Celtic Christian Spirituality reading list.
(The list below incorporates suggestions from Herbert O'Driscoll, Marcus Losack, Stephen Ott, and Katherine Doyle, S.M.
It is neither a required reading list nor is it exhaustive; it is intended to offer some possible choices for background reading.)
Spirituality – pilgrimage & exploration
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue (HarperCollins, October 1997)
Celtic Threads: Exploring the Wisdom of Our Heritage by Padraigín Clancy (Dublin: Veritas, 1999)
The Celtic Way of Prayer: The Recovery of the Religious Imagination by Esther de Waal (Doubleday, 1997)
Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition by Esther De Waal (Morehouse, 1999)
Glendalough: A Celtic Pilgrimage by Michael Rodgers and Marcus Losack (Morehouse, 1997)
In Search of Sacred Places: Looking for Wisdom on Celtic Holy Islands by Daniel Taylor (Bog Walk Press, 2005)
Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality by J. Philip Newell (Paulist Press, 1997)
Living Between Worlds: Place and Journey in Celtic Spirituality by Philip Sheldrake (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1995)
The Music of What Happens: Celtic Spirituality - A View from the Inside by John J. Ó Ríordáin C.Ss.R. (Dublin: Columba, 1996; US: Saint Mary's Press, 1996)
Soulfaring: Celtic Pilgrimage Then and Now by Cintra Pemberton, O.S.H. (Morehouse, 1999)
The Wisdom of the Celtic Saints by Edward C. Sellner (Bog Walk Press, 2006)
With an Eagle's Eye: A Seven-Day Sojourn in Celtic Spirituality by John Miriam Jones, S.C. (Ave Maria Press, 1998)
Spirituality – anthology & compilation
Celtic Christian Spirituality: An Anthology of Medieval and Modern Sources edited by Oliver Davies and Fiona Bowie (SPCK & Continuum, 1995)
Celtic Spirituality edited and translated and introduced by Oliver Davies; with the collaboration of Thomas O'Loughlin (Paulist Press, 1995)
The Celtic Vision: Prayers, Blessings, Songs, and Invocations from the Gaelic Tradition edited by Esther De Waal (Liguori/Triumph, 2001)
Selections from Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1900).
History, myth & legend
Celtic Inheritance by Peter Berresford Ellis (London: Constable, 1985; New York: Dorset, 1992)
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill (Doubleday, 1995)
Memoir & biography
A Doorway in Time: Memoir of a Celtic Spiritual Journey by Herbert O'Driscoll (Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985)
George MacLeod: Founder of the Iona Community by Ronald Ferguson (London: Collins, 1990; Glasgow: Wild Goose, April 2001)
Man of Aran by Pat Mullen (E. P. Dutton, 1935; M.I.T. Press, 1970)
Worship resources
A Celtic Primer: The Complete Celtic Worship Resource and Collection compiled by Brendan O’Malley (Morehouse, 2002)
Iona Abbey Worship Book by The Iona Community (Glasgow: Wild Goose, 2001)
Motion Pictures
Man of Aran written, directed and filmed by Robert J. Flaherty (Gainsborough Pictures, 1934)
Waking Ned Devine written and directed by Kirk Jones (Tomboy Films, 1998)
For Dancing on the Brink of the World, Thursday Nights at the Cathedral ... and other interested parties
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
JRL+
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Michelle Jackson - Thin Places
Michelle Jackson wrote this piece. First published in the Cross on October 9, 2005, it is posted here with her permission.
Thin Places
The Bible is a collection of accounts of human encounters with God, from the human point of view. (I am not a fundamentalist.) But who were these people, whose stories we read? They were Jews in the Old Testament and Jews and Greeks in the New Testament. The philosophies and cultures that are encompassed within these writings are specific to these people and have to do with their image of God, within their own time.
Who am I? I am of European ancestry, half Italian and half northern European. Over the years I have been working on how to incorporate the sacred text we call the Bible into my own personal history. I have struggled a bit with those scriptures that deal with the war-like images of God as a vengeful warrior. There is more to the God that I have come to know within my own life, than is contained within the images of the Bible. I began to wonder...what is the record of the encounters with God of the ancient Europeans?
