“For God alone my soul waits in silence.”

We hear from the 63rd Psalm this Tuesday in the second week of Lent:

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
How long will you assail a person,
will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.
They take pleasure in falsehood;
they bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse.
For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
Those of low estate are but a breath,
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no confidence in extortion,
and set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.
Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

“For God alone my soul waits in silence.” Don’t you feel like that sometime, as if your soul is waiting is God? We wait for God. Some wait for God to answer their prayers. Others wait for God to hear a word of forgiveness. Some wait for God's healing in body, mind and spirit. Some may wait for God to give them hope. Some wait for God just so that they can spend a little time with God. Each of us at some point in our lives wait for God. As you and I wait for God, rest assured that God is your fortress and your rock. Wait in the knowledge that you will not be shaken because you are God’s own. God keeps His promises—God will come. Just wait—wait in silence.

LENTEN PROJECT

NETS FOR LIFE! NetsforLife® works to eliminate malaria in some of the most remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Churches are often the only functioning institutions in these communities located “at the end of the road.” Episcopal Relief & Development is a key part of this program. Their presence and power unite people to bring about lasting change for the whole community. By drawing on this trusted delivery system—churches and faith-based groups— vulnerable people are reached with life-saving nets and other services. NetsforLife® serves people in need regardless of faith affiliation.

We at St. Augustine’s can help. Each net only costs $12.50; it is a small price to pay to help save someone made in the image and likeness of God. Let’s work toward a goal of 50 nets during this Lenten season and help God in healing the world.

CALENDAR REMINDERS

The next program in the Lenten Series is at St. Augustine’s on Wednesday, 23 March starting at 6:00 p.m. with Stations of the Cross, followed by the Eucharist. We will then have a light meal and begin the teaching. We will have a sign-up sheet on Sunday for the meal. Please come!

We will have a pot luck lunch for Easter so begin thinking about what to bring.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the men and women of our Armed Forces serving at home and abroad, the people of Japan and Libya.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury: Navigating Trecherous Times

Today the Church remembers Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, from 1533 to 1553, years that were very difficult indeed and a time when many people found it difficult to keep their heads attached to their bodies. He was a leader of the Reformation in England and is most known for the Book of Common Prayer.

He was born in 1489 in Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England. His parents, Thomas and Agnes Cranmer, were of modest wealth and were not members of the aristocracy. Their oldest son, John, inherited the family estate, and Thomas and his younger brother, Edmund, were placed on the path to a clerical career. At the age of fourteen, two years after the death of his father, he was sent to the newly created Jesus College, Cambridge, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree following a curriculum of logic, classical literature, and philosophy. During this time he began to collect medieval scholastic books, which he preserved faithfully throughout his life. For his Master’s degree, he took a different course of study, concentrating on the humanists, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Erasmus. Shortly after receiving his Master of Arts degree in 1515, he was elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College.

Sometime after Cranmer took his MA, he married a woman named Joan. He was forced to forfeit his fellowship, resulting in the loss of his residence at Jesus College. In order to support himself and his wife, he took a job as a reader at another college. When Joan died during her first childbirth, Jesus College showed its regard for Cranmer by reinstating his fellowship. He began studying theology and by 1520 he was ordained a priest. He received his doctorate of divinity in 1526.

Cranmer was made Archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry VIII, and he defended the position that Henry's marriage to Katharine of Aragon (Spain) was null and void. During a time when many literally "lost their heads", he kept his in more ways than one. A staunch advocate that the Church needed reformation, he had to navigate the whims of Henry VIII whom, in conscience, Cranmer felt duty bound to obey because Henry was king.

Cranmer took Edward under his wing and protected him. Now Cranmer felt that he was unfettered and when Edward came to the throne, Cranmer moved to bring the Reformation in deeper ways to England, especially in the area of worship by his work on the Book of Common Prayer. His success, however, was as short lived as Edward's reign as king.

