Tuesday in Holy Week and MY 2500th POST!

  John 12:26

Who-

ever 

serves 

me 

must 

follow 

me

Tuesday in Holy Week

                                                                                 Psalm 12:6a            

The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined from ore...

Monday Evening

                                                           The Gospel of John 12:9

When the great crowds… learned that Jesus was 

there, they came 

not only because of Jesus but to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 

The Monday in Holy Week. And my Mom, who would have been 95 today, loved ee cummings...

                                                                    Psalm 51:11

           Create

           in me 

          a clean

          heart, 

          O God, 

         and renew a right spirit within me.  

                i thank You God, for most this amazing

day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a true blue dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth 

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay 

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and 

 now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings 

There is s a stunning choral version of this on YourTube... look for the version sung by Mira Coast High School last year.

After the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and overturning the money changers tables

                                             Matthew 21: 17 

Jesus left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

Did he go to the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus there? Did they love him enough to let him rest and pray? He must have been exhausted. And what else? Keyed up?Frightened? Depleted? We cannot 
know - only one sentence: that 
he left therm and went 
to Bethany alone. 

Palm Sunday

    Palm Sunday 

    antiphon on Canticle 13

Blessed 

is he 

who 

comes 

in the 

Name 

of the 
Lord:  

         

       Peace 

       in 

       heaven 

       and 

       glory

       in the

       highest.

   

Today the wonderful publication "Give us This Day" remembers Marc Chagall, Born in 1887, and one of the great artists of the 20th century, he died on this day, March 28, 1985

         Lenten Antiphon on Canticle 12,
                                      A Song of Creation 

The whole crea-tion waits with eager longing for

 the revealing of the children of God. 

“For me 

Christ is a great poet, 

a master whose poetry is already forgotten by 

the modern world.” 

Friday evening

Psalm 143: 10a

Teach

me to 

do what 

pleases 

you, for 

you are 

my God

Charles Henry Brent, Bishop of the Philippines, and Western New York, 1862-1929 .And the anniversary of my baptism.

                                           Romans 11:16, 18

If 

the 

root 

is 

holy, 

then 

the branches are holy… remember, 

that it  is not you that support 

the root, but the root that 

supports you. 

Born in 1862, in 1901 Charles Henry Brent was elected missionary bishop to the Philippines. He served in World War 1 as Senior Chaplain of the American Expeditionary Forces and later still served as  Bishop of Western New York. The central focus of his life and ministry was Christian unity. He was "a man whom soldiers were proud to salute and children were happy to play with, who could dominate a parliament and minister to an invalid, a priest and bishop who gloried in the heritage of his Church, yet who stood among all Christian[s] as one who served…"  Also a man of prayer, he wrote the last of the three Collects for Mission at Morning Prayer  (BCP  page  101)) 

                       Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: so close us with your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name.

A warm evening

    Psalm 142:3a 

When 

my spirit 

languishes 

within me,

 you know 

my path

Today the in the Episcopal Church we commemorate Richard Allen, the first Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, d. 1831*

                  Canticle 8: The Song of Moses

                                     (With the tense change 

                                 the past is made present) 

With your 

constant 

love you 

lead the

people you

redeem; 

with your might you bring them in safety to your holy dwelling; 

you bring them in and plant them…. 

* Richard Allen was born in 1760, the slave of a man named Benjamin Chew, a lawyer & later  chief justice of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvan-ia,  one of 4 states that call themselves Commonwealths, among them Kentucky, Mass-achusetts & Virginia, all 4 of which were original colonies or parts thereof.  As a child, Richard  his siblings and his parents, were sold to Stockily Sturgis, a plantation owner in Delaware  of whom Richard said “a uncon-verted but … what the world called a good master.” He was allowed to go to the  Methodist  Church where at age 17,  he underwent a conversion experience. Later, his owner,  having become convinced that slavery was wrong, gave him an opportunity to buy his freedom. (It may be wrong but still he still didn’t  want  to lose money on his investment!)

