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Church Year


Chicago Grace Episcopal Church will be having two Ash Wednesday services including imposition of ashes on Wednesday, February 17. The first service is at 12:15–1:15 p.m. The second service is 6:00–7:00 p.m. with a soup and bread supper following the liturgy. All are welcome to come. I will be attending the service in the evening. Our church is on Printer’s Row, 637 S. Dearborn, right next door to Kasey’s Tavern, and our sanctuary is on the second floor.

Tonight we say good-bye to the alleluias. This hymn from The Saint Helena Breviary helps us to tuck them away until Easter.

Alleluia, song of gladness,

hymn of endless joy and praise.

Alleluia is the worship

that celestial voices raise

and, delighting in God’s glory,

sing in heaven’s courts always.

Alleluia, blessed Salem,

home of all our hopes on high.

Alleluia, sing the angels;

Alleluia, saints reply;

but we, for a time on this earth,

chant a simpler melody.

Alleluias we now forfeit

in this holy time of Lent.

Alleluias we relinquish

as we for our sins repent,

trusting always in God’s mercy

and in Love omnipotent.

Blessed Trinity of Glory,

hear your people as we pray.

Grant that we may know the Easter

of the Truth, the Life, the Way,

chanting endless alleluias

in the realms of endless day. Amen.

A huge thank you to Bosco at Liturgy for having it all typed out, so I wouldn’t have to do it. Bosco also posted a Shrove Tuesday mediation.

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Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Am I the only one procrastinating on choosing a Lenten discipline? To be honest, I’ve been procrastinating on writing this article most of the day. I tweeted that I was going to write this blog post around 11:30 this morning, and I’m just now starting it at almost 6:00 p.m. I figured I wasn’t the only one dragging my feet on choosing something to do or give up for Lent, so here are a few of things I’ve thought of.

Lectio Divina

Lectio Divina means divine reading. It is a slow meditative reading of a passage of the Bible or a spiritual book. There are three movements of lectio divina: meditation (meditatio), prayer (oratio), and contemplation (contemplatio).

  • Meditation/meditatio: Read the passage three times out loud, slowly. The first time simply read through. The second time be aware of any words that pop out at you. The third time read until you reach the place that spoke to you on the second reading. Ask yourself: Why does this stand out? What is it saying to me? Why is the Spirit bringing this to my attention? Mull it over.
  • Prayer/oratio: Take whatever you find to Godde in prayer. Whether it’s gratitude, sorrow, joy, or repentance, pray about what the passage has said to you, and your response to it.
  • Contemplation/contemplatio: Choose a word from your reading or prayer that best expresses your experience during meditation and prayer. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Spend a few minutes in silence, listening to Godde. If your mind wanders silently say the word you chose.
  • If you want, journal your lectio experience.

Online resource: Garden of Grace

The Daily Examen

The Daily Examen is a thoughtful look at the day to see how we saw and responded to Godde’s grace through what we did, our responses to the people we met though the day, and our emotions. IgnatianSpiritality.com says

The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern [God's] direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

Here is one way of practicing the Daily Examen from Ignatian Sprituality:

  • Become aware of God’s presence.
  • Review the day with gratitude.
  • Pay attention to your emotions.
  • Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
  • Look toward tomorrow.

IgnatianSpiritality.com has many different examens listed at their site.

The Daily Office

The Daily Office is praying through the day. Prayers are said in the Morning, at Noon, in the Evening, and at Night (before bed). In the longer offices of Morning and Evening Prayer two or three psalms are said or chanted, one or two passages of Scripture are read, then there  is time for prayers. In the shorter offices of Noon and Night (or Compline) a short psalm or a portion of a psalm is read or chanted and two or three verses of Scripture are read before prayers.

Two places you can pray the Daily Office online are at The Online Book of Common Prayer (click Daily Office on the menu) and Mission St. Clare. Mission St. Clare has the hymns in each office in karaoke so you can sing along. Fun!

If you’re like me and can’t pray on the computer, you can order the Book of Common Prayer* from Amazon, along with Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours.* If you want a Daily Office that is gender inclusive, The St. Helena Breviary: Personal Edition* is wonderful.

