I remember as a youngster going to church early on the morning of one Ash Wednesday with my parents. Not being too sure why we were in church during the middle of the week––hadn‘t we just been to church this Sunday?––I wasn‘t much enthused as a participant in the sacred liturgy. Neither was I thrilled about having been pulled out of bed so early in the morning when clearly school wouldn‘t start for another hour and a half. Couldn‘t I just get ten more minutes of sack-time?

Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot ‗

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” Now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem… …For my brethren and companions’ sake, I pray for your prosperity. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do you good.” (Psalm 122.1-2, 8-9; BCP 779f.)

Well, I guess you’re wondering what you might get into now that the Fall season has begun. The kids are in school, vacation is over, perhaps your work load at the office is not too demanding: anyway, you’re finding yourself with a lot of time on your hands and you need something to do or you’ll go crazy with boredom. Relax, help is at hand…

Paul’s Ponderings for September, 2007

“Study is hard work. It is so much easier to find something else to do in its place than to stay at the grind of it. We have excuses aplenty for avoiding the dull, hard, daily attempt to learn. There is always something so much more important to do than reading. There is always some excuse for not stretching our souls with new ideas and insights now or yet or ever.” (Sr. Joan Chittister Quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom, by Hugh Feiss)

Paul’s Ponderings for July, 2007

Ordinary Time

After the wonderful festival of Christmas and the celebration of “God become human,” we Christians find ourselves in our liturgical life when nothing “special” happens–that is, unless you consider every day in the Lord “special.” In the time between the Feast of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday we observe no particular season. We don’t spend time in fasting and self-reflection as we do during Lent. There is none of the unique joy which marks our celebrations of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. In fact, save for the isolated holy days of, say, Sts. Peter and Paul, this stretch of time is just plain conventional. Everyday. Commonplace. Undistinguished. Ordinary.

December marks the great feast of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Christmas is not the only feast day which the month has to offer us, though the jolly old man commemorated is best associated with that day. December 6 marks the Feast of St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children, sailors, pawnbrokers, and prisoners. In twentieth-century guise, we know him more familiarly–through an error of translation–as Santa Claus.

St. Nicholas is perhaps best known for his benevolent assistance to three young girls whose family was so destitute that their father was planning on selling them into slavery, “pawning” them off for money to buy food. Hearing of their plight, Nicholas–who had inherited a good deal of money from his father–went by the girls’ home on three separate occasions and threw bags of gold coins into an open window. The anonymous “presents” enabled the poor family to secure dowries for the girls, who eventually married and were able to provide for their parents in their old age. In modern times, the three bags of gold have been changed into three coins and can be seen hanging outside most any pawn shop!

Paul’s Ponderings for November, 2006

Okay. Here’s a quick question for you: how many times during a typical Eucharist do we use a variation of the word “thanks”?

Give up? Well so did I!

“Thanks”, or a variation thereof, is used many times, and, if you think about, for a worship service that is named after the Greek word for giving thanks (eucharist) it ought to be! After all that is one of the primary reasons we come to worship: to give thanks to God. Indeed, as faithful children of a loving God, it is our duty and privilege to give God thanks and praise at all times and in all places. But it’s that phrase “at all times and in all places” that really throws me a curve ball.

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” (Gen 1.31 NRSV)

Earlier this summer Bishop Jelinek declared the period of October 1–November 5 to be a period of “The Celebration of Creation”:

In accordance with the resolution passed by the 148th Convention of the Diocese of Minnesota, I hereby declare the period from October 1 through November 5, 2006 to be a “Period of Celebration of Creation.”
I am convinced that creation care is one of the most critical issues facing humanity at this time. We must learn to honor and steward the natural world. Otherwise all will suffer, and the poor will suffer most.