fr. ryan

@rtlockwood.bsky.social

546 Followers 206 Following

Associate Rector at Grace, Traverse City, MI | Trying to be like Jesus | Sewanee T’25 | High-Church Episcopalian | Inclusive Orthodoxy | 9w1 | Spouse of @AubLock | he/him

A black water bottle with a white square-shaped sticker placed to resemble a clerical tab collar.
Inside cover of forward movement’s Booklet of Common Prayer.
Week of 5 Easter - Monday A reading from the treatise On the Holy Spirit by Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea (379): Our Lord made a covenant with us through baptism in order to give us eternal life. There is in baptism an image both of death and of life, the water being the symbol of death, the Spirit giving the pledge of life. The association of water and the Spirit is explained by the twofold purpose for which baptism was instituted, namely, to destroy the sin in us so that it could never again give birth to death, and to enable us to live by the Spirit and so win the reward of holiness. The water into which the body enters as into a tomb symbolizes death; the Spirit instills into us life-giving power, awakening our souls from the death of sin to the life that they had in the beginning. This then is what it means to be born again of water and the Spirit: we die in the water, and we come to life again through the Spirit. To signify this death and to enlighten the baptized by transmitting to them knowledge of God, the great sacrament of baptism is administered by means of a triple immersion and the invocation of each of the three divine Persons. Whatever grace there is in the water comes not from its on nature but from the presence of the Spirit, since "baptism is not a cleansing of the body, but a pledge made to God from a clear con-science." As a preparation for our life after the resurrection, our Lord tells us in the gospel how we should live here and now. He teaches us to be Peaceable, long-suffering, undefiled by desire for pleasure, and detached (continued on next picture)
The beginning of the Salve Regina in plainsong: “Mary, we hail thee, Mother and Queen compassionate; Mary, our comfort, life, and hope, we hail thee. To thee we exiles, children of Eve, lift our crying. To thee we are sighing, as mournful and weeping, we pass through this vale of sorrow.”
Front cover of St. Dunstan’s Plainsong Psalter, a deep green hardcover book with golden lettering.
A stack of books: The Nearness of God, Julia Gatta Pastoral Theology, Thomas C. Oden Faithful Living Faithful Dying, Cohen et al Go in Peace, Gatta and Smith What Shall we Say, Thomas G. Long The Marriage Journey, Grenz and Glover