We know something of the ancient Celts, for that is who they were, but they didn’t leave many written records; they were primarily an aural people. What we know is classified as anthropology, rather than theology. We know their artifacts reflect a deep affinity for the sacred in nature. Ireland has many stories of ‘thin places’ where the border between the less visible sacred and the more obvious profane was not so well defined, (profane originally meant ordinary, not obscene.) The ancient Celts, who lived all over Europe, were more in tune with an image of God as reflected in nature: water, trees, meadows, moon and sun and the seasons of life being some of their favorites.
When we read the Bible, we see that after the characters in these stories have an encounter with God, they commemorate the event by giving a special name to the place to denote that it is Sacred. The Old Testament is full of the names of wells and piles of rocks where people met God. If I were to name some holy places where I have encountered God in my own life, where would they be? Surely, Trinity Cathedral is first to come to mind, but it is only first among equals. My own back garden is another sacred place. If we Sacramentans were to define a sacred place somewhere in Sacramento, where might it be? At the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, perhaps, or under a huge valley oak in one of the parks? In ancient times, each household also had their own private sacred objects. Where are yours? Where is mine? The Church took over this function, over time, and said that the only ‘real’ sacred places were altars in churches, presided over by priests.
Last winter, I erected a Celtic cross in my backyard, because I needed to recognize in a tangible way, that this is holy ground, for me. Repeatedly, this is a place where I have met the Holy One I call God. When my son came home from school he thought it was a headstone and asked me who died. Cemeteries are also thin places. Ancient people were more used to the idea that sacred was mixed in with ordinary, not so removed from the everyday. We have lost this way of thinking. I want to recapture it, and part of what I do as a spiritual director is to help individuals recognize how God is in their own lives.
The Church, in all its liturgical glory is a wonderful place, and I find that as often as I come to Holy Communion, I meet the God whom I saw at work in the garden. I honor this God in church, with God’s people, but I must also honor the other places where I meet God and God’s other creatures, the trees, the mice, the birds, the tomatoes, and possums. The sacred texts that we have come to call our Bible are a guideline for us as a record of a certain people with their own image of God, but we have codified them to the point that we are afraid to play with them. Where do you encounter God? What is your own story of these meetings? If you were to build an altar to commemorate your sacred encounter with the Holy, where would it be and what would you do on it? Where is your holy place? What is your God like?
The truth is that our lives are full of encounters with the Holy One, full of thin places. For each one, it will be different. Some feel close to God in nature, others feel close to God in relationship with others, and in service to others. I challenge you to seek out the God of your own life and give honor in a tangible way.
Thin Places
The Bible is a collection of accounts of human encounters with God, from the human point of view. (I am not a fundamentalist.) But who were these people, whose stories we read? They were Jews in the Old Testament and Jews and Greeks in the New Testament. The philosophies and cultures that are encompassed within these writings are specific to these people and have to do with their image of God, within their own time.
Who am I? I am of European ancestry, half Italian and half northern European. Over the years I have been working on how to incorporate the sacred text we call the Bible into my own personal history. I have struggled a bit with those scriptures that deal with the war-like images of God as a vengeful warrior. There is more to the God that I have come to know within my own life, than is contained within the images of the Bible. I began to wonder...what is the record of the encounters with God of the ancient Europeans?
We know something of the ancient Celts, for that is who they were, but they didn’t leave many written records; they were primarily an aural people. What we know is classified as anthropology, rather than theology. We know their artifacts reflect a deep affinity for the sacred in nature. Ireland has many stories of ‘thin places’ where the border between the less visible sacred and the more obvious profane was not so well defined, (profane originally meant ordinary, not obscene.) The ancient Celts, who lived all over Europe, were more in tune with an image of God as reflected in nature: water, trees, meadows, moon and sun and the seasons of life being some of their favorites.
When we read the Bible, we see that after the characters in these stories have an encounter with God, they commemorate the event by giving a special name to the place to denote that it is Sacred. The Old Testament is full of the names of wells and piles of rocks where people met God. If I were to name some holy places where I have encountered God in my own life, where would they be? Surely, Trinity Cathedral is first to come to mind, but it is only first among equals. My own back garden is another sacred place. If we Sacramentans were to define a sacred place somewhere in Sacramento, where might it be? At the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, perhaps, or under a huge valley oak in one of the parks? In ancient times, each household also had their own private sacred objects. Where are yours? Where is mine? The Church took over this function, over time, and said that the only ‘real’ sacred places were altars in churches, presided over by priests.
