After the Fact -- Thankfully

It was good for me to get to listen to Stan Moraski preach about “doubting” Thomas. It was helpful to consider how doubt can lead us to a deeper relationship with God. It was also a gift to me, after all the sermons of Holy Week and Easter, to be fed by someone else’s words. Without the focus and energy demands of delivering a sermon, I was able to worship more intently. The process of hearing other people preach and of discussing with the lay preachers both the preparation and the reaction to preaching has also given me new perspectives on the practice of preaching and has renewed my enthusiasm for the opportunity to express faith and to open up the Gospel for others.

After the Fact -- Sort Of

Alleluia!! He is risen!!



And we are now into the 50 Days of Easter, as well as the Octave (8 days) of Easter. Every day of this week is considered a major feast of the church. I’ll trust each of you to celebrate most of those days in your own way. We will celebrate as a small but close group on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. and as a somewhat larger community next Sunday.
The celebration on Sunday was wonderfully warm, in spite of very unspringlike weather outside.

For those of you who heard me talk about the queen’s Maundy Money (in the Good Friday homily), here’s a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maundy_money It’s so like the English to have such a precise tradition.

Jesus Christ Is Risen Indeed!!

It's not Easter for me until I've heard this!!

It was a pilgrimage

Here is the altar through the week

Palm Sunday

























Good Friday




























Easter Morning

After the Fact -- Maundy Thursday

I spoke about Jesus’ washing the feet of the disciples as a way of preparing them and us for the many walks of our lives – the walk down the aisle toward marriage; the walk at graduation to start a new career. And I talked about Jesus’ walks from that supper – to the trials and to crucifixion. I didn’t say anything about the first walk, the walk to Gethsemane, the walk to prayer. Before we take the many walks of our lives, taking time to pray, to ask God for direction in our walks, reminds us that God accompanies us as we walk. Sometimes we probably don’t want to pray, because we’re afraid God will ask us to go down a hard path, as Jesus was called to do on Good Friday. And yet, if we always take the easy way, will we ever know how much strength God offers us? Will we ever realize the full meaning of life and all that we have been made to contribute?

Adagio for Strings

For Good Friday