Frank Logue reminds us of the Eucharist on the Moon, 40 years ago

Frank Logue, who blogs at Irenic Thoughts, has these peaceful thoughts today at his blog, reflecting on Apollo 11 on the moon 40 years ago, and the First Eucharist on the Moon. Just wonderful.

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

______________________________

from Irenic Thoughts:

Buzz Aldrin steps down to the surface of the moon
You will read and hear much today of what happened 40 years ago on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong's "One small step for man" will be replayed again and again. But minutes after the lunar landing and prior to the moonwalk, Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin radioed back to earth,

Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way.

Silence was all he could request. In his autobiography Aldrin would write, "NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O'Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas." A presbyterian layman, Aldrin arranged to take reserved sacrament (already blessed bread and wine) with him to the moon. He had a Ph.D. in astrophysics from MIT, and he was a man smart enough to think of no better way to offer thanks for the moon landing. He had permission to bring the sacrament on board as long as he didn't talk of it for two decades. He would later write,

"In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. Buzz Aldrin on the moonIn the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit....Eagle's metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."

Read the rest at Irenic Thoughts, and give thanks for the spirit of exploration!

Lent - an antidote to "functional atheism"

Hat - tip goes to Parker Palmer in his book, "Let your life speak" for the term "functional atheism" and Hat - tip to Irenic Thoughts blog, where I nabbed this image...

Christmas Card from my bishop - VTS Chapel in winter

Photo credit goes to Frank Logue, fellow VTS grad, and author of the "Irenic Thoughts" blog

Blessed are the Cheesemakers, and all the other Saints!

Today is All Saints Day. November 1st, and November 2nd is known as All Souls' Day. Most often, these two days are merged together and observed on the first Sunday after All Saints. So, tomorrow, we'll be celebrating All Saints and the gospel reading will be from the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 5: 1-12) - the "Blessed are the ______" reading that is quoted so often.

Of course, it is also a good time to watch Life of Brian, or at least the "Sermon on the Mount" clip from it!

Humor is good medicine,

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

(hat tip for the reminder goes to Frank Logue at Irenic Thoughts)

As if there were only one of us

God loves each of us
as if there were only one of us.

—Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

hat tip to the Irenic Thoughts blog and fellow VTS Fightin' Friar (from different decades), the Rev. Frank Logue

It's "Reformation Sunday" ... a few reflections

First, from Stanley Hauerwas, courtesy of the "Covenant" Blog...

Stanley Hauerwas: Reformation is Sin

By Sam Keyes | October 28, 2007

As much as I love singing “A mighty fortress is our God,” I see little reason to celebrate “Reformation Sunday,” observed today by many Lutherans and other Protestants. (No doubt many reformed Anglican congregations observe it as well.) Hauerwas’s rhetoric is, unsurprisingly, provocative, but in a divided Church I think it important to remember this day not as a triumph but as a failure:

I realize that this perspective on Reformation Sunday is not the usual perspective. The usual perspective is to tell us what a wonderful thing happened at the Reformation. The Reformation struck a blow for freedom. No longer would we be held in medieval captivity to law and arbitrary authority. The Reformation was the beginning of enlightenment, of progressive civilizations, of democracy, that have come to fruition in this wonderful country called America. What a destructive story.

You can tell the destructive character of that narrative by what it has done to the Jews. The way we Protestants read history, and in particular our Bible, has been nothing but disastrous for the Jews. For we turned the Jews into Catholics by suggesting that the Jews had sunk into legalistic and sacramental religion after the prophets and had therefore become moribund and dead. In order to make Jesus explicable (in order to make Jesus look like Luther - at least the Luther of our democratic projections), we had to make Judaism look like our characterization of Catholicism. Yet Jesus did not free us from Israel; rather, he engrafted us into the promise of Israel so that we might be a people called to the same holiness of the law.

This whole sermon is online here.

Second, from Fr. Logue at "Irenic Thoughts"...

Reformation Sunday

On October 31, 1517, a seminary professor and monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 propositions for debate to the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church. This action touched off what we now call the Reformation. There is joy in what the Reformation brought about in that having the Bible and the worship in the language of the people (rather than Latin) is a direct result of the debate Luther began within the church. But, the Reformation also led to the prefusion of denominatons and led to more persecutation of persons of varying Christian beliefs.

Read the rest HERE.