Anglican Communion News Service

Weekly Review 17 - 23 September, 2011

A weekly roundup of Anglican Communion news plus opinion, reviews, photos, profiles and other things of interest from across the Anglican/Episcopal world.

This edition includes...

• This week's Anglican Communion news
• Anglican Life - Ecuador children's centre serves 80
• Anglican Life - Petition for release of political prisoners in the Philippines
• Anglican Life - Brazil's Anglican Church stands with indigenous people
• Anglican Life - Faith leaders' communique on Palestinian statehood
• Anglican Life - Happy endings and new beginnings in North East Brazil
• Anglican Life - Southern Anglican magazine now available
• Comment - Remembering creation
• Video - Burundi's Primate Abp Bernard Ntahoturi
• Digital Communion - Sign up to follow USPG
• Bookshelf - Children of God storybook by Abp Tutu
• The coming week's Anglican Cycle of Prayer.

 __________________________

ANGLICAN NEWS

• Global - Invitation for Anglicans to take part in unique Bible survey
• Pakistan - Pakistan Flood Appeal
• England - Twitterers follow bishops @back2church for #backtochurchsunday
• England - Archbishop opens first public meeting for Fairness Commission
• India - Death toll climbs past 100 in Himalayan earthquake
• England - Archbishop of Canterbury's face revealed
• New Zealand - Aussie scores cathedral's All Black icon
• Australia - Bible belt gets two new buckles
• New Zealand - Lord of the Haka
• India - Muslims helping to rebuild Christian school in Kashmir
• USA - A challenge that unites
• Pakistan - USPG sends emergency grant to Pakistan as flooding claims lives
• Wales - The Primate of the Church in Wales' presidential address
• Ireland - Statement by the Primate of the Church of Ireland
• Wales - Hymn singing festival starts on a high note
• South Africa - Anglican Archbishop reflects on Restitution, Freedom of Information and Hate Speech
• New Zealand - $1m handed over to Christchurch
  

____________________________

ANGLICAN LIFE

Church day care center provides a place for poor children
By Lynette Wilson , Episcopal News Service

Quito, Ecuador- In the Comité del Pueblo section of Quito, the Episcopal Diocese of Central Ecuador operates "El Portal de Belen," a day care center serving some 70-80 at-risk children and toddlers.

The center operates Monday through Friday from 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. year-round, providing early childhood development and day care, including fresh, well-balanced, meals to children ages 1 through 5. The parents, mostly single mothers, pay up $35 dollars a week, for day care that would cost $120 on the open market.

"Through the day care, the church fulfills its call to mission," said Rocio Recalde, the day care center's director in Spanish through an interpreter. "The center provides a social service."

The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops is holding its fall meeting Sept. 15-20 at the Hilton Colón Hotel in downtown Quito. On Sept. 17 some bishops, spouses and partners will visit Comité del Pueblo, a local church and the day care center to witness the local ministry firsthand, others will visit churches and programs in other parts of the diocese.

Nationwide, 36 percent of Ecuadorians live at or below the poverty line, according to World Bank statistics.  Comité del Pueblo, characterized by high unemployment, poverty and crime, is home to more than 100,000 people. Low housing costs attract residents: It's possible to find a room with a shared bathroom for between $30 and $35 a month. It's not uncommon to have one bathroom, without a shower, shared by 15 people, said Recalde.

Sections of the neighborhood are built on a hillside, prone to landslides, where children sometimes live in shacks with tin roofs, she added.

"The reality is one of extreme poverty. These children, who are the poorest of the poor, are the direct beneficiaries of care," Recalde said.  "The children when they come are either withdrawn or aggressive and with the passing of time their behavior changes. They learn to share, and be in solidarity with their classmates."

Malnutrition is also a concern, she added, "some children don’t have anything to eat."

It is clear from their actions, Recalde said, that the mothers are grateful for the day care center.

"The appreciation of the mothers toward the church for all that their children receive is demonstrated in their willingness to help out when it is asked of them," she said. "Selling tickets to BBQs, dressing their children as angels during Christmastime and participating in church activities."

