Category: Church Seasons

  • The Triumph of Palm Sunday

    Yesterday we celebrated the Proper Liturgy for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday. One of the primary themes of this day is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This year the story of the triumphal entry came from Mark 11:1-11. The triumphal entry also marks our entry into Holy Week. During the blessing of the Read more

  • Prayer of Abandonment

    The Lenten desert is the place of abandonment. It is the place in which we learn to entrust and abandon ourselves to God. It is also the place where we discover the many ways in which we hold back and refuse to abandon ourselves to the mercy of God. All of this takes us to Read more

  • Spiritual Reading – Formation or Information?

    The American Book of Common Prayer invites us to the observance of a holy Lent, in part, by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. The invitation, however, is not just to read the words but to let the Word read our lives. The goal of reading is the application, in our lives, of what Read more

  • 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 Read more

  • 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 Read more

  • Shrove Tuesday

    Shrove Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesay. Bosco Peters has a nice description of this day and its development. Read more

  • 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; Read more

  • Incarnation

    “O inexpressible mystery and unheard paradox: the Invisible is seen, the Intangible is touched , the eternal Word becomes accessible to our speech, the Timeless steps into time, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man.”                                                                                      — Saint Gregory of Nyssa Read more