Retreat

 

It's that time of year when our diocesan clergy go on retreat at the Jesuit set up on Lake Dallas, Montserrat. It's good to get away and refocus on the spiritual life. 

It's been good, too, to hear a series of excellent meditations by Bishop Iker. What an outstanding bishop. But more on this later, it's time for Mass.

Salve,

LSP

Convention

You know the old saying, "Bishops should be locked up and put in a cage." So true, but there's an exception which proves the rule, Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth. I tell you, I have not served under a better bishop. Professional, uncompromising in the Faith and remarkably pastoral.

That and far more in mind, it was moving to hear Bishop Jack give his last address to the Diocese before retirement at our Convention this weekend. Quite a thing. Regardless, I sat next to an interesting woman at the convention dinner who told me that when it came to religion "she'd seen and heard everything."

A Typical Owl Idol

I thought about this for less than a second and fired back, "You have? What about this. Our local Church of Christ's teaching its members that the Original Sin wasn't Adam and Eve, no, it was Adam and Lillith. You know, the demon. What about that?"

She was confused and wondered where this curious teaching came from. "Perhaps from the Kabbalah, a grimoire or even the OTO." Huh, "What's that?" Well, you get the drift and she glazed over as I explained the reinvention of occult ritual magic under the aegis of Aleister Crowley. Who can blame her?

MAGA 2020

The night finished at the hotel bar with assorted priests, bishops, and clergy, great fun, as was talking with a couple of cowboys. I figured they were with the rodeo but no, just riggers and we swapped tales of horses and broken bones. What a good crew.

Texas

Saturday saw the business of the Convention, which was mercifully brief, and I headed for home via the country route. It was alright.

Free Roger Stone

LSP

November Fest

It's all going on in Texas, I tell you. House painting, Diocesan Convention, torrential rain, and endless street parties celebrating the tragic defeat of our faux Latino messiah, Beto. I went to one, it was awesome.

There were lights, food, a German band pumping out Erika and all was well. Good fun and a welcome chance to party after the Diocesan Convention's Mass and a scary drive on I 20.

Then we met again today to conduct the slight business of the diocese, meet old friends and generally get it together. There were lots of video reports, one of which seemed to say that God forgives and also forgets. 

How can God forget anything, He's omniscient. I made the point to a friend who thought this somehow "limited God."  Long story short, it doesn't.

And here we are back at the Compound, thanking God for His goodness and for survival on the highways of the metrosprawl.

Please pray for our bishop, Jack Iker, who was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer right after announcing his retirement a few months ago. 

We fight against principalities and powers.

God bless,

LSP 

The Gates of Hell Shall not Prevail. God Bless Bishop Iker.

Bishop Iker in LSPland

You've heard the old saying, "They should round up all the bishops and put them in a cage." There's an exception to that rule in Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth. 

Iker doesn't celebrate Neronian gay marriages and he doesn't ordain women, he doesn't even hold goof-off liturgical dances in his cathedral. But what he does do is drive out to LSPland to confirm a very sick man in his home, out by Slap Out, aka Hubbard.

We RV'd at the Compound and drove out to the countryside and the sacrament of Confirmation, in which the Holy Spirit is bestowed by the laying on of hands and anointing. Now, I've never been present at a "house confirmation," much less asked a bishop to do one and I'll tell you this, it was a powerful and blessed event. I don't say that lightly.

Cage These Goons. And Stacy Sauls? You're fired.

Bishop Iker is known for his unwavering stand for catholic orthodoxy, in the Anglican tradition, in the face of the litigious rage the Episcopal Church. He was the first traditionalist bishop to say enough is enough and leave the Episcopal Church with his diocese. He did so on the floor of the 2006 General Convention in Columbus; I know, I was there. Three years later the Episcopal Church rounded on Iker and his diocese, suing him personally and the diocese, in an attempt to gain its money, property and presumably wreck the life of its bishop.

A Couple of Goof-Off Clowns

That lawsuit is ongoing at huge expense and the Episcopal Church is losing, having suffered a series of defeats in the courts. 

The result has yet to be called, but Bishop Iker remains a pastoral and good man in the Apostolic succession. And what can I say? 

The gates of hell shall not prevail, do not compromise with them.

God bless,

LSP