#One Year Lectionary

[a-queer-seminarian]

Today is Easter Sunday. Today is Trans Day of Visibility. Today is day 176 of genocide.

This year the lectionary gives us Mark's account of the Resurrection, with its fearful cliffhanger ending — an empty tomb, but Jesus's body missing. And isn't that unresolved note fitting?

In the face of so much suffering across the world, it feels right to be compelled to sit — even on this most jubilant of days — with the poor and disenfranchised in their continued suffering.

Mark's account:

Just days before, the women closest to Jesus witnessed him slowly suffocate to death on a Roman cross. Now, now trudge to his tomb to anoint his corpse — and find the stone rolled away, his body gone. A strange figure inside tells them that Jesus is has risen, and will reunite with them in Galilee.

They respond not with joy, but trembling ekstasis — a sense of being beside yourself, taken out of your own mind with shock. They flee.

The women keep what they've seen and heard to themselves — because their beloved friend outliving execution is just too good to be true. When does fortune ever favor those who languish under Empire's shadow?

Love wins, yet hate still holds us captive.

I'm grateful that Mark's resurrection story is the one many of us are hearing in church this year. His version emphasizes the "already but not yet" experience of God's liberation of which theologians write: Christians believe that in Christ's incarnation — his life, death, and resurrection — all of humanity, all of Creation is already redeemed... and yet, we still experience suffering. The Kin(g)dom is already incoming, but not yet fully manifested.

Like Mark's Gospel with its Easter joy overshadowed by ongoing fear, Trans Day of Visibility is fraught with the tension of, on the one hand, needing to be seen, to be known, to move society from awareness into acceptance into celebration; and, on the other hand, grappling with the increased violence and bigotry that a larger spotlight brings.

The trans community intimately understands the intermingling of life and death, joy and pain.

When we manage to roll back the stones on our tombs of silence and shame, self-loathing and social death, and stride boldly into new, transforming and transformative life — into trans joy! — death still stalks us.

We are blessedly, audaciously free — and we are in constant danger. There are many who would shove us back into our tombs.

And of course, the trans community is by no means alone in experiencing the not-yet-ness of God's Kin(g)dom.

Empire's violence continues to overshadow God's liberation.

The women who came to tend to their beloved dead initially experienced the loss of his body as one more indignity heaped upon them by Empire. Was his torture, their terror, not enough, that even their grief must be trampled upon, his corpse stolen away from them?

The people of Gaza are undergoing such horrors now. Indignity is heaped on indignity as they are bombed, assaulted, terrorized, starved, mocked. They are not given a moment's rest to tend to their dead. They are not permitted to celebrate Easter's joy as they deserve. They are forced to break their Ramadan fasts with little more than grass.

Those of us who reside in the imperial core — as I do as a white Christian in the United States — must not look away from the violence our leaders are funding, enabling, justifying.

We must not celebrate God's all-encompassing redemption without also bearing witness to the ways that liberation is not yet experienced by so many across the world.

This Easter, I pray for a free Palestine. I pray for an end to Western Empire, the severing of all its toxic tendrils holding the whole earth in a death grip.

I pray that faith communities will commit and recommit themselves to helping roll the stones of hate and fear away — and to eroding those stones into nothing, so they cannot be used to crush us once we've stepped into new life.

I pray for joy so vibrant it washes fear away, disintegrates all hatred into awe.

In the meantime, I pray for the energy and courage to bear witness to suffering; for the wisdom for each of us to discern our part in easing pain; for God's Spirit to reveal Xirself to and among the world's despised, over and over — till God's Kin(g)dom comes in full at last.

"The Empty Tomb" by artist He Qi.

[nerdanel01]

No. 6 - Lectionary Pursuits (NSFW/18+)

It was hell; it was heaven; the warm ooze and drip of her around his half-swollen cock (the firmness of which had flagged, somewhat, in the lack of attention or stimulation Rook had been offering it—but if she had noticed, she seemed unbothered by it; she had kept him still sheathed securely inside her warmth) and the siren-like look at her eyes as she stared at him hungrily over the top of the pages. By now, Emmrich was not reading, not really—he was just using his eyes to recognize sound-shapes on a page, and using his tongue and his lips and his teeth to pass those same sound-shapes through his mouth. That language passed through him without leaving the faintest impression on him, without remotely registering in the cognitive centers of his brain; he was simply a transmitter, focused on the barest essentials of his task while every other iota of self-control and attention and discipline he could muster was being used to resist the urge to start driving his hips upward against hers. He could feel a flushed heat in his cheeks, in his neck; he was sure he was red. She was warm in his lap and his legs were shaking underneath her with every minute shift of her hips, any adjustment in her posture on top of him. The quirk of her smile—

The self-satisfied grin imploded on Rook’s face as it tightened, eyes screwed shut; she dampened a strangled cry through clenched teeth, resolved the sound into a hiss. Emmrich was on the verge of keening himself, with the sudden flood of warmth and wetness that gushed out of her, smearing across his groin and trickling between his legs. 

“I said behave, ” Rook told him, between deep breaths to steady herself, “or I won’t let you cum at all.”

“I am, dear,” Emmrich said, blinking at her in wide-eyed innocence. “Or, I genuinely thought that I was…?”

Rook let out a little huff, half amusement, half disbelief. Her best shorthand for, ‘get a load of this crap.’ One hand released the book to land, ever so lightly, on his stomach. “That wasn’t you flexing?” she asked him, running her fingers down the quicksilver path of hair that traced from his navel to his hips. “Misbehaving, making your cock jump inside of me?”

Andraste forgive him, but he loved the sound of the word ‘cock’ in her mouth, crass as it was—and this, in addition the teasing touch of her fingertips along his stomach was enough to have him swelling inside of her with renewed enthusiasm. Had he clenched his core, as she alleged, knowingly or unknowingly? “That—that wasn’t my intention.”

Rook huffed again. “Sure it wasn’t.” But whatever sudden rush of want or need had seized her then, she’d regained control of herself, now; her fingers traced back up his chest, circled pensively. A sudden gleam in her eye, she told him, “If you can make it to the end of the chapter without trying to fuck me again, I’ll start squeezing.”

