Dear Readers,
My
name is Fr. Franz Devantier of Saint Titus, Independent Old Catholic Church
(IOCC) of Africa, operating in South Africa, and also creator of this blog.
My background was that of a Liberal Catholic
Priest, and a Traditional Catholic Priest in South Africa, and then an
independent Priest in the Catholic tradition. I was incardinated into the
IOCC by Archbishop-Primate Emeritus Maurice McCormick founder of the IOCC of
America.
Primate Archbishop George Le Mesurier, IOCC of
America
Primate Emeritus Archbishop Maurice McCormick, IOCC of America
+++
Primate Emeritus Archbishop Maurice McCormick, IOCC of America
+++
Bishop George Otieno Odhiambo, IOCC of Africa
+++
Father. Franz Devantier, IOCC South Africa
Invocatio:
P.
In nomine Patris, et + Filii et Spiritus
Sancti. Amen. (In the
name of the father, and of the Son, +
and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. )
Confiteor:
A. O Lord, Thou hast created man to be immortal and made
him to be an image of Thine own eternity; yet often we forget the glory of our
heritage and wander from the path which leads to righteousness. But Thou, O Lord, hast made us for Thyself
and our hearts are ever restless till they find their rest in Thee. Look with the eyes of Thy love upon our
manifold imperfections and pardon all our shortcomings, that we may be filled
with the brightness of the everlasting light and become the unspotted mirror of
Thy power and the image of Thy goodness;
Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Absolutio:
P.
Deus Pater, Deus + Filius, Deus
Spiritus Sanctus, vos benedicat, custodiat atque sanctificet; Dominus in
clementia sua respiciat supra vos et misereatur vestri; Dominus vos + absolvet ab omnibus peccatis vestris,
vobisque gratiam det Spiritus Sancti et confirmationem. Amen. (God the
Father, God the + Son, God the Holy
Ghost, bless, preserve and sanctify you; the Lord in His lovingkindness look
down upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord + absolve you from all your sins and grant you the grace and
comfort of the Holy Spirit. Amen.)
20th
Sunday after Pentecost – 06th October 2013 (Colour of Celebration – Green)
Intent: Serenity.
Unchanging and immortal God, who reignest for ever serene
above the waterfloods, grant us to gain and hold that holy peace which naught
on earth can vex; through Christ the Prince of peace, who liveth with thee and
the Holy Ghost, one God for evermore.
Amen.
The Liturgy shows us that our misfortunes are caused by our
unfaithfulness in conforming to the will of God. Let us beseech the Lord, through the prayers
of Holy Church, to pardon our sins, so that we may serve Him with a quiet and
trustful heart, always obeying His precepts.
Daily Scripture Readings – 6 to 12
October (Read the bible in a
Year)
Date
|
Morning
|
Evening
|
6
|
Isaiah,
chapters 26, 27
|
Philippians,
chapter 2
|
7
|
Isaiah,
chapters 28, 29
|
Philippians,
chapter 3
|
8
|
Isaiah,
chapters 30, 31
|
Philippians,
chapter 4
|
9
|
Isaiah,
chapters 32, 33
|
Colossians,
chapter 1
|
10
|
Isaiah,
chapters 34, 35, 36
|
Colossians,
chapter 2
|
11
|
Isaiah,
chapters 37,38
|
Colossians,
chapter 3
|
12
|
Isaiah,
chapters 39, 40
|
Colossians,
chapter 4
|
Commemoration
of the Saints, for the coming week
Sunday October 6th
-> St Bruno, Confessor.
St Bruno, born at Cologne, retired with six of his friends
to one of the desert mountains of Dauphiny in the south east of France. There he established the first house of the
Order of the Carthusians. He died on
October 6 A.D. 1101.
Monday October 7th
-> Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.
In its present form the Rosary (according to the accepted
tradition) is due to St Dominic, the founder of the Order of Friars Preachers,
his objective being to stem the flood of the Albigensian heresy, then spreading
far and wide throughout Europe. He
propagated this form of prayer in obedience to a revelation received from the
Blessed Virgin, to whom he had recourse for this purpose, about the year 1206, and
to him we owe the spread of a devotion, which for many centuries has produced
the most marvellous results in the Christian world. The decisive defeat of the Turks at the
famous battle of Lepanto (A.D. 1571) and at Belgrade (A.D. 1716) gave occasion
to the institution of this feast and to its extension to the Universal Church.
