In an odd twist, we won’t be focusing upon today’s Feast Day in the Episcopal Church’s saint calendar, but today’s observance proffers a great launching pad! Today we commemorate Timothy and Titus, companions and disciples to Saint Paul who both became bishops and leaders in the early church. Please explore
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One week after the first church pillar, Peter, comes the other twin Christian tower. Today we mark the Conversion of Saint Paul the Tardy Apostle, Apostle to the Gentiles, and perhaps among the primary reasons any of us are Christian at all. Oddly, he only has two names, שָׁאוּל, Shaul
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Today’s Third Sunday After the Epiphany readings are brief, compressed and summary in their liturgical form but epic in inference to our lives. Let’s take them in turn for our devotional today… I am beyond convinced the Book of Jonah is NOT a usual prophetic book. No. Something else more
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Not all saints inhabit distant antiquity. For Episcopalians, today is the Feast Day of Phillips Brooks, Priest, Bishop, Homilist and Hymnist. Brooks belongs to the 19th century, 1835-1893, a period of sustained turbulence for mainline American Protestantism. He was born a Boston blueblood; his great grandfather opened uber-crusty Phillips Academy,
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Elemental. Raw. Energetic. God’s dynamic, energizing, and powerful presence, personal and palpable, whom scripture most often refers to as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God or simply the Spirit. We explored a bit of the Spirit in the closing days of Eastertide, available here and also here, but let’s
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Doctor James Allen Francis (1864-1928) penned perhaps the greatest summation of Jesus’ life in several hundred years. Allen was born one hundred years before me in Nova Scotia, called to the pastorate at 21 years old (I like him already!). He served New York’s famous Riverside Baptist Church and other
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Oh, gwwaaaddd…if I had a dime for every time in the last six months we’ve heard that statement from a slightly frowning, forehead creased in earnest yet empathetic head-slightly-cocked leaning forward politician, we’d be rich! I note that what usually follows that declarative introduction is precisely obverse from its stated
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So there I was (this is how we start personal stories in our family) just after a very fun Christmas. For reasons beyond the scope of this devotional space, I was full tilt towards a Personal Pity Party. You know the PPP refrain…I’m not important to anyone, no one puts
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Today is the Feast Day of the Confession of Saint Peter, another of the significant saints’ days in the Incarnation cycle. While Peter and Paul are traditionally celebrated together on June 29th, (and Paul’s Conversion is coming up in a week’s time) each receive their own moment of aligning with
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הִנֵּֽנִי׃ in Hebrew (pronounced Hin-NEIGH-nee), one of the most impactful responses in scripture. Here I am. The root appears 318 times in the bible, this compound response about 30 times. In variant forms Abraham, Moses, Samuel (today’s Old Testament reading), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Amos and perhaps Elijah are just a
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