Iona's Shore

Iona's Shore
The sea is so wide, my boat is so small

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Lead Kindly Light

The spiritual father of all Anglican converts to Catholicism..this just posted today at the website dedicated to Benedict XVI's upcoming beatification of John Henry Newman
enjoy...

Biography-John Henry Cardinal Newman / About Newman / Cardinal Newman / Home - The Visit

Friday, March 12, 2010

Optional Baptism in the Episcopal Church

Hardly seems suprising, but then again, the Episcopal Church continues to devolve and suprise. My Diocese here in the midwest is poised--thanks to the accomodationist bishop who serves us--to jettison baptism itself. It will be optional, up to the discretion of the individual priests to decide whether it's required for members to receive Eucharist. Who'd a thunk it--the wholesale rejection of Apostolic tradition, right here in the good old Episcoal Church.

Tolkien on the Blessed Sacrament

Lest we forget, the father of us all, J. R. R. Tolkien, on the Blessed Sacrament:

...The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.…

.... for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it has (and still does [in 1963]) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honor, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place.

… I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning—and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again ….

—Letter to his son Michael Tolkien, November 1, 1963

...Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament....There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, that every man's heart desires,'"