Read more here

*********

Petition for release of political prisoners in the Philippines

From the USPG website

USPG is supporting a petition calling for an unconditional amnesty on political prisoners in the Philippines.

In the last decade, nearly 1,000 human rights advocates have been killed in the Philippines, and hundreds more have been tortured or imprisoned.

Now the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) is backing the Free All Political Prisoners Campaign – which is calling on President Benigno Aquino III to release 354 political prisoners.

The petition accuses the Philippines government of repressing human rights activism and of being under the control of USA. (Critics accuse USA of using the Philippines as a strategic military base in the Pacific and as a training ground for their forces.)

It reads: ‘There is much social discontent and political dissent that have been met with fascist repression by all [Philippines] governments since the US granted the country its bogus independence.’

The petition goes on: ‘[Political prisoners] are all victims of political repression and state terrorism which are the government’s reaction to dissent, criticism, political activism and defence of human rights…

‘More often than not they are charged with criminal offenses in an effort to deny the political nature of their alleged offences and to stigmatise them as plain criminals guilty of the most heinous crimes.’

NCCP general secretary, Fr Rex Reyes Jr, said: ‘We value immensely the solidarity of people and church agencies advocating the upholding of human rights everywhere. A violation of human rights anywhere is a violation of human rights everywhere.

‘We are calling for the general, unconditional and omnibus amnesty to all political prisoners in the country. It has been done before it can be done again.’

Call or Christian to stand in solidarity

Rachel Parry, USPG's Programme Manager for Asia, said: 'NCCP continues to live out its mission to be in solidarity with the people in the struggle for justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

'NCCP is calling upon Christians around the world to stand with them as they ask the Philippines president to release all the political prisoners.

'This past February saw the release of 66-year-old Angelina Ipong after nearly six years in prison. Her cases were all finally dismissed as totally invalid, while she suffered unimaginable indignities and torture during her detention. USPG supports this petition, backed by the NCCP.'

• Sign the petition.
• Support the petition on Facebook.
• Support rural communities in the Philippines

**************

Brazil's Anglican Church works with indigenous people in their fight for land, existence
By Lynette Wilson, ENS

Editor's note: A Portuguese translation of this article is available on the Episcopal News Service site

Guarani Chief Pedro Alves lives with his people in Tekoa Vy'a Renda Poty, a tiny village owned by the city of Santa Helena in the southern Brazil state of Paraná, where the city provides for their basic needs.

During the last 35 years or so, the Guarani, once a self-sustaining nomadic people in what was then their sub-tropical, deeply forested, biodiverse aboriginal lands, have been driven into dependency with the rise of industrial agriculture in Brazil and the accompanying construction of Itaipu, the world's largest hydroelectric dam.

"At the time when the dam was built, our forests, our natural land, everything was destroyed, so we had nothing at all," said Alves, in Portuguese, through an interpreter.

Before construction of the dam, the Guarani lived in an area of protection near what is now the lake, or reservoir.

"Itaipu took us away from there and gave us an area of 231 hectare [570 acres], and at that time there were only 19 families. And then more families joined, and there wasn't enough room to grow crops."

From occupying more than 500 acres, the tribe today – 25 families numbering 85 people – lives on less than 10 acres in the village, 75 miles from Itaipu. They live in houses made of large sticks, the roofs reinforced with discarded plastic materials. Water drips from a communal spout.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Guarani living near the planned hydroelectric plant were forced to relocate to reservations, sparking problems since studied and documented by academics: a rise in population, conflict over the reservation boundaries, religious conflicts and rejection by other indigenous people who in prior years had settled on reservations.

The Rev. Luiz Carlos Gabas, an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Curitiba, visited Alves' village three years ago. After that, with the assistance of diocesan Bishop Naudal Gomes, Pastoral Anglicana da Terra, or Earthly Anglican Care, emerged as a way for individuals, parishes and the diocese to work on issues of climate justice and the rights of indigenous people, peasants and the landless.

