He Is Risen! Christ Is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!!

The Resurrection of Christ and the Women in the Tomb (c. 1440-1442) by Fra Angelico

He Is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!! 

The liturgical greeting for Eastertide is centuries old. However, my favorite Resurrection Day hymn is only from the eighteenth century. Written by Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley the English church reformer, I miss singing this hymn today with great gusto and joy as it is sung at churches worldwide. These words and the soaring music truly expresses my Easter joy in a Risen Saviour!

1. Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia! 
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia! 
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia! 
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia! 

2. Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! 
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia! 
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia! 
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia! 

3. Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! 
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia! 
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia! 
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia! 

4. Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia! 
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia! 
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia! 
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia! 

Last night's Holy Saturday Vigil was so powerful. Lighting the Pascal fire from flint and steel, then lighting the Pascal Candle which is embedded with five small nails representing the five wounds of Christ, then praying together before processing into the darkened chapel with "The Light of Christ! Thanks be to God!!" We stop and sing this three times, each time lighting more of the candles. Then we pray by candlelight and Father sings the ancient Holy Saturday liturgy in plainsong--it's soooooo beautiful!!

The Paschal Candle, with the Greek letters "Alpha" and "Omega", the year, and the nails representing the Five Wounds of Christ

Then we read several long Scripture passages that tell our salvation history as God's people. We then re-affirmed our baptismal vows and celebrated the First Evensong of Eastertide!! With what joy did we greet the end of this amazing vigil, definitely my favorite service in the Anglican tradition. The candles, the incense, the Scripture passages, the vows, the prayers, and the joy of the Resurrection after the sorrow of Good Friday.

The Good Friday liturgy was equally powerful, but it was filled with sorrow rather than the impending joy of the Vigil. To read the Passion of the Christ from the Gospel of Saint John aloud...to be crying out "Crucify Him!! Crucify Him!!" with the crowd, to stand at the foot of the huge Santos crucifix and venerating the wood, feeling the roughness beneath my fingers as I looked on the carved wooden image representing my dying--no, my dead Lord. My heart was so heavy as I imagined His suffering...for us! For me! For those I love! For every person ever created on this earth, and every person who will be created in the future. His Love is that big!! Alleluia!! Thanks be to God!! 

The Crucifixion with Saints by Fra Angelico (141-1442), fresco  

 The Collect for Easter Sunday from The Book of Common Prayer 2011:

EASTER SUNDAY or THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST

This Collect is prayed daily through the octave (Easter Week).

THE COLLECT:

ALMIGHTY God, who through your only eternal Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life; Grant that, by your mighty power going before us, we may die daily to sin and live with him forever in the glory of his resurrection; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. (References: Acts 2.24; John 9.25; 1 Peter 1.3; Hebrews 2.14-15; James 1.4)

He Is Risen!

Christ Is Risen, Indeed!

Alleluia!!

Soli Deo Gloria,

Lent 2024

From multiple posts in the Archives....

Lent is a precious, precious time for me. In fact, I look forward to it with even more anticipation than Advent and Christmas.

Don't get me wrong: I adore Advent and Christmas: the family traditions, the Christmas carols (especially the carols!!), the snugness of the house as winter approaches, the scent of cinnamon and baking wafting from the kitchen, and the anticipation of unveiling the secrets wrapped under the tree.

But while Christmas is an amazing time of year, I admit that the excessive busyness and the hype get to me, robbing me of the joy I should be feeling in celebrating Christ's Incarnation ... which is why I look forward with such anticipation to Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Sunday.

In Lent, little hype and full concentration allow us to focus on God at work in our lives during the Spiritual Spring Cleaning of Lent.

Several years ago I read an incredible post written by the wonderful Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience (my favorite blog). She shared about the process of making Easter as meaningful in our lives as Christmas.

That's a convicting thought, isn't it?

If we invest all this effort, time, and money into celebrating the Incarnation at Christmas, how can we not invest at least the same time and effort, if not more, in celebrating the Resurrection?

Ann writes:

And Advent completes at Lent.

When Christ completes what He came to do.

