A documentary about June Wilson, a former Canadian Anglican Volunteer in Mission who worked in Tanzania and contracted AIDS, will air at 9 p.m. April 25, 2002 on W (formerly WTN, the Women’s Television Network).
Even in his 93rd year he continued to enjoy singing in the choir, doing the daily cryptic crossword puzzle in the Globe, curling, picking strawberries and making jam, cutting the family lawns, making sandwiches at the Salvation Army for those in need, and cheering (always faithful!) for the Toronto Maple Leafs (to whom he often yelled ‘Shoot!’ or ‘Skate!’) Unfortunately, a brief illness with pancreatic cancer finally ended the life of this admirable man.
We, the Primates of the Anglican Communion representing 75,000,000 Anglican Christians in 164 countries of the world, gathered in Canterbury, have taken counsel following a message concerning the escalating conflict in Israel/Palestine which we received from the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem the Right Reverend Riah H Abu El-Assal. This was delivered to us by the President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Most Reverend Iraj Mottahedeh.
Note: the following is a letter from Archbishop Terence E. Finlay to the Anglicans of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario; it was to be read in church services April 14 and 21. Dear friends: The Middle East is torn by conflict, and the land which Jews, Muslims and Christians call Holy is a place of … Continued
We gather in this great Abbey to mourn and to give thanks. It is a fitting place to do so. A place where the story of our nation and the story of the woman we now commend to her Heavenly Father are intertwined.
During that same period he wrote three books which have become standards: A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham (1956), The Meaning and Message of Lent (1962), and The Oxford Movement (1964).
Over the past ten days, suicide bombings in Israel and armoured invasions in the Occupied Territories have galvanized the attention of people around the world. For some the impact has been limited to rising prices at the gas pumps. For others these events have built to a crescendo of anxious perplexity, as they try to find some sense in the tidal wave of images, assertions, and interpretations that flood the airwaves and fill the newspapers. Some see Israel as a nation under domestic threat from terrorists. Others see the Palestinians as a people under threat from the terror of the state of Israel. In the midst of the confusion, fear, and violence that threaten to explode onto the world stage, I invite members of the Anglican Church of Canada to take seriously the biblical call to peace with justice.
Last spring, I had the opportunity, with a group of other Canadian church leaders, to experience first-hand the life of the Christian churches – our partners – in Palestine. We were deeply moved by the compassion and courage by which those churches live and serve. At the same time, we were horrified by the state of constant fear imposed on the Palestinian people by the armed forces of Israel. What we witnessed was a blatant double standard. The security and well-being of Israeli settlers mattered; that of the Palestinians did not.
The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund has responded to an appeal from Action by Churches Together for emergency assistance to civilian victims of conflict in the Palestinian Territories. Through this appeal, the Middle East Council of Churches Department of Service to Palestine Refugees (MECC/DSPR) will continue to provide essential food and elementary commodities to families that have no access to employment or other sources of income. It will ease the burden on families that have to cope with poverty, unemployment and long closures.
We are still in Easter Week and events are moving rather quickly with more tragedies and more killings and suffering. These are times of great suffering for the Palestinian people, and for the Church in Palestine. All of our Palestinian cities are now occupied by Israel and the people are prevented from leaving their houses.
We, the Bishops of British Columbia, write to you on a matter that concerns all Christians and citizens of this province. At the very core of our faith lies the concept of ‘radical equality’. When we come to the altar to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, we all come as the same, penitent sinners, and we all receive the same gift of grace. No one gets more; no one gets less. True Christian community is based not on common interests, social standing or life circumstances, but on making real among us this ‘radical equality’. The extent to which we do so is the extent to which we reflect the Realm of God. Further, as individual Christians and as communities of Christians, our purpose is to bring the Realm of God into being in our world. We do so by struggling to extend throughout society the ‘radical equality’ that is the nature of the Realm of God.
IF, FOR SOME reason, you found yourself in circumstances where you could only attend one church service a year, what would it be? For me, there’s no contest: the service that takes place in the night between Holy Saturday and Easter morning.
The human toll of recent events in India and Palestine have brought into sharp focus the role of religion in the world. Crusades and inquisitions of all sorts constitute a profound scar on history, an ugly and insistent reminder that religion and temporal power are a dangerous combination. All the same, we need to examine the assumption that freedom from such religious conflict requires us to remove religion entirely from public life in Canada. Such a course may seem reasonable and prudent. In reality, it is a dangerous folly.
The Churches in Manicaland, on March 5, 2002, issued a pre-election statement, “A Time to Choose”, to the people of Zimbabwe. In this post election period we wish to issue a further statement to the people of our country.
From work in the basement of St. James Anglican Church at 303 East Cordova Street, St. James Community Service Society has grown to become one of the largest social service agencies in Vancouver, with 250 employees who help about 2,000 people each month, with an annual budget of $10 million. May was honoured at the … Continued