Category Archives: News

David Robertson (CT): Speaking the Truth to Power – A Letter to Bishop Budde

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Well said, Reverend Robertson. Thank you for saying what needed to be said. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

Dear Bishop Budde,

That was some sermon you preached this week! Philip Pullman, the noted atheist author, loved it and suggested you should be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Alastair Campbell, he of ‘we don’t do God’ fame, declared that you should be made person of the year. He cited you as a prime example of someone ‘speaking truth to power’. Does it not make you feel a little uncomfortable that those who don’t believe in God think that your sermon was the best thing since the Communist Manifesto?

As a fellow preacher I thought your delivery was perfect. Clear, well enunciated and with the right tone – like an angel of light. I loved the theme of unity and indeed much of how you expanded that in the 15 minutes you had. But perhaps you will allow me, a poor Presbyterian minister who doesn’t have the kind of pulpit to the powerful that you have, to also speak truth to your power?

You are in a powerful position. You belong to what has long been one of the most elitist denominations in the USA – the ultimate WASP church. You are a bishop in a prestigious cathedral, and you get to preach to presidents. (You preach to presidents about the poor, I preach to the poor about presidents). I would hope that both of us would preach Christ, and not our own politics – after all that is what we are paid to do.

I found it more than a little ironic that for 12 minutes and 30 seconds you spoke about unity and then, turning to the newly installed President, you addressed him in such partisan and political terms, that you contradicted and negated what went before.

Perhaps there is a role for such political comment (some might call it prophetic) but I suspect not at a service which is supposed to be about national unity, and at the end of a sermon which warned us about doing precisely that. I think you knew what you were doing. Every word of your sermon was carefully crafted. It is more than a little disingenuous to make a plea for unity and then issue what amounted to a personal political attack on the President. The result was – as you must have seen on X and in the rest of the media – that you again polarised the country you said you were seeking to unify. As you stated, “there isn’t much to be said for our prayers (or sermons may I add) if we act in ways which deepen the divisions amongst us”.

Read it all.

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The “Epiphany Proclamation” for 2025

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In the days when few people had calendars, it was customary at the Liturgy on Epiphany to proclaim the date of Easter for the coming year, along with other major feasts that hinge on the date of Easter. We honor that custom here at Mark 4:9.

“Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return.

“Let us recall the year’s central feast, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: His last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising, celebrated between the evening of the 17th day of April and the evening of the 19th day of April, Easter Sunday being on the 20st day of April. Each Easter—as on each Sunday—the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.

“From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, will occur on the 5th day of Day. Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter, will be celebrated on the 8th day of June. And this year the First Sunday of Advent will be on the 30th day of November.

“To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise, forever and ever. Amen.”

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Christmastide 2024: Father Dwight Longenecker: How do We Know Where Jesus was Born?

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A good piece for those with ears to hear. Merry Christmas!

How do We Know Where Jesus Was Born?

We do, in fact, know where Jesus Christ was born. The textual, archeological and historical record is pretty conclusive.

The New Testament tells us Jesus was born in the little village of Bethlehem in Judea about six miles from Jerusalem.

If you visit Bethlehem today the centerpiece of the town is the ancient Church of the Nativity, controlled by the Greek Orthodox Church and for many decades in a ruinous state, it has been carefully restored and is now in the best condition it has been in for a very long time.

As you make your way down the South aisle you enter a couple of chapels that lead through an arch and down an ancient stairway down to the lower level. This lower level is the grotto–the cave that is the spot of the birth of Jesus Christ. On the floor is a metal star that marks the very spot and pilgrims kneel to kiss the place of the birth of the Son of God.

Read it all.