She continues:

We call it the “spirit of Christmas,” the spirit of giving, and we try to contain it to holly and poinsettias, when it is holy and it is more. The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Easter, the Love that so loved the world, that He gave.

And the words that sting my heart and motivate my soul:

The Incarnation of Christ was meant for the Crucifixion of Christ and we never incarnate Christ until we abdicate self.

And "abdicat[ing] self" is the whole meaning behind the practice of Lent.

And I think it's perhaps why Lent feels so precious to me. For in the abdication of self, we may gain the merest glimpse of His glory: the swirl of His cloak, His whisper in the wind, His hand on our shoulder as He nudges us onward toward His holiness.

And thus Lent is one way to join Christ on His journey to Calvary. It's a gift, really, to become one of the weeping women of His beloved city, the city He wept over while clad in bloody garments on His Way to the Cross, the women of Jerusalem whom He took the time to greet and to warn despite searing pain and the weight of the world on His shoulders, beaten raw, seeping blood.

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming...." (Luke 23:28-29, ESV)

Lent allows us to join Jesus on the Road to Calvary, sharing a minuscule bit of His pain as we follow in His footsteps, only imagining what He willingly bore for us: the agony, the betrayals, the sins of past, present, and future generations ... of all humanity. Even the mere visualization stabs my heart, much less the real experience of Christ's obedient suffering.


The following was composed years ago by myself and Pastor Stephen Sammons of Lake Murray Community Church regarding Ash Wednesday and Lent:

Irenaeus (125AD–195 AD), mentions the idea of spending some time fasting in preparation for Easter. This developed into the observance of Lent (Council of Nicea, 325 AD). Lent is the forty days (not including Sundays as they are always days of celebrating the Resurrection) preceding Easter. The forty days of Lent are used to parallel the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, fasting and praying, before starting His earthly ministry. “Ash Wednesday” has been historically recognized as the day to initiate the period of fasting and repentance known as Lent. It's called "Ash Wednesday" because ashes were traditionally used to mark the foreheads or hands of those who attended church on that day.

In the Old Testament, ashes are a sign of humility and repentance of sin. Jesus mentions repenting in sackcloth and ashes in Matthew 11:21. A mark is a sign of ownership; in Ezekiel 9:4-6, a mark on the foreheads of the people provided protection to those who served God. Therefore, a mark of ashes was used to show repentance of our sins and complete ownership by God.

God calls us to do spiritual housecleaning every day. Our spiritual life is a day-by-day (in fact, moment-by-moment) walk with our Heavenly Father. However, this day can serve as a reminder of the need for us to take a spiritual inventory. We can take this occasion to come quietly and reverently before the Lord, offering our lives to Him to examine: Ask Him where He wants to work. Ask Him what He wants to change. Maybe there are some patterns of thinking and habits that we have fallen into that need reevaluated; maybe God is calling us to some new habits and a new manner of investing our precious time so it can reap eternal benefits.

If you would like to read more about Lent, click on the "On Lent" option under this blog's header. 

The life and writings of Saint John of the Cross have inspired me over the years, and here is one of my favorite quotations from his writings:

"The Lord measures our perfection neither by the multitude nor by the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them."

~Saint John of the Cross

During this Lent, may we walk with Him as He stumbles forward, humanly weak but divinely strong, as "he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8, ESV).

And may we be so obedient in our Lenten disciplines, empowered by Christ and not ourselves as He molds us into His image, cutting away the sinful dross that accumulates all too easily in our lives.

Wishing you a holy Lent,

A Prayer by Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

I was late today in getting to my emails. I deleted the ads, but I didn't open the posts I wanted to read until after 10 PM. And then I found this gem. 

Dr. Mark D. Roberts, who posts the Life for Leaders Daily Devotion, today shared a prayer written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was only 24. It's an incredible prayer, one I plan to copy into my commonplace book and try to pray regularly. 

Here is the link to the original Life for Leaders post by Dr. Roberts which includes the prayer along with key information about Dr. King: A Prayer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

And here is the prayer itself, broken into separate lines by Dr. Roberts to aid us in praying it:

Thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being, we humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our hearts, souls and minds, and we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loved us.

