A Service of Dedication of the Manton Memorial Organ will be conducted on Sunday afternoon, May 1, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. and will showcase the new instrument as well as the Ascension choir. The Right Reverend Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, will preside at the blessing of the organ. To allow for our own parish community to
Holy Saturday for me is a day for very mixed emotions. It falls between the most sorrowful day and the most joyful day on our church calendar. That’s a powerful position! The readings today speak about evil, weakness, sin and suffering. They speak about crying out to the Lord in our misery, praying for his protection and begging him to show us the right
Good Friday! The darkest and grimmest day of the year! The world stops, and time stops. We are overwhelmed. Christ dies for our sins. Sin. What is it? Some people used to think that eating meat on Friday was the worst thing a person could do, and others claimed that the greatest (and perhaps unpardonable?) sin was to ingest any alcoholic beverage. In addition
“Take, eat, this is my body.” We all are quite familiar with Mark 14:22-25. It has been a part of every communion we have ever participated in. Throughout my life it has touched me in different ways. As a child it was a time to behave. My church passed the plate and if I spilled the tray with little glasses of grape juice I
The Serenity Prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting
Occasionally, I will be on the subway when a street preacher will come on board, usually around rush hour, when everyone is packed tightly together. The person will start speaking very loudly and you can follow everyone as their heads turn to look. And just as quickly, you can sense a quiet but very real collective groan when they realize what is going on.
It’s the morning after Palm Sunday, The Hosannas have died away, and Jesus is in a really bad mood. Who can blame him, because he knows the week is going to end badly. So here we have him apparently taking out his frustrations on this poor fig tree. At first glance, the message he seems to want us to take away from the crumpled
Today’s readings remind us that we are servants of God and stewards of God’s mysteries. God is our rock and our fortress. There is no compromising or bargaining with God. Consider Exodus and the story of all the plagues, in this case the locust. There is God’s plan and following his word we are led to redemption. Sometimes miraculously. We all have our troubles,
I am overcome by the sudden visceral awareness that just as I am rereading Psalm 22 today, Jesus had read Psalm 22 many times during his lifetime. He quoted this exact poem, a piece of writing that was already perhaps a thousand years old, to express his terror and what I can’t help but call his humanity in the face of death. In Mark’s
“Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your faithful shout for joy.” Psalm 132:9 As we enter into the later part of Lent, the readings for the day give us several extreme and demanding tales. We hear of the plagues of frogs and gnats sent to Pharaoh and Egypt, both simply hardening Pharaoh’s heart. St. Paul expounds on the greater glory of