Photos: Shrove Tuesday & Ash Wednesday
A selection of photos from the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, Lent, and Ash Wednesday, taken Mar. 1 & 2, 2022.
Read MoreMother Katherine’s sermon preached on Jan. 9, 2022
All the gospels report Jesus’ baptism, prefaced with John declaring Jesus is one greater than himself. We have the impression of John doing the baptizing and the Holy Spirit breaking in. Even the icon on our cover shows the cousins together in the water with the dove descending in the moment. Luke gives a different feel to the scene as he almost passively separates them and shifts the time frame; “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.”
Read MoreMother Katherine’s sermon preached on Jan. 2, 2022
The Magi, as Matthew calls them, are not Jewish—they are not planning a move to Jerusalem nor seeking to convert. Yet still they “came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’” And when Herod hears the news he is frightened enough (along with all Jerusalem) that he summons them requesting he be told the pertinent details when they’ve found the child. We aren’t told why Herod’s own chief priests and scribes didn’t foresee this, and yet God does not always send us on the most direct route, in this case neither metaphorically or literally.
Read MoreMother Katherine’s sermon preached on Dec. 25, 2021
Last night I spoke of the action words, the verbs in Luke’s telling, they bring his story close, embellishment drawing us in so we can almost smell the sweet hay, stifling a sneeze. Today’s words are not picturesque, they instead begin to open a door to the mystery and as we read it’s as if the magnitude of it blows the roof right off. Beginning with the very first line of the whole of Torah and scripture is a bold move. John isn’t borrowing it, he’s saying the Incarnation of God is a kind of bookend to the whole of the testament which has gone before. “In the beginning was the Word” closes what went before and says that in the coming of Word made flesh there is a whole new creation.
Read MoreMother Katherine’s sermon preached on Dec. 24, 2021
From a world which came apart, “we have come together.” We are all at different times Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, the shepherds, and the angels. And if you tend to be a bit late to the scene, it must mean you’re the Magi this time. We embody these ordinary and remarkable folks who gathered in a Bethlehem stable so long ago; attentive, awe-struck, blessed.
Read MoreMother Katherine’s sermon preached on Nov. 7, 2021
“Come and see.” We are used to hearing this as Jesus’ call to follow him, and this very gospel of John begins with that same call to Jesus’ first disciples. “Come and see!” he says, calling us too. Today however, it is spoken to Jesus, directing him to the tomb where they have laid Lazarus’ body. As you often hear me say, nothing in John’s gospel can be taken at casual face value. Voices inviting Jesus to Come and see is one of John’s metaphors, not just handy mourners giving stage directions so we know how Jesus gets to the tomb from the road where Martha and Mary had pleaded with him. For Jesus, just entering Bethany is a risk the disciples reminded him of only a couple verses before, there’s danger and some who would stone him may well be among the mourners.
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