We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ.

We often give in order to receive.

We love our friends and hate our enemies. 

We go the first mile but dare not travel the second.

We forgive but dare not forget.

And so as we look within ourselves, we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against you.

But thou, O God, have mercy upon us.

Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be.

Give us the intelligence to know your will.

Give us the courage to do your will.

Give us the devotion to love your will.

In the name and spirit of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Amen and Amen. 

Soli Deo Gloria,

A Little E.E. Cummings for a Sunday Morning

E.E. Cummings, Poet and Artist

I came across this poem which I posted to my blog nearly thirteen years ago. I had completely forgotten about it, and now I just have to share it with you (again). 

At Sunday services at Blessed Trinity Church (Anglican), I usually read aloud a hymn from the hymnal as a poem, but I think that I will share this poem instead. E.E. Cummings is my favorite poet, and one of my prized possessions is a copy of Complete Poems: 1913-1962 by E.E. Cummings published by Harcourt Brace and given to me by a co-worker at the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ) Bookstore in 1989. It's long out of print, and Tam covered the book jacket with a library-quality protector, and it now graces the prized position at the exact center of my poetry bookshelf. 

Here is the poem; I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do:

                                     77

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

E.E. Cummings

In addition to enjoying Cummings' poetry, I have also come to appreciate his paintings; this one is my favorite thus far: The Artist's Mother:

And this was the first painting by Cummings that I encountered: Patchen Place:

 And this one I saw for the first time tonight as I draft this post: Bouquet in White Vase:

 Wishing you a lovely and peaceful Sunday,

Trinity Sunday and Quotations

 

Updated from the Archives...

The Sunday following Pentecost/Whitsunday is the celebration of the Holy Trinity. Trinity Sunday is a celebration of just one day, and the liturgical color is white, symbolizing the purity and sinlessness of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Now that the Holy Spirit has arrived on the scene to complete the Trinity, Ordinary Time shall begin starting next week, stretching over twenty-some weeks until the arrival of Advent in late November to early December. Nearly half of the Church Year consists of Ordinary Time for which the liturgical color is green, symbolizing the continual growth of our faith as we follow Christ and endeavor to become more like Jesus. During Ordinary Time, the weeks are counted as being "after Trinity": the First Sunday after Trinity, the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, etc.

But today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. The website Church Year explains:

Trinity Sunday, officially "The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity," is one of the few feasts of the Christian Year that celebrates a reality and doctrine rather than an event or person. On Trinity Sunday we remember and honor the eternal God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Trinity Sunday is celebrated the Sunday after Pentecost, and lasts only one day, which is symbolic of the unity of the Trinity. The Eastern Churches have no tradition of Trinity Sunday, arguing that they celebrate the Trinity every Sunday. Westerners do as well, although they set aside a special feast day for the purpose.

The Collect from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer reads:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle today, the Book of Common Prayer requires the reading of the fourth chapter of Revelation; you may read it here in the English Standard Version: Revelation 4:1-11, ESV.

The Gospel reading for Trinity Sunday is written in the third chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, the first verse through the fifteenth. You may read it here, again in the ESV: John 3:1-15.

Today is also the Feast of Title for our church, Blessed Trinity Church, formerly in Alpine and now meeting in El Cajon. I have been attending weekday healing services led by Father Keith Acker when he was Rector of Christ the King Episcopal Church and also after he and his church left the San Diego Episcopal Diocese and reformed as Alpine Anglican Church of the Blessed Trinity. The church relocated a few years ago to the more central SCAIR building on Main Street in downtown El Cajon as Blessed Trinity Church which is now part of the Reformed Episcopal Church. 

So today we give special thanks to our Lord, one God realized in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although we praise God for the Trinity each and every day of the year, this day we celebrate it more than usual, remembering His gracious goodness, His lovingkindness, and His ever-faithful mercy, as Dr. Stephen Sammons, our former pastor at Lake Murray Community Church often stated, "loving us as we are, yet loving us too much to allow us to remain that way." In the traditional words of the Gloria Patri, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." 

