Claimed, gathered and sent

Holy Week is almost upon us, I suspect that ordained or not, other revgal /pals calendars look a bit like mine, FULL, FULL, FULL..... Jesus was great at teaching us to take time out, even in that last week, right up to Maunday Thursday he withdrew, John 's gospel tells us he hid! He hid not because he was afraid, but because he knew that he needed physical, mental and spiritual strength to get through... So faced with a busy week: 1. What restores you physically? An afternoon nap. Usually my dog will join me. 2. What strengthens you emotionally/ mentally? Going out for supper Friday night with friends. This grew into a ritual after having Greek till 4:45 in the fall semester. We were so drained and this helped to rejuvenate us. It is now a tradition. 3. What encourages you spiritually? Gathering with the community for prayer, whether it’s chapel, lectio divina , or compline. 4. Share a favourite poem or piece of music from the coming week. O Sacred Head Now Wounded. 5.There may b...

Every two weeks, a small group of us who are older seminarians (second career or third, fourth whatever) get together for lunch on Friday at one of the local restaurants (that has good food cheap). We did this yesterday, much to my husband's delight since the refectory was serving fish and chips for lunch and Ray is not a fish aficionado. We had been there a while eating and talking. Each of us was quite relaxed because although there was lots to be done this weekend for teaching parish and classes, we were finished with classes for the week and could let our hair down. Friday after classes is sacrosanct for this group. We do not do schoolwork on Fridays after class. That's what Saturday is for! After a while, a gentleman approached us and asked if he had heard correctly that we are involved with church and faith. We responded in the affirmative. He proceeded to ask prayer for someone he knew of that just had a baby and was in critical condition. We assured him she would be ad...

Being Irish, yesterday was a special day for me. We had a wonderful chapel service led by a second year student. Being St. Patrick's Day, we commemorated St. Patrick. I have never before sung or heard one of the hymns we sang, I Bind unto Myself Today, Some parts were a bit difficult for me musically, but the words are phenomenal. You'll find them in the link to the hymn. Also on our bulletin was the following from the Confession of Patrick: I give unceasing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing. Today I can offer him sacrifice with confidence, giving myself as a living victim to Christ, who kept me safe through all my trials. I can say now, Who am I, Lord, and what is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power? You did all this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify your name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and adversity. You did it so that, whatever happened to me, I might accept good and evi...

I was afraid that if I joined Facebook, it would take away lots of time because it would be difficult for me to restrain myself. So, I've been dragged in kicking and screaming. I do like it however. I've connected with people I haven't heard from in years. But as one classmate wrote, "Welcome to the black hole." So, we'll see how restrained I can be...so far not very, especially since we had reading days earlier in the week and I didn't feel much pressure to get work done.

Sophia wrote: The pastor of my grad school parish once gave a fascinating reflection, at about this mid-point in the season, called "How to Survive the Mid-Lent Crisis"! As I recall, his main point was that by halfway through the season we have often found it very challenging to live up to our original plans....But, he suggested--on the analogy of the healing and reframing of our life plans that can happen during a mid-*life* crisis--that that can be even more fruitful. So here's an invitation to check in on the state of your spirit midway through "this joyful season where we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed" (Roman Missal). Hopefully there's a good deal of grace, and not too much crisis, in your mid-Lenten experience! 1. Did you give up, or take on, anything special for Lent this year? I took on something, increased attentiveness to hear God's voice, to quiet myself to listen, especially through lectio divina . A grou...

Here is the sermon I'm preaching this morning at Rural Lutheran on the gospel text Mark 8:31-38. +++ In the book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning describes a common myth that flourishes today. It goes something like this: “Once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons. Discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness.” This myth has done great harm because it misrepresents the way Christian life is really live The problem is, our daily experiences fly in the face of this idea. Some say it’s simply because we don’t have enough faith. If we only said and did the right things, we could have, as one televangelist suggests, our “Best Life Now.” In today’s gospel, we find ourselves arriving seemingly in the midst of an already unfolding drama. Today we are at the turning point of Mark ’s gospel between Jesus ’ Galilean ministry a...

This morning in lectio divina, we read and prayed with this Sunday's first reading, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16. Above is what the text looks like when run through Wordle Word clouds are generated from text pasted into Wordle. The larger the words, the more times they appear in a given text. A number of things came to mind while going over the text: God is God almighty, covenant promises, name change and its significance. God names us, calls us God's own, and enters into relationship with us. God is God and does the impossible. After all our sharing, we fell into silence--a prolonged silence. The presence of God was almost tangible. As much as we may know God is with us, it is still wonderful when we sense that nearness. In that quiet time I could only worship and pray that God would move in our lives and in the lives of each of us on this campus--that there would be a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on each and every one. Gracious God, hear our prayer.