C'mon Patrick!

Without a doubt the Rev'd Fr Hans Fiene is the most clever and funniest pastor in the synod (sic). You should all become a subscriber to his Youtube channel "Lutheran Satire."
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2-3Cf7Hw10b3NW05p2Z7IA 

"Like Coldplay plagarizing the pancreas out of Joe Satriani."

"It's no secret that Missouri Synod Lutherans are easily persuaded to jetison their
precious doctrine but will fight to the death to retain the teleologically indifferent
vestiges of their more glorious past."

"You of all people should know that Missouri Synod Lutherans would have no problem
flippantly murdering Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession in Synodical resolutions
for example but would slavisly spend 500 years singing Ascension hymns to the tune
of "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go."

Plus, it's just fun to see a couple of Irish blokes "lay the smack-down" on ol'
PPP Patrick   :)

- Fr Watson SSP

TOP TEN REASONS YOU SHOULD BE CALLED "FATHER"

TOP TEN REASONS YOUR PARISHIONERS MIGHT CONSIDER ON THEIR WAY TO CALLING YOU “FATHER”

10.   Well, you do have children.

9.     The VBS “ditty” (aka ‘child-action song’) is “Father

         Abraham” and not Pastor Abraham. AND, if hades

         occupant Dives can use the term, so can Grandma

         Schmitt [c.f. Luke 16.24].

8.      German-American Lutherans who are also

         conservative GOP-types, are always so eager

         to follow Scandinavian practices.

7.      Your detractors can spit it out at you with the certitude

          that it might hasten your “swimming of the Tiber.”

6.       It will give “Carl Vehse” more grist for his

          Voter Assembly Quest posts.

5.       Gottesdienst does it….and EVERYONE knows how

          much weight & influence it has in the Synod (sic)!

4.       It will get you free cups of coffee when you make

          hospital visits to Saint Charles Borromeo Medical Center.

3.       “P”r….”F”r…what’s one small letter among friends?

2.       Luthers Large Catechism Part I. The Ten Commandments

          4^th Commandment, section 416, paragraph 158, Jacobs

          page 415 BOOK OF CONCORD (you know, our

          Symbols!)

And the NUMER ONE REASON your parishioner might consider

on their way to calling you “Father”……………

 

1.      That ELCA priestitute down the street? Sure she does a

          whole lot of stuff better than you do, but ain’t NO WAY

          she’s ever going to be “Father!”

1st Sunday after Trinity (2014): Homily

“THE CHASM IS ONLY BREACHED BY CHRIST ‘THE’ ANGEL”

Saint Luke 16. 19-31

1^st Sunday after Trinity: 22 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   The chasm is only breached by Christ THE Angel.

“O Lord I have trusted in Thy mercy.” But do you? Or do you put your hope in family and friends? Do you rely on your talents and monetary resources? And, what do you do with all your money?

   “Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” But do you? Do you care only for your “five brothers” because they are just like you? What about that smelly, “different” character lying about?

   The two tables of Gods Law are clear: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar…this commandment have we from him…that he who loveth God love his brother also.”  Uh-oh!

   The writer Dorothy Parker, with her usual acerbic wit once said: “if you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gave it to.” But that’s only half the equation. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Mammon is dangerous. After the forbidden fruit no one touches fallen creation without sin—without sinful omissions and commissions. The Lord is clear: “let not the rich man glory in his riches” and again “the love of money is the root of all evil.”[1Tim.6.10]  The love of wealth means God is not loved.

    So yes, OBEY the Ten Commandments perfectly! But you don’t; not any better than the “rich man” and not any better than Lazarus. This is not a parable about your obedience. This is not Christ motivating you to make the right choices. This is God’s word to you about being chosen! “Because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing…grant us the help of Thy grace.”

   Everything is hidden under the Cross. “Be merciful unto me, O God, for my soul trusteth in Thee, yea, in the shadow of Thy wings, will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” [Ps. 57.1]  Thus did Lazarus trust, by faith, and thus he was carried home. You too, by Grace, have this faith in the outstretched arms, wings, of your Crucified Savior. He saves! The chasm is only breached by Christ THE Angel!

