wfn.org | [ELD] Anglican covenant sent to provinces for consideration, adoption

[<mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal Life Daily
>December 18, 2009

>Episcopal Life Online is available at
>http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.

[Editor's note: Episcopal Life Online will observe its annual holiday
hiatus for the Christmas season and full service will resume on Monday,
Jan. 4. Occasional releases may be issued as breaking news occurs.
Bulletin inserts will resume on Sunday, Jan. 10. Bulletin inserts for
Sunday, Dec. 20 -- featuring Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts
Schori's Christmas Message -- are available at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/95270_ENG_HTM.htm. Wishing you a blessed
and joyful Christmastide.]

>Today's Episcopal Life Daily includes:

* TOP STORY - Anglican covenant sent to provinces for consideration,
adoption
* TOP STORY - Standing Committee meets in London, reaffirms call for
'gracious restraint'
* MISSION - 'Building the Beloved Community' in New Orleans
* ARTS - Monastic painter honors Native-American spirituality
* SPIRITUAL REFLECTION - December 24, 2009 - Christmas Eve - Year C
* SPIRITUAL REFLECTION - December 25, 2009 - Christmas Day - Year C
* DAYBOOK - Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* CATALYST - Hope Matters: The Untold Story of How Faith Works in
America

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

Anglican covenant sent to provinces for consideration, adoption

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg and Matthew Davies

[Episcopal News Service] All four sections of the proposed Anglican
covenant were sent to the communion's 38 provinces for formal
consideration on Dec. 18 after the Standing Committee of the Anglican
Communion approved a revised version of the document's text.
The Standing Committee had been presented with a revamped section 4 of
the covenant during its Dec. 15-18 meeting in London, after a small
working group had spent six months consulting with the provinces about
its revision.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in a Dec. 18 video message,
said that the covenant is not going to solve all of the communion's
problems.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_117908_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

Standing Committee meets in London, reaffirms call for 'gracious
restraint'

>By Matthew Davies

[Episcopal News Service] The Standing Committee of the Anglican
Communion, during its Dec. 15-18 meeting in London, has issued a call
for "gracious restraint in respect of actions that endanger the unity of
the Anglican Communion."

According to the text of the resolution, the call for "gracious
restraint" came in response to the recent election of the Rev. Mary
Glasspool, a partnered lesbian woman, as a bishop in Los Angeles, as
well as the decision by some dioceses in the U.S. and Canada "to proceed
with formal ceremonies of same-sex blessings," and the "continuing
cross-jurisdictional activity within the communion."

The committee said its call reaffirms Resolution 14.09, passed by the
Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) at its meeting last May, which urges
"the implementation of the agreed moratoria" on such actions. The ACC is
the communion's main policy-making body. The moratoria on same-gender
blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and
lesbian people to the episcopate were first proposed by the 2004 Windsor
Report and have been reaffirmed by successive Primates Meetings and
supported by the 2008 Lambeth Conference of bishops.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_117892_ENG_HTM.htm

More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife

>_____________________

>MISSION

'Building the Beloved Community' in New Orleans

[Episcopal News Service] Marking the launch of Episcopal Community
Services (ECS) of Louisiana's new experiential learning program, a
three-week course will run Jan. 9-30 during which seminarians will live
in community at the diocese's Urban Ministry Center where they will
develop skills and experience in community organizing and
revitalization. Currently, 10 students from four seminaries are signed
up for the course.

Full story: http://www.episcopal-life.org/81799_117909_ENG_HTM.htm

More Mission: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>ARTS

Monastic painter honors Native-American spirituality

[Episcopal News Service] Living a lonely life after the dissolution of
his small monastic community in Connecticut 20 years ago, the Rev. John
Giuliani came to the realization that he had to do something creative to
keep himself productive.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_117902_ENG_HTM.htm

More Arts: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS

>December 24, 2009 - Christmas Eve - Year C

(RCL) Psalm 89:1-29; Isaiah 59:15b-21; Philippians 2:5-11

>By the Rev. Rob Gieselmann

[Sermons That Work] The stars in Africa shine brightly. Like when you
were a child, and there was far less light pollution than there is now.
The dark of a night without moon would ignite the stars as bright
sparks. The stars in Africa are those sparks.

Full reflection:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_117648_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

>December 25, 2009 - Christmas Day - Year C

(RCL) Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-4, (5-12); John 1:1-14; Psalm 98

>By the Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedus

[Sermons That Work] "The Word became flesh and lived among us." Here's a
question for you this Christmas Day: Say there had been no fall from
grace in the Garden, and humankind had never sinned. In that case, would
God have become man? Would God have become part of our human race? And
would we today be celebrating Christ's birth?

Full reflection:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_117807_ENG_HTM.htm

More Spiritual Reflections:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

>On December 21, 2009...

* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

* Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm

* Today in History: On December 21, 1118, Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas a Becket was born in London. Becket's conflict with King Henry II
over the rights and privileges of the church led to his assassination by
followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral.

>_____________________

>CATALYST

"Hope Matters: The Untold Story of How Faith Works in America" from
Bartleby Press, by John A. Calhoun, 238 pages, hardcover, c. 2007,
$23.50

[Bartleby Press] Calhoun was once an eager divinity school student,
hungry to make a difference. Through the years he rose to national
prominence in the field of public policy, spending twenty-plus years as
the founding president of the National Crime Prevention Council.
However, something wasn't right. Caught up in a parade of committee
meetings, speaking engagements, and policy and program initiatives, he
had lost touch with the bedrock of his vocation. It took an encounter
with an unusually clear-sighted volunteer to reconnect his daily work to
his faith in God.

Reinvigorated, Calhoun embarked on a two-year cross-country quest to
find out how faith motivates some of America's hardest-working public
servants. They pursue a range of innovative and ambitious plans to help
their communities, and their accomplishments are impressive. But just
try telling them so.

They have been chosen, they'll explain, to fulfill a larger purpose.
Their paths have been rocky, their burdens heavy, and the work hasn't
always been fun. Yet they feel blessed, emboldened by their trust in a
higher power to live lives of acceptance and unbounded love.

Some recent books have laid divisiveness and hostility at faith's door.
Hope Matters brings to light the togetherness and reconciliation that
faith truly engender when good people heed its call to action.

To order, please visit Episcopal Books and Resources online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, call 800.903.5544, or visit your
local Episcopal bookstore.