FASTING The people of Nineveh believed in God: they proclaimed a FAST and put on sack cloth, from the greatest to the least. So many thoughts surface for me when I come to explore the concept of food and fasting. I am conscious of friends who have struggled with eating disorders, I am troubled by …
Category Archives: Monastic
Lent Alphabet (E)
EMPTIED Make your own the mind of Christ Jesus:Who, being in the form of God,did not count equality with God something to be grasped.But he EMPTIED himself, taking the form of a slave,becoming as human beings are;and being in every way like a human being,he was humbler yet,even to accepting death, death on a cross. …
Lent Alphabet (D)
DESERT The Lord will always guide you, giving you relief in DESERT places. He will give strength to your bones and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never run dry. Lent invites us into the desert and the Exodus experience of the Israelites. I hear in Isaiah’s …
First Sunday in Lent (A)
Genesis 2:7-9, 3:-17Matthew 4:1-11 For the first hearers of Matthew’s Gospel the scene of Jesus in the desert would have struck a familiar chord. In the preceding chapters they heard of the miraculous birth of Jesus, an attempt to kill him, the need to flee to Egypt and his passing through the waters of the …
Lent Alphabet (C)
COMPASSION Now, now- it is the Lord who speaks- come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning. Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again for he is all tenderness and COMPASSION, slow to anger, rich in graciousness and ready to relent. Each of …
Lent Alphabet (B)
BELOVEDAnd from the cloud there came a voice which said:‘This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.’ The Lent Lectionary pairs Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration with the story of Abraham being promised God’s blessing. When Abraham is asked to look at the night sky and to try and count …
Lent Alphabet (A)
ALMSGIVING But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right is doing; your ALMSGIVING must be secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. Lent begins in a potentially re-assuring place by offering us the three ancient spiritual tools of prayer, fasting and …
Candlemas
Luke 2:22-40 Throughout the liturgical year there are some hymns which seem to draw together all that I hold dear in biblical imagery and incarnational theology. Hail to the Lord who Comes is one of those hymns. This hymn helps me make an immediate connection between the Gospel scene of the presentation and my own …
Mary, Mother of God
Numbers 6:22-27Luke 2:16-21In the Desert Tradition the men and women who fled to the physical margins of society developed a very particular relationship with Scripture and particularly with Biblical characters. They were judged by the Master to have understood the Scriptures in so far as they embodied the virtues of the Biblical characters. This teaching …
Christ is Here
Christ is here, Emmanuel!Majesty so mild:Wisdom dwells with grace and truth,Hidden in this child. Here is God’s eternal Son,Now to us made known,By the Spirit’s love conceived,Mary’s flesh his own. Born of God’s creative will,Christ is Light from Light,Come to rescue Adam’s sons,Waiting in the night. Father, Son and Spirit blest:Heav’n their glory sings,While the …