[read full fic]

----

I’m really proud of all the writing I did this year! So for the last ten days of 2024 I’m going to be reblogging my 10 favorite pieces that I wrote. I put Emmrich and so many situations this year and not nearly enough of them were smutty, but I like to think that in the few times I did put him in spicy scenarios, I made it count. (:

[sgiandubh]

Spy Wednesday. Treason

Sidenote: Still very late with all this, but decided to keep the pace. Perhaps it is better like this, since this is the slightly haphazard result of scattered thoughts throughout the day and as such, a personal experience of it.

Obviously, powerful bystanders are not happy about Jesus entering Jerusalem at all, especially since this peculiar event coincided with the feast of Passover: 'and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death' (Mark, 14:1 - from Palm Sunday's reading). Just try and imagine the bureaucratic kerfuffle, the whispered speculations, the slow burn alarm building up in those circles. Political unrest, with a twist: local consensus was not enough - Rome had to be persuaded to step in, and it was everything but obvious. About all this, later this week: it is, to me at least, perhaps the most mysterious episode of the New Testament.

Judas Iscariot. Tragically instrumental to this plan, we know it. And treason, coupled with dark alley maneuvering, was the only way to make it happen. Treason: not betrayal or treachery, which are either too vaguely moral or too general - what is about to happen is a political assassination disguised as trial, followed by public torture as punishment.

This year's lectionary brings along a second, slightly alternate POV of the Last Supper, as related by Matthew Levi (my favorite), this time. Matthew, the tax collector, is a man acutely aware of the value of money and he is the only one to give us a very precise quotation of the reward Judas received from Caiaphas' middlemen: 'And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.' (Matthew, 26:15). Again, we have a very telling, albeit approximate, conversion in today's currency. Matthew's Greek text is very vague, in that respect. It speaks about 'silver' (coins), to an audience that immediately understood the value of it. And even if we will never know for sure if those coins were Ptolemaic (Egyptian) or Athenian (Greek) tetradrachms, Tyrian (in today's Lebanon) shekels or Antioch (Greek) staters, we can make a rough evaluation based on their actual weight and purity (isn't it ironic?).

Ready?

In 2024's value (based on the current JP Morgan's quotation of 30 USD/ounce), Judas Iscariot sold Jesus for an something that varies between 97,8 USD (if reward was received in Ptolemaic tetradrachms) to 472,8 USD (if the reward was received in Athenian tetradrachms). The median and geographically more plausible amount being of about 325,5 USD (for Antioch staters) or 380,7 USD (for Tyrian shekels).

I don't know about you, but what sickens me is the complete ludicrousness of this all. Think about what these money could buy in your respective worlds: would you do it?

Rhetorical question, of course. What is at stake, here, is not money. It's Power, in its political, appallingly punitive dimension the Romans called imperium, as opposed to the organic, ethical dimension they called auctoritas (and which we would translate by 'prestige' or 'influence'). With this deal, Judas hopes to save his life, soul be damned. Only to lose both, in complete, endless dishonor.

The day's somber and reflective sounds come from François Couperin's Première leçon de ténèbres pour le Mercredi saint (1714). Couperin was the Sun King's favorite harpsichordist and as such, was commissioned to arrange into music Jeremiah's lamentations, for the Holy Week liturgies of the Longchamp Royal Abbey. In a Baroque universe filled with light and joy and levity, these are the most dejected sounds perhaps ever written:

PS: I will try to catch up tonight. Pinky promise and thank you all for your patience (I never thought you'd like these, but here we are - still, the topic is a very difficult one, don't you think?).

[gisellelx]

Do you think Carlisle was still going to church even tho he was a vampire?

I've done a LOT of thinking and research about this, over the years, so apologies for the length here. I actually dropped most of my headcanon about this on the ole' sideblog not too long ago. But since I am 150% committed to the bit over there, there's no room for explaining why my reading leads to my writing that Carlisle thinks a particular way, since he presumably has no knowledge of the text.

A lot of misunderstandings about Carlisle's relationship with religion, IMO, come from trying to view him and his father through the lens of contemporary American evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christians, as we know them in the US, are a very, very recent development--they date back to roughly the Regan era, and if they claim denominational affiliation (many do not), they are typically Pentecostal, Methodist, or Baptist.

Carlisle canonically is the son of an Anglican priest. This was the 1640s-1660s, and one of his scant human memories is of the Protectorate, meaning that either his father loved Cromwell or hated Cromwell. Given that, plus the rest of what we know about his dad--that he believed in evil, and hunted demons (anachronistic btw), it seems likely that he was a Puritan. Americans are familiar with the separating Puritans as part of our country's founding mythos--the settlers who came seeking freedom to practice their religion and you know whoops just accidentally did a genocide but not before having a big meal with the Wampanoag!

But there was a second set of nonseparating Puritans who stayed in England, and tried to reform the Anglican church from within. So if we take at face value that Carlisle remembers his father as "Anglican," plus the attitudes toward evil and strong memory of Cromwell, this is likely where Carlisle landed. His church upbringing would've been heavy on the fire and brimstone in the preaching, but still based on an order of worship derived from the Catholic service, with an order of confession, weekly readings from the Old and New Testaments according to the lectionary (as opposed to the modern nondenominational practice of reading whatever the heck the pastor feels like/following a newer bible reading schedule), the recitation of the Lord's Prayer and the creed, and music of psalmodys, occasional hymns, fractions and collects. Communion would've been celebrated frequently.

I suspect, that as a vampire, Carlisle still finds a great deal of solace in that worship pattern. It is one of the few things that is very little changed in his long life. I think he pops into an Episcopal church once every couple years, and when a congregation sings the oldest collects, it moves him to what otherwise would be tears because some deep part of his mind remembers the music the same way an elderly patient with dementia would.

So yes, I think he goes on occasion. I definitely meant this kind of as a shitpost when I wrote it, but it also rings true--he still takes seriously the trappings of the faith practices he grew up with. They are meaningful to him. I loved the new canon introduced in MS that he likes popping into churches when the family are out hunting because it felt very in character and also gives him a really delightful soft side.

