Today is a hard day, perhaps the most challenging of any saint’s day on the entire Christian calendar. Most clergy simply never mention it nor acknowledge it due to it’s disturbing content, but we are not most clergy nor most congregations. Today, December 28th, is the traditional date for the
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Andrew, Nicholas, Lucy, the Baptizer, Mary, Thomas, Stephen…our list of hagiography (fancy vocab for saintly biography) for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany is power-packed and star-studded. Today is no different! At least one and sometimes two Sundays fall in Christmastide but saints’ calendar days remain fixed by tradition. Let’s celebrate the First Sunday of
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Happy 2nd day of Christmastide, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Feast of Stephen the Protomartyr…how many traditions can we cram into one 24 hour period?! Let’s review quickly….it took our early Christian forebears just days to proclaim the resurrection of our Lord as God’s victory over death and the inauguration of
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An Episcopalian professor, liturgical scholar and author J. Robert Wright did the American church an invaluable service, re-introducing the Early Church Fathers (yes, a few mothers, but their voices are more difficult to find) to today’s church. These monks, nuns, bishops, mystics and scholars carried the Christian message in the
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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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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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