Earthly Anglican Care also is supported by a companion relationship between the Diocese of Curitiba and the Episcopal Diocese of California and facilitated by Michael Tedrick, an Episcopal Church-appointed missionary from the California diocese.

"We see the relationship between their struggle and the struggle of the indigenous in North America, the struggle of the small farmers and their families and that of documented and undocumented immigrants in the United States," Tedrick said. "It is in our struggles that we gain a deeper understanding of our likeness."

Earthly Anglican Care's purpose is not to evangelize, said Gabas in Portuguese through an interpreter, but to understand indigenous peoples' problems and advocate for their rights. Indigenous peoples, specifically the Guarani, have rich spiritual lives and beliefs that have inspired others, including leaders in the liberation theology movement.

"The Guarani people have a utopian dream, and that is to walk eastward in search of the 'promised land,'" said Gomes. "The Indians themselves call it the 'harmless land.'" 

Gabas explained further: "When the Portuguese and Spanish arrived, the Indians started to lose their territories. Before the foreign occupation and the violence, they visualized a harmless land where no harm could exist."

In fact, this vision of a utopian "promised land" inspired liberation theology, and liberation theologian Pedro Casaldaliga, who worked with indigenous people, created the Missa da Terra sem Males, or Mass of the Land Without Evil, based on this dream, Gabas added.

Largely seen as a construct of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, liberation theology has been used widely as a foundation for social change by religious groups worldwide. With the rise of conservative leadership in the Roman Catholic Church, the church has moved away from liberation theology. 

"What I have learned from secular people working with both the landless and the Guarani is that while there is great gratitude for the solidarity the [Roman] Catholic Church has shown to both those groups and the poor in the past, the new advocates standing courageously with the landless and the Guarani are the Episcopal Church and other partners," said Diocese of California Bishop Marc Andrus, who visited the Guarani in April 2011.

Read more here

***********

Communiqué from Christian leaders in Jerusalem

September 13, 2011

Looking ahead to the upcoming General Assembly of the United Nations this September 2011 and the bid for Palestinian statehood, the Heads of Christian Churches in Jerusalem feel the need to intensify our prayers and diplomatic efforts for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, to consider this as the most appropriate time for such an opportunity, and thus wish to reiterate the following principles upon which we agree:

1. A two-state solution serves the cause of peace and justice.

2. Israelis and Palestinians must live each in their own independent states with peace and justice, respecting human rights according to international law.

3. Negotiations are the best way to resolve all outstanding problems between the two sides.

4. Palestinians and Israelis should exercise restraint, whatever the outcome of the vote at the United Nations.

5. Jerusalem is a Holy City to the followers of all three Abrahamic faiths, in which all people should be able to live in peace and tranquility, a city to be shared by the two peoples and the three faiths.

Thus, we call upon decision makers and people of good will, to do their utmost to achieve the long awaited justice, peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians so that the prophecy of Prophet David is lived again:

“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” (Ps. 85:10)

† Patriarch Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate

† Patriarch Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarchate

† Patriarch Tarkom II Manoogian, Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarchate

Very Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, ofm, Custos of the Holy Land

† Archbishop Anba Abraham, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate

† Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad, Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate

† Archbishop Abune Mathias, Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate

† Archbishop Joseph Jules Zreyi, Greek Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate

† Bishop Suheil Dawani, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem

† Bishop Mounib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and Holy Land

† Bishop Pierre Melki, Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate

**************

Happy endings and new beginnings

A blog entry from Rose and Andy who are SAMS/CMS Mission Partners working in Olinda NE Brazil with a church on a rubbish dump and a street children project called My Father's House.

After posting some sad news earlier on this week about one of our boys, Genevaldo, leaving the project (he’s now safe in another government run project) I thought I’d post about one of the ‘success’ stories we’ve had recently.

Rafael came to MFH (My Father's House project) about a year and half ago, he had spent some time on the streets where he had become addicted to solvent abuse. He was quite hyper-active when he arrived and didn’t have much discipline which is quite normal for boys coming straight from the street. It took him a few weeks to settle down and adapt to project life (we caught him sniffing paint thinner once) and we began to investigate his family and the reasons why he had ended up on the streets.