He doesn't go often. He doesn't feel like he has to. But he still does find meaning in it all, and to him, it still matters.

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Albert Gregorius - Parable of the Prodigal Son -

The Parable of the Prodigal Son (also known as the parable of the Two Brothers, Lost Son, Loving Father, or of the Forgiving Father) is one of the parables of Jesus in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. Jesus shares the parable with his disciples, the Pharisees, and others.

In the story, a father has two sons. The younger son asks for his portion of inheritance from his father, who grants his son's request. This son, however, is prodigal (i.e., wasteful and extravagant), thus squandering his fortune and eventually becoming destitute. As consequence, he now must return home empty-handed and intend to beg his father to accept him back as a servant. To the son's surprise, he is not scorned by his father but is welcomed back with celebration and a welcoming party. Envious, the older son refuses to participate in the festivities. The father tells the older son: "you are ever with me, and all that I have is yours, but your younger brother was lost and now he is found."

The Prodigal Son is the third and final parable of a cycle on redemption, following the parable of the Lost Sheep and the parable of the Lost Coin. In Revised Common Lectionary and Roman Rite Catholic Lectionary, this parable is read on the fourth Sunday of Lent (in Year C); in the latter it is also included in the long form of the Gospel on the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time in Year C, along with the preceding two parables of the cycle. In the Eastern Orthodox Church it is read on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son.

Albert Jacob Frans Gregorius, or Albert Jacques François Grégorius (26 October 1774, Bruges - 25 February 1853, Bruges) was a Flemish-Belgian portrait painter and Director of the art academy in Bruges.

[askcarlislecullen]

What's your relationship with religion and how has it changed over the years? Do you, still consider yourself religious, or follow any religion? How do you think, your history with religion has affected your life as a vampire, esp in the beginning?

Broadly, I still consider myself a follower of the Christian faith. I can still confess the Nicene creed and mean every word. I find the concept of a triune God intellectually fascinating and philosophically satisfying, and I still find an unusual degree of solace when I enter a church sanctuary—it is something I enjoy doing, and something which my children find equal parts amusing and annoying.

I was already rather at odds with the way my father practiced Christianity when I was a hot-headed young man, and when I entered my new life, I was highly susceptible to thinking more expansively about the role that belief ought to play in my life and in the world writ large. My new life has allowed me the time, resources, and intellectual capacity to explore things I would never have been able to as a human and to find value in far more belief systems than merely my own. And in the nearly three hundred eighty years I have lived, I have witnessed again and again the struggles borne of differences in belief, and as I have read and re-read the sacred texts I grew up with, and the sacred texts of those I was once taught were heretics, I have grown to believe that whatever it is that it is desired of us, it is not this violent disunity.

I worship formally infrequently; I devote only one night per year to the practice of prayer, though at times I pray spontaneously. I rarely attend a worship service, though as my wife noted recently, at times we attend on Easter. I don't make a regular habit of studying the Christian scriptures, but sometimes I read the week's lectionary because there's some very small part of my mind which remembers the rhythm of the cycle and finds comfort in it. But those practices are borne of my own particular history, and I long since have abandoned any idea that my own spiritual practice might be superior to those of any others. I may consider myself a Christian but I no longer—and if I am honest, never did—consider that path to be the only way to encounter the Divine.

Finally, becoming an immortal also allowed me to have a family. And in my love for them, I have come to more fully understand the relentless love of God. As a result, though it is by all accounts improbable, I try to live my life in response in fervent hope that the love I believe exists for humanity still somehow might exist for me.

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

2nd December >> Mass Readings (GB)

Monday, First Week of Advent (C)

(Liturgical Colour: Violet. Year: C(I))

(The new Lectionary is here)

First Reading Isaiah 2:1-5 The Lord gathers all nations together into the eternal peace of the Kingdom of God.

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say:

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 122(121):1-2. 3-4a. 8-9. ℟ cf. 1

R/ Let us go rejoicing to the house of the LORD.

I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’ And now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.

R/ Let us go rejoicing to the house of the LORD.

Jerusalem is built as a city bonded as one together. It is there that the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD.

R/ Let us go rejoicing to the house of the LORD.

For the sake of my family and friends, let me say, ‘Peace upon you.’ For the sake of the house of the LORD, our God, I will seek good things for you.

R/ Let us go rejoicing to the house of the LORD.

Gospel Acclamation Cf. Psalm 80(79):4

Alleluia, alleluia. Come and set us free, O Lord our God; let your face shine forth, and we shall be saved. Alleluia.

Gospel Matthew 8:5-11 ‘Many will come from east and west to the kingdom of heaven.’

At that time: When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralysed at home, suffering terribly.’ And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my servant, “Do this”, and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he marvelled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.’

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

[bwv572]

I play organ and plan the liturgy for each Friday evensong service here, and it always strikes me how miraculously everything appears to come together without any actual planning on my part.

To the unfamiliar, evensong begins with psalms, one reading from the old testament, followed by the canticle magnificat (the song Mary sang at the annunciation), one reading from the new testament, followed by the canticle nunc dimittis (the song Simeon sang at the presentation in the temple).

And all I do is just follow the daily lectionary, but it's amazing how all the readings fit both with each other, with the psalm, and with the canticles that follow them. The structure is so perfectly planned, or rather, preordained. That's why the Bible has always struck me as a perfect text, because of just how well each individual book and verse fits with the other surrounding books and verses.

And then to fit the themes even more, I add two hymns, one for the hour (a vesper or compline hymn) and one that ties together both readings thematically.

And when you pray the office like that, paying attention to the patterns and themes, there's this very peaceful sense that washes over you, it's like an immediate answer to a prayer, as the office itself is one long prayer.

And due to resources and lack of demand, we only do it once a week, but, really, it's supposed to be done everyday, and there are special collects for each day - but it also scales further, it's really supposed to be done seven times a day, with collects for each of the seven hours. If I didn't plan on getting married, I would love to live a monastic life, praying the office everyday seven times a day, and witnessing the patterns of the office play out hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, season by season, year by year. That's the ultimate beauty of the liturgy.

