Since the first day of Christmas I have wanted to write a Christmas reflection, and here it is day four and nothing. I finally decided that my heart and mind are pulling in a different direction, and that I should write out of that which I am currently preoccupied. Fortunately, the pull of my heart [...]

A few years ago I spent a semester reading the works of T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Frost. Of all that I enjoyed that semester, I was most deeply touched by Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday.” It must be that his neurosis and mine are very similar. What I particularly like about “Ash Wednesday” is Eliot’s [...]

An angel comes to Mary and announces that she is favored of God, because she has been chosen to bear the messiah, to be the medium through which the Son of God would become one of us. Mary deserves honor, but she won’t get it, at least not immediately, and not among her own, because [...]

EASTER SUNDAY  It is truly right and good, always and everywhere, with our whole heart and mind and voice, to praise you, the invisible, almighty, and eternal God, and your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who at the feast of the Passover paid for us the debt [...]

HOLY SATURDAY  O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns [...]

GOOD FRIDAY  Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had [...]

MAUNDAY THURSDAY It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served, and the devil [...]

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy [...]

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned (Isaiah 9:2) I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12). ******* Christmas is over [...]

To the few who read my blog regularly, and to those who read it occasionally, and to the others who happen to have stumbled across it, I wish you all Merry Christmas! Yes, it is the eve of the new year, and yes much of the Western World has moved on. Nevertheless I want to [...]