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Advent Sunday 2024: Introduction to the Season

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I pray to God that he will raise up teachers and preachers in his Church today who take Advent seriously again. From Common Worship, Times and Seasons, p. 33

Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, as the Church prepares to celebrate the coming (adventus) of Christ in his incarnation, and also looks ahead to his final advent as judge at the end of time.The readings and liturgies not only direct us toward Christ’s birth, they also challenge the modern reluctance to confront the theme of divine judgment:

Every eye shall now behold him robed in dreadful majesty. (Charles Wesley)

The Four Last Things – Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell – have been traditional themes for Advent meditation.The characteristic note of Advent is therefore expectation, rather than penitence, although the character of the season is easily colored by an analogy with Lent.The anticipation of Christmas under commercial pressure has also made it harder to sustain the appropriate sense of alert watchfulness, but the fundamental Advent prayer remains ‘Maranatha’ – ‘Our Lord, come’ (1 Corinthians 16.22). Church decorations are simple and spare, and purple is the traditional liturgical color. In the northern hemisphere, the Advent season falls at the darkest time of the year, and the natural symbols of darkness and light are powerfully at work throughout Advent and Christmas.The lighting of candles on an Advent wreath was imported into Britain from northern Europe in the nineteenth century, and is now a common practice… The Third Sunday of Advent was observed in medieval times as a splash of color in the restrained atmosphere of Advent (Gaudete or ‘Rose Sunday’), and the last days of Advent were marked by the sequence of Great ‘O’ Antiphons, which continue to inspire modern Advent hymns and meditations.

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History of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2024

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From here.

exaltation of the holy cross

After the death and resurrection of Christ, both the Jewish and Roman authorities in Jerusalem made efforts to obscure the Holy Sepulchre, Christ’s tomb in the garden near the site of His crucifixion. The earth had been mounded up over the site, and pagan temples had been built on top of it. The Cross on which Christ had died had been hidden (tradition said) by the Jewish authorities somewhere in the vicinity. According to tradition, first mentioned by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in 348, Saint Helena, nearing the end of her life, decided under divine inspiration to travel to Jerusalem in 326 to excavate the Holy Sepulchre and attempt to locate the True Cross. A Jew by the name of Judas, aware of the tradition concerning the hiding of the Cross, led those excavating the Holy Sepulchre to the spot in which it was hidden. Three crosses were found on the spot. According to one tradition, the inscription Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”) remained attached to the True Cross. According to a more common tradition, however, the inscription was missing, and Saint Helena and Saint Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, assuming that one was the True Cross and the other two belonged to the thieves crucified alongside Christ, devised an experiment to determine which was the True Cross. In one version of the latter tradition, the three crosses were taken to a woman who was near death; when she touched the True Cross, she was healed. In another, the body of a dead man was brought to the place where the three crosses were found, and laid upon each cross. The True Cross restored the dead man to life. In celebration of the discovery of the Holy Cross, Constantine ordered the construction of churches at the site of the Holy Sepulchre and on Mount Calvary. Those churches were dedicated on September 13 and 14, 335, and shortly thereafter the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross began to be celebrated on the latter date. The feast slowly spread from Jerusalem to other churches, until, by the year 720, the celebration was universal. In the early seventh century, the Persians conquered Jerusalem, and the Persian king Khosrau II captured the True Cross and took it back to Persia. After Khosrau’s defeat by Emperor Heraclius II, Khosrau’s own son had him assassinated in 628 and returned the True Cross to Heraclius. In 629, Heraclius, having initially taken the True Cross to Constantinople, decided to restore it to Jerusalem. Tradition says that he carried the Cross on his own back, but when he attempted to enter the church on Mount Calvary, a strange force stopped him. Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem, seeing the emperor struggling, advised him to take off his royal robes and crown and to dress in a penitential robe instead. As soon as Heraclius took Zacharias’ advice, he was able to carry the True Cross into the church. For some centuries, a second feast, the Invention of the Cross, was celebrated on May 3 in the Roman and Gallican churches, following a tradition that marked that date as the day on which Saint Helena discovered the True Cross. In Jerusalem, however, the finding of the Cross was celebrated from the beginning on September 14.

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Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2024

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During the reign of Constantine, first Roman Emperor to profess the Christian faith, his mother Helena went to Israel and there undertook to find the places especially significant to Christians. (She was helped in this by the fact that in their destructions around 135, the Romans had built pagan shrines over many of these sites.) Having located, close together, what she believed to be the sites of the Crucifixion and of the Burial (at locations that modern archaeologists think may be correct), she then had built over them the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was dedicated on 14 September 335. It has become a day for recognizing the Cross (in a festal atmosphere that would be inappropriate on Good Friday) as a symbol of triumph, as a sign of Christ’s victory over death, and a reminder of His promise, “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)

Read and relish it all.