Here's the Collect for Trinity Sunday from the Book of Common Prayer 2011:

ALMIGHTY and eternal God, who gave grace to your people to proclaim the true Faith, acknowledging the glory of the eternal Trinity and, by the power of your Divine Majesty, worshiping One God; Keep us standing firm in this Faith and always defend us from danger; Who lives and rules, one God, now and forever. Amen. 

Also, I wanted to share a few quotations on The Trinity ... which are not easy to find, by the way. But I really like these words from an Anglican who started the Holiness movement:

"Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God."       
                                         ~John Wesley

And another quotation, this time from a Catholic mystic of the 14th century:

"You, oh eternal Trinity, are a deep Sea, into which the deeper I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek."
                                ~Saint Catherine of Siena 

And from another mystic, this time from the 20th century:

"He is at once infinite solitude (one nature) and perfect society (three persons)." 
                                      ~Thomas Merton 

And finally, from a saint gone Home to glory:

"God the Father is fully God. God the Son is fully God. God the Holy Spirit is fully God. The Bible presents this as fact. It does not explain it."                                   
                                        ~Billy Graham

Wishing you all a blessed Trinity Sunday as Ordinary Time begins once more...

Welcome to Eastertide: Easter Lasts 50 Days!

 

Throughout the 50 days of Eastertide, Anglican Churches substitute The Venite (Psalm 95:1-7; Psalm 96:9,13) with a series of three Scriptures prayed one after the other, followed by the Gloria Patri. These form a "Call to Worship" at the beginning of Morning Prayer which I love to pray as they truly celebrate Christ's Resurrection with great joy. Here they are from the 2011 Book of Common Prayer (with ESV Scriptures):

Alleluia. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival; Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia. (1 Corinthians 5:7b-8)

Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Alleluia. (Romans 6:9-11)

Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia. (1 Corinthians 15:20-22)

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever; Now and always. Amen.

The Collect for the First Sunday after Easter, from the 2011 Book of Common Prayer:

ALMIGHTY Father, you gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification; Grant that we may remove the leaven of malice and wrongdoing from our lives, so that we may always serve you in righteousness and truth; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (References: 1 Corinthians 15.3-4; Romans 4.24-25; 1 Corinthians 5.7-8; Matthew 5.8).

In case you're interested, the 2011 BCP Epistle reading for this day is 1 John 5:4-12 and the Gospel reading is John 20:19-23. We are also reading Psalm 81.1-4 or Psalm 118.22-25, plus the historical reading of Acts 2.14a, 22-32. If you happen to live in the San Diego area, you are welcome to join our weekly worship at Blessed Trinity Church. We meet in the SCAIR office on East Main in downtown El Cajon at 10:00 AM. (Just look for SCAIR in Google Maps.)

Also, note the quotation for the week in the sidebar of this blog: 

"Every commandment is about love, and all of them add up to one commandment."

~St. Gregory the Great

A Joyous First Sunday after Easter to you all! Remember, Eastertide lasts all the way until Pentecost (that's what Pentecost means: 50 days), so we have lots of time to celebrate the Resurrection ... not that we should ever stop celebrating the pivotal fact of our faith, but now's the time to really, really make a big deal over Christ's Resurrection from the dead! 

Wishing you a joyous Eastertide,

Quotation of the Week: Vision

 

 "Vision is the art of seeing the invisible."

~Jonathan Swift

Vision is a word of significance. It's used in business, in personal and church mission statements, and, of course, the physicality of sight. The satirist Jonathan Swift defines vision as insight -- "the art of seeing the invisible" -- in other words, the ability to see beyond the present and into the realm of future possibilities, beyond what our eyes can see and our minds can know. 

I hate being asked to write a personal vision statement. The future is too amorphous, too beyond, to commit to paper, much less to share with others.

But I still like the heart of this quote.

Another thing I am trying this year, hopefully more successfully than my "go to bed by 11 PM" goal (she writes at 12:30 AM), is to try to not work (on Brave Writer or my grading business tasks) on the Sabbath. There will be times when I will need to, but I am going to try to get as much done on Saturday as I possibly can and try to leave Sundays for three activities: church, Dungeons & Dragons, and relaxing family time. 