Hospitality

Hospitality is one of the bedrocks of Christianity. Jesus liked to eat with people (especially people he wasn’t supposed to eat with) a lot. Jesus instituted Communion during the family meal and celebration of Passover. Early Christians gathered together to eat and share their resources with one another. Early in our history we started feeding people who couldn’t feed themselves. One of the most basic practices of Christians is feeding each other and feeding other people. I know, I know, a lot of people fast or give up a certain food group for Lent, but giving up food has never been a spiritual discipline for me.  Probably because I grew up with the skinnier-is-better and the “Diet! Diet! Diet!” culture, I just cannot consider giving up food to be a spiritual discipline (also my birthday always falls during Lent, and I’m eating my meat and cake!). If fasting is your thing, then go for it. However, I do make a suggestion: put aside the money you saved not buying sweets, pop, or meat, and at the end of Lent, give the money to a food pantry or homeless shelter. This is a personal preference: I much prefer to add something than just give up something for Lent.

Back to hospitality and food. If, like me, you like to feed people and feel it’s an important part of your spirituality here are two ways to practice hospitality during Lent:

  • Invite friends and family over for meals at your home. Decide how many times you want to provide hospitality during Lent. Then start meal planning and inviting.
  • Volunteer at a homeless shelter or food pantry to help feed the hungry people in your community. Provide hospitality to those who need it the most.

A last resource that has all of these disciplines plus more is Marjorie J. Thompson’s Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life.* It’s a good resource that you will go back to again and again.

I hope this helps you in deciding a discipline to bring you closer to Godde during Lent. Do you have anything to add to the list? What are thinking of giving up or adding for Lent? I’m leaning toward Lectio Divina myself. It’s been a long time since I practiced it, and it has always been one of my favorites.

*Affliate links

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She has been here from the beginning, stirring, creating, bringing form to chaos, and life to dust. In the beginning she brooded over the watery chaos waiting for Godde to give the word. In the fire, thunder, and smoke of Sinai she guarded the holiness of Godde and showed that approaching this godde should not be taken lightly. When Elijah looked for Godde in fire, earthquake, and a storm, she came in sheer silence to show that she didn’t always appear with the flash and panache that human beings expect.

She gave birth to the church and is the One who gives us our unity, giftings, and words. But we don’t talk about her that much. In fact, the Church has never talked about the Holy Spirit much at all. She gets brushed to the side. She’s the runt of the Trinity no one wants to claim. And there’s a reason for this. The Holy Spirit scares us. We can’t control her. We can’t put restraints on her. We have our nice neat boxes for the other two members of the Trinity. Godde the Father and Mother is categorized with all of the attributes of Godde and put in the appropriate box. Godde the Son is neatly categorized by word and deed and placed in his box. For centuries theologians, scholars, teachers, and preachers have tried to do the same thing with the Spirit. But how do you put wind into a box?

I don’t think it’s an accident that in the Hebrew and Greek spirit, wind, and breath are the same word. All three are taken forgranted and none are really under our control. My favorite metaphor for the Spirit is wind. I’m originally from Oklahoma and have lived in the Midwest for 27 years, so I know something about wind. Wind is unpredictable. You don’t know what it’s going to do. It can give you a wonderful cool breeze on a hot summer day. It can also destroy acres of land and flatten towns and part of cities. As Jesus told Nicodemus you can’t see either the wind or the Spirit but you can feel them. You don’t know where either comes from or where they are going. Wind is not something anyone can control. It decides when it blows and how. It can choose to be still and silent or roaring hundreds of miles per hour. No one tells the wind where to blow, but it will blow you a few blocks up the street on certain days. It’s wonderful when it acts like we think it should, and it’s disastrous when it decides to show its power in straight line winds and tornadoes.

I think this is why we don’t hear too much about the Holy Spirit. We just can’t fit her into those nice, neat systematic theology boxes we put Godde the Father and Mother and Godde the Son in. We can’t even pretend to control her. What do we do with this wonky member of the Trinity who doesn’t fit into all of our nice, neat little boxes with the nice neat little attributes fixed to her box? The Spirit does what she wants and blows where she wants. When she gives a nice breeze of inspiration during private prayer, we love her. When she blows us out of our comfort zones to be peacemakers and love those we’d rather not, we’re not too sure about her and her methods.