[sapphosremains]

hi! i saw that you use the BCP and i was wondering if you had any resources for it. i recently became episcopal and i've been doing both morning and evening prayer (and sometimes compline) every day using an app, however i would like to learn to use a physical book or even just learn to compile all the readings myself. i've found a couple of tutorials but none of them have really worked for me so i wanted to see if you had any! i'd also love to hear about any faith resources you enjoy in general

god bless you!

hi anon!

super cool that you'd like to move on to a physical bcp - it's definitely a nice reminder you can carry around etc, and there's always something special about using a physical book.

a normal lectionary can be super confusing, so if you want to use the bcp but aren't ready to find the readings from the lectionary, i'd recommmend 'almanac' which compiles all the readings etc for you for both traditional and contemporary services. this is for cofe. this is one for the episcopal church but it seems to only cover sundays and feasts. as far as i can see they're the same so far, so i think you'd be good to use almanac on weekdays. (btw, you can add almanac to whatever digital calendar you use!)

as for the other way round, braving the lectionary! as we've gathered that cofe and episcopal seem the same, and i can't find an episcopal lectionary (although there might be one in your bcp...), i'll use the cofe lectionary as an example. you'll need these two links:

lectionary

lectionary table 2020-2045

it shouldn't be too different a process for a different lectionary, even if the readings etc end up being different.

so, first we go to the second link. let's do it for today, wednesday 21st of august. therefore, 2023-2024 (because this is advent-advent), so for the daily eucharistic lectionary we are picking 2. then let's say we're doing morning prayer in ordinary time, so we're picking OT1 and NT1. we are currently in trinity 12 (you figure this out from easter and then just add one each week, so next monday will be trinity 13), go to the lectionary link, scroll down to trinity 12, find wednesday, OT1, and your old testament reading will be 2 sam 15.1-12, which we can check with our almanac... correct!

we find the NT reading a similar way. scroll to the next page. the weeks aren't labelled here, but we can remember that trinity 12 was the first on the page, and wednesday was the third reading down, we want NT1, which is Acts 9.19b–31, which is also correct!

next, psalm. gets a bit tricky here. my daily prayer app gives me 105 in the morning, while the almanac gives me 110, 111, 112. you can choose whether you follow the psalms based on the lectionary, or the days of the month. both are fine, both can be found in the cofe lectionary, and the lectionary for psalms works slightly differently, as there is a different way it works for ordinary time. how to do this is explained in table 4 of the lectionary pdf, and the alternate psalms based on day of the month (so you're cycling through all the psalms every month) is table 5.

finally, collect. we're nearly there! collects for ordinary time can be found on this link. scroll down to trinity 12 and you've got it!

now, everything changes on a sunday, but it's easier, i promise!

scroll down to trinity 12 on this link, and then find year b (you can find which year it is in the second link above), and there you are! everything is there, much easier. collect is the same for the whole of each week.

once you've done the first one, it gets easier as you can just follow down. maybe if you printed them out, you could cross out each week as you did it, as an easy way to keep track. if you get lost, you can figure it out from easter again, or think back to sunday when they would have said in church what week it was!

important things to remember with the bcp is that it is used by priests, so there will be things in there you're not meant to do or say! it's not a massive deal in private, and He knows what you meant obviously, so don't stress if you read through accidentally, but the idea is that you cannot pronounce things like the absolution, sacraments obviously etc, different blessings for things you do not have authority over (married people can bless each other and their children) with that intent, if that makes sense. different churches have different views on this, so find out what the episcopal church allows laity to say and do. it will also be fairly obvious, saying things like 'the priest will say', and might give alternate things (such as asking God to give blessings, as opposed to giving a blessing like a priest could).

as for other resources, the cofe website is great in general, and i'm sure the episcopal church has similar resources online. i'm afraid no other resources are springing to mind rn, but anything new i find will go on my blog as per, and i'll update this if i think of anything more.

i hope this was helpful, and do let me know if you have any questions.

God bless you and be with you

[pastortomsteers]

The Third Sunday of Easter

April 14, 2024

Pastor Tom Steers

Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto

Lutheran Service Book

Divine Service III – Pages 184-202

OPENING HYMNN:  475                                                                                                             “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice and Sing”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwrOot61ETc

 

Pastor:  Halleluiah, Christ is risen!

Congregation:  He is risen indeed.  Halleluiah!

 

The Introit:

Psalm 133

                                                                                                                                Behold, how good and pleasant it is     when brothers dwell in unity! 2 It is like the precious oil on the head,     running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron,     running down on the collar of his robes!

3 It is like the dew of Hermon,     which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,     life forevermore.

 

The Salutation –                                                                                                                                   Pastor: The Lord be with you.                                                                                                     Congregation: And also with you. 

 

Collect Prayer:

O God, through the sacrifice of Your Son

You raised up the fallen world.

Through His death and resurrection,

He has earned us eternal life. 

Grant that on our walk through this life we bear witness to our Saviour;

through Jesus Christ, our Lord,

who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.    

                                                                                                                              Our Bible Readings:

First Reading – Acts 2:14a, 36-42 

Psalm 116, verses 1-14                             

Epistle Reading – 1st Peter 1:17-25

(This week we use the text from Luke on the Emmaus disciples. The three-year lectionary Gospel passage today is Luke’s account of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples, which we read of last week in John 20:19-31. The one-year lectionary text for today is the three-year lectionary Gospel passage for next Sunday, which we will have as our reading on April 21st.)  

Gospel Reading – Luke 24:13-35

THE APOSTLES’ CREED – Page 192

                                                                                                                               HYMN OF THE DAY:  476  “Who Are You Who Walk in Sorrow”

THE SERMON –

This road we call life is, at times, a difficult one.

We can feel alone, and even be led to despair, over hardship, disappointment, and loss.

The things we face in this world can cloud our vision, especially of the things of God.

We can become blind and forgetful of what God has said to us, and promised.

It was this way with two disciples of Jesus on the afternoon of the first Easter.

They were walking towards a town called Emmaus.

