Letters
from 13 March to 19 March 2006
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Keep
it up
I'm
writing again after a couple of years to say I love your website.
I just emailed something from this site to the priest-in-charge
in my parish!
I come
to your site every Sunday to read the new column and browse the
new information and links that have been posted. There's always
more than I can ever read and/or click on. Keep up your good, even
fantastic work.
I'm
sorry to hear that Cynthia McFarland has atypical lymphoma. Prayers
and good wishes for her and her husband.
Katherine
McEwen
St. Andrew's Episcopal, Seattle
Seattle, Washington, USA
13 March 2006
Men
in black gowns
With
regard to your "muggled" experience:
in my last year of seminary, I was pleased to be the exchange student
from Seabury-Western in Evanston, IL, to Westcott House in Cambridge,
England. A clergy friend took me to visit Walsingham, and I saw
all these men walking around in their black cassocks. There was
a flock of them in the garden of a pub, still wearing their cassocks.
It felt weird and oppressive.
My friend
quoted Wm. Blake's poem "The Garden of Love", which I reproduce
here:
I went
to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
(Penguin Poetry Library,
1988)
The
poem could have been written that very day in Walsingham, it was
so apt.
Then
my friend took me into a tat shop (a place where one can buy churchy
stuff) and into the used vestments room. I was not yet ordained,
but he loudly and intentionally started fitting me with stoles
and chasubles. The black gowned men fled.
As a
woman priest, for whom your story is very distressing, of lay people
being referred to as muggles, I pray to God there were no women
clergy joining in this shameful behavior. We were ordained, in
part, to change this sort of thing.
God
Bless your work. God send healing for Her faithful ones. God sustain
you always.
Lois
Keen
St. Martin's
Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, USA
13 March 2006
No
contempt here in France
I was
revolted to learn that some clergy use the term "muggles" to refer
to laypeople. Certainly I have never heard the word used that way.
I would never allow our clergy here to speak thus. In any event
I cannot imagine any of our priests here in Europe speaking so
contemptuously of the people who do the real work of the Church.
We know better.
Bishop
Pierre Whalon
Convocation of American Churches in Europe
Paris, FRANCE
bppwhalon@aol.com
13 March 2006
The
order of the Laity
Thank
you for your essay on
clericalism, as reflected on the use of the word "muggle," in a
conference with many clerics.
Our
rector, who is a wonderful individual, falls into something of
the same error. At baptisms, especially of infants, he often pronounces
something to the effect that the person may, with God's grace,
become a priest, or even a bishop, as though holy orders were the
fullest and best expression of God's calling.
I have
known lay people who are far better Christians than many priests
I have met. I have even known lay people who have a sounder grasp
of theology, a greater appreciation of the liturgy, and greater
pastoral abilities than some priests I have known.
Perhaps
the best expression of vocation I know comes from the prayer said
over every baptized person, asking God to grant that person an
enquiring mind, discerning heart, the courage to will and persevere,
and "the gift of joy and wonder in all your works." That
is a vocation that laity and those who bear a collar can share
in equal measure.
Ted
Gale
Calvary Episcopal (Indian Rocks Beach, Florida)
Seminole, Florida, USA
13 March 2006
Baptism,
not ordination
Pity
that clericalism exists. Though ordained a deacon, I've always
felt that it was baptism that gave me my special place in the Kingdom
as a child of God. Ordination simply conferred on me a specified
task within the body of Christ. Without lay ministers who, praytell
would carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth: bishops, priests
and deacons? Hardly. There aren't enough of us to accomplish the
task. We are all one in the Body and in God's world I'm certain
that there is no room for such elitism. May God bless all lay ministers
with reinsurance that they indeed count!
Raymond
M. Frazier
St. Mark's Episcopal
Tampa, Florida, USA
PinkBenny@tampabay.rr.com
14 March 2006
Reassurance
All
I can say about your article on muggles is Amen- and thank you.
I do want you to know that Cynthia and Frederic are in our daily
prayers, individual, parish and diocese.
Mmay
the Lord continue to bless all of you at Anglicans Online -- you
are not only thought provoking, but a great source of information
and, may I add, much needed reassurance.
Paula
Sutcliffe
St Lukes
Saranac Lake, New York, USA
paula@stlukessaranaclake.org
16 March 2006
Earlier letters
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