We discovered that Rafael’s Mum was in a mental institution, where she’d been for many years, and actually became pregnant with Rafael within the mental institution! Which led us to suspect potential rape either from another patient or doctor/worker at the institution. From the day Rafael was born he was taken to live with his Grandma who raised him. When he hit his pre-teenage years he began to fall in with the wrong crowd, joined the drug gangs and was involved in petty thefts and solvent/glue abuse. He managed to annoy his gang which led to a death warrant being issued and so Rafael fled to the streets of the city where he was picked up and sent to us.

As Rafael began to improve in the project we were faced with the problem of what to do with him – he couldn’t return to his Grandma’s house due to the threat the local gang posed and since his Grandma was getting too old to look after a ‘rebellious’ teenager. We began to search further afield.

Meanwhile, Rafael who kicked his glue habit was becoming a very polite, helpful and playful young man. As with most of the boys he gave his life to Christ very early on and stated that he wanted to change and make the most of his life. He was enrolled in the local school where it soon became apparent that he was an intelligent boy with a gift of creative writing and poetry!

We managed to make contact with one of Rafael’s Uncles, who was married with two young kids. The whole family were very keen to start receiving Rafael at the weekends and to begin the process of reintegration into the family... There was one problem however, they lived in a tiny house, both were unemployed and lived off state benefits which had just been cut. This is the case of many of the boy’s families. But we weren’t put off as we were keen to try a new ‘tactic’ as our relationship with Judge and legal services was growing.

So, during Rafael’s first hearing in front of the judge we presented Rafael’s Aunt and Uncle as a very viable option, HOWEVER, they needed a better house, financial support etc etc ... Once the judge heard this she summoned the council representatives and gave us judicial orders (punishable my imprisonment!) to enrol the family on various government run social programs. Normally, you would have to face a lot of bureaucracy to enrol yourself on these programs but thanks to our judge’s orders we managed to cut through all that! So, for Rafael’s family we managed to provide:

- Rent contributions – with which we managed to find a larger house for the family with a store at the front which they would take over and run as a business.
- Re-training for the Uncle – he went on a course and was then employed after
- Child benefits – as their two children plus Rafael were in school they were eligible for child benefits.

As soon as they moved Rafael began to visit at the weekends where he would help out at the store... It was a pleasure to witness the complete change in the family over the next few months. The little store business took off and they would sell snacks and drinks etc... gradually evolving into a local convenience store! It was a pleasure to visit them as they showed us their gratitude with free snacks and cake!

After months of monitoring, visits, working out ‘bumps’ on the road we were eventually satisfied that both Rafael and his family were ready. So, at his next hearing we were very happy to recommend to the judge that she transfer responsibility of Rafael from MFH to his Aunt and Uncle which she gladly did.

Rafael is doing well at home now where he helps look after his little cousins, goes to school and supports his Aunt in the store. Rafael’s Aunt and Uncle are doing so ‘well’ financially that they are no longer eligible for state benefits! Praise be to God for the transformation of this family.

MFH’s responsibility for Rafael hasn’t stopped – we still need to monitor this process for the next few months, provide reports to the judge and give our support where necessary.... Please do pray for Rafael and his family.

It’s a pleasure to visit them ... and of course we are still ‘thanked’ with free food and drink!

***********

Southern Anglican magazine

The September edition of Southern Anglican is now available.

This issue features young people in the church and looks at the role they can and should be playing in the Church today. Are we listening to them?

Other articles include:

• Half the population is younger than 30 years! Archbishop Thabo writes:

"I wonder how many congregations reflect the fact that probably a good half of the population of Southern Africa is aged 20 and younger. Children and young people, their nurture and protection within our churches and within our communities, can only be one of our greatest concerns as reflected in the priorities of the ACSA vision"

• Young people want to be part of the climate change solution
• Social Media is empowering clergy and laity
• Harare priests evicted from homes
• Two new bishops for ACSA
• Obituary - for Fr Louis Illett
• Arts: Mother Thekla - a behind the scenes Librettist
• Growing the church - Personal leadership development
• Praying to the other side of pain, the medicine of immortality, and lots more!

