Tag: Feast Days

The Ascension of our Lord and the Tension of Mid-Week Liturgies

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There are holy days in the Church that we always make sure to celebrate on the day itself. Who among us would go to an Ash Wednesday service on a Tuesday morning, or a Maundy Thursday service on Good Friday? There are other feasts that are easy enough to observe precisely because they always fall on a Sunday: Easter and Christ the King spring to mind. And there’s one feast that we mark the night before: in most Protestant congregations in the US, Christmas Eve has become the principle service of Christmas, and few parishes assemble on December 25th.

There exist, though, some feasts that are important to the life of the Church but which are rarely observed on their proper day. Epiphany (the Sixth of January) rarely falls on a Sunday;  Reformation Day (the Thirty-first of October) and All Saints’ (the First of November) face a similar problem.* When these feasts fall on a weekday, they are most often observed the following Sunday.

Then there’s the Ascension. Following Saint Luke’s dating in the Acts of the Apostles, it falls forty days after Easter Sunday. Like the observances in Holy Week, the Ascension is pegged to a specific day of the week: it always falls on a Thursday. As with Epiphany, the Reformation, and All Saints’, and unlike the observances of Holy Week, the Ascension is almost always celebrated the following Sunday. In his brief commentary on Acts 1:1-11, New Testament scholar Brian Peterson writes:

Continue reading “The Ascension of our Lord and the Tension of Mid-Week Liturgies” →

Go Before the Lord to Prepare His Ways

A Homily for the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Text: St. Luke 1:57-80

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Ecce Agnus Dei: John the Baptist and Christ, Ettal Abbey, Ettal, Germany

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, a mighty Savior raised up for us from the House of David. Amen.

 

What can we say about John the Baptist, that wild man of the wilderness? He who ate locusts and wild honey, wearing ragged clothes?

It’s a bit unusual to encounter outside of Advent and Christmas – our lectionary cycle usually gives him a Sunday or two in December as the forerunner of the Messiah and then a few weeks later, on the first Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, recalling when John baptized his younger cousin in the river Jordan. But why now, almost exactly six months away? Continue reading “Go Before the Lord to Prepare His Ways” →

A Light to Reveal God’s Glory to the Nations

A Homily for the Presentation of our Lord

Text: St. Luke 2:22-40

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, a light to guide the nations and the glory of Israel. Amen.

Ok, I lied.

Kind of.

A few weeks ago, I told you Epiphany is the end of the Christmas season, which it is – but also sort of isn’t. Continue reading “A Light to Reveal God’s Glory to the Nations” →

Jesus is Lord, Herod is Not

A Homily for the Epiphany of our Lord (Transferred)

Text: St. Matthew 2:1-12

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus the Lord, who reveals the glory of the Triune God to the nations. Amen.

Today we observe the Epiphany, the celebration of the Messiah’s manifestation – through his Incarnation and Nativity, through his first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, through the descent of the Holy Spirit at his Baptism (which we shall hear next week), and today, through the visit of the magi, astrologers visiting from Persia in the East (what we would today call Iran). Continue reading “Jesus is Lord, Herod is Not” →

Unto Us a Child Is Born

A Homily for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord

Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7; St. Luke 2:1-20

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Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, born to us this night in the city of David. Amen.

Tonight marks the turning of the age. Tonight, of all nights, God steps into human history as one of us, and everything changes. The Son of God, the Incarnate Word, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ will live among us. He’ll walk the dusty highways. He’ll be baptized and tempted in the wilderness. He’ll call disciples and teach. He’ll perform wondrous acts, turn water into wine, feed the multitudes, calm the storms, and walk on water. He’ll cast out demons, open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, heal the lepers, and even raise the dead. He’ll enter Jerusalem in triumph and institute the Sacrament of his presence at the Altar for us. He’ll be handed over, tried, bound, and crucified. He’ll descend into hell and rise again victorious. And in his glorious Resurrection, he’ll open to us the way of everlasting life. Alleluia! Amen!

But all of this will come later. Tonight’s miracle is enough: the Divine Word which is with God and is God from the beginning, the Son of God eternally begotten of the Father, through whom all things were made — is born in Bethlehem. Tonight, God becomes one of us. Continue reading “Unto Us a Child Is Born” →

Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra

On December 6th, we marked the feast of Saint Nicholas, a fourth century bishop of the Greek city Myra (in present-day Turkey).

Chiefly, he is remembered for his generosity and secret gift-giving. The son of a wealthy family, Nicholas gave away much of his inheritance to the poor. According to one tradition, the bishop heard a poor man praying; the man had no money to provide dowries for his three daughters and worried that, unmarried, the young women would be left impoverished. Over the next three nights, Bishop Nicholas is said to have thrown bags of money through the window to provide for the family. Continue reading “Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra” →

What Kind of King?

A Homily for the Feast of Christ the King

Texts: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Revelation 1:4b-8; St. John 18:33-37

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Christ the King, 17th century Greek mosaic

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, our coming King. Amen.

It’s a bold claim, isn’t it? To stand, bound and on trial, before the imperial governor, the embodied representative of the Roman Empire, and to claim kingship? The Romans had conquered the entire Mediterranean world, from Spain to Turkey, from Tripoli in North Africa up to the limes in Germany, from southern Egypt to as far away as Britain. The Romans had vanquished the fractured Greek rulers and kept the Parthian Empire at bay in Iran. Rome made and broke kings. They commanded entire legions to keep rebellious territories in line. The Romans knew how to shatter the spirit and will of defiant kings and mutinous militias: through the strength of arms and torture. Lay waste to the city, crucify the leaders. Roman authority was rooted in a mighty brutality. Continue reading “What Kind of King?” →

You Are Not God’s Only Hands

A Homily for the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila

Texts: Romans 8:22-27; St. John 14:1-7

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus, our Great Love. Amen.

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The Transverberation of Saint Teresa, 17th c.

There’s no avoiding this topic, so let’s address it head on, shall we? We all probably know Saint Teresa best for the very intimate description of her ecstatic visions. These charismatic experiences are often understood as having at least some erotic subtext as Teresa wrote about the penetrating love of God. In her own words, Teresa discussed the connection between soul and body, the physical sensation of religious experience, the moan-inducing rapture of divine visions. Her writing is put on stunning and beautiful display in Bernini’s famous statue, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, a sculpture that more closely resembles two lovers than an angel and a prophet. This perspective is so vital to the Church, to a body with such a long, painful, and complicated history with human sexuality and so often confused about the relationship between spirit and flesh. Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, her colleague who incorporated much of her imagery, offer profound sources for feminist and queer prophets to proclaim a Gospel that is at peace with human sexuality. But there are better and more capable voices than mine to expound on the value of both men and women claiming such intimacy with God. Continue reading “You Are Not God’s Only Hands” →