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The Freedom of Self-Denial
One of the traditional Lenten practices is self-denial. Often this leaves us asking the question, “What should I give up for Lent?” The answers vary – candy, bread, wine, shopping, blogging…. We endure for God’s sake forty days of self-denial. We give up some ordinary thing or activity and with the celebration of Easter we…
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The Archbishop of Canterbury Reflects on Lent
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Sermon for Ash Wednesday
Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, we will gather to be marked with ashes and remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. The gospel for Ash Wednesday is Matthew 6:1-6,16-21. Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have…
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Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesay. Bosco Peters has a nice description of this day and its development.
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An Invitation to the Observance of a Holy Lent
This Wednesday, February 25, is for the Episcopal and many other churches Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The following words come from the Proper Liturgy for Ash Wednesday: “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;…
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How is your prayer?
Theophan the Recluse was a Russian priest and bishop of the 19th century. In the latter half of his life he lived in solitude. Much of his life was spent writing and teaching about the life of prayer. In one of his homilies on prayer he offers the following: Let me recall a wise custom…
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Certain or Faithful?
I am generally wary of people who seem too certain in their faith. Some might say I am equivocal or unwilling to make a commitment. Others might say I have fallen into relativism and that if I had more faith I would be certain. Or maybe it is jealousy; certainty has never really been my…
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The Merciful Heart
“What is a merciful heart? A heart which burns for all creation, for men and birds and animals and demons, and for every creature. As he calls them to mind and contemplates them, his eyes fill with tears. From the great and powerful compassion that grips the heart and from long endurance his heart diminishes,…
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Entering the Temple of the Heart
If the heart is the most authentic temple of God, the truest dwelling place of God, then it is also our true home. It is the deepest and most authentic part of our humanity, the place of wholeness and integration. “All things are there,” Macarius says of the heart. The heart is not only the…
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Interrupting the Silence 