D&D Session 84 Update: our intrepid party of storm sorcerer, rogue/ranger, light cleric, eldritch knight fighter, and a battle master fighter, killed the adult green dragon named Son Iru the Sly who has been trying to kill us since we killed her wyrmling (baby dragon) in self-defense in Session Five, almost exactly two years previously in our time, but about three months in-game. Son Iru has sent many assassins after us, and we managed to fight them off without too much trouble. My light cleric presented the party with a Heroes' Feast the previous night, a sumptuous spread of savory meats, succulent and exotic fruits, fresh bread still warm from the oven, decadent desserts, and rich red wines. Our sorcerer's pet (adjustable-sized) cockatrice Hei-Hei was presented with sparkling rock quartz in a bowl to consume since he eats rocks only.  

The Heroes' Feast provided our party with 24 hours of immunity against Poison and becoming Frightened, and gave us extra hit points. Considering that a green dragon's main weapons are poison and fright, the Heroes' Feast helped greatly. However, when our battle master fighter walloped her something fierce, the dragon killed him. Not merely unconscious -- he was dead. Fortunately, my light cleric had the required diamond and spell slot at hand, cast Revivify, and our fighter returned to the living. My cleric also cast Heal and added her Healing Hands, giving him 82 hit points so that he could continue the good fight. And it was a fight we won. Now what to do with a dead green dragon? 

Have a wonderful Sunday and week ahead!

Soli Deo Gloria,

Quotation of the Week: February 13

 

"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer."

~Maya Angelou

Prayer is the heart and soul of my existence. I don't write this to sound all holier than thou-ish; I write it because I have no other choice. Prayer isn't anything more or less than talking with God. Because praying became too difficult when I first became ill with chronic pain, I found help in praying through the Book of Common Prayer in which prayers are written to be read aloud as a church body or by oneself in private prayer. 

I also found great solace in a slim little volume of prayers that I pulled out earlier today to pray from: A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie. It's now out of print in its original form; an updated form is available on Kindle, but I only want Baillie's original book, not a revised edition. I've mentioned this book many times on this blog over the years, and it's a book overflowing with solace and peace. 

And gratitude. There's a book --  a very popular book -- a New York Times bestseller for over a year, that I can't recommend highly enough: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Counting our blessings -- the biggies as well as the little incidentals of our ordinary days -- this is truly the heart of following God and feeling His Love for each and every one of us. 

And Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience, is truly, to misquote John Keats' poem "Endymion," "a thing of beauty and a joy forever." There's nothing quite like pulling up a chair on Ann's huge front porch to listen to her words of wisdom born of suffering, and the resulting joy of a life being lived perfectly imperfect, as we all are. 

And, ahhh! The pen of Maya Angelou is gentle one moment and militant the next -- calling out the wrong and lauding the right and with compassion for everything and everyone in-between. She is a Truthteller, Maya is. And she doesn't hold back her punches, no matter whose jaw she is aiming for. Yet her love conquers the injustices she rails against -- and she can be as gentle as this beautiful quotation I've chosen to share with you this week. 

I need to get to bed ... as soon as I post the new Collect for Septuagesima (the Third Sunday Before Lent) -- it's included in this week's sidebar -- to our Book of Common Prayer's Facebook group, copy down the verses of the Communion hymn I'll be reciting as poetry via Zoom for our Blessed Trinity Anglican Church's service tomorrow, and pray Compline before bed. 

Wishing you all a wonderful Sunday, whether you will be watching the big game or enjoying the unseasonably warm weather here in San Diego (it's supposed to be 83 here on Sunday) or doing whatever else you enjoy most on this day of relaxation and rest. The majority of my family will be trying to slay a green dragon in our 84th Dungeons & Dragons session. Here's hoping we survive until Week 85! 

Warmly,

Quotation of the Week: Be Yourself

 

"No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself." 

~Virginia Woolf

I'll just leave this quote as it is, without explanations. It's an important quotation, though -- one I hope to learn to accept and embody as time goes on. 

Later today I'll be likely fighting a dragon in the guise of my part-angelic demon hunter character, Fionnlagh (pronounced Finlay) in our weekly Dungeons and Dragons session. Fighting an ancient green dragon is no joke, yet I believe that our party of five is as ready as we'll ever be. 

