Liturgy

April 19th, 2012

As I think about the new Common English Bible translation, the most important question for me is, do I want to hear this version read aloud in Church Sunday by Sunday? Put another way: what would it be like to hear this version read in church from the lectern, and what advantages and disadvantages does this version have?

April 4th, 2012

How can we best turn from the “gradual shrinkage of the font from river and bath to tiny bowl, as submersion in the life-giving waters was sanitized into the sprinkling of a few drops” to letting the symbols of baptism speak?

March 27th, 2012

On Sunday morning, the question in our youth’s curiosity box was “Where was Joseph when Jesus was on the cross?” It’s a timely question: last Monday was the Holy Day of Saint Joseph of Nazareth, and this past Sunday was the beginning of Passiontide, for those using the calendar in the Book of Common Prayer. Our faces are set toward Jerusalem as we draw closer to the Triduum, the Great Three Days that are at the core of how we as Church remember and make present liturgically God’s saving acts. And yet, how we keep Lent continues to change and evolve.

March 9th, 2012

I celebrate him as a saint. I don’t mean by that statement that I think he was more than human, or that others would have recognised a halo around his head. What I do mean is that he helped me to know God more deeply both in what he taught, and in how he offered love to me and to others.

February 29th, 2012

There are two kinds of silence for campers: there’s the pleasant quiet of dusk, interrupted only by “the loon’s wild, haunting call”, and there’s the rustle of unexpected noises outside the tent as one tries to fall asleep—each noise surely proclaiming the approach of a bear, n’est-ce pas? So too are the two kinds of silence in our services: one that makes space for God, and one that makes people wonder just who it is that forgot it’s that person’s turn to do something in the liturgy.