Yes We Anglican

06/30/2023

A special message from me at "Yes We Anglican". 🙏✝️

06/30/2023

Today's Instagram 📸 inspiration.

06/30/2023

Friday's prayer from the Church of England. 🙏✝️

Lord, graciously hear us.

Listen to today's prayer or read a plain text version at cofe.io/TodaysPrayer.

06/29/2023

Prayer for the Feast of St Peter and St Paul. 🙏✝️

06/29/2023

Today's Instagram 📸 inspiration.

06/29/2023

Today we commemorate a holy day in remembering the martyrdom of Sts Peter and Paul.

Today in the life of the Anglican Church of Canada...📆⛪️🍁

We thank God for the lives and witness of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on this holy day.

"Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles 29 June
Holy Day

According to a well-attested tradition, the apostles Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome around the year 64. It is said that Paul as a Roman citizen was granted the right to be beheaded by a sword, but that Peter endured crucifixion, being nailed to the cross upside down. We cannot say whether they died on the same day, but from very ancient times their martyrdoms have been commemorated together.

When Luke wrote the Book of Acts, he focused the first half of his account almost entirely on Peter and the role he played in the founding of the Church. This part of the story reaches its climax with Peter’s visit to Caesare’a, where a heavenly vision gave him courage to break with apostolic custom and baptize a family of pagans without requiring them submit to Jewish regulations. At this point, Luke shifted his attention to Paul and devoted the rest of his account to Paul’s missionary journeys — a story which culminates with Paul’s arrival at Rome, the very heart of the pagan world. Thus, in the Book of Acts, Peter and Paul were like runners in a relay race; it was as if Peter carried the gospel during the first lap, then handed it over to Paul, who finished the course.

A rather different story emerges from Paul’s own Letter to the Galatians. Paul presented a picture of conflict, with himself as a loner pitted against Peter and the other leaders of the church at
Jerusalem. The two parties eventually met and agreed to a mutual recognition of ministries. But a short time later Peter appeared to go back on this agreement, and Paul rebuked him to his face. In the ensuing controversy Paul was isolated; a number of his own associates deserted him, and he went off on his own.

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is the only first-hand information that we have; and so far as it goes, Peter and Paul are frozen in a history of fierce antagonism. Today’s feast bears witness that, even if their disagreement was not resolved in the realm of human history, their martyrdom united them in the paschal victory of Jesus Christ."

Text from: "For All the Saints"
Image from: Wikipedia article on, "Feast of Saints Peter and Paul"

06/29/2023

Thursday's prayer from the Church of England. 🙏✝️

Pray with us.

Today's prayer is available in plain text and audio formats at cofe.io/TodaysPrayer.

06/28/2023

Today's Instagram 📸 inspiration:

Do you have some good news in your life to share? A bit of joy, a happy surprise, an accomplishment, or a blessing? Who can you share your joy with? By sharing your joys, you make known God's faithfulness and abundant blessings. In Jesus Christ, thanks be to God!

06/28/2023

Much of the Church universal recalls on this day St Irenaeus of Lyons, bishop, theologian.

Today in the life of the Church...📆⛪️

We thank God for the life and witness of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop, Teacher of the Faith, d. c. 202.

"Irenaeus 28 June
Bishop of Lyons, Teacher of the Faith, c. 202 — Memorial

Irenaeus was a second-century bishop and teacher of the faith, who defended Christianity as a gospel for all of human life, in all its dimensions.

Irenaeus grew up in Asia Minor and learned the Christian faith from Polycarp, the holy bishop of Smyrna. After further studies in Rome, he settled at Lyons, a city in south-central France, where he became a presbyter. In the year 177 the Christians of this city were caught in a horrible persecution, during which their bishop and many others were martyred. At the time Irenaeus happened to be at Rome on official business, and when he returned to Lyons the surviving Christians elected him as their bishop. Over the next two decades he rebuilt his shattered community; and in the wider life of the Church he lived up to his own name, which is the Greek word for peace, by helping to re-establish harmony between the church of Rome and the churches in Asia Minor. He died at Lyons around the year 202.

Irenaeus was one of the first great theologians of the Christian Church. His most famous work is Against the Heresies. It is a long defense of Catholic doctrine against the people known as Gnostics, whose infiltration of Christianity was the great crisis of the second-century Church. This movement was divided into many different groups, but all shared a common belief that physical life was unredeemably evil. They taught that an immaterial spark of the divine was imprisoned in the flesh, and that “true” Christians should learn how to free it, so that it could fly upwards and be reabsorbed into God.

In his great work Irenaeus showed how Gnostic teachings conflicted with the Incarnation and resurrection of Christ. He taught that the Word became flesh in order to sanctify the whole of human life, its physical as well as its spiritual side, so that nothing was left outside the creative love of God and the transforming power of Christ. Though Irenaeus addressed his message to people and movements in the second century, his basic message has remained a touchstone of the Church’s thinking ever since."

Text from: "For All the Saints"
Image from: Wikipedia article on, "Irenaeus"

06/28/2023

Wednesday's prayer from the Church of England. 🙏✝️

Join in with us and thousands of others praying these words today.

Access a spoken version of today's prayer at cofe.io/TodaysPrayer.

06/27/2023

Today's Instagram 📸 inspiration:

This passage speaks to me because Abram (Abraham) felt called to worship God, and did so by making an altar. Not in a church or fancy cathedral, but outside, near a group of oak trees. This to me speaks of not only God's omnipresence, but to the holiness and sacredness of Creation and nature itself.

Remember, we can praise God anywhere, any place: even outside in the calm beauty of a forest.