There it was, just where I wanted it to be, front and center under the tree on Christmas morning. Dan’el Boone’s coonskin cap, complete with tail. I’m 6 years old and I wanted to be young Israel Boone so badly I wore that cap for almost a calendar year! Can
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Dearest Sisters and Brothers, we have to bid a very consequential and challenging Advent season goodbye, and pass over to the Eve of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ…or do we? This final Advent reflection crescendos with Love, the theme of the final Advent candle. Popular voices clamor
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Mother Emily Lukanich has prepared a special four part video series for celebrating Advent at home and Christmas, as we prepare for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Enjoy!
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Well now, this is interesting. As if 2020 didn’t throw us enough, here comes cosmology too! How many times does God have to wave a divine astrometric hand right in front of us?! Dear readers, welcome to the Great Convergence, when Jupiter and Saturn’s orbits come so close together they
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Mother Emily and I agree. We both consider the Collect, or gathering prayer, for the Fourth Sunday of Advent to be one of our favorite prayers of the Christian year. I love all the Advent Collects as my respect for their wisdom has evolved over many years. This week’s Collect:
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Today is how the church disrespects one of her own, and let’s put that right. We considered the Apostle Thomas, hung with moniker “Doubting,” some time ago in the Great Fifty Days of Easter. Given that today, December 21st, Winter Solstice, Midwinter, the day when our Northern Hemisphere is declined
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This Christmas is different, so much more like that first Christmas of old. Our cherished longstanding traditions are disrupted with pandemic prejudice, but that does not mean Jesus is not planning to be born anew in the manger of our hearts! Yes, dear readers, Da-Who-Dor-Rays applies this year! (A How
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Today, the Fourth and final Sunday in this too-brief Advent, we finally meet her. The Queen of Heaven, Mother of all, Eternally Virginal, Luke’s first Apostle, Theotokos (literally God-bearer in Greek, a profound title conveyed by an early church council by which Orthodox Christians best know her), Madonna. For Anglicans,
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The second of our Advent hymns is brought to you by the letter “O,” as in the well known O Come, O Come Emmanuel! I was shocked to discover the hidden gems of this Advent classic so beloved in Anglican hymnody. Emmanuel is easy, simply a direct transliteration of the
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Yesterday we met fiery John the Baptizer, calling 1st century Judaism to radical repentance to prepare for the coming of Messiah. John used baptism reinterpreted as God’s vehicle to obliterate sin as his primary strategy to effect that repentance. And John always spoke truth to power, and as usual, power
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