Because Fionn is a Light Cleric, she has access to a spell called a Heroes' Feast which will give us extra protection against the dragon for twenty-four hours after we feast. It also costs a jeweled bowl worth 1000 gold pieces which will be consumed by the spell. But being protected from poison (this dragon has poisoned breath rather than fire breath) and from being frightened when fighting a very angry ancient dragon whose offspring we killed (in self-defense) will be well worth the price of the spell.

Wish us well, and have a blessed week!

Soli Deo Gloria,

    

Quotation of the Week ... and a Side of Dragons

 Quotation of the Week

"Wisdom begins in wonder."

~Socrates

It's been quite a while since I posted regularly to this blog. Life has become increasingly challenging and difficult, and writing wasn't something I had much time for, much less emotional strength and "brain" to make it happen. 

I'd like to start posting here again, likely in snippets, while the boat seems to right itself slowly and we all remain afloat. Sometimes that sinking sensation comes and fear rears its ugly head, but we are fighting it off, supporting one another, and finding strength in faith, family, and friends. 

And I get to kill bad dudes and monsters when we settle down on Sunday afternoons to play Dungeons and Dragons. That helps a lot. Especially since my character is an Aasimar Light Cleric named Fionnlagh ("white warrior" in Irish) -- basically, she's an angelic creature with an impressive amount of firepower in her pocket. And our party's master tinkerer actually made her a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (yes, given that our family's favorite movie is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we had to go there!), one for each vambrace, filled with holy water for fighting fiends and demons. We're now at Level 11, just having celebrated our second anniversary of this campaign on January 18, and we will be playing Session 82 today (Sunday). And we have a green dragon sending assassins after us. Our plan is to go in and attack her ... which should be interesting, to say the least. I'll let you know if any of us make it out alive ...

And if any of you know me, you know that I love to collect quotations. They're thought-provoking, illuminating, and FREE. And I'm now filling my third journal of quotations. So I thought that, if nothing else, I would share a quotation each week. It's not that much to do, and I'll write more if I can. 

Have a lovely week, everyone! 

Soli Deo Gloria,

The Wonder of Winter

 

I recently ran across a bunch of beautiful quotations on winter and filled up nearly a page of my quotation journal with them. This is one of my favorites ... 

Warmly,

Wishing You a Joyous Pentecost!

 

An Eastern Orthodox icon of the Christian Pentecost. This is the Icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. At the bottom is an allegorical figure, called Kosmos, which symbolizes the world. (Source: Wikipedia)

A re-post from the Archives as I attempt to keep up with my wonderful Brave Writer families and students in Literary Analysis: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night...

I just do not understand something. Why don't evangelical churches celebrate Pentecost? Because of COVID, we are still not yet attending church "live" but instead, I worship via Zoom with Blessed Trinity Anglican. Thus, I have no idea if this year was different and Pine Valley Community Church celebrated Pentecost during the church service. I hope so! It breaks my heart not to attend, but until we feel all clear with several of us having autoimmune challenges, I'll keep on Zooming. 

Scripture tells us that the Gift Jesus promised His disciples has arrived at Pentecost: the Holy Spirit. We read Christ's promise in the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, beginning at the 15th verse:

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.... 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you..." (ESV).

Then on the Feast of the Pentecost, with Jerusalem filled with Jews from around the known world, Christ fulfilled his promise fifty days after His Resurrection. We read in the second chapter of The Acts of the Apostles:

2:1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.' 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others mocking said, "They are filled with new wine” (ESV).

Peter then preaches to the astounded visitors to Jerusalem (also in the second chapter of Acts), quoting the prophecy of Joel hundreds of years past as well as passages from the Psalms of David while also relating what he and the other disciples witnessed of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as well as the many sightings of Christ following His resurrection from the dead until His ascension to the right hand of the Living God. Peter concludes:

"32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing" (Acts 2, ESV).

And then we read the response of the crowd listening to Peter:

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 38 And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls" (Acts 2, ESV).

