GAMES, LECTURES, MUSEUMS AND EVENSONG

The past few days have been full ones. After working out Friday morning, I helped with a funeral at St. Alban's. A long time parishioner passed away and I was the reader at her Memorial Service. It was a beautiful service and she will be missed by all those whose lives she touched.

That afternoon the boys came over and stayed with us overnight. Beth and Franklin had somewhere to go in Dallas, so we had the pleasure of keeping the boys. Harry didn't come with them this time since it was not an overnight event for the parents.

We went to Chili's for dinner and then came back home for our dessert, watched the movie "Akeelah and the Bee", which I highly recommend, and then we played Rumikins which is a great board game. Ian won, but we all demanded a re-match the next time they come over! We have played this before at their house and I remembered that I had that game when Jim and Courtney were small and we used to play it all the time. My game is nearly 40 years old but is still it A-1 shape, so it will live in our bar where we can get to it and play anytime we feel the urge. It's really fun.

We belong to the Archbishop Michael Ramsey Society which is for Lay Associates of the Nashotah House Alumni Association benefiting the Bishop Donald J. Parsons Scholarship Fund.

In 1841, under the direction of Bishop Jackson Kemper, three newly ordained deacons journeyed west and founded Nashotah House as a mission to the American frontier. The following year, a seminary opened with three students. These modest beginnings are witnessed today in the original Red Chapel where the early seminary community worshiped, nestled along the shore of Upper Nashotah Lake. In 1847, Nashotah House received its formal charter from the Wisconsin territorial legislature as a college of "piety and learning." From its humble inception, the mission of the House, then, as now, is to prepare men and women to proclaim boldly and clearly the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Chapel is at the heart of the community, and, as a seminary of longstanding tradition, Nashotah House is dedicated to the Anglican heritage of daily prayer and worship. Every day begins and ends in the Chapel with daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer as well as the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

In a small, closely knit community of intentional prayer, Nashotah House instills traditional values and a commitment to spreading the Word of God. Mission takes form in education and outreach, creating new experiences and opportunities in the communities and parishes Nashotah House serves. Here, a focus on mission instills a passion for ministry to make a difference in the world.
This difference is achieved by the men and women who have been trained at Nashotah House to articulate the Gospel with intelligence and clarity. They foster the growth of the Church and nurture God's people in the saving graces of Jesus Christ.

We gathered at 1:00 p.m. yesterday at the Church of the Holy Apostles for a lecture on the earliest Christian art which is now on display at the Kimball Museum.

Approximately 80 of us attended this lecture which was given by The Rev'd Dr. Arnold Klukas who is the Professor of Sacramental and Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House.

He is an excellent speaker and it was extremely helpful to hear what he had to say before going to the exhibition. It gave us a foretaste of what we were going to see plus the historical as well as theological background on the pieces of ancient art that were on exhibit.

After his lecture, we boarded buses to go to the Museum which is located in West Fort Worth. It took two buses to transport us since there was such a good turnout for this special event.

No Christian images are known to date before the beginning of the third century A.D., and it seems unlikely that the small Christian community created distinctive works of art illustrating or expressing their beliefs before that date.

By the early third century, however, Christians had begun to borrow Old Testament motifs that were regarded as having special Christian significance, such as images of Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, and Daniel, as well as symbolic images, including the Good Shepherd and the fish, the latter an allusion to Jesus (“ichthys", “fish” in Greek, being an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, son of God, savior”). Although very rare in the third century, pictorial scenes from the life of Jesus were evidently being developed, and by the fourth century, extensive illustrations of the New Testament were being created in a variety of media, including catacomb paintings, mosaics, sarcophagi, ivories, and no doubt Bibles, although none survives till the following century. By the sixth century, many of these early, innovative images had been replaced by conventional depictions of the life and miracles of Jesus. Picturing the Bible brings together a wide range of material in an attempt to help clarify the questions of how Christians in the Greco-Roman period illustrated their religious beliefs, including frescoes, marble sculpture and sarcophagi, silver vessels and reliquaries,

carved ivories, engraved gold glass,

bronze sculpture, seals in semiprecious stones, illustrated Bibles, and decorated crosses.

Among the highly important treasures in the exhibition are several that have never or rarely been lent before, such as the spectacular, gem-encrusted gold cross presented by the emperor Justin II to Pope John III in the late sixth century, on loan from the Treasury of Saint Peter's in Vatican City.

This cross functioned as a reliquary, containing a piece of the True Cross. Another important reliquary comes from the Museo Diocesano of Milan. An extremely rare silver reliquary, the “Capsella” of San Nazaro was discovered in 1578, when Saint Carlo Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, ordered the exploration of the area beneath the high altar of the church of San Nazaro (the fourth-century Basilica Apostolorum). One of the largest silver reliquaries of the Early Christian period, this box from San Nazaro combines sacred Christian imagery from the Old and New Testaments with imperial iconography. The Roman chiton and short, fringed hair worn by Christ while teaching, and the scene of the enthroned Virgin holding the Christ Child, recall the classicizing tradition of the imperial court.

It was an excellent exhibit and extremely helpful to have had Father Klulas' explanation beforehand as well as more informative answers to any questions we might have after having visited the exhibition.

After spending a couple of hours at the Museum, we got back on the buses and returned to Holy Apostles for Evensong.

This is a glorious service. Evensong is a liturgy used in the Anglican Communion used in the late afternoon or evening and the office is rendered chorally (that is, when most of the service is sung by the choir and clergy alone). It is roughly the equivalent of Vespers in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran churches, although it was originally formed by combining the Catholic offices of vespers and compline. There is a group in Fort Worth called the St. Ambrose Singers which is a small ensemble, originally formed at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Arlington as the St. Ambrose Chorale in 1981. It now also has singers from the Cathedral Choir of St. Vincent's in Bedford. Their voices were amazing. There were only 9 singers, but the acoustics are so marvelous at Holy Apostle's that it sounded like many more. They sing acapella and you would think that a choir of angels was there. It was a glorious service!

After the service there was a social gathering with wine and cheese and we then went out for dinner.

One of our favorite places to eat in Fort Worth is Caro's on Bluebonnet Circle. If you remember, I mentioned this several weeks ago. It's a little hole in the wall that hasn't changed since we used to eat there over 50 years ago, but we still love it.

We were home by 9:00 and in bed by 10:00 which was good as we had to serve at the altar this morning. I'll be going back to the church this afternoon for a rehearsal of the Stations of the Cross which will be reenacted in a couple of weeks. I will be the reader.

We'll be out of town next week, so I'll have lots of travel news from the foothills of the Ozark Mountains when we return.

Until then .... XOXO, Pcasso