Subscription info: R36 for 4 issues per year - SA subscriptions

For further information: email viola@uhurucom.co.za

_______________

COMMENT

Remembering Creation

By The Revd Evan Pederick,Rector, Parish of Canning, the Anglican Church of Australia

Why should environmental sustainability matter to Christians? Is there a specifically Christian response to issues such as climate change, water, land, resource management, and species extinctions?

The challenge for Christian spirituality was first articulated in the 1960s by economist Lynne White, who suggested that the roots of the ecological crisis lay in a Christian attitude towards the earth as a God?given resource to be exploited for the satisfaction of human needs, grounded in a particular reading of Genesis 1.28.¹ Although White’s specific charge was refuted at the time by theologians, the wider truth is that behaviours and beliefs are always interconnected. Our conscious and unconscious beliefs about who we are in relation to God, to the earth and to one another, form the substratum of our choices about how we live. The task for the Church in the current climate of environmental concern is to articulate a coherent theology and spirituality of care for creation.

Contemporary theologians have identified the Hebrew Wisdom tradition as the earliest Biblical strand of concern for creation. Wisdom is personified as God’s ‘right hand woman’ in the task of creation, divine partner who is both creative prototype and go-between. The Biblical Wisdom narratives reveal God’s care for and presence in creation, and provide a template for human life, a model for human wisdom, sociality and accountability. In the later Wisdom writings, Wisdom wanders throughout creation seeking a place to live, finally pitching a tent among human beings in Jerusalem (Sir 24.5-11). As both the personification of Torah and a model for human life, Lady Wisdom suggests an approach that values selfdiscipline, relationship, and attention to the transcendent quality of created reality. Human life is revealed as properly oriented both toward God and creation. The various strands of the Wisdom tradition are taken up by New Testament writers in passages like the prologue of St John’s Gospel where the Word (Logos), ‘pitches a tent among us’ (John 1.14). Wisdom theology reaches a high point in the writings of some of the Church Fathers (Origen, Clement, and Maximus the Confessor) but is somewhat lost after the patristic period. In the writings of the 13th century Franciscan theologian, St Bonaventure, the figure of Wisdom is placed at the centre of a theology of creation.

Bonaventure spent the first half of his career as an academic theologian at the University of Paris, where he laid out a vision of the Trinity as characteristically outgoing and selfcommunicative love. The Father is paradoxically emptied in the perfect act of selfcommunication that is the Word, who in turn becomes the prototype and existential ground of creation. Both creation and Incarnation are acts of self-emptying love, or kenosis, modelled on the inner life of the Trinity itself. Bonaventure describes the world of creation as a book of signs that directs us to its Creator, a mirror in which we can discern the reflection of the Trinity. All created things reveal their Creator refracted in infinite variety. Through contemplation of the world of creation that bears the impress of its Creator, human beings may be illumined and led into the likeness of divine love. Neither Francis nor Bonaventure are true nature mystics: rather, both represent a Christ-centred mysticism of self-emptying love, that Francis expresses in his lived spirituality of radical poverty.

This leads us to ask what a Wisdom spirituality looks like, and how it might be a helpful orientation for 21st century Christians. Jesus himself, the archetypal prophet of Wisdom in Luke, and Wisdom embodied in Matthew, gives us a vital clue when he speaks as Wisdom herself in Mtt 11.19ff: ‘Wisdom (sophia) is vindicated (or revealed as righteous) by her deeds’. Paradoxically, a few verses later, Jesus prays: ‘Father I thank you that you have hidden these things from the wise (sophos) and intelligent, and revealed them to infants (or perhaps, to simpletons)’! True wisdom is not sophistry or cleverness, but is revealed in the humility of service, in becoming small, in accepting the instruction of the created world and learning to live in harmony with its rhythms. Wisdom spirituality suggests the humility of learning the ways of creation and discerning the traces of divine love that shape its rhythms, and the self-limitation of seeing ourselves not as consumers but in creative partnership with the wisdom of God.

