A Lenten Pilgrimage 2022

Christ in the Desert – Ivan Kramskoi (1872) John 5:25-29 Growing up in Reformed churches, I rarely heard the words Lent, Advent, or the liturgical year due to John Calvin’s 16 th Century rejection of what he determined to be superstitious observances. Calvin described Lent as a superstitious observance where fasting was used by some to gain standing through some “excellent service to God” and by others as a “holy imitation of Christ” (Calvin, Institutes 4.12.20). This false piety was useless particularly due to Calvin’s claim that the only instance of Jesus fasting was during the forty days in the wilderness and then only because he was “preparing for the promulgation of the gospel” and as he didn’t fast continually according to scripture, this was hardly an example for such widespread imitation (Calvin, Institutes 4.12.20). Even the one day of the year that the Christian Reformed Church did set aside as a Day of Prayer and Fasting , well, my family usually remembered only a...

  O tarry thou the Lord’s leisure; be strong, and let thy heart take courage, and wait upon the Lord. Psalm 27:16 (BCP)   When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a beautiful leather bound Bible. I was about to leave for a university across the country and it was an exciting and scary time. My Dad placed an inscription in the front and the verse he chose was from one of today’s readings, Psalm 27. It’s a beautiful Psalm filled with a whole spectrum of human emotion. David moves from confidence, through prayer for reassurance, then concludes with trust.   Author Madeleine L’Engle once wrote, “It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.” She was writing about confidence in this particular reflection. When I look back to the time of my high school graduation, I was filled with confidence; ready to take on the world. Three years la...

  Parish Vigil I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. Psalm 69:3 Parish takes its meaning from Greek words related to neighbour . In Toronto I attended an Anglican parish that, like St. Augustine’s, embodies all sorts of people. St. Mary Magdalene’s progressive, social justice activities attract students, academics and young professionals, many of whom appreciate the church’s BAS folk masses. Meanwhile, the church’s embrace of traditional customs and masses, centred on the BCP, draws Anglo-catholics, as well as Italian, Portugese and Ukranian Catholics. It’s not always a peaceable kingdom! But, thanks be to God, it works. Music has been a unifying force at SMM, partly due to Healey Willan’s legacy. Holy Week, with its blend of music and silences, also unifies. People come from all over to attend   multiple masses, the Stations of the Cross and Tenebrae services. At the close of the Maundy Thursday mass, the side altar in S...

    Psalm 71   Have you ever faced people who: are given to evil, are cruel or intend harm?  speak or conspire with others against you or accuse you?  pursue you with intent to seize, to harm or even kill? What did you do? What was your response? This psalm touches on the raw injuries of hurtful people, and the related visceral emotional cries for help, but mixed with that mysterious, spiritual hope, faith/trust in God, prayer, and even praise (of all things)! There is so much of our humanity and the divine in this one: evil and cruelty; faith and prayer; fears and troubles; hope, salvation, and praise. I have had experiences recently where people I trusted, spoke and conspired with others against me, and accused me. The intents were to catch me in doing badly, scapegoating or to cause harm, which was cruel, and in that selfish sense, evil. So I felt this psalm to my core. David and I were brothers in our  "many and bitte...

  Psalm 119: 73-77, 80, 92-94   Thy hands moulded me and made me what I am; show me how I may learn thy commandments. Let all who fear thee be glad when they see me, because I hope for the fulfillment of thy word. I know, O Lord, that thy decrees are just and even in punishing thou keepest faith with me. Let thy never failing love console me, as thou hast promised me, thy servant. Extend thy compassion to me, that I may live; for thy law is my continual delight. ...Let me give my whole heart to thy statutes, so that I am not put to shame. ...If thy law had not been my continual delight, I should have perished in all my troubles; never will I forget thy precepts, for through them thou hast given me life. I am thine; I hope that you, like me, in your darkest days have found comfort in words that feel like they must have been written by God just for you for that very moment. This has happened to me several times in my life and I am continually astounded by the ...

  Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer.  From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.  For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy.  I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. - Psalm 61:1-4 As we all know, life isn’t always easy. Sometimes there are hard things that happen, things don’t work out as planned, we feel crushed by the weight of worries and anxiety or what is going on in the world around us. We have all been there, I am sure. As I reflect on this passage, it brings be back to a simpler time in my life, at that time I would have told you it was the hardest time ever. I just turned 17 years old and was having to decide what to do after high school and navigate the troubles of small world around me. That year I took a school tour to parts of Europe for spring break and found myself in V...

  The 12 apostles receive their Commission   Mark Chapter 3, verses 13-19 Jesus Appoints the Twelve 13  Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14  He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15  and to have authority to drive out demons. 16  These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), 17  James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), 18  Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot 19  and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.   This passage arrested me. Matthew expands on this a bit in Chapter 9 and 10. Here he tells how Jesus told his crowds of disciples to go out and tell all they meet of the words of Jesus. And then he chooses 12 Apostles to whom he giv...