Tuesday October 8th
-> St Bridget, Widow.
St Bridget, a descendant of the royal house of Sweden, was
married to prince Ulfo. After the death
of the latter, she founded the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, commonly called
Bridgettines. She died at Rome A.D.
1373.
Wednesday October
9th
-> St John Leonardi, Confessor.
This holy Priest of Luna in Tuscany founded the
Congregation of Regular Clergy called “of the Mother of God”, and other
Institutes. He died at Rome on October 9
A.D. 1609. St John Leonardi was
beatified by Pope Pius XI. Pius XII
extended his feast to the whole Catholic world A.D. 1940.
Thursday October
10th
-> St Francis Borgia, Confessor.
After the death of his wife, St Francis, Duke of Gandia and
Viceroy of Catalonia, renounced his high position in order to enter the Society
of Jesus. He was the third General of
his Order and died at Rome A.D. 1572.
Friday October 11th
-> Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
To commemorate in the Liturgy the fifteenth centenary of
the Council of Ephesus (held in A.D. 431), which vindicated the title of
Theotokos or “Mother of God” for our Lady, Pope Pius XI in the year 1931
instituted this Feast to be observed by the whole Church.
Announcements:
We are actively recruiting members for Saint Titus,
Ordinary members, members who need baptism and confirmation, and candidate
Priests. If you are interested, then
please contact Fr. Franz devantierf@gmail.com
Special Prayer Requests:
"We know
now that in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic
clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases", adding that this figure
was comparable with that of other groups and denominations.
Quoted from:
We
can no longer accept the heavy toll that the clergy is exacting on our beloved
and innocent souls who attend organized church’s. The church was supposed to be a place of
safety, not a platform for paedophile’s to operate from, hiding behind their
religious office.
=>
I urge you to pray daily that the sex-offenders in the church will be exposed
and publicly named, shamed, and removed from office; before being handed over
to the authorities.
=>
I urge you to pray daily that if the sex-offenders cannot be routed out of
specific church’s, because the church leadership protects them; that the church
leaders and organizations themselves will be publicly exposed, and the church’s
dissolved. If you know that a church
harbours sex-offenders, then immediately cut all support for that church or
organization. If you were making
financial contributions to such an organization, then channel those finances
towards another religious or charity organization that has a zero tolerance
towards sex-offenders.
=>
I urge you to pray daily that new church’s or religious structures will be
established, in which sex-offenders will not be able to operate. Pray for the establishment of religious organizations
and structures, that will provide safe sanctuaries for our beloved and innocent
souls, the children of the world.
News:
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the Saint Titus
Newsletter
Sacred References:
II Peter, chapter 1, verse 5 onwards.
Matthew, Chapter 11, verse 28 onwards
Homily:
Today’s talk is a about achieving a
sense of serenity with regards to matters eternal.
In the Gospel reading we see how we
are compared to beasts of burden. We see
how there is one yoke that we can put around our necks that unlike all the
other available yokes is easy, and the burden is light. You see we are made as creatures of work, so
whatever we do, we need to earn our living by the sweat of our brow
symbolically speaking. So we are going
to have to symbolically take a yoke or yokes upon ourselves, so that we can
apply ourselves as human beings.
Out of all the possibilities, we get
this option. For those of you are weary,
come to me, and I will give you rest. We
are given the opportunity of taking this yoke upon ourselves in preference to
other yokes, so that we can learn from Christ Jesus, so that we can find rest in
our souls. Assuming that your soul has
been searching for something all this time, and it finds no rest. This will give your soul rest at last. This does not mean that you will be working
for Christ Jesus full time, it means that in the mix of the various
responsibilities or yokes that you already have, you should add this yoke into
the mix; in order to lighten the complete load, and to give your soul rest.
If you have not already taken on this
Yoke, then why don’t you take it on right now?
The Prayer of Redemption
Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for dying
on the cross for my sins.
Please forgive my sins and give me the
gift of eternal life.
I ask you into my life and heart to be
my Lord and Saviour.
