The Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th)

Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia

The Annunciation

Today the Church commemorates the Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lady, the moment when the Archangel Gabriel visited Mary to announce, "Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with you."  This is one of the great Marian feasts of the Church, tied directly to Our Lord's incarnational birth into the world through Mary.

Orthodox Troparion for the Feast of the Annunciation

Today is the beginning of our salvation and the manifestation of the mystery which is from eternity.  The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin, and Gabriel announces grace. So with him let us also cry to the Mother of God: Rejoice, thou who art full of grace!  The Lord is with thee.

Altar-ation

A little High Church fun.  Thank you FSSP!

Remembering Oscar Romero

Today on the Episcopal Church's calendar we remember Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.  At Mass today, the priest read this "prayer" from Romero. 

A Prayer by Oscar Romero

"It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."
Amen.

Saint of 9/11

A friend told me about this documentary about Father Mychael.

Soli Deo Gloria

"To God alone be the Glory," is a translation from the Latin. It is the motto of the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory and I'd like to dedicate it here on this blog.

Last weekend, I was running in my fourth half-marathon in Nashville, Tennessee. It was pouring the rain and the temperature was hovering in the low 40 degrees. Now running for me has always been prayer, focusing my energies and clearing my head to be totally accessible to receiving God's love. However, this particular race was killing me. I have never thought of quitting a race so much as I did in Nashville, especially around mile 8. As I was nearing the home stretch, somewhere around mile 10, I started praying the rosary audibly. Using the power of positive thoughts can help you when your body is telling you that you're insane! "Hail Mary," I'd say and keep going through the prayer. I'd ask for Our Lady of Walsingham to pray for me and to protect my body in this crazy endeavor. Believe it or not, it worked. As I trodded into Titan's Stadium where the finish line was, I kept it up. Praying hard and moving my lips prevented me from dwelling on the pain in my knees. At last, I crossed the finish line utterly spent and exhausted. The rain managed to suck the morale from me that day, but the Rosary and the intercessions of Our Lady of Walsingham won the day.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Walsingham: The Naked Truth

Warning: This is not for the overly pious.

The Sewanee Way

New Printing of Walsingham Way

Walsingham Way: Alfred Hope Patten and the Restoration of the Shrine of Our Lady by Colin Stephenson is the latest book to come out regarding Our Lady of Walsingham and the shrine's restorer, Fr. Alfred Hope Patten. Published first in 1970, this edition by Canterbury Press (UK) became available in February of this year. You can find it available through Amazon and other book retailers on the net. There are some floating around on e-Bay too.

From the Publisher: Alfred Hope Patten was a larger than life figure, terrifying to some, but determined to realise his vision of restoring the medieval shrine in the Norfolk countryside that had been closed at the Reformation. Colin Stephenson's account of his ambitious enterprise, his successes and failures (including a failed attempt to establish religious communities of men and women at Walsingham), his penchant for flamboyant clerical dress, his love of the Roman Church but his dislike of Roman Catholics, does not claim to be the last word in historical scholarship, but is a warm, engaging and entertaining account of one the highest achievements of Anglo-Catholicism in the last century and of one of its most colourful and controversial personalities.

About the Author: COLIN STEPHENSON was Guardian of Walsingham from 1958 until his death in 1973. Walsingham Way was first published in 1970, and followed by his autobiography, Merrily On High in 1973.

I have not been able to find any reviews on this book. I'll purchase a copy soon and let you know what I think. Needless to say, most titles regarding OLW have more to do with the devotional nature of the Shrine and less objective historical analysis regarding the motives behind Patten's desire to restore the Shrine and so forth.

A Collect of Our Lady of Walsingham

O God, who in the blessed Virgin Mary didst make a fit dwelling place for thy Son, grant we beseech thee, that we who honour her shrine at Walsingham may also become temples of thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, and the same Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.


From the Orthodox Christian Society of Our Lady of Walsingham.

A Walsingham Prayer

Lord, be merciful unto me, a sinner.

