The Visitation

Monday, June 1 is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (transferred from May 31). This major Holy Day celebrates Mary's visit to her kinswoman Elizabeth after hearing from the Angel Gabriel that Elizabeth, as well as Mary, will give birth to a child. There Elizabeth's child - John the Baptist - leaps in the womb in witness to Our Lord, and Mary sings the Magnificat, her great song of praise. St. Paul's will celebrate The Visitation on Monday at 7:00 pm with a Eucharist in the Lady Chapel.

The Ascension of Our Lord

St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles tells us that forty days after Easter, Jesus commissioned his disciples to be his witnesses "to the end of the earth", and then ascended into heaven. As the Book of Common Prayer says, he "ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things." St. Paul's will celebrate this major feast day of the Church on Thursday, May 21, with a choral Eucharist at 7:00 pm. Please join us.

A Catholic and Comprehensive Way

In the midst of all the blog and other interweb chatter, a new blog - Comprehensiveness for the Sake of Truth - now comes to commend to the Church a way to think about our life together. It offers what, in my occasionally humble opinion, is too often lacking in our conversation - a theological thoughtfulness that is at one and the same time carefully rooted in our tradition and available to the ongoing movement of the Holy Spirit. In short, it raises up the points of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (the Scriptures, the Creeds, the Dominical Sacraments, the Historic Episcopate) along with the Book of Common Prayer and the other authorized liturgies as the standard for our worship, and response in the name of Christ to the needs of our neighbors and the world as our apostolic ministry, as a way to ground our thought and reflection as a church.

The site is here. What do you think?

Holy Week Reflections

Three holy days enfold us now
in washing feet and breaking bread
in cross and font and life renewed
in Christ, God’s firstborn from the dead.
Hymn 731 Wonder, Love and Praise

This week finds us entering the most sacred time of the liturgical year: Holy Week. It culminates in those three holy days, the Triduum Sacrum, one liturgy stretching from Thursday night through the Great Vigil of Easter and into Easter Day. From the earliest time the church has gathered to commemorate these days, following Jesus’ death and resurrection liturgically. In the forth century a nun, likely from Spain, left us an account of the liturgical life of the church in Jerusalem. Egeria records for posterity how the Triduum is celebrated at the very places tradition says they unfolded in Jesus’ life. These liturgies are, in some ways, very similar to our own these centuries later.
This sense of walking in the way that Jesus’ walked in his final days, as countless Christians have for centuries, produces a sense of awe and wonder for me. Each year I am amazed on Palm Sunday as we sing in procession the hymn, “All glory, laud, and honor” (Hymn 154) with a text written before the year 821 and music written in the 1600s. On Good Friday we sing the traditional chant, “Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle” with words composed before the year 600. At the Great Vigil of Easter the deacon chants one of the most ancient chants of our liturgical life, the Exsultet. It was likely written between the years 400 and 600.
This is not to say that all we do is rooted in the past alone. Much of the music we sing during these three days is much newer. But it is precisely this great wealth of tradition complemented by the more contemporary that is so striking. As Christians have done from the start, we at St. Paul’s Church now do, adapted to express who we are.

Children and Holy Week

The events of Holy Week, the most sacred time of the Christian calendar, define who we are as Christians. The liturgies are designed to help shape our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, to be a Christian, and the wonderful thing that God did for us through Jesus. On Palm Sunday we watch with the crowd as Jesus makes his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday, the first of three Triduum liturgies, we participate as the disciples did in the foot washing, learning what it means to serve as Jesus served, and to love as Jesus loved. On Good Friday, we pray for the world, for those who suffer in it as we gaze upon and reverently touch the cross upon which Jesus, in life and in death, bore all of our suffering. At the Easter Vigil we carry the light of Christ through the dark, participate in the sacred stories of the Old Testament, initiate new members into the body of Christ through the waters of baptism, renew our own baptismal covenant, shout alleluia in recognition of Christ’s resurrection. As we move through the Holy Week liturgies we experience again in wonder the gift of Christ. We are called to participate (by our posture, response, prayer, song, our outstretched hands at the peace and in the receiving of the eucharist). These multi-sensory, experiential liturgies are ideally suited for our young people. So bring them – come and see with them – and let them share with us this greatest of mysteries through their eyes!

Thoughts on Lent IV

The lessons appointed for this Sunday (March 22, the Fourth Sunday in Lent) raise yet another paradox of faith: when caught up in the power of God, that which was destructive, even deadly, becomes life giving. The poisonous snake, striking down the Israelites, when lifted up on Moses’ staff becomes the source of healing. The Cross, an instrument of shame, humiliation and death, with Jesus lifted upon it becomes the place of our salvation. The key, at least by way of these lessons, seems to be a willingness to look unflinchingly at - dare one say, embrace - that which we would rather avoid. Easy words for a blog or a sermon; very difficult in real life, when it means facing the death of a child, or the ending of a marriage, or a deep hurt, loss or disappointment. And yet the hope and the promise are there. It is the pulse of Holy Week and Easter. It is where we are going these last few weeks of Lent. May Christ walk closely with us.

Where do you find Jesus?

glumbert - Jesus Is Spotted Everywhere