEAKER_01: We all sort of know, we're talking about epiphanies, things that happen in a moment, but to be honest, epiphanies happen over many years and they just become apparent in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: And confirmation can be one of those just mile markers on our faith journey.
SPEAKER_01: Ordination is one of those other bits too.
SPEAKER_01: Ordination is a permanent change.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, in the Episcopal Church, no one can be defrocked.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
SPEAKER_01: The bishop cannot take my ordination away.
SPEAKER_01: Either of them.
SPEAKER_01: I can give them up.
SPEAKER_01: But once you're priested or deaconed or bishoped, you are that forever.
SPEAKER_01: Does God need that or do we need that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, I just think this is important to think about.
SPEAKER_01: And in that sense, being a priest or a bishop or deacon is no different from being a parent.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever happens to your child, you are a parent forever.
SPEAKER_01: And no one will ever take that away from you, even if you wanted to give it up.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even think you can.
SPEAKER_01: That's what sacraments are, you know, that's what that sacrament's about.
SPEAKER_01: One other thought from the Eucharist, you know, I used to think if we did it every week, it would lose its importance.
SPEAKER_01: Because I grew up where we did it once a quarter, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And I think honestly, as with many practices of faith, whether it's the daily office or the prayer book or ordinations or Eucharist, quite honestly, it's about putting ourselves in postures to receive grace.
SPEAKER_01: And we may not always receive it, but what if we don't put ourselves in the posture, we're way less likely to get it.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: I go jogging many times, and I don't always feel good.
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
SPEAKER_01: But there are days because I've done that where I feel like jogging is what it means to be alive.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's the same with these faith practices, with receiving the Eucharist, with receiving uh oil for anointing.
SPEAKER_01: These are all repeatable things.
SPEAKER_01: Those are repeatable things.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Jenny's gonna talk about instructed Eucharist next week.
SPEAKER_01: So bring questions like if you're wondering, why do we do this in church?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do that during the service?
SPEAKER_01: Jenny's gonna answer them unabashedly and show a couple of videos that actually the National Church have produced.
SPEAKER_01: And you may say, that's funny, they do that and we don't.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a great opportunity to ask why.
SPEAKER_01: But any last-minute questions about a prayer book or sacraments?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell you, if you ever are thinking like, maybe I'll take the priest seriously and think about confession.
SPEAKER_01: I have a book called Preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: It's 90 pages, not terribly long.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's pretty middle of the road theologically.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're interested in trying something new for Lent, you can do this.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do this with me or with Jenny.
SPEAKER_01: I'll find a priest you can do this with if this is a new thing to you.
SPEAKER_01: But again, I'll tell you, if you struggle with feelings of guilt, I should have gone to Vassar instead of Wellesley, and it's ruined my life.
SPEAKER_01: You should not have gone to Vassar.
SPEAKER_01: If you think, if we'd only put our child Chris into St.
SPEAKER_01: John's school when he was in the sixth grade, that would have fixed him.
SPEAKER_01: If we would only have taken Stephanie and put her in horse riding academy when she was 13, then I would have been a good parent.
SPEAKER_01: Those are not moral worries, they're not.
SPEAKER_01: Those are normal worries.
SPEAKER_01: If I'd only given my wife flowers on our anniversary, if those moments of your past are threatening the grace of God's presence in the present, confession might be worth a try.
SPEAKER_01: Reconciliation might be worth a try to hear somebody say, well, we already say we believe.
SPEAKER_01: God is not living in the past.
SPEAKER_01: And God doesn't want you to live in the past either.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever mistakes you've made, learn from them as you can, but be present.
SPEAKER_01: Be present today.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
SPEAKER_01: See you next week.