By The Rev. Toby Karlowicz, Ph.D.

One of the more debated doctrines within Anglicanism is that of the Apostolic Succession—the idea that our bishops have received their office in a continuous line extending back to the apostles. Most Anglicans, I think, would agree that we have the succession; the point of disagreement concerns the importance placed on it. On this point, it serves as a line of division. Some define the Church Catholic in terms of that succession: for them, it is the defining feature of a true church, and the vital link that relates our tradition to the wider church.

Alumni and friends, in between sips of egg nog, how about some good old-fashioned jigsaw puzzle time? Clicking those pieces into place is a lot of fun! As you enjoy the 12 Days, we’ve created 12 custom digital puzzles featuring some of Nashotah House’s most familiar images. So take a trip around the Garth to the places on campus you love. To adjust for difficulty, you can choose how many pieces make up each puzzle: simply click on an image and select the number of pieces. The links are shareable, so feel free to share with friends and family.

Cheers and enjoy!

By The Rev. Meghan Dow Farr, ’13

Ministry doesn’t always go as we plan. God doesn’t do what we expect. Sometimes we have doubts. That’s okay. We, like John the Baptist, are called to point outward continuously to the light, to Jesus Christ. When we have been washed with Jesus in the waters of baptism and equipped for ministry with gifts from the Holy Spirit, we are called to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. And despite the unexpected, we respond: I will, with God’s help. Amen.

By The Rev. Dr. John F. McCard, STM ’03

As I anticipated this year’s very unusual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services—and the silence and loneliness that many of us are feeling by not being together in the church. I was reminded of an experience I had with a group of pilgrims on a visit to the Holy Land many years ago.

Below please find a series of social posts shared with The Chapter community during this Advent season by members of the Nashotah House community who worship and serve at St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. 

By The Rev. Danny Hindman, Campus Minister for Reformed University Fellowship | The University of Wisconsin – Madison

There is precious little in my time and place—the Upper Midwest in 2020—that helps me to remember what kind of season Advent is.  As we enter into these high, holy and ever expanding days of devotion to American consumption (I’m already receiving “Holiday” shopping deals as I write, and it is only just November), it is challenge enough to simply remember—never mind embody, inhabit, participate in—what sort of time we are in. I suspect I am not alone in this, and the readings for today help redirect us toward what it is this Season is about.  

By The Rev. Lawrence N. Crumb, ‘61

Every day, as I sit at my computer, I look at this picture of The Flight into Egypt by Melchior Broederlam, a Flemish painter who lived at the turn of the fifteenth century. Broderlam worked for the Duke of Burgundy, perhaps the wealthiest and most powerful man in medieval France.

The picture was the greater part of a large travel poster given to me as a high school French prize, and I had it framed over fifty years ago when I moved into my first apartment.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Crafts, Jr., Captain, MC-USN retired, Class of 1989 at Nashotah House. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. crafts earned a degree from Yale before being trained as a medical doctor at Case Western Reserve University. After retiring from the Navy, he prepared for the ministry at Nashotah House, and graduated and was ordained in 1989.

By The Rev. Dr. Victor Lee Austin

Rose Macauley’s 1956 novel, The Towers of Trebizond, opens with an Oxford woman coming home from High Mass on her camel, and continues as a sort of dazzling high wire literary act of British eccentricity and Anglican peculiarity mixed with ruminations theological and historical and sociological and political and so much more, in sentences that seem ever just about to topple over but then right themselves and head off elsewhere. In the course of this romp across Europe, the narrator (niece of that Oxford woman), crossing Turkey on the aforementioned camel, sick and perhaps hallucinating from a potion she has imbibed, throws up the following not atypical 118-word sentence.

By The Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, SSC, DD 

While one might argue as to what is right or wrong, the reality is that most modern denominations and so-called Bible churches and non-denominational churches have eliminated virtually all Christian feast days. In areas where these churches predominate, we should not be surprised when fellow parishioners seem to be surprised to learn or to remember what have been the traditional festivals/feast days of the church. Sadly, whenever feast days are eliminated and the liturgical seasons are eliminated, we are met with a cultureless Christianity.