Just like the wind, fire cannot be controlled either. We love the illusion we control fire in the pits and fireplaces of life, but then a bush fire starts and devastates thousands of square miles. It burns everything it comes across, blown by the unpredictable wind. We like to think the Spirit enriches our lives. We don’t like to think about the devastation that same Spirit can cause. Like the wind and the fire we cannot control Godde’s Spirit. She blows where she wills, convicts where she wills, redeems where she wills, and blows us kicking and screaming into obeying the Beatitudes instead of just giving them lip service.

We see the unpredictable and powerful side of Godde in both the Ezekiel and Acts readings for today. In a vision Ezekiel sees a field of dried, strewn out bones. It looks as if they died in battle, no one buried them. This was an ancient way of making sure people didn’t move onto the next world after death. This is how the Jews saw themselves. They were in captivity, and their land was gone. They had no hope. They would always be captives in a strange land.

But Godde gives Ezekiel a vision, an incredible vision. Godde commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and tell them to come together and become bodies once again. But the bodies are not living just as the human made of clay in Genesis was not living. Then Godde tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the four winds and tell them to blow life back into these corpses. The wind comes and blows through the bodies giving those who had been long dead new life just as Godde’s breath gave life to the first human. Godde’s Spirit once again blows through the earth and gives life. Just as the Spirit gave new life to these long dead people, so will the Spirit blow into the lives of the Jews and restore them as a people in their land.

In Acts the Spirit is blowing again. This time it’s a huddled little group in a room who have been hiding out and praying for 10 days. Their Messiah has been crucified, resurrected, and now has ascended into heaven. He’s gone again, and left them the responsibility to build the Kingdom of Godde on earth. No pressure there. Jesus told them to wait until the Holy Spirit came. But what exactly did that mean?

It meant something they could not control. She came blowing through the room they were in and blew them out into the streets to proclaim what they had been hiding: the power of God in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. She inspired them with her fire and put her words in their mouths. They spoke in different languages with their Galileean accents to show that it was not the disciples alone who were doing this.

She gave them a new understanding of Scriptures. In Joel’s prophecy the day of the Yahweh is a day of judgment and disaster. Godde vindicates Israel but the nations around Israel suffer Godde’s fury. Now Godde’s Spirit comes to proclaim salvation to all who believe. And God’s Spirit is no longer limited to just anointed leaders like kings and priests. Godde’s Spirit is poured out on all to proclaim what Godde has done. The young and old, male and female, free and slave are in-spirited to tell those around them about Godde’s love and compassion shown in Jesus. No one is left out.

At this point it appears that the Spirit will once again just be for Israel, for the Jews. But this is just the beginning, and the Spirit is going to show that she cannot be restrained and held in one nation, race, or group of people. She blows where she wills among the Gentiles showing them Godde’s love and mercy, and they too will be saved.

Last week in her sermon Vicki noted that as the disciples go and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah they bring Godde back to earth. As the disciples proclaim and show the love of Christ, Godde comes back to earth for good, never to leave again. We see this in this week’s readings. The Holy Spirit does not act without a human counterpart. Ezekiel has to prophesy to the bones and the four winds for life to be resurrected. The apostles and disciples are praying and waiting when the Spirit comes and impels them out into the street.

I’m still not sure whether it’s to Godde’s credit or discredit that she insists on working through us. But that’s what she does. We might never know which way the Holy Spirit is going to blow, but we do know that she is going to blow around and through us. Blowing us out of our rooms and sanctuaries. Blowing us out of our regular haunts and the normal people we hang out with. She blows us onto new roads and into new places to continue to bring Godde’s presence into our world. She continues to empower people to shout out the good news that judgment is not Godde’s last word. That Godde’s last word has always been and will always be forgiveness, love, and mercy. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!” Godde’s Spirit blows into our lives, so that we can live Christ-like lives in our world, and that is Godde’s final word.