Last winter, I erected a Celtic cross in my backyard, because I needed to recognize in a tangible way, that this is holy ground, for me. Repeatedly, this is a place where I have met the Holy One I call God. When my son came home from school he thought it was a headstone and asked me who died. Cemeteries are also thin places. Ancient people were more used to the idea that sacred was mixed in with ordinary, not so removed from the everyday. We have lost this way of thinking. I want to recapture it, and part of what I do as a spiritual director is to help individuals recognize how God is in their own lives.
The Church, in all its liturgical glory is a wonderful place, and I find that as often as I come to Holy Communion, I meet the God whom I saw at work in the garden. I honor this God in church, with God’s people, but I must also honor the other places where I meet God and God’s other creatures, the trees, the mice, the birds, the tomatoes, and possums. The sacred texts that we have come to call our Bible are a guideline for us as a record of a certain people with their own image of God, but we have codified them to the point that we are afraid to play with them. Where do you encounter God? What is your own story of these meetings? If you were to build an altar to commemorate your sacred encounter with the Holy, where would it be and what would you do on it? Where is your holy place? What is your God like?
The truth is that our lives are full of encounters with the Holy One, full of thin places. For each one, it will be different. Some feel close to God in nature, others feel close to God in relationship with others, and in service to others. I challenge you to seek out the God of your own life and give honor in a tangible way.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Love is strong as death
Tonight I thought we would have only a short homily, but there are some events in the news that we will have to deal with.
First, though, let me read you this from the Song of Songs:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs, 8:6-7
In the news reports I have read today, most recently from the Washington Post, came word that 33 people had died in shootings at Virginia Tech. It happened early this morning, before school, in a dormitory, and two hours later, in a couple of classrooms. The latest word is that it is over; that the shooter is among the dead. Homicide and suicide, both.
Why? Why would someone do such a thing?
This may be cruel, but let me give you these comments by William Shakespeare:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause…
(HAMLET, Act III, Scene I.)
How do we deal with this, with suffering and death, with hopeless violence?
The Economist (March 24th 2007, page 98) recently printed the obituary of a Buddhist monk, Preah Maha Ghosananda. He was the “Gandhi of Cambodia”. He dedicated his life to bringing reconciliation and harmony back to his war-torn homeland, walking from placed to place through the forest bring a message of peace. “We must find the courage to leave our temples”, Ghosananda insisted, “and enter the suffering-filled temples of human experience.”
The obituary, lovingly written, ends with this quotation, from the Buddha’s Metta Sutta, or Words of Love:
For the pure-hearted one
Having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Not born again – into this world of suffering. Never again to be subjected to the karmic cycle.
Nicodemus and Jesus had quite another message for us in the gospel we heard tonight (John 3:1-8).
Nicodemus certainly had no thought of reincarnation. He asked an almost comical question: How can a man be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and start over?
Jesus taught him there are no “do-overs”, no going back to the beginning and starting over. You do not need to be born over and over again – you must be born from above.
This is not about the cessation of suffering, but about God with us, suffering alongside us, offering us meaning – and hope, the hope of the resurrection, the hope that may bring comfort tonight to some people in Virginia, in California, in Sacramento.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Holy Eucharist 5:45 p.m.
Acts 4:23-31, Psalm 2:1-9, John 3:1-8
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
JRL+
First, though, let me read you this from the Song of Songs:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Songs, 8:6-7
In the news reports I have read today, most recently from the Washington Post, came word that 33 people had died in shootings at Virginia Tech. It happened early this morning, before school, in a dormitory, and two hours later, in a couple of classrooms. The latest word is that it is over; that the shooter is among the dead. Homicide and suicide, both.
Why? Why would someone do such a thing?
This may be cruel, but let me give you these comments by William Shakespeare:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause…
(HAMLET, Act III, Scene I.)
How do we deal with this, with suffering and death, with hopeless violence?
The Economist (March 24th 2007, page 98) recently printed the obituary of a Buddhist monk, Preah Maha Ghosananda. He was the “Gandhi of Cambodia”. He dedicated his life to bringing reconciliation and harmony back to his war-torn homeland, walking from placed to place through the forest bring a message of peace. “We must find the courage to leave our temples”, Ghosananda insisted, “and enter the suffering-filled temples of human experience.”
The obituary, lovingly written, ends with this quotation, from the Buddha’s Metta Sutta, or Words of Love:
For the pure-hearted one
Having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Not born again – into this world of suffering. Never again to be subjected to the karmic cycle.
Nicodemus and Jesus had quite another message for us in the gospel we heard tonight (John 3:1-8).
