This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Sunday After the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple

For the third Sunday in a row, the Healy family worshipped as a unit at All Saints Orthodox Church. Anna has made good on her commitment to worship together weekly as a family.

Last evening, Anna and I got a call from an old friend from our Baton Rouge days of a few years ago. Patty and her husband wrote us this week to try to reestablish snail mail and phone contact. Lifelong Episcopalians, Patty and Harold were encouraging to us as we headed north to Yankee-land to seek ordination. Three years later, Patty wrote to let us know that she and Harold were out of ECUSA for good. In a public forum she had asked Bishop Jenkins where, in relation to the current crisis of leadership over the sexuality issues, he was going to lead the diocese. His equivocal "Into deeper prayer," while not absolutely inappropriate, was not the straight-backbone answer she and Harold needed. Her priest had for a brief time indicated he was going to join the efforts of the American Anglican Council, but then, for reasons uknown, backed down to resume the status quo. Harold and Patty are now seeking catechesis in a Lutheran Missouri Synod parish.

Anna and I could commiserate. And overhearing Anna's half of the phone conversation, I was pleasantly surprised at what my wife had to say about the Orthodox Church.

She told Patty that the Orthodox Church was the only church she and I had encountered around here that dared to tell people the whole Gospel. All the churches we've visited definitely want to tell people about the love of Jesus, but they so staunchly resist telling them why it even matters that Jesus loves them. They preach redemption without sin, and so they preach a gospel which is no gospel.

My wife also seems to have recovered from the mistaken notion that jurisdictions in Orthodoxy are the same as Protestant denominations. She told Patty, quite correctly, that all the Orthodox are the same, whether Greek, Russian or Arabic. Some things (which I would call small-t traditions) were different, but they all believed the same things.

I was quietly bursting with pride. My wife, another Orthodox wannabe? Well, continue reading.

Father and Khouria invited us to brunch after Sunday School today. It was a good conversation. Anna gave Khouria her email for a moms and tots group that meets monthly, and though the latest meeting had just passed, the one coming in December would appear to fit Anna's schedule. So she may go to that.

Anna has noticed that the Gospel she and I have always believed in is preached without restraint and in full at All Saints Orthodox Church. And we four had a lively discussion about the problems we've had with local churches here in the Chicago area.

It seemed as though things just couldn't get any better. And, in fact, Anna did say on the way home, "I just don't like the idea that the priest has so much authority. I mean, I don't feel like I need him to bless me." I lamely attempted to explain the distinction between the priesthood of all believers and the specific ministries of those believers, but well, I'm the husband who's an Orthodox wannabe. I'm not sure the impact was as great as it could be.

But that's just fine. Anna isn't an Orthodox wannabe. But heck she was only recently an Orthodox don-wannabe. She's now worshipping weekly at an Orthodox parish with her husband and her baby. She's being integrated through the young and new moms. And as Father told me long ago, this is how it would happen.

We'll see. And we'll keep praying. But I continue to be blessed by God.

Posted by Clifton at November 23, 2003 02:50 PM | TrackBack