The events of this Pentecost are simply incredible, and it is from this amazing Gift of the Comforter, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit of God, that the Gospel of Christ first began to spread and the Church began to form. Why evangelical churches do not regularly celebrate Pentecost is a mystery to me. It always lands on a Sunday and thus it can be easily celebrated with Scripture readings, with praise songs and hymns about the Holy Spirit, with sermons focused on the Holy Spirit, and perhaps even with baptisms since approximately 3,000 people were baptized and added to the Church on the first Pentecost after the Resurrection in Acts 2. Pentecost is a Biblical holy day, and we can celebrate it Biblically, too, with "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with [our] heart[s]" (Ephesians 5:19, ESV).

In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, one of the Collects (collective or public prayers) for Pentecost reads thus:

Almighty and most merciful God, grant, we beseech thee, that by the indwelling of thy Holy Spirit, we may be enlightened and strengthened for thy service ; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

And the Book of Common Prayer 2011's Collect for Pentecost (also in the sidebar of this blog):

"O GOD, you teach the hearts of your faithful people by sending us the light of your Holy Spirit; By your Spirit, give us right judgment in all things, so that we may rejoice forever in his holy comfort; Through the victory of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and rules with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen." (References: John 14.26; Acts 2.1-4; Philippians 1.9-10; Acts 9.31)

The Anglican Church has an interesting name for Pentecost: Whitsunday which comes from the white garments worn by those who are baptized this day, just as over 3,000 people were baptized on that first Pentecost in Acts 2. In the above hyperlink to the Catholic Encyclopedia entry of "Whitsunday," an interesting fact is given:

Whitsunday, as a Christian feast, dates back to the first century, although there is no evidence that it was observed, as there is in the case of Easter; the passage in 1 Corinthians 16:8 probably refers to the Jewish feast. This is not surprising, for the feast, originally of only one day's duration, fell on a Sunday; besides it was so closely bound up with Easter that it appears to be not much more than the termination of Paschal tide [Eastertide].

So why is this important Biblical Holy Day, celebrated from the very earliest days of the Christian Church, hardly mentioned in evangelical churches, including my own? I don't know. I simply don't get it. But I pray that the evangelical churches will indeed start to celebrate Biblical Holy Days more and more in the future, pulling on the rich, 2,000-year heritage of Pentecost/Whitsunday.

I close with this quotation on the importance of Pentecost:

"Bethlehem was God with us, Calvary was God for us, and Pentecost is God in us."

~Robert Baer

Wishing you a blessed Pentecost,

Quotation of the Week

 

Have a lovely week, everyone!! I am buried in grading preliminary drafts of MLA research essays, so I will post more when I'm done with class. Until then, enjoy this quotation from my Commonplace Book!! 

Soli Deo Gloria,

Love Conquers All...

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." ~ Jesus, (John 15.12-13, ESV) 

"...'Black Lives Matter' simply refers to the notion that there's a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It's not meant to suggest that other lives don't matter. It's to suggest that other folks aren't experiencing this particular vulnerability." ~ Barack Obama 

"Racism is a white problem. It was constructed and created by white people and the ultimate responsibility lies with white people. For too long we've looked at it as if it were someone else's problem, as if it was created in a vacuum." ~ Robin DiAngelo

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." ~ Nelson Mandela

"Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning to just deal with. But if we ever hope to move past it, it can't just be on people of color to deal with it. It's up to all of us — Black, white, everyone — no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out." ~ Michelle Obama

"Activism is my rent for living on the planet." ~ Alice Walker

"In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist." ~ Angela Davis

"The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward." ~ Ijeoma Oluo

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"Justice is what love looks like in public." ~ Cornel West

"For too long politicians told most of us that what's wrong with America is the rest of us. Them. Them the minorities. Them the liberals. Them, them, them. But there is no them; there's only us. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all." ~ Bill Clinton

"I see what's possible when we recognize that we are one American family, all deserving of equal treatment." ~ Barack Obama

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Action is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all." ~ Elie Wiesel

"Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eye and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice." ~ Robert F. Kennedy

"None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath." ~ Marian Anderson

Soli Deo Gloria,