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Jesus Christ is always on the side of the crucified. And I believe he changes sides in the twinkling of an eye. He is not loyal to the person or even less to the group. He is loyal to suffering.

Petru Dumitriu

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The Holy Spirit.

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jesus in the hades art style

#THIS IS SO GOOOOD #RAHHHH🦅🦅🦅🔥🔥🔥

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the spirit is not willing and the flesh it is not so into the idea either

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“We can view Jesus’ whole ministry as a life lived in deliberate opposition to the domination of his time. It was not enough to show compassion for the poor and dispossessed, the whole system of oppression which left people in poverty and despair had to be challenged.”

— Helen Steven, Friend, 2005

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the ocd girlies discovering religion but this time as a way to surrender control to the unknown and the vast instead of as a list of rules to destroy yourself with

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Lichfield Cathedral, February 15th 2023. truly a veritable feast for the eye.

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A morning prayer that was shared on r/Episcopalian which I loved, from the Book of Common Prayer (1979). It's from the Ministration to the Sick (under "Prayers for use by a Sick Person"), but I hope it'll be helpful for anyone facing a difficult day. I prayed it this morning; I'll certainly need it often.

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), p.461.

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“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

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seeing catholics spread the idea that women's highest calling is being wives and homemakers is genuinely hilarious to me because it becomes pretty clear that they have just forgotten about the existence of nuns....

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painting of joan of arc but she's got a lil carabiner. is this anything.

#joan of arc #joan of arc posting #joan of arc art #my girl :3

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I really do quite like Christians so long as: a. they get a little weird with it and also b. are gay

#real

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My first short experience in an Episcopal church

Sometimes is sad to think that some experiences are fleeting soon, that those things one had set new feelings into might possibly abruptly change. I'm sure that God is guiding and teaching me, and that I will always value His Grace beyond the mundane, not to set expectations and standards nor being more excited about the future than of the present, for the only value those fantasies and dreams have are in the present.

As new as all of this already is for me, I found a wonderful, beautiful and good Anglican/Episcopal local Church and I first attended in the 14th of April. It was bilingual and quite nice, everyone was super friendly. I was so excited to think of the value of community in that specific church, but, alas, God has other plans and I've come back soon from the country I had to go leave temporarly and I have just moved back to that country. My last Sunday in that Church, called the Good Shephard, was in the 28th of April.

Cherishing all the little moments is the most important thing for me right now, also valuing the Grace of God within experiences beyond the material. I had already developed a connection with the few youngsters there, the priests and the priestess and the woman of the youth group, I really like so far what I've seen there. Fortunately, there's an affirming local Episcopal church where I live now, still there's such melancholy filling me, also because the building was quite beautiful for a non-catholic church in the little central american country that it is.

Still there's so much graceful joy that I find in this constant melancholic state keeping me from growing numb, since I've turn to God to open my heart more than ever before and I won't let myself fall into the risk of hardening it. My heart will be set free! Even if this year of our Lord 2024 is the most unexpected kick on the butt of my life, I hope things will be fine. Also until now in this year I've developed ideas about myself and the world that I didn't before and I hope that this year ends in a good note for me and my family, God bless 🙏💕

#my post #god #spiritual journey #episcopal #letting go #spirituality #healing

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why do anglicans still exist like their entire church is built on the fact that some guy wanted a male heir. or do anglicans believe that this isn't rly why their church came about

Okay, I do love clowning on my Anglican friends, but there are a few angles (da dum tss) that we can look at in terms of why the Anglican Church is a distinctive tradition.

Theologically, the Anglican Church might have started off as "Catholic without the Pope," so to speak; the Anglican Church was essentially Gallican in nature, meaning that the head of the church wasn't the seniormost bishop, but the head of the state. But even if it started off simply being in schism with the Roman Church, it didn't take very long before Reformed theology started entering the Church through the efforts of Anne Bolelyn, Thomas Cromwell, and especially Edward VI. There were preceding documents, but the Thirty-Nine articles passed by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 helped to solidify a distinctively Anglican identity.

But it's a little more than that, too, because in addition to this Protestantization of the Anglican Church, there have also been movements within to.... "Latinize" might be the wrong word, but to bring back some traditional Catholic elements. We see this, for example, in the Oxford movement of the 1830s; many of its members would end up converting to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, but those who remained behind started the Anglo-Catholic movement which still has a strong presence. (My girlfriend goes to an Anglo-Catholic parish, and our city has at least three other ones).

This kind of dual accommodation of Reformed and Catholic theological ideas has created a unique situation for the Anglican Church; Bishop J. Neil Alexander tries to articulate this by distinguishing the Anglican Church as a "pragmatic church," in contradistinction with "confessional churches" (Catholic & Lutheran, which focus on creeds and councils) and "experiential churches" (Baptist and other groups whose memberships require a born-again moment):

What, then, does it mean to be pragmatic? It means that within the generous capacity of the Episcopal [American Anglican] Church, we do not always agree on matters of biblical interpretation or theological definition. It means that we have all gotten here by way of hundreds of different and often unique experiences of God's presence in our lives. It means that those things which other churches depend to hold themselves together will never be a central feature of our common life. We find our life together driven by our willingness to stand together at the table of God's gracious hospitality. […] That, I believe, is the pragmatism at the heart of what it means to be an Episcopalian. We are a variegated tapestry of theology and experience, and we are all the richer for it. But no level of theological agreement or experiential commonality will ever be the basis on which Episcopalians will live together well. What is possible is that we will be pragmatic —we will keep our differences in perspective— and we will recognize that ultimately nothing will divide those who are willing to stand together before God's altar to sing, to pray, and to receive the gift of God's eternity.

Now, this is a very fascinating situation, because it means that the Anglican Church has a lot of diversity in religious thought and doctrinal opinion. On an official level, that means you will have bishops aligning with different theological orientations working side by side — and, in theory, the office of Archbishop of Canterbury is supposed to alternate between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical holders. On a more personal level, I have found that the Episcopal clergy who I interact with have varying spiritualities and theologies; one priest I know has Catholic sympathies that are so strong that he was referred to as "the Papist" in seminary, while another clergymember I know doesn't think Confession is necessary and is ambivalent about her parish's practice of Eucharistic Adoration. And they work at the same church.

Liturgically, they are also distinctive. The current bedrock of Anglican prayer is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is clearly inspired by Benedictine spirituality, but with continuing liturgical revision and innovation that kind of fits with the 'pragmatic church' mindset explained above. Some Anglican parishes even preserve pre-Tridentine traditions (remember, they split before the Council of Trent), like the Sarum Use.

The Anglican Church has had a developing liturgical patrimony for the past five centuries; one of the reasons why the Catholic Church created the Anglican Ordinariate was because it recognized that fact, and wanted former members of the Anglican Church to be able to preserve their traditions even after re-entering communion with Rome.

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So, like, the Anglican Church may have started off as a more-or-less Catholic particular church that was in schism with Rome, a schism orchestrated by a king who wanted fuller control over the Church in his country, but the Anglican Church has had five centuries of development. And, as much as I like to clown on my Anglican friends, I can definitely see why the Anglican communion has a deep appeal.

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Do you think they realize how much cooler that makes it sound?

Like. I'm not even an apotheosis type of guy. But you do know that makes it sound so much cooler right?