For some Christians, the Easter Gospel could very well begin with the words, “A long time ago in a place far away.”

Or in other words they’ve lost a personal connection to the resurrection.

For them it only has a past and future significance, but no present, every day value.

When life takes a downward turn, as it does from time to time, they don’t feel the presence of their Saviour, but are lost in the griefs of the day.

And they may try to fill this perceived void, what they feel is an absence of God, with a personal ‘works righteousness.’

Not seeing their Lord, not seeing the Gospel, they try to fill the emptiness with the Law of God.

What they say in effect is that while Christ is gone and we’re left to our own devices here’s what you need to do.

And it’s an attempt to fill the empty tomb of Jesus with a false belief that we must be perfect before Christ will reappear to us.

But this is what makes us as a Church, as Biblical Lutheran followers of Christ, different.

Because we not only celebrate a past event – the resurrection.

We don’t just say, ‘Christ is Risen,’ and gone back to heaven, and one day we’ll see Him again.

No, we celebrate the living, triumphant Jesus Christ.

As the Church we celebrate the marriage feast of the Bridegroom who laid down His life for us and in a very real and present way, is with us today: in Spirit, in His Holy Word, and in His Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper.

Consider the Gospel account in today’s reading.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus knew the Scriptures.

But they hadn’t really taken them in, they hadn’t truly understood them.

Because they didn’t see Jesus in them from start to finish.

And at first, they don’t see Christ in front of them on that road.

Physical sight alone, is not enough to recognize who Christ is.

Human reason is not sufficient to recognize Jesus as the Risen Saviour.

Christ had directly told the disciples He would die and rise again on the third day.

But until He appeared to them, they didn’t believe.

No, our eyes and ears must be opened by God Himself.

It took God’s only Son, Jesus to reveal His presence.

The hearts of the Emmaus disciples burned with joy as they understood the Scriptures when explained by Christ.

Here is one of many places where Jesus tells us how to interpret the Bible correctly.

Jesus tells us that if you do not see the Bible as God’s Word and see Him throughout it you get lost on the road; you won’t see Christ even when He’s right   in front of you.

As Lutherans we believe that from the very first verses of Moses through to the prophets and all Scripture, God’s Holy Word is about Jesus.

He’s there in the Garden of Eden in God’s promise that a Saviour would come.

He’s present throughout the Old Testament, as well as the New.

It’s all about our Saviour, for us.

When Jesus is the key to scripture the Bible is not a tangled dead-end road.

When Jesus is the key to scripture, we understand God’s Law is a mirror that shows us our sin and a guide for us, but not the means of salvation.

Jesus used the scriptures to reassure the grieving, despairing Emmaus disciples.

They thought they’d been left alone.

But Christ shows them the crucifixion was not the end of the dreams and hopes of His followers.

The cross was part of the plan of redemption, of real freedom for every nation, every human being.

Christ explained that the cross was the instrument of salvation in paying our sin debt.

If there was no crucifixion, there would be no resurrection, for Jesus, or us.

Perhaps one of the best statements on this comes from the end of last week’s Gospel reading, in John, Chapter 20 (verses 30-31), when the Apostle wrote:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, but these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”

But for the Emmaus disciples until Christ took the bread and blessed it, as He did on the night of the Last Supper, that their eyes of faith were opened.

It took Christ Himself to open their eyes and minds, to accept that their living Saviour was there with them.

It’s the same for us.

When He instituted the Lord’s Supper Christ told us, ‘As often as you do this remember me, remember what I’ve said, remember what it means – He gave them the bread and said, “this is my body.”

He gave them the wine and said, “This is my blood shed for You for the remission of sins.”

Remember that in this Sacrament Christ is saying I remain with you, forgiving you.

And so, on this evening of Easter, three days after the crucifixion, the risen Lord

is with His disciples again.

He reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread, then vanished from their sight.

Notice that John doesn’t write Christ was no longer with them, but just that they could no longer see Him.

He was still, truly with them, in Spirit.

He had told them again, how he would remain to be with us.

Brothers and sisters, today, through the eyes of faith, we see Jesus with us again in His Holy Word, and will see Him in His Sacrament as we come to the altar for Communion.

We are not alone.

We have not been left as orphans.

Christ said, ‘lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world.’

This is the joy of Easter.

It’s not only a commemoration, but a true celebration of His resurrection and current presence with us.

In churches that do not honour the Lord’s Supper, they behave as though only moral perfection will earn you a ticket to see Christ again.

In churches that have gone back to the way of the Pharisees in seeing the Law as a way of self-justification they cannot see the risen, and forgiving Saviour with them. 

But Christ came to fulfill the Law in a way we can’t, and promises to be with believing Christians, forgiving us, imperfect though we are.

And although the difficulties on the road of life are still there, the end for us isn’t death.  

As the Bible says, ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

Jesus is with us not only on Ester Sunday but in every ordinary day, in every pain and sorrow, and whenever we gather together in worship.

Our prayers are not long-distance letters but heard instantly by the ever-present God who loves us and wants to hear from us, wants to reassure, and comfort us.

The Emmaus disciples had been on a long walk when they arrived at their destination and sat down with Jesus.

But when they realized He was with them, they forgot their weariness, they forgot the late hour, and got up and walked back to Jerusalem.

They found the other disciples and told them they’d seen Jesus.

May God grant you the opened eyes and ears of faith to always recognize that Your Saviour is with you.

And may that knowledge, joy, and peace, be with you, now, and forever.

Amen.

THE PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH 

THE SERVICE OF THE SACRAMENT

P:  Blessed are You O Lord, our God, king of the universe, for you have had mercy on us and given Your only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him  should not perish but have eternal life. 

C:  We give You thanks Father for the redemption You have prepared for us through Jesus Christ. Grant us Your Holy Spirit that we may faithfully take communion and receive the blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation that come from the body and blood of Christ.

P:  Father, hear us as we pray as Jesus taught us.

LORD’S PRAYER

C:  Our Father, who art in heaven,  hallowed be Thy name,                                                                                                      Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;                                                                give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation,                                                                     but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Preface                                                                                                         

P:  The Lord be with you.