   Love God. Love your neighbor. The “rich man,” Lazarus, and we don’t. Jesus does! The reason the man of wealth did not love Lazarus, which means help, not have “romantic feelings,” is that he did not love God. To love God is to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” Not loving God is to despise God’s Word. The man did not believe in Moses and the Prophets. The Hebrew Scriptures overflow with the Love of God in Christ Jesus…for God is love!

   The “rich man” clothed himself in fine flaxen linen of purple. Jesus let Himself be covered in red and Divine purple blood at the hand of Romans. Jesus let Himself be clothed in a burial shroud by Nicodemus.

   He dined sumptuously. Jesus hungered for Righteousness, your reconciliation, and “thirsted” on the Tree.

   Lazarus was a beggar. The Reformer says we are all beggars simply trusting in God’s mercy. The “rich man” is not named for Christ did not “know” him but the street urchin is Lazarus, for like you, his name was written in the “Book of Life” which is Jesus own Body. Lazarus was full of sores, ulcerated wounds says Saint Luke the blessed physician. Christ allowed even more severe lacerations to be inflicted on His precious Flesh!

   The “rich man” gorged on himself which is what unbelief does…turning the rejecting heart to cancerous cannibalism. Lazarus longed to be fed with even crumbs (like the Syro-Phoenician woman). The Lord Who fasted 40 days for all of you Lazaruses rescued the beggar. “How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me.” He doesn’t hide. We just can’t see him for the film on our eyes. “I Am The Lord which execute loving kindness in the earth; for in these things I delight.”

   Jesus carried Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom by the angels. The cry of faith for mercy is your cry “Kyrie Elieson.”  It is answered. Jesus even had had mercy on the “rich man” “you have Moses and the Prophets” but the man rejected Grace. Jesus Who Himself was heralded by the Angels at Nativity, ministered by the Angels in the desert, and strengthened by the Angels in Gethsemane, sends His New Testament angels to all beggars by His Ministers of Mercy. They are but hands and voices to deliver Him. The chasm is only breached by Christ THE Angel.

   Our angels administer and steward Jesus’ means of Grace. The angel, Satan, betrayed God, but The Real Angel of The Trinity, The ANGEL OF THE LORD, Christ Jesus, redeemed the fall. Only Jesus fulfilled the Law with His sacrificial Love. Love on the Cross is the fulfillment of the Law.

   There was a certain “rich man” but it wasn’t the man who ended up in hades. “Behold the man,” the God/Man on the Cross in all His riches and tender mercies. Hidden in His Body + and Baptized; hidden in His Blood and feasting on Life, you join Brother Lazarus in confessing “O Lord, I have trusted in Thy mercy.”

   The chasm is breached by Christ THE Angel and you are carried home.

In The Name of The Father and of +The Son and of The Holy Ghost

FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY: Homily

“FOR IN HIM DWELLS THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD”

Saint John 3. 1-15

THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY: 15 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In the Name + of Jesus

   Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity: let us give glory to Him because He hath shown mercy to us.

   What Adam knew of the Holy Trinity before the “fall” is not recorded for your edification. It is sinful to be preoccupied in speculating on that which The Lord has not revealed.

   Theology is words about God but theology is not the study of God. God is not an insect under a microscope to be studied—He is Creator who shares Himself with His creatures; through the Word.

   If even your closest friends, your spouse, your parents, don’t ever truly “know” and understand you—the inner you—the real you—like only you can; because only you are inside your head; how much less can any created being truly know the full depth of Trinitarian essence? The answer is one cannot. Thus, the Word of God comes to give the love and mercy of God to man. You have been given faith to respond with the angels: Holy, Holy, + Holy, is the Lord of hosts; of Him and through Him + and to Him are all things! Hallelujah!

   The Word came to a man of the Pharisees.

   Nicodemus was a secret supporter of The Christ, along with Joseph of Arimathea. Nicodemus wanted to know more about Jesus because Nicodemus believed in God…he was like Philip and Bartholomew of Bethsaida BEFORE they had been brought into the presence of Jesus.

   Nicodemus was a Pharisee because he belonged to the Pharisee “party” of the day.  Was this man a sinful hypocrite? Yes he was most certainly just like all of us. He visited Messiah at night for fear of being seen just like he and all of us sin in darkness so others won’t know what we’re really “up to.” A dark and midnight heart pumps out not blood but black brackish trespasses. Nicodemus and we need the Light of the world which brings Life.