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Mary, Mother of Jesus, pray for us.

Our Lady of Walsingham, intercede for us.



From The Anglican Service Book. (Pennsylvania: Church of the Good Shepherd, 1991), 734.

Ave Regina coelorum

Said during Candlemas to Maunday Thursday.

Queen of the heavens, we hail thee,
Hail thee, Lady of the Angels;
Thou the dawn, the door of morning
Whence the world's true Light is risen:
Joy to thee, O Virgin glorious,
Beautiful beyond all other;
Hail and farewell, O most gracious,
Intercede for us alway to Jesus.

V. Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, I holy Virgin.
R. Give me strength against thine enemies.

Let us pray:

Grant us, O merciful God, protection in our weakness: that we who celebrate the memory of the holy Mother of God may, through the aid of her intercession, rise again from our sins, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

From The Anglican Service Book. (Pennsylvania: Church of the Good Shepherd, 1991), 731.

Sewanee OLW Society Update

The OLW icon is sitting in Fr. Walter's office! We're waiting on the conversations to commence and I suspect that we'll see Our Lady adorning the walls of COTA's Lady Chapel soon.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for some help in putting together a liturgy for the founding of the Sewanee Society of OLW. Please email me at chad.m.krouse@gmail.com to let me know if you'd be interested in helping.

Stay tuned!

Christ of the Burnt Men

by Thomas Merton, OCSO

"Do not ask when it will be or how it will be:
On a mountain or in a prison,
in a desert or in a concentration camp
or in a hospital or at Gethsemani.
It does not matter.
So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you.
You will not know until you are in it.

But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty
and I shall lead you into the high places of my joy and you shall
die in Me and find all things in My mercy which has created you
for this end. . .

That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ
of the burnt men."


---------------
From Thomas Merton's seminal work, The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Garden City Books, 1951), 422-423.

Icon of Saint Chad, Bishop of Lichfield

Saint Chad of Lichfield (d. 672) was my discernment icon.  That is, I began writing this icon back in 2005 as part of my discernment process for ordination in the Episcopal Church.  Finding images of St. Chad is rather difficult and I longed to have an icon of my namesake.  

Though my parents did not intentional name me after this humble saint, I adopted him as my patron and desire to embodied his virtue and holy ways--I need humility!

I finished St. Chad in the Fall 2008.  With so many things in life, this icon was started and stopped multiple times.  It was after finishing Chad that I redeveloped the itch to get back into iconography as an important part of my prayer life.  Chad fanned the embers and now the flames are ablaze.  The icon is 16 in. x 12 in., acrylic on wood.

I broke some icon rules with St. Chad--he's portrayed in red which is usually reserved for martyrs.  The cross on his vestments and on the Gospel Book comes from the Lichfield Gospels, an illuminated manuscript attributed to Chad.  I gave him a "Live Strong" bracelet, as my Pastoral Theology professor says, on his right arm.

Prayer of the Akathist to Saint Chad of Lichfield

From the website http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/

O Jesus Christ God, the Divine Logos, we beseech Thee that we may be deemed worthy to recall the works of Thy great wonderworker and hierarch Chad. We pray that we may find grace through his great piety, humility, unceasing prayer, fasting and obedience to his brethren. We seek his counsel and intercessions before Thy glorious Throne. We ask Thee, our God, to grant us humility, love and steadfastness in faith and teaching. Bestow good thoughts and intentions upon us and upon our brothers and sisters, and especially upon our enemies who wrong us. Help us in times of need to call upon holy Chad’s humility to Saint Theodore. As a model of obedience, holy Chad relinquished the See of York, feeling unworthy of such an honour, and so was rewarded with a great See in Mercia and, more, precious humility. 

