Devotional

Easter is the culmination, not just of Holy Week, but really of all the seasons since Advent. Now Easter has finally arrived. But what’s next?

It is thus that our science, our philosophy, and our theology compel us to decline our invitation to come into the ark.

In the historic Western eucharistic lectionary, the epistles and gospels of the first half of Lent emphasize our struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil, but there is a turn in the Fourth Sunday in Lent. From here on, we are pointing toward the cross.

The Book of Common Prayer traditionally began Lent with a service called “A Commination” (which means “a threatening”). You can read the service here. You might find it a bit harsh. Many others have found it too difficult and the service has been excised from modern editions of the prayer-book. The …

Lent begins—with a threat Read More

Would you believe it if I told you that more than a few have showed up in church these past few Sundays since I began praying over them?

God of the morning, at whose voice
The sun begins his daily race;
And every day and every hour
Proclaim thy faithfulness and grace.

God keeps me ever mindful of him. When I rise in the morning, when I open a book, when I turn a corner, God is there—his face in mine.

Once, Lord, a broken reed I was,
And could not stand at all;
And now my standing is by grace,
Should grace remove I fall.

Inflamed with ardour half divine,For heaven I earthly gain resign;Those starry lamps that grace the pole,Inspire with joy my raptured soul. O the dear festivals of night,What glorious dazzling to the fight!A fair angelic band maintainsDelightful watch o’er heavenly plains. Why am I kept a prisoner here,So distant from that …

Aspiring to heaven Read More

Through the portal and down the Nave,
he march’d with Holy Writ in hand,
to kneel and pray
at break of day,
and lean upon the reading stand.

That God that dwells in heaven above,
Whose glory none can tell:
He condescends, in matchless love,
With worthless man to dwell.

When we survey the eternal God,
As nature’s spring and bliss;
What wonders doth the scene afford;
And God, how great he is!

After not eating for forty days, Jesus was hungry. When you read it in isolation it seems like such an understatement. My stomach is growling now, barely three hours after my last meal. He’s not just hungry, he is famished: literally, he is craving food.