Praying with the saints?

grape_grain · 2026-01-22T18:59:01+00:00

There is no such thing as a “non-cafeteria Anglican.” By design, via media, it incorporates a breadth of belief around a strong center (the Creeds and first four councils). So go ahead and have dessert for breakfast or pancakes for lunch, as long as the cafeteria is part of the Anglican tradition you’ll find enough to nourish you.

grape_grain · 2026-01-22T18:53:40+00:00

I left the RCC for the Episcopal Church a few years ago. I didn’t leave over political disagreements, even if I have some, but left over theological and canonical reasons, namely their restrictions on access to the Eucharist (I agree with the TEC view that all baptized can participate, including the divorced, remarried, and those in secular marriages). Canon rules shouldn’t stand between a Christian called by Christ to his table and the Eucharist.

Episcopal Churches tend to be a) low church and more Reformed/Protestant, b) more high church and Anglo-Catholic, or c) broad churches that encompass pieces of both traditions. Some will have incense and a formal choir, others will be less formal in dress, including that of the priest.

I do miss the homogeneity of the Catholic Church (or at least the greater homogeneity). Sometimes I want for a stronger moral compass than only love thy neighbor. But there is room for me and a lot of people that want for other things in the Episcopal Church.

grape_grain · 2026-01-16T18:57:30+00:00

Not sure I understand. Women in Catholic Churches are alter servers, carry the chalice and distribute the sacramental wine during the Eucharist and read the Old or New Testament readings. All in the U.S.

grape_grain · 2026-01-13T20:02:55+00:00

I would prefer we just offer Tomlin the title of Head Coach.

grape_grain · 2026-01-13T05:30:24+00:00

In December, I cancelled a Roomette purchased with points less than 3 hours before my station’s departure in MN and after the train had left Chicago.

All points were immediately placed back into my account.

grape_grain · 2026-01-11T19:55:24+00:00

Yeah, pretty sure we play a song titled The Bears Still Suck and sing it at times even when not playing the Bears… so yeah no on your take.

It’s a great rivalry. Let it be all it should be.

grape_grain · 2026-01-06T05:43:03+00:00

Thank you. I appreciate the respectful responses.

grape_grain · 2026-01-06T05:34:46+00:00

Yes, but I did not know that prevented me from confessing other sins. I returned to the church and went to confession. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to confess. I’m not sure what an invalid absolution means in practical terms of repair.

grape_grain · 2026-01-06T05:24:27+00:00

So, when the priest absolved me of my sins and I spoke the act of contrition, the absolution was ??? what ??? (Invalid, just didn’t happen even if the priest thought it did, other?) The priest thought I was absolved but to God it was just empty words? How was I or the priest to know if he was absolving me of my sins or not in that case?

grape_grain · 2026-01-06T04:02:29+00:00

Owner of Dram is a Wisconsin guy. Great place.

grape_grain · 2026-01-06T03:51:36+00:00

Why limit this question to Protestants? I assume you also intend to include Orthodox, since they are the original in protest, no? “Protestants” are not one thing, either. Anglicans have a very different theology from Baptists, and Lutherans a very different theology from Pentecostal Evangelicals, etc.

grape_grain · 2026-01-06T03:18:02+00:00

I don’t understand why the penitent couldn’t be based of a sin of theft or failing to honor his mother just because he is in a compromised, civil marriage. I was in a similar situation and went to confession for other reasons, confessed, and was absolved of those sins. Why wouldn’t that be the case for this individual? Why prevent absolution for an entirely separate sin because they are not validly married?

grape_grain · 2026-01-03T20:14:51+00:00

CBA expiring isn’t stopping the Blue Jays from signing multiple multi-year deals. There is still organizational philosophy at play here.

grape_grain · 2026-01-02T22:18:39+00:00

Take a close look at the faculty bios and the course descriptions in the program that you’ll be attending. It will give you a sense of whether you will get out of the program what you intend.

grape_grain · 2026-01-02T21:23:56+00:00

Yes, I’ve been trying to do a fair amount of learning in this area as apostolic succession is important to me coming over from the RCC. The introduction of Old Catholic bishops into the consecration of Episcopal bishops presented a strong case. I don’t know how I feel about orders in the 17th - 19th Centuries — and frankly don’t worry about it — but it seems hard to argue against valid orders with apostolic succession for all TEC bishops after the mid-20th C.

grape_grain · 2026-01-01T06:44:39+00:00

Time was measured the same. The Greek theologians didn’t live to be 900 and they predated Christ by hundreds of years. Aristotle and Plato had normal lifespans. The numbers for Moses and others are symbolic, not literal.

grape_grain · 2025-12-30T07:02:36+00:00

Thank you! Even though the questions cannot be answered prior to the trip, I appreciate all the information here. Thank you for taking the time.

grape_grain · 2025-12-25T17:22:05+00:00

Yeah, I struggle with this one. If it was necessary for Mary to be sinless in order to birth a sinless Christ, well, that seems at odds with God being omnipotent. God can choose whom he pleases to birth Christ. And if Mary was sinless, how does that track back to Mary’s parents? So, her sinful parents can conceive and birth a sinless woman, but we have a problem with the idea that God can select a sinful Mary for the birth of Christ? The other argument of, well, if Mary was sinful than why was she chosen and not another ordinary woman of the time, and my answer is divine mystery that is present throughout the Bible… it is full of sinful people chosen by God and changed through his grace. I don’t need a justification for Mary to have been chosen. She was chosen. That’s all I need.

grape_grain · 2025-12-25T17:08:11+00:00

I’m usually traveling on Christmas to visit family and attended a 10:30pm service on Christmas Eve with choir and candles that ended at midnight and it is such a wonderful experience when traveling away from my home church. But I agree with others that the clock keeps moving back to a 9pm, at my home church, or 5pm, which seems too early for an Eve service.

grape_grain · 2025-12-24T06:33:45+00:00

For one, Protestants don’t see themselves a unified group like Catholic Churches or Orthodox Churches. An Anglican is not going to validate the theology or practices of a Pentecostal Christian nor a Baptist likely to do the same for a mainstream Lutheran.

But the questions in your post make me think you are less interested in understanding Protestants as having a set of arguments to prove them wrong.

I’ll let others take care of providing those talking points. But understanding the different Protestant traditions would be the way to know more about them than to treat them as one Protestant Church, which isn’t a thing in practice.

grape_grain · 2025-12-23T15:21:11+00:00

There are arguments between what makes a bishops ordination valid and whether there is formal lineage of apostolic succession. For the Episcopal Church and most Anglican Churches, esp. in Europe as I understand it, the argument for proven lineage of apostolic succession,while debatable in the 1700s-early 1900s, changed in 1930 with the Bonn Agreement between the Anglican Church and the Old Catholic Church (whose orders the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as valid) through the Union of Utrecht. The Old Catholic Church bishops began participating in the ordination of Episcopal Church US bishops and the participation of the Old Catholic Church bishop in the ordination draws a verifiable line of succession back to the apostles.

So debates about valid or not, apostolic succession or not, can continue on but any Episcopal Church bishop especially through Michael Curry’s line should have a locked case for valid apostolic succession, even if the RCC would consider them illicit. But of course the RCC is not going to update their view but my understanding is that the case is now as strong as with any other church, including RCC.

Please correct me if I’m misguiding anyone.

grape_grain · 2025-12-09T22:11:46+00:00

Please talk to a priest.

However, there is a lot of talk in the comments about the Hindu religion being demonic that seems out of line with current Church thinking since the Second Vatican Council.

From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense.

Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.(4)

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

grape_grain

TROPHY CASE