When Mary came to the throne and became queen of England, Cranmer was in a real pickle. He had believed, with a fervor that many people today will find hard to understand, that it is the duty of every Christian to obey the monarch, and that “the powers that be are ordained of God” (Rom. 13). As long as the monarch was ordering things that Cranmer thought good, it was easy for Cranmer to believe that the king was sent by God's providence to guide the people in the path of true religion, and that disobedience to the king was disobedience to God. Now that Mary was Queen of England, she commanded him to return to the Roman Catholic Church. Cranmer wrote a letter of submission to the Pope and to Roman Catholic doctrines. However, Queen Mary was unwilling to believe that the submission was sincere, and he was ordered to be burned at Oxford on this day, 21 March in 1556. Cranmer repudiated his final letter of submission, and announced that he died a Protestant. He said, "I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart. When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn." And when the fire was lit around his feet, he leaned forward and held his right hand in the fire until it was charred to a stump.

Let us pray: Merciful God, through the work of Thomas Cranmer you renewed the worship of your Church by restoring the language of the people, and through his death you revealed your power in human weakness: Grant that by your grace we may always worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

LENTEN PROJECT

NETS FOR LIFE! NetsforLife® works to eliminate malaria in some of the most remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Churches are often the only functioning institutions in these communities located “at the end of the road.” Episcopal Relief & Development is a key part of this program. Their presence and power unite people to bring about lasting change for the whole community. By drawing on this trusted delivery system—churches and faith-based groups— vulnerable people are reached with life-saving nets and other services. NetsforLife® serves people in need regardless of faith affiliation.

We at St. Augustine’s can help. Each net only costs $12.50; it is a small price to pay to help save someone made in the image and likeness of God. Let’s work toward a goal of 50 nets during this Lenten season and help God in healing the world.

CALENDAR REMINDERS

The next program in the Lenten Series is at St. Augustine’s on Wednesday, 23 March starting at 6:00 p.m. with Stations of the Cross, followed by the Eucharist. We will then have a light meal and begin the teaching. We will have a sign-up sheet on Sunday for the meal. Please come!

We will have a pot luck lunch for Easter so begin thinking about what to bring.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the men and women of our Armed Forces serving at home and abroad, the people of Japan and Libya.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

St. Cyril of Jerusalem: A Life of Troubles

Today the Church honors and remembers St. Cyril of Jerusalem who died in 386.

Cyril’s life began a few years before Arianism became the hot topic in the Church. Arianism is the heresy (incorrect teaching) that Jesus was not divine or one in being with the Father. Cyril lived to see its suppression and condemnation at the end of his life in the Councils of Nicea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. In between he was the victim of many of the power struggles that took place.

After being ordained a deacon and then a priest, his bishop, St. Maximus, respected Cyril enough to put him in charge of the instruction of catechumens, those who were preparing to be baptized.

When Maximus died, Cyril was consecrated as bishop of Jerusalem. Because he was supported by the Arian bishop of Caesarea, Acacius, the orthodox criticized the appointment and the Arians thought they had a friend. Both factions were wrong, but Cyril wound up in the middle.

When a famine hit Jerusalem, the poor turned to Cyril for help. Cyril, seeing the poor starving to death and having no money, sold some of the goods of the churches. This was something that other saints, including Ambrose and our own Augustine, had done.

The initial cause of the falling out between Acacius and Cyril was their territory as bishops. As bishop of Caesarea, Acacius had authority over all the bishops of Palestine. Cyril argued that Acacius' authority did not include Jerusalem because Jerusalem was an "Apostolic See" -- one of the original sees or dioceses set up by the Apostles. When Cyril did not appear at councils (a meeting of all of the bishops) that Acacius called, Acacius accused Cyril of selling church goods to raise money and had him banished. (Nothing like a little bad rumor to get things going!)

Cyril stayed in Tarsus (you may recall that St. Paul was from that city) while waiting for an appeal on his banishment.

