All higher knowledge in her presence falls/Degraded.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
When I wrote the ninety-five, haters straight up assailed 'em
For the past few months my parish has had a deacon serving alongside our regular priest; he's just here on temporary assignment, learning the ropes as he awaits his ordination to the priesthood in the spring. He seems like a nice guy--smart, a good homilist, and with a gentle, approachable manner--but I couldn't help wondering what his deal was: he's in his late forties, and wears what appears to be a wedding ring. I'd speculated that maybe he was a widower, or possibly a married Episcopalian priest who was converting. However, in my experience, priest-converts from the C of E tend to be a little scary and fanatical (running toward Rome as an escape from teh gays and teh wimmins they believe are taking over the Anglican communion). He definitely didn't fit that profile.
So it was rather wonderful to learn today, on Ninety-Five Theses Day, that our deacon is actually a history professor at a local college and a former Methodist minister--whose conversion to Catholicism twelve years ago coincided with completing his dissertation on Reformation Christianity.
Gotta watch out when you study religious history. It does that shit.
(Yeah, I know: I posted this video two years ago. But I love it so.)
Years ago I taught at a school where the Dean of the Faculty was an Episcopal priest whose conversion from being a Baptist started when he studied the Reformation and got excited by the apostolic succession.
Glad your deacon is not one of the scary ones, though I'm happy to send those over to Rome!
oh, and do you know this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0f_qJLkLg
Susan: no! I didn't know that one. Thanks for the link.
(And, seriously? I don't want the scary ones. But I'm pretty psyched to have a sweet, academic, married dude--and father of six!--serving in my diocese. Rome did something right in approving his ordination. May there be more such.)
LOVE the rap! I've sent it to my whole Presbyterian posse, including my Dad, who is a retired history professor and retired Presbyterian minister. He loves it too.
8 comments:
I know someone who converted to Anglicanism after reading Hooker. Glad to hear your deacon isn't one of the scary ones.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
(For both early modernist conversion stories and this video, which I have watched kind of nonstop since the first time you posed it.)
Moria:
It gets better. Apparently his conversion was at least partly because of his study of--wait for it--eucharistic theology.
Years ago I taught at a school where the Dean of the Faculty was an Episcopal priest whose conversion from being a Baptist started when he studied the Reformation and got excited by the apostolic succession.
Glad your deacon is not one of the scary ones, though I'm happy to send those over to Rome!
oh, and do you know this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0f_qJLkLg
Well OF COURSE he converted over eucharistic theology. All the rest of us along the sacramental spectrum have Presence Envy.
Thanks for reposting the video, which I missed last time around. Most excellent.
Susan: no! I didn't know that one. Thanks for the link.
(And, seriously? I don't want the scary ones. But I'm pretty psyched to have a sweet, academic, married dude--and father of six!--serving in my diocese. Rome did something right in approving his ordination. May there be more such.)
Shout out to Gutenberg, yo!
LOVE the rap! I've sent it to my whole Presbyterian posse, including my Dad, who is a retired history professor and retired Presbyterian minister. He loves it too.
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