C:  And also with you.

P:  Lift up your hearts.

C:  We lift them to the Lord.

P:  Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

C:  It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

P:  It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to you, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God. For in the mystery of the Word made flesh, You have given us a new revelation of Your glory; that seeing You in the Person of Your Son, we may be drawn to the love of those things which are not seen.

The Words of Our Saviour

Instituting The Lord`s Supper – Page 197

P:  The peace of the Lord be with you always.

C: Amen.

Lamb of God (Agnus Dei)

P: Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world,

C: Have mercy on us.

P: Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world,

C: Have mercy on us.

P: Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world,

C: Grant us peace.

The Distribution

(Our hymn during distribution is 627 “Jesus Christ. Our Blessed Saviour”)

Post Communion Collect (Right-hand column)  Page 201 of our Hymnal 

Salutation and Benedicamus    Page 201

Benediction  (stand)                    Page 202

Our Closing Hymn:  879  “Stay with Us”

[mademoisellesarcasme]

musings on a specific catholic job i have right now

okay so i am very busy this month and one of my jobs is proofreading a lectionary for a Maronite monastery, the abbot of which I met on a retreat in 2019. (He's very lovely and wonderful company.)

I, a Roman Rite Catholic in the wool, have been to a Maronite service twice, and one of those was because Abbot P asked me and my husband to read for him as he said his required daily Mass (yes I know Mass comes from the Latin and it's probably more properly called Liturgy just. cut me some slack here)

anyway! the Lectionary is their Gospel readings for the year and it is. SO MUCH FUN. Some weeks are lectio continua and some weeks are thematic and GOSH i love working with the actual religious texts of the things intended for the faithful to pray with/on it's just so much more fulfilling than all the intellectual commentary i do/did for other publishers

I still don't want to be full-time in the Catholic world -- it's always got something wrong with it, and I don't love the infighting -- but gosh if I have to keep taking jobs from them in order to pay my bills I am always, always, always happy to take jobs working with the text of the liturgy.

(I also do hymns. That's considerably less fulfilling, I must say.)

[a-queer-seminarian]

A Queer Look at Hagar's Story

A short reflection on this Sunday's lectionary text, Genesis 21:8-21

Name changes occur throughout scripture, but there is only one instance in which a human being directly names God!

That person is Hagar — the woman enslaved and then cast off by God’s own chosen people, yet who recognizes God's solidarity with her in a way that resonates with many marginalized folk, including queer & trans people of faith.

Back in Genesis 16, Hagar is forced to conceive a child with Abraham — her bodily autonomy denied — and then suffers abuse at Sarah's hand so painful that she prefers almost-certain death in the wilderness. While waiting to die, God comes to her, nourishes her, encourages her with the promise of a better future. For a time, Hagar must return to her oppressors.

This is a hard message, but It may resonate with queer and trans people who make the hard choice to find what safety they can while in the closet, or who choose to remain in relationship with family or faith communities that have caused them harm.

It also isn't the end of Hagar’s story: when the time is right, God leads her out — as told in this week’s text in Genesis 21.

Sarah continues to abuse Hagar, with Abraham as a passive bystander and enabler. In a society where only one of Abraham's sons can inherit his wealth and blessing, Sarah sees Hagar's son Ishmael as a threat to her son Isaac, simply by existing! In our own day and age, this myth of scarcity persists, causing us to hoard resources and compete needlessly.

Sarah cannot stand to see Hagar's child playing with her own son — as if they were equals! As if a slave boy should be having a moment of fun! She reads something sinister into the play — not unlike how some people today read sinister things into queer play, into drag queens and gender expansive youth.

Having convinced herself that Hagar and her son are a threat, Sarah gets Abraham to cast them out.

But again, God is with the outcast; God comes again to Hagar, who in Genesis 16 had given God the name El Roi — "God sees me.” This God is the god of her oppressors, yet Hagar recognizes that this god is her God as well! This god is a God who sees the suffering of the lowest of society, and responds.

God sees queer and trans people, too. God is our God, too — those who hate us do not have a monopoly on the Divine!

And God walks with us through every struggle, fueling us to fight the good fight and promising blessings to come.

___

Questions for reflection:

When have you witnessed God coming to the Hagars in our midst?

When has your community behaved like Abraham & Sarah, hoarding God's love as if there were not blessing enough to go around?

Can you imagine a world in which Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar meet again? What would Hagar need to feel safe to meet with her former abusers? What would Sarah & Abraham need to do to make things right?

___

Further Reading

Queer-specific resources:

Article: Out in Scripture's commentary for Proper 7 of year A, "Claiming God's Promise in the Midst of Exile" — connecting Hagar to supportive parents of LGBT children

Podcast episode: "Hagar and the Caravan" — connecting Hagar's story to that of Latin American trans women se"eking asylum

Essay: "Intersex Foremother and Forefather" — ancient texts suggesting that Abraham and Sarah were intersex

Other resources:

Sermon: "No Good Patriarchs: Solidarity with Hagar" — Exploring the messiness of how one person can embody both oppressor & oppressed, and how "good" people buy into unjust systems

Article: "Jesus and Hagar: the Form of a Slave" — Wil Gafney's connection between Hagar and Mary the mother of Jesus, through a womanist lens

Affirmation of Faith: "God of Hagar, Ishmael, Sarah, Abraham — God of oppressor and oppressed"

Essay: "Hagar and Sarah: Was Reconciliation Ever a Possibility?" — Exploring various writers' visions of what a meeting between these two women could look like

Video: Teaching children the story of Hagar, with an interfaith focus

Essay: connecting Hagar and Ishamel to the Genesis 22 story of Abraham nearly sacrificing Isaac

[rivikah]

Anger

#Lectionary Post:

We’re into the Sermon on the Mount. In this particular segment Jesus attempts to unsettle his audience by telling them its not enough to just refrain from murdering people. How you treat others still matters even if no one ends up dead, even if you never come to blows. But somehow, over the last couple thousand years, its been turned into a way to treat people badly while silencing your…

[athis3]

Lectionary, in Christianity, a book containing portions of the Bible appointed to be read on particular days of the year. The word is also used for the list of such Scripture lessons. The early Christians adopted the Jewish custom of reading extracts from the Old Testament on the Sabbath. They soon added extracts from the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists, which later would be formalized in the canon of Scripture as the Gospels and epistles. During the 3rd and 4th centuries several systems of lessons were devised for churches of various localities. One of the first attempts for a diocese to fix definite readings for special seasons during the year was made by Musaeus of Marseille in the mid-5th century.