I undertake to get baptized as called
for in the scriptures, Mark 16, verse 16.
Amen.
Mark, chapter 16, verse 16. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Acts, chapter 2, verse 38. Peter Replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit.
Then having taken on the Yoke, we see
in the Epistle reading about the steps needed to continue carrying this yoke
successfully. If you have asked Jesus
Christ into your heart, then you have faith.
We are advised to add to this faith goodness. And to this goodness knowledge, and to this
knowledge self-control, and to this self-control perseverance, and to this
perseverance Godliness, and to this Godliness, brotherly kindness, and to this
brotherly kindness Love. You see all of
these attributes are building up to the most powerful attribute of them all
Love. If you have complete love for God
and for your fellow beings, then you have already added all the other
attributes as well.
So to summarize you can say that the
first step is that we should be wearing the yoke of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ. The second step is to add Love,
if not already there, then through a series of steps, beginning with Goodness,
and ending up with Love. So this is also
a sort of blueprint on how to move from not really having much love in your
heart to completely embracing Love. You will
notice that there are seven attributes that are mentioned in the Epistle. So you can also consider this as seven
spiritual exercises, that can help you to obtain Love for God and your
neighbour.
1. Goodness – the ability to discern the difference between good and
bad, and to consistently choose the good.
In practice there will probably many lessons to learn along the way.
2. Knowledge – the ability to grow in the knowledge, experience and
understanding of Christ Jesus, through prayer, and study of the scriptures.
3. Self-control – the ability to have control over your emotions and actions. Sometimes it is better to just observe and
say nothing, because if you speak or act into an emotional situation you could
do more harm than good. Just giving love
and understanding may be far more beneficial.
4. Perseverance – we are looking at a life-long commitment to the
Truth, no matter how many times you slip off of the path, you just need to get
back on the path and continue. You need
self-discipline to keep yourself going, through the good times and the bad
times.
5. Godliness – we are created in the image of God, so eventually we
should start displaying a measure of Godliness.
You can ask yourself the question, “what would God do, if God was here
now?”, and try to align your actions with that.
6. Brotherly Kindness – Showing kindness to somebody really close does
uplift that person, but it is also good for your own soul. Remember in this context your brother or
sister or family member is no longer just your blood relations, it includes
your neighbour.
7. Love – finally we get to a slightly better understanding of loving our
neighbour as ourselves, and we are ready to review step one again “Goodness”.
Now if you have these seven qualities
in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and
unproductive in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So these are not seven principles that you
can work through, and once you have them ticked off, you are finished. No, these are seven principles that you will
work through, and then when you get to the end, you start at the beginning again,
and work through them again. Each time
you work through them, you get a better and deeper understanding of the
principles.
Then at the end of the Epistle reading
is the observation that if you don’t have or develop these qualities, then it
is as though you are spiritually short sighted, and you may even forget the
basic principles of your Faith, like for example that you have already been cleansed
from all past sins.
Finally having developed these seven
principles, which always culminate’ in Love, you can look forward to a rich
welcome into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You see Christ came to give us atonement for
our sins, and to teach us about love. So
once we have embraced these two, we have it all.
Love Rev. Fr. Franz Devantier IOCC.
Church History – Article 15:
Revival
We are essentially looking at the
eighteenth century revivals. Out of
nowhere we suddenly see new evangelical movements that had been inspired by the
desire to return to Apostolic Christianity.
Evangelists began appealing to the bible, confident that God would work
mightily in this age of unbelief.
Evangelists were doing two things: Firstly they were calling Christians
to renewal, secondly they were calling non-Christians to accept Christ Jesus as
their saviour. The repercussions of
these revivals were felt all over the world.
To an extent the revivals were a
reaction against the “Enlightenment”, with its arid speculation and flabby morality. To an extent the revivals were a reaction
against the spiritual deadness of Protestant Orthodoxy.
The revivals started in Germany,
and quickly spread to Scandinavia and Switzerland. The revivals produced a philosophy that came
to be known as Pietism. The leaders of
Pietism that started to emerge included Philipp Jacob Spener (1636 - 1705),
August Francke (1663 - 1727), and Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700 - 1760).
