Dzięki ci czynię, Panie Jezu, i sławię dobroć Twoją, żeś wystawił na próbę wierność moją i uczyniłeś mię godnym męczeństwa dla imienia Twojego. Ani ogień, ani miecz nie zmieni postanowienia mego. Dusza moja dotąd należała do Ciebie, i zawsze po wieki wieków do Ciebie należeć będzie. Amen.
Św. Hipolicie, szczery i bohaterski żołnierzu, któryś z miłości dla Chrystusa porzucił dostojeństwo, majątek, a nawet życie swe ochotnie ofiarowałeś, uproś nam u Boga, abyśmy równie szczerze i serdecznie wiarę katolicką ukochali i zasłużyli sobie na koronę życie wiecznego. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
—This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.—
How many of you have been to a Synod, perhaps a Diocesan Synod or the quadrennial Synod of the Polish National Catholic Church?
How many have walked in feeling like Elijah?
It’s appropriate isn’t it? Most synods are a day’s journey from Albany. Perhaps, some who have gone have felt like praying for death. It would be easier, this is enough Lord…
Maybe, when you arrived at Synod, you were greeted by an angel. That angel, with a smile and grayish white hair greeted you. That angel, like all the angels of our Church who work so hard and are so dedicated, prepare us for the journey —“ the journey we must walk together, the journey to God.
—Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!—
Elijah got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God.
As we prepare for the Twenty-Second Synod of the Church we prepare for the journey. We prepare for the walk. It is about forty days away. It is a journey that our Holy Church perpetuates, and one in which every member, man and woman, clergy and laity, has a voice and a vote.
I ask those who have been elected to represent us and all of you to reflect on these facts:
When you go to a Synod you are walking in the footsteps of our ancestors. You are walking in the footsteps not just of our ancestors but of the saints.
From the Council of Jerusalem presided over by Saints Peter and James, to the great Ecumenical Councils where the faith was defended by St. Athanasius the Great, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Andrew of Crete, St. John of Damascus and many other Fathers of the Church, you walk in the footsteps of those who defined what it meant to be Christ’s Church.
You walk in the footsteps of those who helped to define our particular traditions and practices, our Solemnities and Feasts, the Sacrament of the Word, married clergy, and so many other of our usages.
You walk in the footsteps of those who pledged undying allegiance to Jesus Christ, the teachings of the apostles and of the great Councils, changing nothing that has been defined. Those who pledged to depart from nothing that is essential, at the same time leaving us with the understanding that we have liberty to act in things undefined.
It is especially important that those who step forward to represent us do so paying close attention to the words of St. Paul:
Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.
All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice.
And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.
Go to the Synod in faith. Go to the Synod as the Fathers went to the Councils, not with an agenda or malice, but rather faithful to the Holy Spirit.
Those who proceed with an agenda or malice have little room left for the voice of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit led the Fathers of the Church, so you must go forward as sheep, willing and open, surrendering yourselves to be led.
When people hear things like this they say —“ stupid Christians, they will roll over you like a tank. But those of no faith, those who say such things, have closed themselves off from the light of Christ. Those who say such things, who rely on agendas and malice, trust that their brains are more powerful than the Spirit of God. They forget to trust in what is permanent and what is good. Jesus told us:
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
My brothers and sisters,
That is what we are about. We are about what is eternal. In the end that is what our Synods are about —“ our work and cooperation with the Holy Spirit in assuring the perpetuation of the Holy Church, so that all may be brought to Jesus Christ.
Jesus told us:
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him
You and I have been drawn to Jesus. Whether willing or reluctant, we have been drawn to Christ. As Church we have been drawn together as a people. We are drawn together in the light of Christ, with true freedom in the Spirit.
Remember, that is what the Synod is. It is our active participation in the capital ‘C’ Church. The Church that guides us and all people on the journey to God.
We here are but a parish, a part of the Church. We are not the Church onto ourselves. Yet by the Holy Traditions we follow, the Holy Sacraments we receive, and our democratic model, we are an icon, a symbol of the entire Church at the local level.
We are the children of the seven great Ecumenical Councils. We are the heirs of the teachings handed down to us by the Fathers. Our Synods are the children of these Councils. We remain faithful to the tenants of these Councils in all we do and their Holy Tradition is the basis for our action this coming October.
As we prepare for this Twenty-Second Synod of the Church recall the gift of freedom and democracy that is found within the Church, a gift in which you fully participate. Remember our place as a part of, and symbol of, the entire Church. Remember whose footsteps we walk in. Remember humility, kindness, and compassion. Remember to prepare for the journey, nourished on the Bread come down from heaven. Remember to pray for Father Andrew and our elected representatives, and most especially for the light of the Holy Spirit upon all who participate.
As we go forward, like Elijah strengthened by angelic food, let us sing out the words of Psalm 34 together:
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Glorify the LORD with me,
Let us together extol his name.
Chwalebna panno, święta Klaro! któraś oświecona wiarą pogardziła bogactwem tego świata, a zwróciła swe oczy ku niebu, – uproś nam u Boga większe oświecenie, abyśmy poznali, że nie jesteśmy stworzeni dla rzeczy ziemskich, lecz dla posiadania dóbr niebieskich. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
The American Conservative has a piece on What is Left? What is Right? Does it Matter? In it Patrick J. Buchanan states the following (excerpted):
What Ms. Emery’s piece [in The Weekly Standard] reveals is that conservatism today is as shot through with corruption as the Church of Pope Alexander VI, two of whose brood of bastards were Lucretia and Cesare Borgia.
We are in need of a Council of Trent to redefine who we are.
