Nashotah House’s legacy of historic relationships reaches across the U.S. and abroad. Among them are the Oneida tribe, who, since the mid-1830s, have enjoyed a rich tradition in both Wisconsin and with Nashotah House. The Rt. Rev. Jackson Kemper, the first missionary bishop to the Episcopal Church in the United States (1835-1870), was known to the Oneida as Ha-re-ro-wa-gon or “He who has the Power over all the Words.” Also among the friends of the Oneida was the third Bishop of New York and founder of General Theological Seminary, John Henry Hobart (1816-1830), after whom the Oneida named their first church, Hobart Church.

By Hans Boersma, Ph.D.

In 1946 in a world shattered by war, the Catholic Church stood as an unmoved landmark. For Catholics the church offered refuge from the chaos of the twentieth century and a moral and intellectual vantage point from which to criticize the secular world and offer a constructive alternative. The bedrock of this confident, assertive Catholicism was the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), enshrined by Leo XIII in his 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris as “the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic Faith.” 

By The Rev. Lee Nelson, ‘05, SSC

Time is a central part of the rule. The day is not only fitted to the various seasons, but it tells you when to pray and when to eat and when to read. Benedict will say you might be working on the most important sentence ever written, but when the bell rings, you head to the chapel to pray. Nothing is to be preferred to the love of Christ. We Anglicans have a great deal to say about the sanctification of time through not only the Church Year, but also through the constant practice of the Daily Office. Further, through the constant celebration of the Eucharist, we enter into God’s unceasing time. This forms the soul in a way of conversion. 

By The Rev. Charles Hoffacker, ’82

“We must bring into our hearts the God who is the source of life, wisdom, love, peace, and justice,” wrote Fr. Hiram Kano. “We must firmly believe that our hearts are the palace of our God, then our world will naturally become more light; strength with hope will be given to us; our bodies, even if under the restraints of imprisonment, will transcend time and space in the environment of freedom.  This huge happiness we can have now if we have faith.”

By Jim and Emily Watkins

It’s no secret more children are being taught at home, especially as the reality of a global pandemic has spilled into a new academic year. Parents wanting to root their children’s education in Christian faith confront many of the same issues as those in traditional schools when choosing a curriculum.

One is the thorny issue of deciding how to teach particular doctrines or practices. Many K-12 Christian educators tell parents that their school will teach the “core” of the faith, or will “just focus on the Bible,” aiming to assure parents that what their children learn won’t conflict with their family’s tradition.

When the need for an updated, three-panel artistic rendering of our Nashotah House prayer came to our attention recently, one of our staff was reminded of a local artist/calligrapher, Lorraine Otner Blake. A few weeks later, the triptych is complete and will soon become available to our Nashotah House community in a variety of downloadable and printed formats.

By Hans Boersma, Ph.D., Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Professor in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House

This year’s lectionary readings for the matriculation service at the seminary where I teach were rather curious. They were from Psalm 90 (“You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’”), Ecclesiastes 1 (“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity”), and Luke 9 (“Herod said, ‘John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?’ And he sought to see him”). For encouragement at the outset of the seminarians' studies, one would think almost any other passage might have done better than these.

By Darwell Stone | A Review by The Rev. Ben Jeffries, ’14

All Nashotah alumni leave the House with a profound sense of the great weight — the great gift — of the Great Tradition. The substance of the Faith once for all delivered to the Saints, hammered out in clarity in battles with the heretics in the early centuries, defended by good Bishops, and carried forward by the living Church into our own day. Most Sons and Daughters of the House would agree that Anglicans should hold the Faith that has been believed in all places, at all times, by all people.

By The Rev. Paul D. Wheatley

In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns, many Christians feel exiled from their own churches, as indeed they are physically. This is hardly a brutal banishment as in past times of persecution, earthquake, and war. The effects of the present Time of the Virus are destructive enough in other ways, to be sure. But church buildings stand, priests, ministers, and bishops are in place and they still send their messages abroad. Yet it is all as if from afar, with most Christians watching, from across their quieted streets or on the screens, the distanced silhouettes of their churches, now barred, wondering what to do. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

The Prayer Book Society Conference 2020

For the first time in its 48-year history the Prayer Book Society (PBS) conducted its annual conference online. The PBS encourages rediscovery and use of the majesty and spiritual depth of the Book of Common Prayer at the heart of the Church of England’s worship, chose In Time of Plague or Sickness as the theme for the 2020 conference.

By Br. Matthew Paul Grote, O.P. 

Youth today, posited Dr. Burnett, have a renewed attraction to ritual and liturgy, but they want more than that—they also want to change the world. Transformation is the goal of these young women and men; they seek to be transformed through the grace of God that they might, in turn, transform the world. Is this not the command of our resurrected Lord: to set the world aflame, making disciples of all nations? If so, then liturgy is necessarily an integral part of that transformation. Expounding on the formational abilities of music and liturgy, Rev’d Jeremy S. Begbie spoke on what he sees as the two main ingredients of this transformation.

An Interview with Fr. Cameron MacMillan, ’16 By Rebecca Terhune, ‘15

As graduates of Nashotah House following God’s call, we want to serve God’s people in the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to redeem them from the perils and pains of this life. Our desire to enter into ministry, whether as lay people or clergy, is to offer the relief from suffering that only Jesus can give, to offer the peace that the Holy Spirit — him only, ever present — give and the love of an ever-living God, whose love knows neither bound nor end.

By the Rev. Matthew C. Dallman, ’15

We come in the liturgical year to the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. This feast day enjoyed great popularity in medieval England and the wider British lands of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as well. So much so that it came to be known as “Michaelmas,”—“Michael’s Mass”—with the same shortened treatment that Christmas, or “Christ’s Mass,” received in popular piety. It was also important because it was a turning point in the English economy each autumn, for it was seen as the official end of the harvest season, and hence new servants were hired, debts paid. Also, the universities began their terms after this day. Nashotah House still calls its Fall semester, “Michaelmas Term.”