Pietism cut across class and
creed. The Pietists emphasized New
Testament simplicity and the need for a personal religious experience of the Christ. Pietism also heavily emphasized the need for
missions and evangelism, as well as something that they called “Christian
social ministry”. The Moravian church
that was born under the influence of Pietism under Ludwig von Zinzendorf,
became one of the most missionary minded churches in modern history.
Also in the eighteenth century we
find similar evangelical revivals taking place in Britain and North
America. John Wesley (1703 - 1791), had
become dissatisfied with the coldness of the Anglican orthodoxy, and even felt
uncertain about his own personal salvation.
Finally in 1738, John Wesley found peace with God in his famous “Heart-warming
experience” in London. Wesleys
experience served as the catalyst for a new wave of gospel preaching. Wesley first concentrated on England’s
largely unevangelized population. Within
a short space of time, he had already won hundreds of thousands of new
converts. Many of these new converts
sparked the evangelical zeal in the Church of England. Other converts joined various evangelical
congregations such as the Baptists and the Congregationalists. However most of Wesley’s new converts formed
various societies, which eventually joined together to form the Methodist
Church.
The Wesleyan movement as the work
of John Wesley became known had far reaching effects. It affected the lives of People in England,
as well as all over the British Isles and the European continent, and
America. Most importantly it produced a
direct style of evangelistic preaching.
It also introduced the style of fervent congregational hymn singing,
which became solid traditions in most Protestant Churches. The Wesleyan movement was also responsible
for far reaching social changes, including the stimulation for the abolition of
slavery in Britain and America, as well as certain prison reforms.
(Next week we look at Awakening)
An Anglican Catechism
– Article 15:
Fasting
=>
What is fasting?
Fasting
is a voluntary act of denying oneself food for a certain length of time.
=>
Why do Christians fast?
Fasting
is a means of self-denial, repentance, intercession and identification with the
needy, and a way of listening to what God has to tell his people.
=>
Why is fasting often associated with prayer?
Our
Lord’s example and other scriptural sources teach us that this form of self-discipline
is an aid to prayer.
=>
What is abstinence?
Abstinence
is a voluntary act of lessening the quantity of food one eats or of denying
oneself other pleasures.
=>
When do Christians fast?
Provincial
Synod enacted the following:
Days
of Fasting and Self-denial
Fast Days
Ash
Wednesday and Good Friday are fast Days, when the amount of food eaten is
reduced.
Days of Self-Denial
The
weekdays of Lent.
Other
Fridays of the year (Except Christmas Day, the Fridays following Christmas,
Easter and Ascension Day, and also public holidays falling on a Friday).
On
these days remembrance is made of the suffering and death or our Lord.
They
may be observed in one or more of these ways:
1.
By giving more time to prayer, Bible study, or spiritual reading;
2.
By eating less or simpler food;
3.
By giving up some pleasure or luxury, and using the money saved to help other
people.
Many
Christians keep a fast at other times in response to a call from their
Bishop. Christians also fast at other
times, such as before receiving Holy Communion or on Fridays.
(Next
week we will look at The Sacraments)
Prayer:
Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name: Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread. And forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.
[Protestants
can optionally add: For Thine is the
kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.]
Amen.
A Meditation for all Humanity, The Great Invocation:
This meditation or prayer refers to the Kingdom of God,
establishing itself on Earth.
(In place of the word “Christ” below, you may be more
comfortable with the term “Lord Maitreya”, “the Imam Mahdi”, “the Bodhisattva”,
“the Messiah”, or etc.)
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let Light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let Love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ
return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
By using the Invocation and encouraging others to use it,
no particular group or organisation is sponsored. It belongs to all humanity.
Benedictio:
P.
Pax Dei, quae exsuperat omnem sensum, custodiat corda vestra et intelligentias
vestras in scientia et amore Dei, et Filii ejus Jesu Christi Domini nostri; Et
benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris, + et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat
super vos, et maneat semper vobiscum.
Amen. (The peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God
and of his Son, Christ our Lord; and the Blessing of God Almighty, the Father, + the Son and the Holy Ghost, be
amongst you and remain with you always. Amen.
)
Love,
Rev. Fr. Franz Devantier of Saint Titus, IOCC, South Africa,
devantierf@gmail.com
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