Meanwhile, Constantius called a council where the appeal was supposed to take place. The council consisted of orthodox believers, Arians, and semi-Arian bishops. When Acacius and his faction saw that Cyril and other exiled orthodox bishops were going to show up for the meeting, they demanded that the persecuted bishops leave. Acacius walked out when the demand was not met. The other bishops prevailed on Cyril and the others to give in to this point because they did not want Acacius to have reason to complain later that the council was not valid. Acacius came back, but then left again for good when his creed (statement of beliefs) was rejected -- and refused to come back even to give testimony against his enemy Cyril. The result of the council was the Acacius and the other Arian bishops were condemned, and not Cyril and his group. With no one to testify against Cyril, the case was thrown out. So Cyril went back hoem to Jerusalem.

This was not the end of Cyril's troubles, however, because Acacius carried his story to the emperor -- embellishing it with details that it was a gift of the emperor's that was sold to a dancer who died wearing the robe. This brought about a new meeting of bishops run by Acacius who now had Cyril banished again.

This exile lasted until Julian became emperor and recalled all exiled bishops. So Cyril returned to Jerusalem. When Acacius died, each faction nominated their own replacement for Caesarea. Cyril appointed his nephew Gelasius -- which may seem like nepotism (it was), except that everyone thought Gelasius was a holy man. A year later both Cyril and Gelasius were driven out of Palestine again as the new emperor's consul reversed Julian's ruling.

Eleven years later, Cyril was allowed to go back to find a Jerusalem destroyed by heresy and strife. He was never able to put things completely right. He did attend the Council at Constantinople in 381 where the Nicene Creed and orthodoxy triumphed and Arianism was finally condemned. Cyril received justice at the same Council who cleared him of all previous rumors and commended him for fighting "a good fight in various places against the Arians."

Let us pray: Strengthen, O Lord, the bishops of your Church in their special calling to be teachers and ministers of the Sacraments, so that they, like your servant Cyril of Jerusalem, may effectively instruct your people in Christian faith and practice; and that we, taught by them, may enter more fully into celebration of the Paschal mystery; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

CALENDAR REMINDERS

LENTEN PROJECT: NETS FOR LIFE! NetsforLife® works to eliminate malaria in some of the most remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Churches are often the only functioning institutions in these communities located “at the end of the road.” Episcopal Relief & Development is a key part of this program. Their presence and power unite people to bring about lasting change for the whole community. By drawing on this trusted delivery system—churches and faith-based groups— vulnerable people are reached with life-saving nets and other services. NetsforLife® serves people in need regardless of faith affiliation.

We at St. Augustine’s can help. Each net only costs $12.50; it is a small price to pay to help save someone made in the image and likeness of God. Let’s work toward a goal of 50 nets during this Lenten season and help God in healing the world.

The next program in the Lenten Series is at St. Augustine’s on Wednesday, 23 March starting at 6:00 p.m. with Stations of the Cross, followed by the Eucharist. We will then have a light meal and begin the teaching. We will have a sign-up sheet on Sunday for the meal. Please come!

We will have a pot luck lunch for Easter so begin thinking about what to bring.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the people of Japan.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

Exhort One Another Every Day

Today’s Epistle is from the Letter to the Hebrews and it picks up where we left off yesterday:

Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today”, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? But with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. (Heb. 3: 12-19).

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews understood the power of lifting one another up, and so he calls us to exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today”, in others words—always. Sin hardens; it isolates us because sin is based in selfishness. If others lift us up daily, and we do the same, we live in a community of faith where it is harder for sin to take hold especially if each one of us is looking out for the good of the other.

Let us pray: O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

LENTEN PROJECT: NETS FOR LIFE! NetsforLife® works to eliminate malaria in some of the most remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Churches are often the only functioning institutions in these communities located “at the end of the road.” Episcopal Relief & Development is a key part of this program. Their presence and power unite people to bring about lasting change for the whole community. By drawing on this trusted delivery system—churches and faith-based groups— vulnerable people are reached with life-saving nets and other services. NetsforLife® serves people in need regardless of faith affiliation.