   Nicodemus was aware of the miracles of the Rabbi from Nazareth. He knew they were incredibly awesome and that no one could do them apart from God “being with him.”  Nicodemus is close to THE TRUTH of Jesus.

   The Feast of The Holy Trinity is a later feast day in the Churches history appearing in the fourth century to combat the heresy of Arianism. Arianism denied the true Divinity of Jesus. This Feast bespeaks the only saving reality—the truth about Jesus of Nazareth. One can believe what He did… leading a life of obedience and dying on the cross; but unless one believes WHO lead the obedient life—and that it was PERFECTLY and SINLESS in law-keeping; and WHO died for the sins of the entire world—shedding Blood and giving a Body that would atone for all men…then believing in Jesus is meaningless.

    Knowledge of The Trinity, of God, cannot be obtained by mans knowledge or work. Man does not discover but rather God reveals and gives. God bestows faith and trust; by The Word. Saint Peter could never have made his famous confession, said Jesus, had not the Father given Him the revelatory knowledge of The Son.

   At this night-time meeting Jesus gospels Life—how one is made alive—really alive unto life everlasting. Jesus is talking about the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and the work of God The Holy Ghost.                     Unless a baby is born, which happens from conception to delivery without cooperation of the baby, it does not live a natural life. Unless a man “be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” says Jesus.  So Who is Jesus?  Nicodemus own answers prove the Lords point. The Pharisee is clueless and lost in darkness of death. Jesus speaks God, Jesus speaks the Holy Trinity’s message: “I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

   This is a mystery. Yes. Creatures are no mysteries because they can be weighed, x-rayed, probed, recorded, and even dissected and analyzed at the most elemental levels. The Creator cannot be so apprehended. The gifts of The Holy Ghost cannot be claimed, decided for, chosen, or boxed up. Of course the true God is a mystery—He is Sacrament: “The wind bloweth where it listeth…”

   Nicodemus and all of us do not understand. Jesus gives us understanding by coming to us and making His home with us. His presence gives us faith to trust and cling to Him.

   Nicodemus was not a “master of Israel.” The Sanhedrin were to have been faithful teachers of The God of the Scriptures but they had failed to cling to the true understanding of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. To believe in the Old Testament means to believe in The Christ Who is the entire content of Hebrew Scripture.

   The Father talks to no one directly. The Holy Ghost speaks to no one directly. The Blessed Three-in-One speaks Law and Evangel through The Only-begotten and ever existing Son by His Word. Jesus speaks and witnesses of what He knows and sees…of the things of God, for He alone is THE WORD.  Jesus alone has descended from Heaven, from the right hand of majesty, to make known the heart of God, the true mind of TRINITY.  “What does this mean?”

   Jesus does not talk about triangles, schematic charts, triquetas or trefoils. The Christ is the face of the Trinity. The Creed named after blessed Martyr Bishop Saint Athanasius, confesses it the way The Word reveals it in Scripture. The Apostle Paul speaks the Truth of: The Father, in The Spirit, by The Son, the Word, when he writes to the Colossians “for in Him (Jesus the God/Man) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Yes.

   It has been said that all Theology is Christology! Yes. But even more focused, ALL CHRISTOLOGY is CROSSOLOGY.  To know The Holy Trinity, to believe in GOD, is to cling to the Crucifix and He Who is enthroned thereon. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” This is a scandal to the pagan, the mixed-up monotheistic heresies of Judaism (and Islam); and this is foolishness to the tri-theists, and multi-theists of Greeks and all their heathen brood (from pantheists to atheists). But we know nothing and preach nothing save JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED! [1 Cor. 23; 1 Cor. 2.2].

   God is love and God is mercy and God is forgiveness. God is three-in-one and one-in-three. The Father is God, The Spirit is God, The Son is God. There is One God. There are Three Persons. It is mystery, it is Sacrament. To believe this is pure gift; GRACE!  Look to the Cross to find The Christ. Not the Cross of 2,000 years past only, but the Cross today in your midst as the Fruit of the Tree, the Presence of the Body and Blood of your

Crucified, Risen, Ascended, and PRESENT LORD as it is placed into your ears (draped about, with and in you) and as you receive Him in His precious Body and most Holy Blood.

   Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity: He gives glory to His own in absolving, forgiving, clothing + and feeding because He shows mercy to us…in the Name + of Jesus…which is

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

FRIDAY OF THE OCTAVE OF PENTECOST: Homily

This sermon was preached at the Society of Saint Polycarp annual retreat; St. Cecilia's Chapel, Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center, Columbia, IL

“THE NEW HEAVEN IN CHRIST”

Isaiah 65. 17-25

Friday of The Octave of Pentecost: 13 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   Everything you touch is blighted by sin—hubris and ego rotting and decaying an already diseased creation. It’s Adam fault. It’s your fault.

   The airs pollution is not carbon dioxide and smog but the stench of your sin. The higher heaven of outer space is not littered with rocket and satellite debris but with your malice and covetousness—and the smugness of your prideful good deeds; filthy menstrual rags indeed!  But as smog does not do away with the sun, your trespasses cannot blot out the true Sun of Righteousness.

   Is Saint Esaias writing for the doomed Kingdom of Judah, Hezekiah and the remnant, all those who then and later (as Saint Nathanel) would seek the consolation of Israel? Yes. Is the Holy Prophet writing to and for you? Oh yes.

   The Lord Who Fatherly spoke the Word of the Second Person creating all from nothing is the Creator who spoke the Life of That Uncreated Word into your souls at the restorative waters. The Third Person Who hovered over the deep, Who hovered over the font, hovers over the Pentecost Church—THEN & NOW: This day!

   The Christ creates “new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered…”

   His original Kingdom of Eden was perfect—and will be again at the Parousia. His Kingdom of Power is awesome, but “awesomeness” is not the point. His Kingdom of Glory—the eternal heavenly mansions are guaranteed in the Crucified and Resurrected tent/tabernacle/temple of the Nazarene which He Himself rebuilt on the Third Day—The Eighth Day—The 50^th Day—and This Day!

   Jesus’ New Heaven is now in His Catholic Church of the New Testament. His Heaven is in the new earth—filled with new Adams in, with, and under The Second Adam. 

   You steward The Mysteries of this inchoate and becoming heaven as you minister its King to the royal priests. 

   There would be weeping in Babylon (al naharoth Babel) not long after The Prophets words were uttered. There is weeping now amongst you and your people as your journey through the desert of Sin constantly tempted and attacked by the Jezebels, the Ahabs, the mammon, the flesh, the world, and the devil. There is weeping in the long dark night of the Cross.

   He lives. He is risen! Christus Rex.

   You rejoice in the New Jerusalem from above which is heaven on earth where the Spirit of Pentecost calls, gathers, and enlightens you and your people around what Christ has built. He has labored and you rest in Him. He wept and you joy in His tender absolution and His comforting arms. He crushed the wolf and laid down in the tomb that you might sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob every Sunday eating not straw, not even deliciously roasted bullock—but living on The Lamb Himself.

   In this, In His Holy Mountain of The Cross, The Pulpit, the Font and the Rail, you have Peace.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

SAINT BARNABAS, APOSTLE: Homily

This sermon was preached at the Society of Saint Polycarp annual retreat; St. Cecilia's Chapel, Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center, Columbia, IL

 

“BARNABAS’ BLOOD POINTS TO THE BLOOD OF AGNUS DEI”

Saint Matthew 10. 16-22

Saint Barnabas, Apostle, 11 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   You are not paid gladiators earning tribute, fame, and imperial privilege for your exegetical mastery and homiletical brilliance.  You are slaves—douloi.

   Your quickness of intellect doesn’t matter. Whether or not your “political” and “people” skills has placed you in basilica, cathedral, or some other place of power, beauty, and ethos; none of that is what you are truly about!

   You are not lion-kings surveying all of your pride. You are sheep. It is not to be said amongst us, prideful chest puffing, “I am Spartacus” but rather breast striking, “I am Barnabas,” Kyrie Elieson.

   But you know all of this—at least your New Man, your reborn baptismal creation so believes, teaches and confesses. Good. Gracious!

   The real King, The “Lion of Judah” speaks however to your “old Adam,” your “ass” (as the Reformer would say) with the big ears twitching to hear compliments and self-affirming platitudes. Repent!

