Standing Athwart History Yelling "Bumpers All Round, Gentlemen, And No Heel Taps!"
December 6, 2012 in A Glass of Wine With You!, Roman Catholic Boys for Art, Swimming the Tiber
Not that many years ago, this would have sailed right over my head. But I’ve wallowed in Church history enough now to find it intensely amusink. (A glass of wine with Catholic Meme, via the lovely and talented Christine.)
UPDATE: Father Z’s got a good one, too.
 | sleepybeth on On Ch-Ch-Changes ** |
 | Robbo on On Ch-Ch-Changes ** |
 | Old Dominion Tory on On Ch-Ch-Changes ** |
 | NOVA Curmudgeon on On Ch-Ch-Changes ** |
| NOVA Curmudgeon on In Which Robbo Dances the Acad… |
Blog at WordPress.com.Ben Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 7, 2012 at 9:23 pm
captainned
There’s something about the Arian thing that still troubles the Catholic Church today, despite Nicaea and Chalcedon. Arianism was clearly popular in the Vandal and Gothic areas even after Chalcedon. Would be nice to see a good analysis of why Arian belief remains so persistent even today.
For the record, lapsed High Church/Anglo-Catholic Palie from a full smells ‘n’ bells parish. Toting the 40 lb ceremonial crucifix around the church during the Great Litany got a wee bit old but since I was the only acolyte throwing shot and discus on the HS track team, I got that duty every time.
December 8, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Robbo
Heh.
December 8, 2012 at 5:35 pm
captainned
I take it you might have some acolyte stories to tell as well?
It wasn’t me, but one of my fellow acolytes managed to spear the Advent Wreath hanging over the altar area with the every-day light crucifix and managed to do so so thoroughly that the poor thing was left hanging from the wreath until after the service and we could bring the wreath down and disentangle the two.
There was also the time as a younger acolyte when one Easter Sunday was 80+ degrees (not a common temperature for Easter in VT) and Father John took one look at me and told me to beat it back to the sacristy. Mom was in the choir and followed me in. Between the early-season heat and the robes we wore Father John properly figured out that I was about to drop and got me out of there before I face-planted on the altar.
December 8, 2012 at 8:03 pm
Robbo
Actually, I never was one, owing to the rough and tumble of my formative years. I was about ten or so when the Mothe stormed out of St. David’s Episcopal because it had decided to embrace the “with it” spirit that really started metasticizing in TEC in the mid-70’s.. I still recall the last time we went – instead of a sermon, we got a skit performed up at the altar. Something about how if you’ve decided that you need to find yourself and the process will rayther entail throwing your spouse overboard, well, God loves you anyway, so go for it.
It was a good four or five years before the Mothe found another Palie parish to her liking, and by that point I was a bit too old to start and not much interested in doing so. (Things might have been different had we been a more church-oriented family as a whole, but the Old Gentleman sneered at religion in those days. He used to dismiss theology as nothing but people arguing over the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin. I dunno why, but that seemed to upset him in particular. He also insisted that the Pope needed to “git wid da times”. I always challenged him on that, so obviously there was a seed planted in there somewhere.)
December 9, 2012 at 3:37 pm
captainned
MId-70s. The meat of my time as an acolyte at Trinity Episcopal Church in Rutland, VT. Father John stood as a bulwark against the hippie side of TEC, but did so in a gracious way that allowed for all sides to still sit at the same service and not yell at each other. I was a bit too young to understand it at the time but Mom was a member of the Vestry and she recalls the battles in those meetings as particularly brutal. My parish never went the way of “guitar church” and remained full smells ‘n’ bells until after my college years.
Father John’s skills in navigating the two paths were obviously noted by the Presiding Bishop as he ended his career as the Bishop of West Virginia. Sadly, he passed away earlier this year and I did not learn of it in time to attend the funeral, which is something I will never be happy with.
Like your family, my association with TEC came solely through Mom. Dad, in the few instances he deigns to recognize religion at all, claims to be a Congregationalist. Easy to do in my home town as it’s the biggest church, the tallest steeple, and the site of the annual community Messiah Sing (I sang second bass).