Nicodemus certainly had no thought of reincarnation. He asked an almost comical question: How can a man be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and start over?
Jesus taught him there are no “do-overs”, no going back to the beginning and starting over. You do not need to be born over and over again – you must be born from above.
This is not about the cessation of suffering, but about God with us, suffering alongside us, offering us meaning – and hope, the hope of the resurrection, the hope that may bring comfort tonight to some people in Virginia, in California, in Sacramento.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Holy Eucharist 5:45 p.m.
Acts 4:23-31, Psalm 2:1-9, John 3:1-8
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
JRL+
Friday, April 6, 2007
In the Upper Room
In the Upper Room
Mark 14:17-26
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and
after blessing it…
Baruch attah Adonai
eloheinu melech Ha-olam,
hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
… he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this
is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks…
Baruch Attah Adonai
Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam
Bohrei Peri Hagafen.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
… he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
He is saying goodbye. He knows where he is going.
Jesus gathers his friends, his family, his household,
in the upper room – this is the abode of peace. From
here he will journey out – eventually alone, totally
abandoned – to where struggle, danger, death abide.
Already this week Jesus has opposed the Imperial
might of Rome, and the enmity of its collaborators,
throwing his body against the wheels of oppression.
Counter-marching against Pilate, he matched the
procurator's military parade with a procession of
peace – as Pilate entered the west gate of the city
armored, at the head of a column of troops, greeted
by the hails of sycophants, Jesus came in peaceful
triumph from the east – riding a path strewn with
palms, cheered by the common folk, on a little burro.
The people thronged about him in the days leading
up to Passover – he taught in the Temple, disputed
the scribes, turned over the tables of the powers that
hold sway in this world.
Then it came time for the Passover. A man carrying
water – a job ordinarily handled by women –
provided signage for where the disciples would meet.
Gathering in the Upper Room for the first time, the
disciples assemble to partake of the Passover meal.
Jesus presides over it. It is an anamnesis, an act of
remembrance that makes the past present. This is
the night unlike any other, the night to remember
how God redeems his people from bondage.
The disciples will gather again, in fifty days' time.
Fifty days from this night unlike any other, seven
weeks from tomorrow, they will return to the Upper
Room. They will gather on Pentecost – [or Shavu'ot,
the feast of weeks. That is] the day to celebrate the
giving of the Torah – the gift that freed God's people
from the chaos of sin, of immorality and idolatry.
But Jesus will not be with them. And that day will not
be the same as it ever was before: for the disciples
are now, on Passover night, encountering a great
mystery.
This is my body, their teacher says to them,
indicating the paschal feast. The bread of affliction,
eaten in bondage: somehow now taking this in, like
taking up the cross, is the path to liberation.
The blood of the lamb that was slain, symbolized by
the wine, now becomes – his blood, his sacrifice,
that we might be redeemed from bondage. In those
days bondage was the oppression of imperial power
– a temptation today, certainly, but only a shadow of
the real hegemony, the power of sin, despair, death.
Jesus takes on the role that only he can – priest and
sacrifice in one (Christ the victim, Christ the priest)
- savior long expected, he has come to set his people free.
This is my Body – he says, taking the paschal bread
in his hand and breaking it: not my body is this, as if
he were a substitute for matzoh.
No, the bread is a foretaste, a trigger for memory.
It comes as a remembrance of things past, and a
promise of things to come, representing and
anticipating the fullness of the providence of God
that comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In this act of remembrance, everything that came
before, everything that is remembered tonight, he
recapitulates in himself. His own act sums it all up.
He is the fulfillment of the promise – all that came
before was readiness, anticipation - preparation.
This is the culmination:
Now time comes to its consummation,
now the grain is ripe and the harvest can begin.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the earth.
Baruch Attah Adonai
eloheinu melech ha'olam
Borei peri ha'adamah.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Amen.
In the Upper Room
Good Friday 2007
JRL
Mark 14:17-26
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and
after blessing it…
Baruch attah Adonai
eloheinu melech Ha-olam,
hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
… he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this
is my body."
Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks…
Baruch Attah Adonai
Eloheinu Melech Ha-olam
Bohrei Peri Hagafen.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
… he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that
day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
He is saying goodbye. He knows where he is going.
Jesus gathers his friends, his family, his household,
in the upper room – this is the abode of peace. From
here he will journey out – eventually alone, totally
abandoned – to where struggle, danger, death abide.
