Itinerant Communicant

On 19 June, a plaque commemorating the Oxfordshire martyrs of the Reformation, both Catholic and Protestant, was unveiled in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, by the Chancellor of the University, Lord Patten of Barnes. The names were researched by Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch.

That evening was the launch of the Oxford Council of Faiths. I did not attend, because it clashed with the monthly business meeting of the Oxfordshire Green Party.

Please pray for the annual General Assembly of the United Reformed Church and the decadal Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion, both happening next month. I shall attend the former. Here is a prayer for the latter:

Pour down upon us, O God, the gifts of your Holy Spirit that those who prepare for the Lambeth Conference may be filled with wisdom and understanding. May they know at work within them that creative energy and vision which belong to our humanity, made in your image and redeemed by your love through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I was in Aotearoa New Zealand for three weeks in March and April, principally working at the University of Auckland’s Bioengineering Institute. I also looked around North Island a bit.

List of churches and places of worship visited in Aotearoa New Zealand: Read the rest of this entry »

For the first fortnight of February, I visited my friend Dann Dempsey in the great City of Monrovia, California; and the following places of worship:

• First Congregational Church, Long Beach
• Saint Basil’s Catholic Church, Los Angeles
• Central Christian Church of the East Valley
• Historic First Presbyterian Church of Phoenix
• the chapel at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport
• La Placita Church at the Mission of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels
• Pasadena Presbyterian Church
• the chapel at London Heathrow airport

I took Communion and participated in the imposition of ashes at First Congregational; Communion and witnessed a baptism at CCCEV; participated in an elder/deacon ordination at Historic First; caught the last of the Mass at La Placita. Read the rest of this entry »

God, on this Sunday after the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,
we again thank you for your Church;
and for our sisters and brothers united in your son, Jesus Christ,
who taught us to pray to you as our father in heaven.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Read the rest of this entry »

My friends are publishing books faster than I can read them these days, which is probably a good thing; to wit:

• Rupert Read, Philosophy for Life.
• Andrew Basden, Philosophical Frameworks for Understanding Information Systems.
• Martin and Margot Hodson, Cherishing the Earth.
• Dave Bookless, Planetwise: Dare to care for God’s world.

On Saturday, I went to a day-conference ‘What is the world coming to? Ecological crisis and Christian hope’ at Redcliffe College, organized by the John Ray Initiative. Speakers included Ernest Lucas, Margot Hodson, and Dave Bookless.

On Sunday evening, we had a united service at the cathedral Christ Church, Oxford, for the centenary Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, with Bishop William Kenney (Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham) preaching.

Or: œcumenism in Oxford; and trees. Last Friday, journalist Eric Albert of the French newspaper La Croix interviewed several of us about œcumenism in Oxford, for a series for the centenary Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which starts this Friday. La Croix is a daily paper of Catholic foundation, with circulation about 100 000. Those interviewed include: Bede Gerrard (Orthodox; county œcumenical officer), Hugh Lee (city rector, Anglican), Stephen Platt (Russian Orthodox), Rosemary (layperson at Blackfriars, the Catholic Dominican friary), me (Église Reformée Unie), and several others. We had fun discussing. Expect to read something about this in French soon.

Tree-related news: Earlier in the month, there was some brouhaha about a tree in Bonn Square in the city centre. Now that tree is gone. ¶ Last Wednesday, my friend Oxfordshire County Councillor Deborah Glass Woodin was wrongly arrested whilst trying to ascertain the legality of some tree-felling attempts by Oxford City Council in the nearby Westgate area (but not at the same site as Bonn Square). ¶ Later in the weekend, my landlord decided to chop off the apple tree in the back-garden (more on this later, with photographs perhaps).

For this Saturday: have a happy feast-day of Saint Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, patron of vegetarians.

I participated in the following, with my church Saint Columba’s as a base, as preparation for the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Friday 18 to Friday 25 January 2008).

• Sunday 16 December 2007: carol service at New Road Baptist Church.
• Friday 21 and Tuesday 25 December: carol singing at the Oxford railway station and Christmas lunch with Saint Michael-at-the-Northgate.
• Monday 24 December: vigil and Mass at Blackfriars, Oxford. This ended up with me being served hot chocolate and mince pie by the Dominican brothers after midnight.
• Friday 28 December (Holy Innocents): Mass at Saint Thomas (Becket) the Martyr, Oxford, under the care of the flying bishop of Ebbsfleet. Blackfriars is lower-church than this one! The Anglo-Catholics are at risk of becoming a caricature of a ‘Romish’ past of a church which has moved on since Vatican II.
• Sunday 30 December: Temple Cowley United Reformed Church, which suffered an arson attack on Christmas Day.
• Sunday 6 January (eve of the Nativity of Christ in the Old Style (Julian) Calendar): Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, Oxford, under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Sourozh, Patriarchate of Moscow.

The Catholic Church welcomes the former British prime minister into our community. I was surprised to learn from the article that there are more Catholic churchgoers than Anglicans in the U.K.

The Finnish Katekismus reminded me of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism:

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

What does this mean?

Answer: To be sure, God provides daily bread, even to the wicked, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that God may make us aware of his gifts and enable us to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

What is meant by daily bread?

Answer: Everything required to satisfy our bodily needs, such as food and clothing, house and home, fields and flocks, money and property; a pious spouse and good children, trustworthy servants, godly and faithful rulers, good government; seasonable weather, peace and health, order and honor; true friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.