At first, the lessons were marked off in the margins of manuscripts of the Scriptures. Later, special lectionary manuscripts were prepared, containing in proper sequence the appointed passages. The Greek Orthodox Church developed two forms of lectionaries, one (Synaxarion) arranged in accord with the ecclesiastical year and beginning with Pascha (Easter) and the other (Mēnologion) arranged according to the civil year (beginning September 1) and commemorating the festivals of various saints and churches. Other national churches produced similar volumes. Among the Western churches during the medieval period, the ancient usage at Rome prevailed, with its emphasis on Advent.

During the 16th-century Reformation the Lutherans and Anglicans made changes in the Roman Catholic lectionaries. Martin Luther was dissatisfied with the choice of many of the lessons from the epistles in the Roman system, and he included a greater proportion of doctrinal passages. In the Anglican church the first edition of The Book of Common Prayer (1549) assigned for each day a passage of the Old Testament and the New Testament to be read at both the morning and evening services. Nearly all the saints’ days were dropped, and the new system assigned chapters of the Bible to be read consecutively.

In 1963 the Second Vatican Council allowed the introduction of the vernacular in the variable parts of the Roman Catholic liturgy, including the scriptural readings of the mass (the liturgy of the Word). A complete revision of the missal, carried out by a postconciliar commission, resulted in a three-year lectionary known as the Ordo Lectionum Missae (1969). This lectionary is arranged in two cycles, one for Sundays and another for weekdays. The Sunday cycle is divided into three liturgical years, labeled A, B, and C. Each Sunday usually has a reading from the Old Testament, a semicontinuous reading from one of the epistles, and a Gospel reading. Year A mostly features the Gospel According to Matthew; Year B reads through the Gospel According to Mark; and Year C showcases the Gospel According to Luke. The Gospel According to John is read during the Easter season in all three years. After three years the cycle starts over again.

The weekday cycle is divided into two years: Year I (odd-numbered years, such as 2023, 2025, etc.) and Year II (even-numbered years, such as 2024, 2026, etc.); the year of the cycle changes on the first Sunday of Advent. The first reading on weekdays may be taken from the either the Old or the New Testament, and usually a single scriptural book is read semicontinuously until it is finished and then a new book is started. The Gospel readings for both years are the same and are also read semicontinuously, beginning with Mark, then Matthew and Luke. As with the Sunday cycle, the Gospel According to John is read during the Easter season. In addition to the Sunday and weekday cycles, the Roman Catholic lectionary also provides readings for the feasts of major saints, for common celebrations such as Marian feasts, for ritual masses such as weddings and funerals, and for various other needs.

Present-day liturgists in many denominations have been active in revising traditional lectionary systems. Many Protestant churches in the United States and other English-speaking areas use the Revised Common Lectionary (1992). A previous version, the Common Lectionary, was assembled in 1983. Both versions are three-year lectionaries that function similarly to the Roman Catholic system.

pentecost (the descent of the holy spirit upon mary and the apostles in jerusalem)

illustration from a gospel lectionary, constance (?), c. 1470-80

source: St. Gallen, Stiftsbibl., Cod. Sang. 368, p. 44

[fr-martin-gospel-reflections]

26th January - ‘This text is being fulfilled today’, Reflection on the readings for Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21)

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

When the ministers of the word steps up at Mass to read the word of God, the reading has already been chosen for them. It is laid out in what we call the lectionary. When Jesus stepped up to read from the word of God in his local synagogue at Nazareth, according to today’s gospel reading, he had greater freedom to choose his reading. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, but Jesus was free to choose any passage he liked from that scroll. He very deliberately went looking for a particular passage, unrolling the scroll until he found it. This passage which he proclaimed aloud to the people in the synagogue must have meant a great deal to him. Indeed, the words of Isaiah that he looked for and found summed up his own understanding of his mission.

Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth was announcing what his ministry was going to be about. He knew that the Holy Spirit was moving him to proclaim what Isaiah called ‘the Lord’s year of favour’. Jesus would reveal God’s favour for all, especially for all those who were out of favour in that time and culture, such as the economically and spiritually poor, those who were held captive in some way, those who were broken in body, such as the blind, those who were downtrodden, treated unjustly, and all who found themselves on the margins at that time, for one reason or another. Jesus was announcing that he was about to reveal a God who had no favourites, because he favoured all, especially those who felt they were outside the favour of God and of God’s people. In the ‘today’ of his own ministry, he would make present the hospitality of God, the lavish love of God. He would work to draw all people together into a community of faith, hope and love around himself, under God, drawing in especially those who felt they didn’t belong anywhere.

This was what we might call today a wonderful mission statement. However, when organizations, including church ones, create a mission statement it is often then just put to one aside. It is as if the making of the mission statement was the end in itself. This was not the case with Jesus. What he said he would do in the synagogue of Nazareth is what he went on to do during the course of his public ministry. He showed God’s favour to those referred to as ‘tax collectors and sinners’, scandalizing many at the time. One of that group, Zacchaeus, had an unexpected experience of God’s favour through visit to his home. This experience empowered him to turn his life around. Jesus told a parable in which a father shows lavish favour to a son who had dishonoured him; this was Jesus’ image of God. He revealed God’s hospitable love to people like the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, whom the people around Jesus had been trying to silence. He brought the favour of God to a poor widow who was accompanying the body of her only son to his burial, restoring her son to life and to his mother. He promised God’s favour to one of the criminals crucified alongside him, assuring him of gaining Paradise, even though he had only asked to be remembered. As risen Lord, he brought God’s favour to two of his broken hearted disciples as they made their sad way home to Emmaus, transforming their despondency to joyful hope. In so many other ways, the gospels show that Jesus was true to the mission that he announced in the synagogue of Nazareth.

