Deacon John's Homiletics Session Two Notes


Deacon John's notes for our Homiletics class can be accessed at this link...

LS- 550 Homiletics Session Two notes

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St. Michaels Seminary hosts instructed Divine Liturgy


The Maryland campus of St. Michael’s Seminary hosted an instructed Divine Liturgy conducted by Fr. Michael Clancy of the Orthodox Anglican Church. Fr. Michael, formerly of the Patriarchate of Moscow, celebrated the Eastern Orthodox Eucharist and answered questions for the students. This event was part of the Charismatic Episcopal Church seminary course Ancient Ecumenical Traditions, Orthodox, Roman and Anglican/Celtic. Fr. Michael’s presentation, which he normally conducts for his own church’s seminary, was a wonderful and practical conclusion to the Fall semester. It tied together a great deal of what the seminarians had been learning and allowed them to see and participate in this beautiful celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Fr. Michael also anointed the people with holy oil mingled with the tears of a weeping icon of the Madonna. Fr. Michael is a friend of the CEC and sometimes attends The Church of the Good Shepherd, CEC in Ellicott City, MD. Fr. Michael is a chaplain with the Maryland National Guard and serves with Fr. Martin Eppard (the course instructor) as a police chaplain. All of the seminarians were greatly blessed by this event. The lecture and questions and answer time was extremely informative, but the most wonderful part of the evening was the celebration of the sacrament in this unique way.

Archbishop Vigneron calls for opposition to Obama abortion stand.

Archbishop Vigneron, the next Archbishop of Detroit, has expressed disappointment with Obama’s position on abortion and has called for forceful opposition and coalition-building to counter it.
Archbishop Vigneron, speaking in an interview with the Detroit News, said he shares other bishops’ concerns that the Obama administration has given indications that the president is going to rescind some protections for the unborn.

“And I am very disappointed in that,” he told the Detroit News. “We are going to have to represent our opposition as forcefully as we can and try to build coalitions to dissuade the administration from moving to that.”

The archbishop declined to answer whether he would deny Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, calling it a “hypothetical question.”

“I simply want to affirm that part of being a Catholic is having a conviction that on these moral matters, the church speaks the mind of Christ. And I want to help Catholics, especially Catholics in responsible positions, to maintain the integrity of their professions,” he told the Detroit News.

Archbishop Vigneron also voiced concern about the economy of Michigan and its impact on people and families.

Other plans for his new flock include reinvigorating the priesthood by encouraging vocations and focusing on pastoral care for students at Catholic colleges and universities.

The archbishop added that he will immerse himself in the archdiocese’s “Together in Faith” reorganization program which is closing or consolidating dozens of parishes.


Obama Grants Funding for Abortions


Our new president has just signed an executive order, rolling back a previous ban by Pres. G.W. Bush, to allow taxpayer dollars to be used to fund abortions abroad... 

Now those of you who know me understand that I am against all forms of murder, the death penalty and especially abortion; but I have to say "I told you so!" 

Our current leadership has defined the parameters for acceptable argument on abortion; which they so lovingly call "Family Planning" (how very Orwellian), and will reserve a special place on the chopping block for all voices of dissent. The "liberal" (which is more centrist than true liberalism) government that we have put in power, in our infinite wisdom, has manufactured the consent of Americans to support murder and abortion; through its strangle hold on public opinion, media, and pulpit. This should come as no surprise to some as this is the way that our mob-rules-elitist-government protects it's interests.

Well as you can tell this stuff gets my dander up, and it is said that "There is no such thing as bad press" so in a push to be more placable and still maintain an air of smugness; I will forthwith cease from using the Christian and Surname of our Commander in Cheif and will forever call him by his new cognomen  Socialist Maximus   


"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." - Thomas Paine 

President Obama uses Lincoln Bible at Inauguration

President Obama used the Lincoln Bible at his inauguration; the first president to do so in 147 years. 

Barack Obama has chosen to be sworn in on the Holy Bible, and he will invoke God. He is not obliged to do either; he has chosen to. And (unlike Bishop Gene Robinson) he apparently does not care about those he may offend by doing so.

It is heartening to see politicians fearlessly treading where clerics have ceased to.

The US Constitution does not require a Bible, but it has become tradition.

There have been a few lawsuits attempting to oblige the Chief Justice – who will administer the Oath of Office– from adding ‘so help me God’ to the constitutionally prescribed presidential oath (Art. II, Sec. 1). They have also sought to declare unconstitutional the use of clergy to deliver an invocation and benediction.

But all this is trivia and tittle-tattle. 

Barack Obama is not being sworn in on just any old Bible, like most of his predecessors. He is to use the very tome used by Abraham Lincoln at his inauguration of 1861. He will be the first incoming president in 147 years to use the Lincoln Bible, and he has chosen to do so because he intends pursuing Lincoln’s themes of national unity, arguing that the US Constitution was created ‘to form a more perfect Union’.

Bizarrely, Mr Obama will travel to his inauguration via the same route that Lincoln took, and will also eat lunch off replicas of the Lincolns' White House china.

The spirit of Lincoln will be as immanent as the Spirit of God. 

Most presidents have sworn the Oath of Office upon a Bible which had personal or political significance – usually the family Bible. Theodore Roosevelt exceptionally swore on nothing, and John Quincy Adams, although a Christian, took his presidential oath upon a "Volume of Laws", declaring that he was elected to preserve, protect and defend the US Constitution.

Adams’ choice of ‘unholy’ writ was unique, since those who were not sworn in on the Bible (however hastily) all laid their hands on something which they considered ‘holy’. Lyndon B. Johnson took his oath aboard Air Force 1 upon a Missal – the Roman Catholic liturgical book – because it was all that was found in President Kennedy’s airplane bedroom. 

Harding was sworn in on the Bible used by George Washington in 1789. Eisenhower, Carter and Bush Snr all doubled up, using the Washington Bible along with their family bibles. Clinton used his grandmother’s Bible, and Coolidge, Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan all used bibles from the maternal sides of their families.

The Bible has now become intrinsic to the inauguration ceremony, so much so that more questions would be asked about a presidential candidate who purposely eschewed it than would ever be asked of a candidate who deploys it. History still notes that Franklin Pierce broke with precedent in 1853 when he chose not to kiss the Bible.

1 Timothy Chapter 2

First of all, then, I admonish and urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be offered on behalf of all men, For kings and all who are in positions of authority or high responsibility, that outwardly we may pass a quiet and undisturbed life and inwardly a peaceable one in all godliness and reverence and seriousness in every way. For such praying is good and right, and it is pleasing and acceptable to God our Savior, who wishes all men to be saved and increasingly to perceive and recognize and discern and know precisely and correctly the divine Truth. For there is only one God, and only one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people, a fact that was attested to at the right and proper time. And of this matter I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (special messenger)--I am speaking the truth in Christ, I do not falsify when I say this--a teacher of the Gentiles in the realm of faith and truth.