   The supreme honor you have been given is the gift to icon The Good Shepherd—The King of Sorrow & Suffering on your behalf—to and for your own respective flocks.

   You are called by the Paraclete through The Shepherds Word to go into the midst of Satan’s wolf-pack. May the ultimate jewel of martyrdom be yours…if and when it comes: Maranatha!

   You are equipped. You are draped and mantled and soled with authority, in heaven and earth, because He who first washed + you clean at the Holy Womb of Mother Church, has also washed your feet clean with the Easter-eve Breath of His Holy Ordination. You have been claimed and placed into the fighting order of His Apostolic Band—of brothers—of blood.

    In His stead you bind and you loose. In The “cruciform” you proclaim, catechize, and administer the Holy Things of The Holy One.

   You are not as wise as serpents, though you behave many times like a snake in the grass. You are not as harmless as doves, but many times are as belligerent as chicken hawks and as noisy as thieving Jays.

   Barnabas’ Lord and God is your Lord and God. The Christ is the perfect Creator, the Perfect God/Man and most certainly, He Is wise…far wiser than the old ancient foe. Christ is harmless and gentle (Agnus Dei). He is the active beast of burden and the passive paschal victim.

   “They sent forth Barnabas.” The Church, the Apostles, the Bishop sent forth Presbyter Father Barnabas. The Bride of Christ has sent you forth as well.

   “Their line has gone out through all the earth.” That line is an unbroken trail of blood—salvific atoning Christ-Blood! The wet footsteps of this crimson path comes from His riven side, from the five wounds of the Redeemer forever trumping and satisfying the five books of Torah. These words of Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of sins are the words of Barnabas, the Apostle Paul, and all of you; and they do go to the ends of the world.

   This man we commemorate and honor today is deserving; he was a faithful soldier this Apostle to Antioch. His testimony was ultimately his martyrdom as he was stoned to death in Salamis A.D. 61.  Fittingly the Symbols state “the memory of Saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works.” [AC XXI, Jacobs p. 46]

   “For he, (Barnabas) was a good man” writes Saint Luke. He was a poor miserable sinner in thought, word and deed—like this small assembly. You have neglected visits to the sick and homebound. You have failed to pray for your attackers. You have envied your brother priests. You have back-bitten and thought evil of your recalcitrant members. You have treated blood-bought lambs as goats. You have lusted. You have erected idols of straw and have stood with Peter in blasphemy “I do not know the man!”  Repent!

   Barnabas was “good” only like Abraham and Job were good—“full of the Holy Ghost and faith,” that is, covered in the Blood of Jesus, and filled with the Flesh and Blood of His Eucharist!

   This Evangel is what you exhort your sheepfolds with; this proclamation you cleave to and you preach—for the Lord is with you and always cleaves to you that you might cleave ever more to Him and His Words.

   Your desert separation by sin from the Trinity is remedied. His separation from heaven, peace, and life itself on the Tree has sufficed. He is remedy incarnate and continues to bring peace and rest to His own by separating you out and sending you out, like Barnabas, as bloody sheep into the midst of hungry wolves.

   You will be delivered up to the councils (and not just testy parish councils and mob-like voters’ assemblies).  Good!  You will be scourged in their synagogues.  Good!  You will be brought before governors and kings for His sake.  Good!  It is men like Barnabas that Tertullian correctly spoke “the Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church!”

   As the Spirit spoke Your Father in The Word of The Son through your brother Saint Barnabas, “son of encouragement” He will speak through you.

   “Ye shall be hated of all men for His Names sake.” Good…God’s gracious good, in the True Son of not just encouragement but of Victory.

   He endures to the end…the end of the age..His Blood continues to cover and nourish. Thus you are saved.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of the Holy Ghost.

WHITSUNDAY: Homily

“ARISE, LET US GO HENCE”

Saint John 14. 23-31

WHITSUNDAY—THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

 8 June Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   Your “old Adam” does not love Jesus. The fact that this very statement “rankles” you proves that. If Adam who could have resisted sin—treason—patricide, and didn’t, why do you doubt that your sinful nature resists, rebels and yes, hates the Lord? Repent!

   The Law says clearly both in Torah and in Christ’s summary: love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. You don’t and the fact that this doesn’t bother you more than it does is absolute proof that you don’t!  Repent!