Still —conservative— remains a respected term and the right term for those who devote their lives to family, faith, community, and country…
A few years ago, when called a —neo-isolationist,— I wrote,
Most of us … are not really ‘neo-‘ anything. We are old church and old right, anti-imperialist and anti-interventionist, disbelievers in Pax Americana. We love the old republic, and when we hear phrases like ‘New World Order,’ we release the safety catches on our revolvers.
As in New Deal days, our Cultural Revolution, and the high times of the Great Society, a conservative today must be a counterrevolutionary. While Bush’s judges and Supreme Court justices have been top of the line and his tax cuts conservative, his democracy crusade and his open-borders immigration policy, his Big Government conservatism and free-trade-í¼ber-alles globalism owe more to FDR and LBJ than Goldwater or Reagan.
But the returns are now coming in from the Bush experiment with a Rockefeller Republicanism that he calls —compassionate conservatism.—
The rising casualties and soaring costs of an unnecessary war in Iraq, an overstretched military, immense trade deficits that must bring down the dollar, the loss of sovereignty and economic independence, a bloated federal bureaucracy to which Bushites have added as much as LBJ, an unresisted invasion over our southern border, the selling of the party of Reagan to the money power—”all are the marks of an empire at the end of its tether.
What can save this Republic is the restoration of authentic values and policies of conservatism, imposed at some cost and hardship upon a people who may have lost the capacity and belief in the need to sacrifice to save what their fathers gave them.
…
Conservatives have seen their movement hijacked by ideological vagabonds and hustlers who are redefining it to mean what it never meant. We need to find who sold the pass. Before we can take back our country, we must take back our movement.
Yes, those who are corrupt, for whom the ends justify the means, will co-opt any movement to achieve their ends. That is why freedom of speech, debate, and adherence to values and principals is much more important than shifting in whatever wind blows.
Tip o’ the biretta to the Young Fogey.
A Home Depot associate got back to me last night. The information I received on Monday was incorrect. It would take 10 to 13 business days for my patio furniture order to arrive.
I’ve got the steaks, beer, hotdogs, and burgers ready for —“ well perhaps August 18th at the earliest. I best not get my hopes up.
There are so many Home Depot S**ks websites out there. They echo the same story and others even sillier or more horrible. The main Home Depot S**ks site is pretty informative. Just use caution —“ there’s a lot of bitter language out there.
Donn Esmonde wrote an op-ed in the Buffalo News entitled: Bringing them all back home. There is an effort underway in Buffalo, New York to reclaim those whom the city has lost to greener pastures.
An excerpt follows:
She is swimming against a tidal wave. She is walking into a hurricane. She believes she will beat the odds and the elements.
Contrary to evidence, including a decades-long exodus, Marti Gorman thinks Buffalo’s renaissance has begun.
…
She is putting her pro-Buffalo conviction into motion. She and a dozen other True Believers are reviving, after 99 years, Buffalo Old Home Week. They are contacting folks who left – and they are legion – and inviting them to visit Aug. 24-27. If everybody comes, North Carolina will lose half of its population.
Barely 5 feet tall, fluent in three languages, Gorman is fueled by confidence, intelligence and a waterfall of energy. The talkative workaholic left Buffalo with no regrets 32 years ago. She recently returned and saw the city for what it is: An architectural museum close to water, with low-cost quality housing, minuscule commute times, 17 colleges and universities, big-city culture, great quality of life and a sense of community.
All of which, she says, overshadows the high-tax tonnage and consequent business flight that make this livable city so leave-able.
“Maybe I’m naive,” she said. “But I think the renaissance already has started.”
Planned are four days of tours, job fairs, parties and open houses, wrapped around the Elmwood arts festival.
The hope is that seeing will translate into staying, that expats will become repats – and buy a house or bring a business with them. Folks long gone bring fresh eyes and energy – they haven’t been beaten down by decades of petty politics and tail-first leadership.
…
The hurricane in Gorman’s face is downstate’s control of Albany. The consequence is high health care and utility costs and generous public-worker wages and benefits. It leaves job-challenged upstaters carrying the heaviest tax load in the nation.
We lost nearly a third of our 25-to-34-year-olds in the past 14 years. That is the tsunami that Gorman and friends face. They think they are up to it.
“There is a lot to build on here,” she said, “that offsets the absurd taxes and political smallness.”
The odds are long. But the cause is just, and the spirit is strong. Let the crusade begin.
Newsweek magazine’s August 14th issue contains an interview with and retrospective on Billy Graham.
In Pilgrim’s Progress the Rev. Franklin Graham comments on his father and the culture wars: —…my father does not feel God has called him to speak out against any particular sin. He is against all sin…—
It is a wide ranging interview and well worth the read, especially if you believe that Christians are called to witness truth to power.
Amen.
Niezwyciężona męczennico, święta Zuzanno! Nie brakło ci siły z nieba na oparcie się tyranowi i na wytrzymanie rozlicznych męczarni, dla ocalenia wiary Chrystusowej. Uproś nam u Boga, abyśmy naśladując cię, nadzieję naszą pokładali w Bogu, i zasłużyli sobie na Jego pomoc w nieszczęścia, w utrapieniach i rozmaitych uciskach. Amen.
It’s almost one week past the date my patio furniture was to be delivered, almost two weeks since I ordered the stuff.
I’m on the phone with Home Depot right now. I’ve already had two calls disconnected. The man answering the phone, Ralph, seems very nice, and very frustrated. On the second call Ralph told me that there was no one at customer service. Robbie was at ‘lunch’ (by-the-way, it’s 5:35pm) and wasn’t expected back until 6:15. He tried to connect me with a manager.
On the third call I was finally connected with a manager, Dick. I left my name, order number, and cell number with him. He tells me that he will call me back in an hour. We’ll see.
Again, Dick seemed like a decent person – very frustrated – and it seemed rather overwhelmed. He told me that he’s swamped.