St Brigid of Ireland, 523

We await our blessed hope,

the appearing of our Savior. 

                                      Antiphon: Psalm 62

St Brigid of Ireland, founder and first abbess of the convent at Kildare, which means Church of the Oak . Her feast day is the ancient Celtic celebration of Inbolg, the festival of Spring, perfect for this householder who was able to bring out of the treasure chest what is old and what is new... 

Monday Evening Prayer

You make the dawn and the dusk to sing for joy. Psalm 65:8b

The Commemoration of Samuel Shoemaker, priest and evangelist (1893-1963) who was immensely influential in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous

Wake up, my spirit, awake, lute and harp; I myself will waken the dawn.     

                                           Psalm 57:8 

The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

The Lord will give strength to his people, the Lord will give his people the blessing of peace.  Psalm 29:11

Andrei Rublev, Russian orthodox monk and iconographer (c.1365-1430)

                     Come, let us sing to the Lord, 

     let us shout to the rock of our salvation                             The Venite

You probably know Andrei Rublev’s work without knowing it... He is generally considered the greatest Russian iconographer. Here is his Virgin of Vladimir (because she is in the Dormition Cathedral there.)  and his Holy Trinity icon.

Thomas Aquinas, Dominican priest and theologian, died about age 50 in 1274

Morning by morning 

he wakens 

- wakens 

my ear 

to listen 

as one 

who is taught 

Isaiah 50:7

"Enlighten us more and more, we pray, by the disciplined thinking and teaching of Christian scholars and deepen our devotion by the example of saintly lives... " Collect for Thomas Aquinas 

The Circle Widens

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing, for the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.                                 Isaiah 49:13

Today the Church celebrates the lives and witness of Lydia, Dorcas and Phoebe, in the ever the  ever widening early Christian community. In such a patriarchal society, we know little of the lives of the women who are mentioned in the Scriptures,  but we do know that the ministries of the guys whom we DO know about, including our Lord, were enriched and supported and nourished both physically and emotionally by these women.