   And how do you truly have contrition and Godly remorse? How do you sincerely confess with real repentance and not just feigned ritualistic motion?

   Jesus! And what does God’s Name mean? Not the name of a generic and amorphous “god” but the Name of The God/Man Messiah in flesh and blood? His Name is The + Name above all names. Jesus = Savior. Jesus saves you from your un-love by His love—Love Incarnate—“doing and active love.” The Lord’s Christ loves you in keeping the two Great Commands. The Savior saves you from your hate and murder by being hated, persecuted, tortured and murdered in your stead at Golgotha! He fills you with this, what is the Gospel, by His Paraclete who proceeds from Him and His Father.

   The Father and Son witnessed the Holy Spirit hovering over the face of the deep at the beginning. The same Father, as Jesus promised, sent this Comforter to the Apostles that Sunday in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.  The promise, The Word of Truth, given to Saint Joel bore fruition amongst the “12” and those gathered in the upper room.

   The Spirit’s Wind, the “breath” of God but not in an impersonal way, rather in a Personality of Love and advocacy does the work of Trinitarian ministry by delivering the Second Person in all of His Ascended and Glorified fullness. This Third Person once looked, or appeared as a dove; He was not a bird, but God, fully God. He, on the day we celebrate this morn, looked, or appeared as cloven tongues of flame; He was not fire, but God, fully God. He came to the Apostles and made His abode with them. The Holy Ghost filled Peter and the rest with God. “What does this mean?” Jesus told them and He tells you, for the same Spirit, not dove, not flickering fire, but The Word in all His saving presence, descended upon you too at the + Holy Font—where you once gathered with the Saints. There also, was a rushing wind, the moving waters, not of the Pool of Siloam, but of Christ’s gushing water and Blood, and you were made an apostle, a God-talker, a “little ambassador” of your Brother the High King. Jesus told all His Church: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.”  That peace is Jesus Himself.

   Pentecost is not a past Holy Day but a daily and highly active reality. Pentecost is both your Baptisms filling and animating you moment by moment and it is also Christ’s restoration of all things beginning in His children—His first fruits, His branches, His living stones, His brothers and sisters. It is His work and His Blood transfusions bringing to life His beloved—you! Pentecost is also the very life of the Church, the ever-present Office of the Holy Ministry in your midst until the end of the age. For in the Apostolic Office the Holy Ghost is ALSO ever present stewarding the gifts of Christ which gather His people in Mass and Gottesdienst (God’s Service). The priest, pastor, New Testament Apostle, does nothing but serve as “house attendant” so that the Paraclete might “call, gather, and enlighten” you in/with/under Jesus—the Jesus Who really is present—for you!

   Holy Pentecost is you reading your Bible where the Spirit fills you with Jesus. Whitsunday is you remembering your Holy + Washing where the Spirit brings to mind what Jesus did at the Tree and at the Sacrament of Baptism—what He does in producing contrition and the daily drowning of “old man Adam.”  Pentecost is where the Spirit given to your Pastor at his ordination, placing him into that “Office” which is “in the stead and by the command of Our Lord Jesus Christ” speaks Holy and perfect and total Absolution of all your foulness.  The sending of the Holy Ghost is when you with un-plugged ears and loosed tongues receive Christ’s Word, both Law and Evangel in homilies and sermons, wherein the Spirit causes your faith to grasp Jesus as tightly as the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Magdalene, Thomas…where you cradle your Savior as dearly as the Blessed Theotokos did!

   Christ went away, visibly, from you and He comes again and again in Feasting and Faith sustaining Absolution.

    Hear the Holy Wind, the Breath of The Trinity? Hear the Son of Righteousness! You now this day unto the Eschaton “speak with other tongues” with New Voices the wonders of His love. You are His vessels of Peace and Reconciliation to all your neighbors. Here in the Church the curse of Babel is reversed and breached as surely as death and hell themselves. The Kingdom restored in devout harmony of prayer, praise and thanksgiving. Assembled in this Mt. Zion you the remnant, righteous In Him, are delivered from all weeping and pain, and you call upon the Name of The Lord. He now pours out His Spirit on all His servants. You drink not new wine but the Immortal and Eternal Blood of The Lamb—for as The Holy Ghost gives me utterance, and Christ Jesus speaks: “I forgive you all your sins…”

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost