Category: holy week

  • Timey Wimey Week

    Timey Wimey Week

    Thoughts on time and our actually participation in the events of Holy Week – not just a fond memory, but being there.

  • I Make All Things New

    I Make All Things New

    EVERY YEAR, BY UNSPOKEN tradition, churches get specific phone calls at certain times. In the Catholic Church, two expected phone calls are, “What time is Midnight Mass?” and “What times are you giving out ashes?” In the Russian Orthodox Church, one expected phone call in Holy Week was, “What time is the Wise Thief?” The…

  • To the Garden

    To the Garden

    MY BELOVED has gone to the gardensinging hymns sadnessin darkness weepingand he fallsand he cries outand I run from himBleeding sweat Another kisses him Taking him away My beloved has gone to the gardenSeeing him hangingbetween the treesand he gaspsand he cries outand I dare not go to himstrange fruit hangingAnother pierces himand goes away…

  • 7LW: שמע

    7LW: שמע

    Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. WITHIN THE JEWISH TRADITION the last prayer one says before dying is called the Shema (or Sh’ma) : שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ יי אֶחָֽד Hear, Israel, the Lord our God: the Lord is one. The recitation of this line of scripture, along with some other passages of…

  • 7LW: What’s Finished?

    7LW: What’s Finished?

    This essay is an edited version of last year’s post. I seem to be. on the same track this year. It is finished. Perelandra Is CS Lewis’ brilliant and engaging meditation on the Fall. It takes place on Venus in the 1940s where God is making a new race of persons and they are again…

  • 7LW: MOAR

    7LW: MOAR

    I thirst. T HIS SIMPLE REQUEST of Jesus pulls many into theological arabesques. What is Jesus thristing for? For our faith! For our love! For souls to heal and bring to heaven! None of that is in the text, of course: they arise from meditation on the text as does this essay. Jesus, having hung…

  • 7LW: Woman

    7LW: Woman

    Woman, behold your son.Behold Your Mother. WE HAD A GUEST show up at our homeless ministry. It was her first time. She seemed a little out of it. She seemed more than a little confused. We fed her. Then we closed our doors, as we do at a certain time, and folks left. Guests usually…

  • 7LW: Feelings

    7LW: Feelings

    My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me. CAN GOD FORSAKE HIMSELF or can he be forsaken by himself? It always seems that this verse gets called out to prove that Jesus didn’t see himself as God – or that the earliest Christians didn’t see him as God. Then, sometimes, this verse gets thrown…

  • 7LW: Messy

    7LW: Messy

    Behold Your Mother. BY WAY OF disclaimer, this admission: Pope Francis has stepped out to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and this seems to me a good thing. As the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, the whole world is his See, and he can make Eucharist with all that…

  • Sonnet XVI: Harrow

    Alone by Abraham he watching standsAnd turns to John the Cousin as they smileIsaiah grins at Moses laughing whileJudith and Esther wait in garland bands Now righteous pagans rise to hear the trialLao tzu has joined him and Gautama tooThe final stanzas of hells songs are throughAnd yawning gapes the maw of death most vile…

  • 7LW: Father

    7LW: Father

    This is the final post in a series on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord from the cross. There is a menu and a posting schedule at the bottom of this post. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. WITH GOD AS OUR Father brothers all are we.” That’s a line from the…

  • 7LW: Telos

    7LW: Telos

    This is the sixth in a series of posts on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord from the cross. There is a menu and a posting schedule at the bottom of this post. It is finished. Perelandra Is CS Lewis’ brilliant and engaging meditation on the Fall. It takes place on Venus in the…

  • 7LW: Thirst

    7LW: Thirst

    This is the fifth in a series of posts on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord from the cross. I used this same text last year: but I was limited to a five-minute talk. This is the director’s cut, slightly up-dated because it’s a year later. There is a menu and a posting schedule…

  • 7LW: Eloi

    7LW: Eloi

    This is the fourth in a series of posts on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord from the cross. There is a menu and a posting schedule at the bottom of this post. I’m late on this one. I had a termpaper for Church History. Sorry! My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken…

  • 7LW: Behold

    7LW: Behold

    This is the third in a series of posts on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord from the cross. There is a menu and a posting schedule at the bottom of this post. Behold Your Mother. IWONDER ALWAYS Why Jesus took this moment to address his Mother as “woman”. In the gasping asphyxiation of…