The year of God’s favour that Jesus announced in Nazareth is a year that never ends. When Jesus announced, ‘This text is being fulfilled today’, that ‘today’ is also our ‘today’; it is every day. The risen Lord continues to make present God’s favour to each one of us, especially in those moments of our life’s journey when we feel out of favour with God, with others, with ourselves. We can sometimes find ourselves ‘poor’, whether economically poor or spiritually poor or emotionally poor. We often sense that we are captive, not free to live the loving life that God is calling us to live. We can be very aware of areas of blindness in our lives, failing to see the goodness in others and in ourselves. We can find ourselves downtrodden, oppressed, overburdened by some weight we are carrying. In all those moments the Lord comes to us to bring us the liberating and healing power of God’s favour, calling out to us to turn towards him, to fix our eyes on him, in the words of today’s gospel reading.

In fixing our eyes on the Lord, we are not only graced and blessed by his gift of God’s favour, but we are empowered to become channels of God’s favour to others. The Lord needs us to continue the mission he announced in the synagogue of Nazareth. Saint Paul reminds us in today’s second reading, ‘Now together you are Christ’s body; but each of you is a different part of it’. We are the Lord’s hands and feet, ears and eyes, mind and heart, today. The Lord comes to us in our own poverty and brokenness so that we can be living and life-giving members of his body today, each in our own unique way.

[ongolecharles]

DDAILY SCRIPTURE READINGS (DSR) 📚 Group, Mon Jan 20th, 2025 ... Monday of The Second Week in Ordinary Time, Year C

Reading 1

-----------

Hebrews 5:1-10

Brothers and sisters:

Every high priest is taken from among men

and made their representative before God,

to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,

for he himself is beset by weakness

and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself

as well as for the people.

No one takes this honor upon himself

but only when called by God,

just as Aaron was.

In the same way,

it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,

but rather the one who said to him:

You are my Son:

this day I have begotten you;

just as he says in another place,

You are a priest forever

according to the order of Melchizedek.

In the days when he was in the Flesh,

he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears

to the one who was able to save him from death,

and he was heard because of his reverence.

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered;

and when he was made perfect,

he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

Responsorial Psalm

--------------

Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4

R. (4b) You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

The LORD said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand

till I make your enemies your footstool."

R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth from Zion:

"Rule in the midst of your enemies."

R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

"Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;

before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you."

R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:

"You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek."

R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

Alleluia

---------

Hebrews 4:12

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The word of God is living and effective,

able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

---------

Mark 2:18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.

People came to Jesus and objected,

"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,

but your disciples do not fast?"

Jesus answered them,

"Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.

But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast on that day.

No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.

If he does, its fullness pulls away,

the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.

Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,

and both the wine and the skins are ruined.

Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."

***

FOCUS AND LITURGY OF THE WORD

In the 2006 comedy film, Talladega Nights, the actor Will Ferrell plays a successful stock car driver named Ricky Bobby. Offering a meal prayer prior to a big race, Ricky raises eyebrows by praying to “eight-pound, six-ounce” Baby Jesus with his “golden fleece diapers.” Family members struggle with Ricky’s audacity. In his wife’s words, “It’s off-putting to pray to a baby!” His father-in-law reminds Ricky that “He [Jesus] was a man!” The point of the scene is to parody the superficial religiosity and prosperity gospel that can infuse Christianity and sports culture in America. But I couldn’t help but recall Ricky Bobby’s audacity when reading today’s lectionary.

For although no mention is made of Baby Jesus, today’s readings very much challenge stock images of the divine Son of God. In imagery similar to Mark’s passion, the Jesus of Hebrews 5 “offers prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears.” This Jesus is not calmly in control of everything, surveying the world from 10,000 feet. No, this Jesus is deeply immersed in the pain, suffering, and messiness of a world groaning for redemption, even as it crucifies him. Likewise, today’s gospel from Mark 2 challenges us to rethink conventional notions of holiness. For all of their passionate disagreements, John the Baptist and the Pharisees agreed that fasting was a non-negotiable marker of Jewish discipleship. Jesus reminds us that physical disciplines such as fasting should be done not for their own sake, but to bring us closer to the Bridegroom.

In sum, to get Jesus, we need a conversion of heart in how we see him. We need new wineskins. Whether or not we envision Jesus in golden-fleece diapers, let us never forget that the mystery of the Word Made Flesh challenges easy categorizations. For this God-man is both baby and divinely begotten Son, both obedient supplicant and eternal priest, both suffering Servant and source of eternal salvation.

***

SAINT OF THE DAY

Saint Sebastian

(c. 256 –  January 20, 287)

Saint Sebastian’s Story

Almost nothing is historically certain about Sebastian except that he was a Roman martyr, was venerated in Milan even in the time of Saint Ambrose and was buried on the Appian Way, probably near the present Basilica of St. Sebastian. Devotion to him spread rapidly, and he is mentioned in several martyrologies as early as 350.

The legend of Saint Sebastian is important in art, and there is a vast iconography. Scholars now agree that a pious fable has Sebastian entering the Roman army because only there could he assist the martyrs without arousing suspicion. Finally he was found out, brought before Emperor Diocletian and delivered to Mauritanian archers to be shot to death. His body was pierced with arrows, and he was left for dead. But he was found still alive by those who came to bury him. He recovered, but refused to flee.

One day he took up a position near where the emperor was to pass. He accosted the emperor, denouncing him for his cruelty to Christians. This time the sentence of death was carried out. Sebastian was beaten to death with clubs. He was buried on the Appian Way, close to the catacombs that bear his name.

Reflection

----------

The fact that many of the early saints made such a tremendous impression on the Church—awakening widespread devotion and great praise from the greatest writers of the Church—is proof of the heroism of their lives. As has been said, legends may not be literally true. Yet they may express the very substance of the faith and courage evident in the lives of these heroes and heroines of Christ.

Saint Sebastian is the Patron Saint of:

Athletes

***

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