Feasts of St. Michael and all angels

Icon of the Archangels

First off, My apologies for not writing, I wish I had an excuse, but I dont (aside from school).

Second, I want to start bringing attention to the saints and their works. As a Church, we are not alone. We are the latest heirs to the faith, founded by God Himself, through Christ and the Holy Spirit; the faith handed to the apostles, and sustained by the Saints and Martyrs. It would be wrong of us to forget this fact. Hence the church’s tradition of Feasts remembering our history.

Today I would like to focus on the Feast of of Ss. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, and all angels. There isn’t much that I can say in remembrance of the Archangels lives, besides the fact that they exist.

The Rundown:

• St. Michael is traditionally the angelic defender of the faith, and the commander of the Lord’s armies. He notably appears in both Daniel and Revelation
• St. Gabriel is the messenger of God, delivering news of God’s work. He met with the Blessed Virgin and announced that she would be pregnant with the Son of God.
• St. Raphael is the healer of God, the performer of His miracles. The only mention of Him in scripture comes from the Book of Tobit where he leads Tobias to his wife. He may also have been the angel at the pool of Bethesda.
• St. Uriel is not as well known or written about as the other three. He is only mentioned in 2 Esdras, and only in passing. According to tradition, he was the one who guards the gates of Edan, and the one who went through the streets of Egypt, killing the first born

+Alex Resurgent

Feasts of St. Michael and all angels

Unity in Essentials…

Time For a Christian Truce

I really do not want this to become one of those “religious political” blogs, where i sling mud at the right or left. Ill sling it wherever it needs to be slung. So I don’t want this post to be critical of Mr. (Rev.?) Grabiec’s person, or even his logic.

In his article “Time for a Christian Truce”, Mr. (Rev.?) Grabiec states that we can never truely know anything about our faith, and that it is time for Christians to settle their differences and preach the gospel. I could not agree more with him on this point. In specific he referenced the dispute between the Anglican Church in Canada and the Anglican Network in Canada. Indeed I would love it if Anglicans, or Christians for that matter, would stop warring over minute things and propagated the gospel. But I do have a problem with his thinking, and it is a very common train of thought, and it can have very real effects on the message that we preach.

In the article, Grabiec uses the example of the Arius controversy in the 300’s. Arius argued that Christ was a created being that God the Father gave some sort of divinity. This was condemned as heresy, and rejected. Grabiec seems to say that such beliefs are secondary to the bigger message of God.

I disagree. I think that if we are going to preach the Gospel, we should be fairly clear about what we believe, and make sure that it makes sense.

Arius’ argument didn’t check with the facts. There are two ways that Christ could have been a created being (please tell me if there are others). Way 1: He was a normal human whom God enabled to be sinless and amazingly wise, possessing healing powers. Way 2: He was below God, but above humanity, a sort of Angle or super angel. Each sounds plausible, but each makes it impossible for salvation to work.

We are told that the wages of sin is death, and the only way to atone for sin is through a Human sacrifice. If this is the case, than a Divine-Human Christ’s death would have atoned for the sins of one man. (I swore earlier tonight, sorry guys). A super-human being Christ would have saved no one but himself, because it is clear that what is to be saved, must be assumed. Thats why it must be a human sacrifice, nothing else would have legitimately worked.

This is why Arianism was rejected, it did not fit the understanding of the faith. This is just a small example amongst the myriad of disputes. My point is that we as a Christian community do need to have some unity in the faith that we profess. Its a shame that so many disagreements have divided us so much. But If we say that “anything is possible, really don’t know” to everything, we won’t have much of a faith to profess.

And That would be a larger shame unto itself

+Alex Resurgent
Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

Oldest Church

From :Sydney Morning Herald

JERUSALEM: Archaeologists believe they have found the world’s oldest church, dating from shortly after Christ’s crucifixion. If tests confirm that it dates back to between AD33 and AD70, as the archaeologists claimed this week, it would make it the earliest known place of Christian worship by about 200 years.

A report in The Jordan Times on Tuesday said a very early underground church had been found beneath the ancient St Georgeous Church, which itself dates back to AD230, in Rihab, northern Jordan, near the Syrian border…

“We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians – the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ.”

A mosaic found in the church describes them as “the 70 beloved by God and Divine”. Mr Husan said they were believed to have fled persecution in Jerusalem and founded churches in northern Jordan.

So Cool

+A.R.