Help us, O Almighty God, to emulate humble Chad and preserve us from selfish and vain thoughts. Help us never to forget those that suffer, the downtrodden and the unfortunate. Be a hand for us, when in humility, we step aside for others. Keep us, for the sins of pride, vanity and lust are hard to battle and conquer, and only through Thee are they truly defeated. May we learn to love one another in Thee, O Christ, and may we strive for concord through Thee with those before us and around us. May we put aside all earthly cares and come to the knowledge of Thine Eternal Truth. Thou art the Divine Architect Who didst shape this vast universe and Whose power is limitless. We humbly beg Thee, forgive us our sins, for Thy power is great and we are weak. 

Remember humble Chad’s prayers for our sake, and have mercy on us in Thy dread Judgement. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, always, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Sewanee Society of Our Lady of Walsingham

Our Lady of Walsingham is coming to a seminary near you!  What is a "cell" of OLW?  Well, I'm glad you've asked.  A cell is the Shrine's word for a society or group.  We're forming the Sewanee Society of OLW to focus devotion to OLW as well as awareness.  Our first priest associate is going to be The Rev. Walter B. A. Brownridge, Associate Dean of Community Life for the seminary.  We have several other ordained clergy who are interested and we'll get them signed up as priest associates of the "Holy House" so that Father Walter isn't alone.

Some ideas that are being kicked around include having a monthly High Mass commencing next term that would be on a Sunday evening in Chapel of the Apostles (COTA).  This we would do up right:  subdeacon, deacon, incense, the whole deal!  We're also hoping to have the new icon of OLW blessed and installed in the Lady Chapel inside of COTA directly above the votive candles as site of pilgrimage for prayer and intercession to Our Lady.  The icon will be a permanent gift to the Seminary in thanksgiving for the School of Theology.

In addition to a monthly mass, we're thinking of having a reception or dinner following which could highlight guest clergy and speakers.  We could also put together a booklet of devotions specific for Sewanee and OLW at Sewanee.  So really, the sky is the limit.  We plan to open this up to everyone:  undergraduate students, faculty, alumni, spouses, community members, everyone!

So stay tuned.  If you're on FaceBook, we've created a group, "Sewanee Society of Our Lady of Walsingham" to publish news and events there.  Join and invite a friend or two! 

Icon of Saint Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln

Saint Hugh of Lincoln (1135-1200) has one of the best Collects found in Lesser Feast and Fasts:

O holy God, you endowed your servant and bishop Hugh of Lincoln with wise and cheerful boldness, and taught him to commend the discipline of holy life to kings and princes: Grant that we also, rejoicing in the Good News of your mercy, and fearing nothing but the loss of you, may be bold to speak the truth in love, in the name of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I wanted an icon of St. Hugh and needless to say, there are very few out there.  So I decided to write one.  I wanted to put Hugh in his Carteusian habit rather than in episcopal vestments (as he is usually portrayed).  I wanted him to hold my favorite line from Hugh's collect which is a reference to Ephesians 4:15--speaking the truth in love.  Size is 16 in. x 12 in., acrylic on wood.

I am very pleased with how Hugh turned out.  I think this is the fastest (though I am fully aware that this is not the point of iconography) icon I've written.  It was done over the course of the Christmas break and finished in early 2009.

Prayer to Our Lady of Walsingham

A Prayer from the Walsingham Pilgrim Manual

O Mary, recall the solemn moment when Jesus, you divine Son, dying on the cross, confided us to your maternal care.  You are our Mother; we desire ever to remain your devout children.  Let us therefore feel  the effects of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ.  Make your Name again glorious in this place once renowned throughout our land by your visits, favours, and many miracles.

Pray, O holy Mother of God, for the conversion of England and America, restoration of the sick, consolation of the afflicted, repentance of sinners, peace to the departed.

O blessed Mary, Mother of God, our Lady of Walsingham intercede for us.  Amen.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham (OLW for short).  I hope to use this blog to post information for the new Sewanee Society of OLW (though this is in no way intending to be the Society's official site) as well "wander" into articles and photos relating to OLW, Anglo-Catholic liturgy, spirituality, and so forth.

I welcome and invite your thoughts and comments.  Check here often and contribute!