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Grazie Pozo Christie (FT): Safe Havens for Abandoned Infants

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Abortion/infanticide is a serious problem in this nation and a national disgrace. Here is a beautiful Christian response. May God have mercy on us and cause a great wave of repentance that will bring an end to this evil. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

What to do with a newborn whose very existence presents a crisis? That question has troubled humans for as long as they have been fruitful and multiplying. It’s one that is particularly close to my heart: My fifth daughter is adopted. She was found abandoned on a wintry sidewalk soon after birth, her umbilical cord still attached, and survived the exposure by a series of miracles. Now, she is a happy teenager in a large, loving family.

Baby hatches, installed at fire stations, hospitals, and other safe locations, present an answer. Just two days ago, a newborn was surrendered at a Safe Haven Baby Box in Woodburn, Indiana, where the nonprofit was founded. There are currently 142 Safe Haven boxes across the country. Mothers can remain anonymous, and the boxes are temperature-controlled to ensure the comfort of the infant. A silent alarm is triggered when a baby is placed inside the box. 

The hatches are an update of a long-existing concept. Ancient “foundling wheels” were built into the walls of medieval convents, monasteries, and churches throughout Europe. These wheels had a bell, which was rung after the bundled newborn was placed in the receptacle and the wheel had been turned. The infant would travel from the cold and inhospitable outdoors to the warm interior of a religious house in seconds, to be collected by the sleepy nun awoken by the bell. The surrender was anonymous, sparing the baby’s family from the shame of being driven to this extremity by poverty, illegitimacy, or some other calamity. The child would later be baptized and given a last name like “Esposito,” which means “exposed” or “abandoned.” Sometimes the child’s own mother would offer herself as a wet nurse, and thus preserve the happiness of nursing her baby even if she was too poor to raise the child. 

Read it all and consider making a donation to Safe Haven.

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Catholic Herald: Shroud of Turin Dates from Time of Christ, Scientists Reveal

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Italian researchers have used a new X-ray technique to demonstrate that the Shroud of Turin dates from the time of Jesus Christ.

Scientists at the Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR) studied eight tiny samples of fabric from the shroud, a burial garment which bears the imprint of a man killed by crucifixion, using a method called wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS).

They were able to age flax cellulose – long chains of sugar molecules which slowly deteriorate over time – to show that the shroud is 2,000 years old, based on the conditions it was kept in.

They deduced that the shroud was kept in conditions maintaining a temperature around 22.5 degrees Celsius and a relative humidity of about 55 per cent for 13 centuries before it was brought to Chambery, France, in the 1350s; thereby taking the shroud’s chronology all the way back to the time of Christ.

If it had been kept in conditions with a different temperature and relative humidity, the aging of the flax cellulose and resultant dating would have been different too.

“The data profiles were fully compatible with analogous measurements obtained on a linen sample whose dating, according to historical records, is 55-74 AD, found at Masada, Israel,” said the study in the journal Heritage.

The samples were also compared with similar linens from the 13th and 14th centuries but none was a match.

Dr Liberato De Caro, one of the scientists involved in the study, dismissed a 1988 test which concluded that the shroud was probably a Medieval forgery and only seven centuries old as inaccurate because “fabric samples are usually subject to all kinds of contamination, which cannot be completely removed from the dated specimen”.

He added: “If the cleaning procedure of the sample is not thoroughly performed, carbon-14 dating is not reliable. This may have been the case in 1988, as confirmed by experimental evidence showing that when moving from the periphery towards the centre of the sheet, along the longest side, there is a significant increase in carbon-14.”

Read it all.

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The “Epiphany Proclamation” for 2024

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In the days when few people had calendars, it was customary at the Liturgy on Epiphany to proclaim the date of Easter for the coming year, along with other major feasts that hinge on the date of Easter. We honor that custom here at Mark 4:9.

“Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return.

“Let us recall the year’s central feast, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: His last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising, celebrated between the evening of the 28th day of March and the evening of the 30th day of March, Easter Sunday being on the 31st day of March. Each Easter—as on each Sunday—the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.