We at St. Augustine’s can help. Each net only costs $12.50; it is a small price to pay to help save someone made in the image and likeness of God. Let’s work toward a goal of 500 nets during this Lenten season and help God in healing the world.

Tonight is the first session of our Lenten Program and it begins at 6:00 p.m. with Stations of the Cross, followed by the Eucharist. We will then have a light meal and begin the teaching. Please come!

We will have a pot luck lunch for Easter so begin thinking about what to bring.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the people of Japan.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

If Today You Hear His Voice, Harden Not Your Hearts

Today we hear from the Epistles to the Hebrews:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also “was faithful in all God’s house.” Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’” (Heb. 3:1-11).

God is faithful to His people, and that faithfulness is made manifest in Jesus Christ. Jesus followed the will of His Father in all things. Jesus’ heart was always open to God the Father. During this Lenten season, we are asked to pay particular attention to what God is calling us to do. So, if you hear His voice today, do not harden your heart.

Let us pray: O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what You would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in Your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CALENDAR REMINDERS

Lenten Program starts this Wednesday, 16 March at 6:00 p.m. We will have a combined Lenten program with Grace Episcopal on Wednesday evenings. It will begin with the Stations of the Cross, Eucharist, a light meal and then a teaching.

We will have a pot luck lunch for Easter.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the people of Japan.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

The Wedding Feast of Cana During Lent?

In this Monday of the first full week of Lent, we have a Gospel reading that does not seem to fit into the solemnity of the Lenten season; it is the wedding feast of Cana. John writes:

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days. (Jn. 2: 1-12).

Although it seems out of place in the first full week of Lent, let’s take a closer look.

Notice that the passage starts with “on the third day”. We recall that Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father “on the third day”.

The context of the reading is a celebration, a wedding feast. Feasts in the New Testament are symbols of the Kingdom of God and the heavenly banquet. The fine quality of the wine, which surprised the wine steward, is indicative of God’s generosity and abundance—there is enough “goodness” to go around for everyone in the Kingdom of God.

Even when we are assaulted by temptation, commit sin and stray from God’s will for us, we nevertheless live in the abundance of God’s grace. God is there with us when we are tempted to act contrary to His will for us. He knows our weaknesses and God is mighty to save us through His Son, Jesus Christ. We are at all times, an Easter people, living in the wake of the Resurrection.

Let us pray: Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

CALENDAR REMINDERS

Lenten Program starts this Wednesday, 16 March at 6:00 p.m. We will have a combined Lenten program with Grace Episcopal on Wednesday evenings. It will begin with the Stations of the Cross, Eucharist, a light meal and then a teaching.

We will have a pot luck lunch for Easter.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the people of Japan.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550

A Little Something for Everyone

SPRING FORWARD THIS SATURDAY! YES, IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN; WE MOVE OUR CLOCKS AHEAD 1 HOUR THIS SATURDAY NIGHT.

In this first Friday in Lent, we hear from the second chapter of the Epistle to Titus. Paul wrote this letter to his companion in ministry, Titus, and he gives him sound advice in what he is called to do as a leader of the faith community. Today, there is a little in it for everyone. He writes:

But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine. Tell the older men to be temperate, serious, prudent, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.

Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to answer back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you. (Titus 2: 1-15).

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Lent in Galveston:

http://galvestondailynews.com/story/216866

St. Augustine is featured in the first issue of Diolog:

http://www.omagdigital.com/publication/?i=62992

CALENDAR REMINDERS

Lenten Program: We will have a combined Lenten program with Grace Episcopal on Wednesday evenings as we have had in years past. It will begin with the Stations of the Cross, Eucharist, a light meal and then a teaching. The first one will be on Wednesday, 16 March at 6:00 p.m. at Grace Episcopal.

Saturday, 12 March, work day in the Community Garden, and work begins at 8:00 a.m.

PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE ON OUR PRAYER LIST, especially the people of Japan, Roylene Lemons and pray for the family of Juanita Mack who died this week.

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+
St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550