‘Weekly Post. Anno Domini 2024 August 27
Beloved of the Lord:
Today is Tuesday, 27 August, in the year of our Lord 2024. The scheduled services are as-follows:
- Tuesday (today): 6:30 PM, Mass, monthly Parish Requiem.
- Wednesday: 12:10 PM, Deacon's Liturgy, S. Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church.
- Thursday: 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer, followed by Supper and a Movie.
- Friday: 9:00 AM, Deacon's Liturgy, S. Rose of Lima, followed by
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. - Saturday: 9:00 AM, Mass, S. Aidan, Bishop & Confessor.
- Sunday: 8:30 & 10:00 AM, Mass, Trinity XIV.
As you will note, there are a number of changes in our schedule for this week. Inasmuch as I'll be out-of-town Wednesday through Friday, there will be no Mass said in the Parish on those days. The most holy Sacrament will be available, by Deacon's Liturgy, on Wednesday and Friday. Evening Prayer will be said on Thursday evening. After that Office, supper as-per-usual, followed not by our usual study session, but by a movie! Come and enjoy some fellowship, along with Christian entertainment, on Thursday evening.
THE SATURDAY MASS WILL BE AT 9:00 AM. This will be followed by our quarterly vestry meeting. As a reminder, all are welcome to attend vestry meetings. Thanks be to God, this should be one of our preferred, brief meetings, as there are no controversies in the greater Church to cause us any bother.
Although we know that, in the Early, persecuted Church, Deacons were dispatched with the Holy Sacrament to carry it to those who would not otherwise receive it, little if anything is known what liturgy may or may not have attended this distribution. Additionally, Holy Church could not afford to gather in great numbers, for fear of discovery, and the destruction that would follow. Thus, Deacons were established 'to serve at table' ~ not sandwiches, as some of our protestant brethren would have you believe, but rather the food of Salvation.
After persecution against the Church ended, Deacons fell-into disuse, so-to-speak, in the Western Church. Although always numbered amongst the Major holy Orders, the Office of Deacon was, for some centuries, merely a transitional step from 'lay to ordained service, in-anticipation of becoming a Priest. Indeed, in both the Roman and Anglican systems, one was simply made a Deacon after having completed their middler year of seminary.
In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, this was not the case. They ~ more appropriately ~ regarded (and still do) becoming a Deacon as a major shift in the fundamental being of the man upon whom it was bestowed. He became a part of Holy Orders, leaving lay life behind. He had been changed; he had been made a Sacrament.
When you ask a Cleric of the Eastern Churches when he was Ordained, he will give you the date of his Diaconal Ordination. In the West, we typically give that of the Priesthood. While we all know that every Priest, every Bishop, will always be a Deacon, we have lost that deeper sense maintained in the East of the sacred nature of Holy Orders as a whole. Even the ordinal rite in the West refers to it as an inferior order. Perhaps this should change. I remain
in His praise,
The Venerable T. L. Crowder
Pastor, Saint Matthew's Parish