In mid-career, Bonaventure found himself elevated to the position of Minister?General of the Franciscan Order. Leaving the life of an academic theologian, he undertook a retreat at Mt Alverna, the site of St Francis’s beatific vision. Here, he conceived the outline for his major work, the Journey of the Mind into God. The work can be read as a guide for the spiritual journey from created to uncreated reality: yet Bonaventure hints that this is no one-way journey. He tells us, in the Prologue, ‘we must ascend, before we can learn to descend on Jacob’s ladder’. Clearly, angels travel in both directions.

The first two chapters reflect Bonaventure’s Trinitarian theology of creation, and offer a typically Franciscan interpretation of the world of creation as icon, a book in which the creative love and character of God is there for the reader. In the second two chapters Bonaventure reflects on the human soul, first in its created context, in terms of the exercise of rationality and observation of the natural world, secondly in its eternal context, in terms of the soul’s transformation through conformity to the likeness of Christ. These chapters reflect the standpoint of Wisdom as the nexus, or bridge, between the created world and God, and the understanding of human existence as uniquely related both ‘vertically’ to God and ‘horizontally’ to the life of creation. Christian eco-theology must balance an understanding of God as transcendent, with an appreciation of creation as having intrinsic value and integrity. The Wisdom perspective achieves this by recognising human life both as embedded within and radically dependent on the matrix of creation, and as uniquely reflecting and capable of response to its Creator.

Bonaventure accepts neither the body-mind dualism of Greek philosophy, nor the nondualistic view of embodied human life that emerges from some parts of the Hebrew Bible. This is important for a Christian ecological metaphysics. If we uncritically accept an artificial body?soul division, we separate human life from the rest of creation. If we opt for a radical embodied monism, we create a gulf between all of creation, including ourselves, and a transcendent God. So we end either with a humanity that has no real common basis with creation, or a creation that has no real common basis with God. Bonaventure believes there can be no such thing as spiritual perfection disconnected from bodily experience, because created reality, and in particular the human form, is made holy by being the vehicle of the Incarnation.

This has two implications: first, the physical creation has moral weight and integrity, and can fully express the transcendent beauty of God. No Christian spirituality can ever view the created world merely as a ‘stepping stone’ for a human journey whose destination lies on some other plane. Secondly, no fully Christian ecology can view human life as entirely embedded or immanent within creation, because human life uniquely bears the imprint of the Incarnation, and so is capable of revealing itself as the divine image. This ‘unity-in-duality’ is surely the key to developing a contemporary ecological theology.

After leading us through the multi-faceted expanse of creation and the microcosm of our own psyche, Bonaventure invites us, finally, to a consideration of the crucified Christ lost in the sleep of death. ‘Let us’, he says, ‘sleep with Christ in the tomb’. After his kaleidoscopic vision of a creation diaphanous with Spirit, is Bonaventure, finally, inviting us to withdraw from all that, and to seek the end point of our own human journey of the spirit on some immaterial plane? Our Holy Saturday sleep in the tomb with Christ, however, is no withdrawal from creation, but an act of solidarity with the non?existence of the One in whom the existence of all creation is grounded. If, as St Paul tells us, all things are created and hold together in Christ, then what happens to creation itself on Holy Saturday? If we understand the death of Christ on the cross not as cosmic let’s-pretend, but the real destruction of incarnate divine love, then what happens to creation existentially grounded in the divine Word? Bonaventure understands the sleep of apophasis as an act of solidarity with the death of all creation, and the invitation into this sleep seems to leave our selves as un?made, at one with the destruction of species and eco-systems, and the death of stars.

This terrifying sleep reminds us of the disturbing end of Mark’s Gospel, with the discovery of the inexplicable and impossible absence at the heart of reality. But the day after Holy Saturday is Easter morning, which means we awaken from the sleep of apophasis in the garden of a new creation, in which the risen One appears to his lover as the gardener. This connects a Christian vision of resurrection with the recreation of the Earth, and the transformation of its violent structures, in a way that reminds us of the eschatalogical vision of Isaiah, who imagines a transformed creation as the embodiment of shalom (Isa 11.6ff). Such a vision is not otherworldly but this-worldly, orienting us finally toward a vision of this creation as God intends it to be.