By The Rt. Rev. Anthony Clavier

Back then, it seemed to me that Christmas happened suddenly, one might even say dramatically. At some stage on Christmas Eve, a tree, roots included, took its place in our house. I knew it had been there, waiting patiently in the shed, because one of my tasks was to keep the sacking-covered roots watered. Together, Mother and I would decorate the tree, open the Christmas cards and place them on the mantle shelf, and place the wrapped presents from relatives around the tree.

A Review by The Rev. Ben Jeffries, ’14

The cornerstone of Nashotah House Press at present is the 'Anglo-Catholic Classics' series, which centers around reprinting texts that the Tractarians themselves either wrote, re-issued, or translated. There are a few works in the series that post-date the Tractarians themselves (E.B. Pusey died in 1882) but which are earnest continuations in the same direction.

Nashotah House is pleased to announce that the Rev. Dr. Esau McCaulley’s Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope has been awarded the 2021 Christianity Today “Beautiful Orthodoxy” Book of the Year. Christianity Today seeks to publish and highlight books most likely to shape Christian life, thought, and culture. In 2019, Hans Boersma’s book Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition was awarded Best Book in Theology and Ethics by Christianity Today. Both of these awards demonstrate the caliber of professors and visiting scholars teaching at Nashotah House. See for yourself by taking a free online course with Dr. McCaulley or Dr. Boersma.

By The Rev. Lee Nelson, ‘05, SSC

During these upcoming Ember Days (December 16, 18, & 19), I’d ask you to take on intentional fasting and prayer for clarity of vocation and desire in your own life as well as in the lives of others. In particular, this is a time to pray for an increase of vocations to Holy Orders and the religious life. But, it is also a time to intentionally place your life on the altar of the Lord’s grace and mercy and ask for the joy of surrender to His holy will.

By Jane Burkett, ’13

Every Advent, a meme floats around social media about the song “Mary Did You Know?”  The meme refers to the Christmas song “Mary Did You Know?”  If you’ve never heard it, you must do all your Christmas shopping online.  Also, for those of us in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, the song is brand-spanking new, having been originally recorded by Michael English in 1991. 

This year’s Service of Lessons and Carols will be hosted livestream December 10, 2020, beginning at 5:00 p.m. (CST) Nashotah House offers an abbreviated service with two prophetic lessons from Isaiah and the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke read by a representative of each class. The Nashotah Brass will accompany the congregation and play voluntaries by Michael Praetorius. Twentieth-century carols by John Tavener and Peter Maxwell Davies will be sung by guest soprano Sarah Brailey, Dr. Geoffrey Williams, and Mrs. Emilie Williams.

A Reflection on Endicott Peabody and Franklin Roosevelt

By The Rev. Charles Hoffacker, ’82

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, lifelong Episcopalian, came to recognize as the most influential people in his upbringing his parents and Endicott Peabody, rector of his school, who remained a factor in his life throughout his adult years. To appreciate Franklin Roosevelt’s faith, it is necessary to understand something of Peabody, rector of Groton School and FDR’s spiritual father.

By The Rev. Hannah King

Before moving to Virginia, my husband and I served with an apartment ministry in downtown Dallas, Texas. We were residents in a high-rise there and hosted regular events to help the residents get to know each other and make friends. None of the programming we ran was officially “religious,” but through the ministry of caring for our neighbors and showing them hospitality, many came to trust us as their token “Christian” friends. We began to feel as if we were the unofficial chaplains of the neighborhood.

By Hans Boersma

Nothing is as debilitating as homelessness. Home is where the heart is. To not have a home is to have one’s heart ripped out. Nothing is worse than being homeless, for nothing is worse than losing one’s heart. To be uprooted and displaced means to be removed from life itself.