Light, says the Rev. Marie Loewen of North Bay, Ont., in the latest posting to General Synod’s “good news” site www.storiesoffaith.ca. Christmas may be something else to you – something more personal, something more rooted in your own history or in where you live, or in where you have been on the way to becoming the person you are this season.
The Anglican Church of Canada welcomes the court decisions released today in seven of the nine jurisdictions which approved the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
General Synod has launched a new website — www.storiesoffaith.ca — to which you are invited to contribute.
The new site asks Canadian Anglicans to meet each other online and to share good things about their involvement with the church.
The Ask & Imagine youth programs and Anglican youth initiatives got an early Christmas present this year.
The Ask & Imagine program office received word last week of a matching grant made by the Lilly Endowment Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana. This grant gives over $400,000.00 during the next four years in matching funds to what is contributed by the church, the college, individual donors and supporters across the country to sustain the Ask & Imagine programs and associated youth initiatives for the long term.
Let us now dwell upon the things we have and know that are worthy of celebration. Advent is a time of preparation for the great joy of the birth of Christ. Let us look at the church where we live and contemplate what we have that gives us joy, or solace, or pride. Let us share that joy with each other this Christmas season.
As Christians we pray this day in the light of a global disaster the momentum of which has built for 25 years. Since the first appearance of the pandemic an estimated 65 million people have been infected with HIV, of whom 25 million have died. In 2005 alone an estimated 4.1 million people became infected with HIV and an estimated 2.8 million people have died of AIDS related illnesses. This pandemic has reached alarming proportions, affecting and infecting many who have not the knowledge or the personal autonomy to avoid transmission. It is now women and young people who face the highest rates of infection; the most vulnerable who bear the heaviest burden.
Members of the Council gathered for Eucharist at 7:30 a.m. Council convened at 9.
In the first of a series of short video interviews, Dean Peter Wall of the diocese of Niagara, Chair of the General Synod Planning Committee, describes agenda highlights at General Synod 2007.
What follows is a report by General Synod Communications Director Vianney (Sam) Carriere on the four-day meeting of the House of Bishops which concluded on Thursday, Oct. 26. Bishops from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada joined the Anglican House for much of this gathering.
The following is a letter received from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to mark the death of Bishop Henry Hill. Bishop Hill died in Toronto last Saturday. His funeral will be held on Friday.
Attached as a PDF file is a statement by Archbishop Terry Buckle, Metropolitan of British Columbia and Yukon, dealing with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference report on the Diocese of New Westminster. The report was released about a week ago.
Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has received the report of the Panel of Reference for the Anglican Communion and sees it as an important contribution to the process of reconciliation in Canada. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams released the report earlier today.
Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, met with national and international planning committee members last week to discuss an international Anglican conference to be held in Gauteng, South Africa from 7 – 14 March 2007. ‘Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM): An international conference on Prophetic Witness, Social Development and HIV and AIDS’ will include 400 representatives from every province in the Anglican Communion. They will meet in a context of prayer and theology to share experiences on issues such as HIV and AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals. To date more than half the people invited have responded positively.
The first women priests in Sri Lanka’s Anglican Church have said their ordination is a dream come true.
The Rev. Chandrika Mayurawathie, along with the Rev. Malini Devananda, whose husband is an Anglican priest, and the Rev. Glory Jeyaraj, were ordained on September 14 by Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Colombo in the presence of hundreds of church members at the cathedral in the capital.
Mrs Hellen Grace Wangusa, the United Nations Africa Co-ordinator of the Millennium Development Goals, has accepted the call to be the next Anglican UN Observer.