Already this week Jesus has opposed the Imperial
might of Rome, and the enmity of its collaborators,
throwing his body against the wheels of oppression.
Counter-marching against Pilate, he matched the
procurator's military parade with a procession of
peace – as Pilate entered the west gate of the city
armored, at the head of a column of troops, greeted
by the hails of sycophants, Jesus came in peaceful
triumph from the east – riding a path strewn with
palms, cheered by the common folk, on a little burro.
The people thronged about him in the days leading
up to Passover – he taught in the Temple, disputed
the scribes, turned over the tables of the powers that
hold sway in this world.
Then it came time for the Passover. A man carrying
water – a job ordinarily handled by women –
provided signage for where the disciples would meet.
Gathering in the Upper Room for the first time, the
disciples assemble to partake of the Passover meal.
Jesus presides over it. It is an anamnesis, an act of
remembrance that makes the past present. This is
the night unlike any other, the night to remember
how God redeems his people from bondage.
The disciples will gather again, in fifty days' time.
Fifty days from this night unlike any other, seven
weeks from tomorrow, they will return to the Upper
Room. They will gather on Pentecost – [or Shavu'ot,
the feast of weeks. That is] the day to celebrate the
giving of the Torah – the gift that freed God's people
from the chaos of sin, of immorality and idolatry.
But Jesus will not be with them. And that day will not
be the same as it ever was before: for the disciples
are now, on Passover night, encountering a great
mystery.
This is my body, their teacher says to them,
indicating the paschal feast. The bread of affliction,
eaten in bondage: somehow now taking this in, like
taking up the cross, is the path to liberation.
The blood of the lamb that was slain, symbolized by
the wine, now becomes – his blood, his sacrifice,
that we might be redeemed from bondage. In those
days bondage was the oppression of imperial power
– a temptation today, certainly, but only a shadow of
the real hegemony, the power of sin, despair, death.
Jesus takes on the role that only he can – priest and
sacrifice in one (Christ the victim, Christ the priest)
- savior long expected, he has come to set his people free.
This is my Body – he says, taking the paschal bread
in his hand and breaking it: not my body is this, as if
he were a substitute for matzoh.
No, the bread is a foretaste, a trigger for memory.
It comes as a remembrance of things past, and a
promise of things to come, representing and
anticipating the fullness of the providence of God
that comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
In this act of remembrance, everything that came
before, everything that is remembered tonight, he
recapitulates in himself. His own act sums it all up.
He is the fulfillment of the promise – all that came
before was readiness, anticipation - preparation.
This is the culmination:
Now time comes to its consummation,
now the grain is ripe and the harvest can begin.
Blessed art thou, O LORD our God,
King of the universe,
Creator of the fruit of the earth.
Baruch Attah Adonai
eloheinu melech ha'olam
Borei peri ha'adamah.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Amen.
In the Upper Room
Good Friday 2007
JRL
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
trick-or-treat for unicef
In his report to the House of Bishops, "God's Mission and the Millennium Development Goals" Ian T. Douglas reminds us that "The wholeness of God's mission is discovered in the combination of the Great Commandment, to love one another as God has loved us (John 16:12-17) with the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Proclamation without loving service are empty words, and good works without naming Jesus as the Christ are simply honorable deeds."
(http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83850_ENG_HTM.htm)
John 13:34
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
John 15:12-17
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Matthew 28.19
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...
These words resonate with today's Old Testament lesson, from the prophet Isaiah, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." (Isaiah 49:6)
As we pray this week to participate in God's mission, reconciling all things to himself in Christ Jesus - and bringing his reign into fruition upon the earth - it is good to be reminded that there is more to what we do than to lay a tract on somebody at the supermarket or to trick-or-treat for UNICEF ......
1. Focus on the mission;
2. Stay together;
3. Keep moving forward, in the Name of Christ.
(http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83850_ENG_HTM.htm)
John 13:34
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
John 15:12-17
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Matthew 28.19
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...
These words resonate with today's Old Testament lesson, from the prophet Isaiah, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." (Isaiah 49:6)
As we pray this week to participate in God's mission, reconciling all things to himself in Christ Jesus - and bringing his reign into fruition upon the earth - it is good to be reminded that there is more to what we do than to lay a tract on somebody at the supermarket or to trick-or-treat for UNICEF ......
1. Focus on the mission;
2. Stay together;
3. Keep moving forward, in the Name of Christ.
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