Father Richard's sermon for December 17, 2017.
Click here to listen.
(No text available)
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Friday, December 8, 2017
Padre's Post - Advent: A Reviving
Advent
begins with the prophets calling out to “make way,” “turn around”, WAKE UP! We
all fall asleep at the wheel of life. The actions and motion remain but the spirit
is waning, our passion and convictions in life have diminished. Routine has
taken over and we need to “begin again” with new heart and vision.
We
can know what we are supposed to be doing with our life, but if we lack the
heart and passion to do it, then we will remain in
the mediocrity of our lives. Advent calls out to us from the wilderness to our
“comfortably numb” conditions, to revive the heart and spirit of our life.
We are “world weary.” The daily news of those
above us behaving below us has put us all on shaky and shallow ground. But the
prophets are accustomed to dealing with fickle and arrogant rulers and powers.
Their voices call out to us to walk again the ancient path of goodness, and
compassion, and integrity, and love. Those who rule the day will be gone
tomorrow but the grounding of God lies before us and we are called to return to
the ways of the LORD.
The prophets do not accept the folly of the
times as an excuse for our own foolish disregard of walking the path of faith,
hope, and love. We are to be firmly planted, with our roots running deep below
the surface, to drink the wisdom and ways that flow from the deeper places.
Advent calls out to us, “be born again,
again!” into the mystical body of Jesus who in his own day suffered under the
hand of corrupt and mismanaged government to live a life of peace, truth,
healing, and intimacy with the divine eternal. We have the keys to opening the
doors of God’s kingdom, but have we lost the faith and tenacity to exercise the
authority given to the church: to bind the wicked powers that destroy the
creation of God, and to invoke the blessing and peace of God upon the earth? So
that, the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together..."
Fr.
Richard
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Padre's Post - Advent: A Dream Is Conceived
“O
that you would tear open the heavens and come down… when you did awesome deeds
that we did not expect… no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for
those who wait for Him…Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, and
you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
These
words lifted from the passage of Isaiah proclaim the hope at Advent: God
“coming down” to be in our midst filling the intimate spaces of our
lives. God’s voice speaking to us, God’s countenance shining upon us,
God’s hand shaping and guiding us.
In
Advent the church begins again the pilgrimage through the life of Jesus.
As in all new birth it begins with a relationship. The Hebrew prophets
are relying upon the covenant between God and creation and more specifically,
the covenant relationship between God and the Hebrew people. Isaiah is
looking around and seeing little evidence of a relationship between God and
God’s people. And so, a hope is conceived in the imagination of the
prophet. The hope being that God “come down” from the high and
inapproachable places to dwell amidst the people.
In
his own day, Isaiah recognized the need to touch, see, smell, and feel God’s
presence. And so the idea was conceived that God would walk among
us. In our flesh we could know God in the flesh. Our eyes could
behold. Our hands could touch. Our ears could hear the word of God
reverberating to the depth of our hearts. This was the dream of the
Hebrew prophets conceived centuries before the birth of Jesus in the town of
Bethlehem.
Fr.
Richard
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Padre's Post - Living Thanks Giving
The
Eucharist is the great thanksgiving. Our worship centers around the
communal act of offering thanks for the gift of life and all that God has
given. Living thanksgiving invites us to be gracious for our lives; and
be generous with our lives. St. Paul wrote, “I am content with little or
an abundance and I am thankful for either.” Living simply with little can
bring more joy then being a steward over much. This truth has been
learned time and again by those who have lost much to discover a new sense of
joy and freedom.
Christian
spirituality has always designated the day as the foundational place in which
we are instructed to live lives of faith, hope, and love. “Rejoice and be
glad, for this is the day that the Lord has made.” “Do not worry about tomorrow,
today is enough to hold to our attention.” I believe it to be a major
theme in all healthy spirituality to focus our intention for spiritual growth
“one day at a time.”
For
the remainder of this season of Thanksgiving, consider your own conscious
intention to “Give thanks in everything.” Simply being thankful for who
you are, where you live, with whom you share life, for the resources in your
life, for the work you do, for those with whom you work, for
the food you eat, the hands that prepared it, and the miraculous gift that a
day is. This spiritual exercise of simply saying, “Thank You,” for the
day and all that fills it will be transformational.
Fr.
Richard
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)