The goal of our journey into the heart of God’s love takes us not away from creation, buttoward a vision of creation’s transformation and fulfilment. The realisation that our Christian ecological spirituality is based on the template and promise of resurrection reminds us that in Archbishop Rowan Williams’ words, we are ‘prisoners of hope’. We believe in and work towards a new creation, in which relationships of production and consumption are underwritten by the logic of shalom. We live towards a new vision of human life as existentially related and interconnected with all that is, and human fulfilment as flowing not from our ability to shape and control our environment for our own ends, but from our true vocation, which is to live in solidarity with all creation, and through the practise of self-limitation to leave room for the well-being of all Earth’s creatures and living systems.

We begin to see the whole of creation as sacramental, a world of signs that reveal God’s loving purposes, leading us into a deeper relationship with God. We also come to understand that the mystery of our own selves is also hidden within the mystery of creation. Finally, we are brought to the realisation that the way of resurrection is also the way of commitment to the transformation of all creation.

¹ Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it... (NRSV)

*********

____________________________

VIDEO

Archbishop Ntahoturi of Anglican Province of Burundi on Clergy Training

On conflict and development

*********

_____________________________

DIGITAL COMMUNION

Why not follow USPG on Facebook?

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/USPG/175448762517801

_____________________________

BOOKSHELF

Children of God Storybook Bible

By: Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Synopsis from www.zondervan.com:

"The Children of God Storybook Bible is a collection of beloved Bible stories written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and presents the idea of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation to children. Each of the stories emphasizes God’s desire for all people to live in community. Click for product description and details"

ISBN: 0310719127, ISBN-13: 9780310719120, UPC: 025986719128

 

 

__________________________________

ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER Click here for the full ACP

Friday 23-Sep-2011
Psalm: 84    Gen 30:1-24
Southern Nyanza - (Kenya) The Rt Revd James Ochiel

Saturday 24-Sep-2011
Psalm: 85    Gen 30:25-36
Southern Ohio - (Province V, USA) The Rt Revd Thomas E Breidenthal
Suffragan Bishop of Southern Ohio - (Province V, USA) The Rt Revd Kenneth Lester Price

Sunday 25-Sep-2011     Pentecost 15
Psalm: 86    Gen 30:37-43
Southern Virginia - (Province III, USA) The Rt Revd Herman Hollerith

Monday 26-Sep-2011
Psalm: 87    Acts 17:1-15
Southwark - (Canterbury, England) The Rt Revd Christopher Thomas Chessun
Southwark - Croydon - (Canterbury, England) Vacant
Southwark - Kingston-upon-Thames - (Canterbury, England) The Rt Revd Richard Ian Cheetham
Southwark - Woolwich - (Canterbury, England) Vacant

Tuesday 27-Sep-2011
Psalm: 88    Acts 17:16-34
Southwell & Nottingham - (York, England) The Rt Revd Paul Roger Butler
Southwell - Sherwood - (York, England) The Rt Revd Anthony Porter

Wednesday 28-Sep-2011
Psalm: 89:1-18    Acts 18:1-17
Southwestern Virginia - (Province III, USA) The Rt Revd Frank Neff Powell

Thursday 29-Sep-2011     Michael and All Angels
Psalm: 89:19-37    Gen 31:1-21
Spokane - (Province VIII, USA) The Rt Revd James Edward Waggoner

__________________________________

If you have any comments relating to the Weekly ACNS Review please contact news@aco.org

For subscription Information please go to: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/help/acnslist.cfm    

To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your address, please send a message using your subscribed email address to: leave-acns@acolists.org    

Disclaimer: The Weekly Review is a summary of news, information and resources gathered from around the Anglican Communion over the past week. The views expressed in Weekly Review do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the Anglican Communion Office.

 

Related News Entries

• Weekly Review 26 Nov - 2 Dec, 2011 (December 2, 2011)
• Weekly Review 12-18 November, 2011 (November 21, 2011)