“From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, will occur on the 14th day of February. Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter, will be celebrated on the 19th day of May. And this year the First Sunday of Advent will be on the 1st day of December.

“To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise, forever and ever. Amen.”

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History of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2023

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From here.

exaltation of the holy cross

After the death and resurrection of Christ, both the Jewish and Roman authorities in Jerusalem made efforts to obscure the Holy Sepulchre, Christ’s tomb in the garden near the site of His crucifixion. The earth had been mounded up over the site, and pagan temples had been built on top of it. The Cross on which Christ had died had been hidden (tradition said) by the Jewish authorities somewhere in the vicinity. According to tradition, first mentioned by Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in 348, Saint Helena, nearing the end of her life, decided under divine inspiration to travel to Jerusalem in 326 to excavate the Holy Sepulchre and attempt to locate the True Cross. A Jew by the name of Judas, aware of the tradition concerning the hiding of the Cross, led those excavating the Holy Sepulchre to the spot in which it was hidden. Three crosses were found on the spot. According to one tradition, the inscription Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”) remained attached to the True Cross. According to a more common tradition, however, the inscription was missing, and Saint Helena and Saint Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, assuming that one was the True Cross and the other two belonged to the thieves crucified alongside Christ, devised an experiment to determine which was the True Cross. In one version of the latter tradition, the three crosses were taken to a woman who was near death; when she touched the True Cross, she was healed. In another, the body of a dead man was brought to the place where the three crosses were found, and laid upon each cross. The True Cross restored the dead man to life. In celebration of the discovery of the Holy Cross, Constantine ordered the construction of churches at the site of the Holy Sepulchre and on Mount Calvary. Those churches were dedicated on September 13 and 14, 335, and shortly thereafter the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross began to be celebrated on the latter date. The feast slowly spread from Jerusalem to other churches, until, by the year 720, the celebration was universal. In the early seventh century, the Persians conquered Jerusalem, and the Persian king Khosrau II captured the True Cross and took it back to Persia. After Khosrau’s defeat by Emperor Heraclius II, Khosrau’s own son had him assassinated in 628 and returned the True Cross to Heraclius. In 629, Heraclius, having initially taken the True Cross to Constantinople, decided to restore it to Jerusalem. Tradition says that he carried the Cross on his own back, but when he attempted to enter the church on Mount Calvary, a strange force stopped him. Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem, seeing the emperor struggling, advised him to take off his royal robes and crown and to dress in a penitential robe instead. As soon as Heraclius took Zacharias’ advice, he was able to carry the True Cross into the church. For some centuries, a second feast, the Invention of the Cross, was celebrated on May 3 in the Roman and Gallican churches, following a tradition that marked that date as the day on which Saint Helena discovered the True Cross. In Jerusalem, however, the finding of the Cross was celebrated from the beginning on September 14.

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Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2023

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During the reign of Constantine, first Roman Emperor to profess the Christian faith, his mother Helena went to Israel and there undertook to find the places especially significant to Christians. (She was helped in this by the fact that in their destructions around 135, the Romans had built pagan shrines over many of these sites.) Having located, close together, what she believed to be the sites of the Crucifixion and of the Burial (at locations that modern archaeologists think may be correct), she then had built over them the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was dedicated on 14 September 335. It has become a day for recognizing the Cross (in a festal atmosphere that would be inappropriate on Good Friday) as a symbol of triumph, as a sign of Christ’s victory over death, and a reminder of His promise, “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)

Read and relish it all.

Loading

The “Epiphany Proclamation” for 2023

Posted on by

In the days when few people had calendars, it was customary at the Liturgy on Epiphany to proclaim the date of Easter for the coming year, along with other major feasts that hinge on the date of Easter. We honor that custom here at Mark 4:9.

“Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return.

“Let us recall the year’s central feast, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: His last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising, celebrated between the evening of the 6th day of April and the evening of the 8th day of April, Easter Sunday being on the 9th day of April. Each Easter—as on each Sunday—the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.

“From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, will occur on the 22nd day of February. Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter, will be celebrated on the 28th day of May. And this year the First Sunday of Advent will be on the 3rd day of December.

“To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise, forever and ever. Amen.”

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