       The AME Church grew out of the Free Africa Society which Richard Allen founded in 1787 along with Absalom Jones and others. H  opened his first church in 1794 and  was elected the fist bishop in 1816.  The denomination grew and flourished because of the racism and segregation found even in the churches of the day. We celebrate  him today to remember how far we have come and how far we have yet to go to achieve a world in which all are free and treated equally with the dignity of the children of God. 

Second Vespers of the Feast

    Luke 1:36

Then 

the 

angel 

departed 

“There are times when the absence of God - or what feels like a departure -may well be a reminder that God trusts us to live into our discipleship.”  Forward Day by Day 

At noonday preyer

The Feast of the Annunciation to the Angel Gabriel to the Maiden Mary

 Psalm 85:5a 

I 

will 

listen 

to what 

the Lord 

God is saying 

 I will listen

Edging toward twilight

                                                                                                 Psalm 124: 8

Our help is in the Name of 

the            Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. 

The celebration of the life of Oscar Romero (1917-1980) and the Martyrs of El Salvador.

                                            Psalm 121:5

The Lord himself watches over you; 

The Lord is your shade at your right hand. 

 Oscar Romero 
(1917-1980)  was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. "There was nothing his background to suggest that ehe would challenge the status quo" - the rich and the powerful were delighted as his appointment as Archbishop.  Ad yet, as ever "the blood of the martyrs is the the seed of the church "and one of the events that prompted Archbishop Romero to become "the voice of the voiceless" was the assassination of a fellow Jesuit priest who was dedicated to social justice. And speak out he did, against poverty, social injustice, assassination, and torture. He also pleaded, unsuccessfully,with the American government to stop military aid to his country.

The day before he died he said radio broadcast,"in the name of God, in the name of our tormented people whose cries rise up to heaven, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you: stop the repression.”

    The nest day, on March 24, 1980 he had  just finished his homily and was on his way back that altar wherein he would elevate the bread and wine at the Offertory, he was shot through the heart and died. 
Pray for the Church and the people of El Salvador

 Pray for com-passion for all 

in need, for social justice, for the poor 

and the oppressed, and for an end to violence. 

Monday evening

                                                        John 9:5

             
               As 

               long 

               as

               I am 

               in
               the 

               world, 

               I am
               the light of the world.

The feast day of Gregory The illuminator, bishop and missionary of Armenia 257–332

   Psalm 31:, 3b

for the
sake of
your Name,
lead me
& guid me.

Gregory is called  ”The Illuminator” because he brought the light of the Gospel did the people of Armenia, the first country to become a Christian nation.

        Pray for the church and people of Armenia. Pray for those who preach the gGospel in the face of opposition and hardship. Pray also for the light of the Gospel to shine in the darkness of t our world.

      If the official acceptance of Christianity polluted and diluted Christianity, as Vernon Dozier says in her book The Dream of God  and so constitutes not victory, but the  “third fall of humankind,” then instead of bemoaning the fact that we are live n a post-Christian society, we should rejoice and get on with bringing the light of Christ into our world, not the not to dominate  but to love and illuminate, as He did. 

          And if this seems  to dump everything we thought on it’s head, it probably means we are close to Jesus who often did just that.  And so, On to Holy Week!  Fasten your seat belts, friends. 

Sunday Evening

                                             Collect

grant that 

among the 

swift & varied 

changes of

this world, 

our hearts 

may surely there 

be fixed 

where true joys are to be found

Sunday in the Fifth Week of Lent

                                        Collect of the Day

give us grace, that, 

among the swift and varied 

changes of this world, 

our hearts may surely there 

be fixed where true joys are to be found 

Saturday evening

                     John 6:68 A Louise Buck Translation

Jesus said 

to the twelve

"Do 

you also wish to go away?” 

Simon Peter answered 

“Fat chance, Lord! Where 

would we go?! There is no other place!" 

God saw everything he had made, and indeed it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the multitude. And on the seventh day God rested ...

  Psalm 108:2  

Wake up, 

my spirit, 

awaken 

lute & harp. 

I myself 

will waken 

the dawn.

  

And there was evening and morning, another day

   Psalm 107:10 

Some 

sat in 

darkness 

and deep 

gloom, 

bound 

fast in 

misery

and 

iron.