Anglican Ascetic

My dear brothers and sisters, Christ is born; let us give glory. Christ is from the heavens, let us go to meet Him. Christ is on the earth, let us be lifted up. Sing to the Lord, the whole earth. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice, for the heavenly One is now earthly. Christ is in the flesh, exult my dear brothers and sisters with trembling and with joy. Exult with trembling, becaus...

“Most highly favored, Lady,” was part of the refrain we sang in the praise of Mary in the hymn preceding the Holy Gospel. We did so, in the words of the hymn, as “Christian folk through the world will ever say.” This moment has been so taken up by the church in the hymnography, iconography, and artwork in all mediums. The Annunciation is an event in human history of inexhaustible meaning and impli...

There is an axiom in the Church about the Saints. And that axiom is: the Saints are always to be admired, and when possible, imitated. This applies to all Saints, whether those of the New Testament, the apostolic era, and up to today. And so that includes S. John the Baptist. His importance is non-debatable, because all four Evangelists describe his role in God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Ch...

[Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below.] We hear holy words from our Lord Jesus today. He is speaking to Peter, James, John, and Andrew, and it is from these four Saints that His teaching has come down to us. They had asked him about the Temple, and Jesus had foretold to them the destruction of the Temple. And in speaking about the destruction of the Temp...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] Continuing our reflections on Stewardship given the season, we turn our focus today entirely to our Gospel passage. S. Matthew presents us with the Parable of the Ten Maidens. The first things to say is that many of our Lord’s parables are short, and therefore open-ended, by design; this one is, on the other hand...

Our understanding of the doctrine of the Saints comes from a single verse from S. Jude’s Epistle. He wrote of the importance of preserving the fullness of the faith, once delivered to the Saints. The Saints preserve the fullness of the faith. And so today we celebrate the Saints, for the Lord is glorious in His Saints. That Saints are loved by the whole Church in all of its eras over time is obvio...

This is for the parishioners of my parish, as a reference of how to chant the Our Father prayer, which we will begin to do during the 10 am Mass this Sunday, 5 November. Get full access to Anglican Ascetic Podcast at anglicanascetic.akensideinstitute.org/subscribe

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] One of the images of Stewardship that I shared last Sunday was to see ourselves as a coin. It comes from a parable Our Lord Jesus told of the kingdom of heaven, in which a woman has ten coins. She loses one – and when it is found, the coin is a cause for rejoicing by her and the angels. As far as the significance...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] On this Stewardship Sunday, I want not only to reflect on Christian Stewardship, but to see ourselves as a coin. In a parable, Our Lord Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a woman with ten coins, who lost one – which when found was a cause for rejoicing by her and the angels. What is the significance of this...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] I want to reflect today on the first verse from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Church in Philippi. He writes, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” What Paul is talking about is his own devotion to Christ. His devotion to Christ has an intentionality to it—his choosing...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] It has become cliché in our days for preachers to observe that among the myriad aspects of the Christian faith and religion, that the angels are among the most misunderstood of all, if not the most misunderstood. And while there are many superficial reasons for that (such as how angels are depicted in motion pict...

“Get behind me Satan” is a heck of a thing for Jesus to say. It is a heck of a thing for Our Lord to say to anyone, I think; but especially shocking for Him to say to Peter, the disciple whose glorious confession Jesus had just praised and responded by proclaiming upon that rock – the rock of Peter’s confession—Christ would build His Church. But now, just a few short verses later in Matthew 16, af...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] Saint Peter’s confession is what we hear today in the Gospel, and I will endeavor in my preaching to also discuss the Christian doctrine of justification by faith. First to Peter’s confession and our Gospel passage. Jesus asks all the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And it is Peter who speaks up. Peter say...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below .] It is a common approach to preaching to begin the sermon with a joke. Share something of humor, the thinking goes, to break down the wall between preacher and listeners. And there is biblical precedence for doing so. Saint Peter, in really what is the first Christian sermon, on the Day of Pentecost, the coming of...

In the Sundays prior to the Transfiguration, we heard a number of Our Lord Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of heaven. Being that the Kingdom of Heaven (or Kingdom of God) is our Lord’s way of referring to the Holy Spirit, the parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God are poetic narratives that describe what it is like to experience the Holy Spirit and to know how He works i...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below. Also, much of the substance of this homily in indebted to Aidan Hart and his insights on the Transfiguration from his book, FESTAL ICONS.] The Transfiguration of Jesus was certainly an event that left an indelible mark upon Ss Peter, James, and John. With respect to S. Peter, in addition to what we heard in our Epi...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below. ] How the Holy Spirit actually works upon the Church and upon disciples of Christ is a major question. It is a point of disagreement, for example, between wheat and weed parishes; that is, between orthodox and heterodox Christian communities. It is a common thing to hear from those advocating changes to doctrine th...

[ Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below. ] Last Sunday I offered up a reading of the Parable of the Sower in which the various surfaces upon which seed was sowed were interpreted as four different kinds of parishes, or more specifically, four kinds of commitments a parish can have. I spoke of path parishes, rocky ground parishes, thorn parishes, and good...

In Isaiah 29, thus says the Lord: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” This again teaches us something fundamental about Christianity: All God wants is the human heart. He wants the hearts of individuals, and He wants the heart of a whole people, a whole community. God also wants, in other words, the heart of a parish. And it is in this sense of the heart of a p...

Our Lord’s invitation to us today is so compelling and inviting to hear. He says, “Come to Me, all you labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And He says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” These words have echoed within the Church since the beginning, in...

We hear today our Lord giving us a hard saying, and so I will spend this time reflecting on how to properly understand it. The hard saying comes at the very beginning of our Gospel passage: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” This is a difficult teaching to immediately understand; in fact it falls into the category of verses in Scri...

We hear today our Lord Jesus giving instruction to the Twelve about Mission. His instruction to them, here and elsewhere in the Gospel accounts, is always for a particular purpose. He has called them to the unique vocation to proclaim in words the Gospel, to proclaim in words that the One spoken of in the Scriptures (spoken of but not named) is Jesus of Nazareth: that Jesus is the suffering servan...

Offered on the Memorial of Saint Romuald (19 June, 2019) in the Lady Chapel of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame during solemn Evensong, a service I was asked by Dr Timothy O’Malley of the McGrath Institute for Church Life to plan and lead as Cantor, as part of one of their annual summer conferences. Romuald is a true saint for the domestic church. He w...

A week before Palm Sunday, and Holy Week, we are again approaching our encounter with the Cross. We are again approaching our close encounter with the Cross of Our Lord Jesus, Him being nailed to it. As the Epistle to the Hebrews (which we heard on Ash Wednesday) continues to teach us in Lent: we are ever to look to Jesus as the pioneer and perfector of our faith; to look upon Him as He endures th...

Homily offered by Father Matthew C. Dallman, Obl. S.B., for the Parish of Tazewell County on the Sunday after the Ascension, 2021. We are taught today by Saint John the Evangelist (also known Saint John the Theologian) that God hath given us eternal life. And, he adds, this life is in His Son. This is to what Saint Paul is referring when he spoke of seeing God face to face. This is also what was d...