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I’m preaching this Sunday. It’s the first time in a year I’ve preached and will be the first time at Grace Episcopal. Plus this will be the first time I’ve preached twice in one day: the 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. services. Me getting out of bed at 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning is going to be a sight to see. :)

I’ve been thinking about wind. Both the Greek and Hebrew words for spirit also mean wind and breath. I’ve been playing with the wind being a metaphor for the Spirit. I’m from Oklahoma, and I have lived in some part of the Midwest for 26 years. In other words wind is a part of my life. I really like the wind as a metaphor for the Spirit.

Wind is unpredictable. You don’t know what it’s going to do. It can give you a wonderful cool breeze on a hot summer day. It can also destroy large swaths of land and city. As Jesus told Nicodemus you can’t see either the wind or the Spirit but you can feel them. You don’t where either comes from or where they are going. Wind is not something anyone can control. It decides when it blows and how. It can choose to be still and silent or roaring hundreds of miles per hour. No one tells the wind where to blow, but it will blow you a few blocks up the street on certain days. It’s wonderful when it acts like we think it should, and it’s disasterous  when it does what it want to do with no regard to humanity.

I think this is why we don’t here to much about the Holy Spirit. We can’t control her. Godde the Father-Mother gets put in a nice, neat little box with all of her attributes. Godde the Son gets put in his own little box with his works and attributes. But what do we do with Godde the Holy Spirit? What do we do with this wonky member of the Trinity who doesn’t fit into all of our nice, net little boxes with the nice neat little attributes afixed to her box? The Spirit does what she wants and blows where she wants. When she gives a nice breeze of inspiration during private prayer, we love her. When she blows us out of our comfort zones to serve the poor and oppressed, we not to sure about her and her methods.

Just like the wind, fire cannot be controlled either. We love the illusion we control fire in the pits and fireplaces of life, but then a bush fire starts and devastates thousands of square miles, burning everything it comes across, blown by the unpredictable wind. We like to think the Spirit enriches our lives. We don’t like to think about the devastation that same Spirit can cause. Like the wind and the fire we cannot control Godde’s Spirit. She blows where she wills, convicts where she wills, redeems where she wills, and blows us kicking and screaming into obeying the Beatitudes instead of just giving them lip service.

She is the part of Godde that theologians, preachers, and writers have never been able to pin down, examine, and define. So we ignore her.

How do you think of the Spirit? What metaphors do you like for the Spirit? (C’mon! help a preacher gal out here.)

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If you’re in the South Loop area and need a place to celebrate the events of Holy Week, consider yourself invited to Grace Episcopal Church at 637 S. Dearborn St (Bus lines 22 and 62 Polk/Dearborn, Red Line Harrison/Polk exit, LaSalle Blue Line, LaSalle Metra Station).

Wednesday, April 8

Sandwich, Scriptures, and Sacrament, 12:15 p.m. Every week we bring a lunch and discuss a Scripture passage from the liturgy on Sunday. We will be discussing one of the Easter passages this week.

Our church helps out The Night Ministry. The Night Ministry ministers to the homeless at Humboldt Park through medical care, food and other necessities. At 5:00 p.m. will be making sandwiches and bag lunches for Thursday night. At 6:00 p.m. there is a centering prayer practice.

Thursday, April 9

Our Maundy Thursday service will be held at Humboldt Park (California and Division). If you would like to help hand out the lunches, we will be meeting at the church at 5:45 p.m. We will load up the van then head out. After we feed everyone, we will begin the liturgy for Maundy Thursday with whomever would like to join us. The liturgy will begin at 7:30 p.m. Our minister of music, Wayne Maas, will be leading the service. After we return to the church, we will strip the sanctuary for the observance of Good Friday.

Friday, April 10

There will be two liturgies on Good Friday: 12:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Our seminary intern, Elizabeth Molitors, will be preaching at both services and leading us through a modern version of the Stations of the Cross. A special offering will be taken up for The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

Saturday, April 11

We will be going to St. James Cathedral (Red Line Grand exit) at Wabash and Huron to observe the Great Vigil, 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, April 12

There will be two Feasts of the Resurrection, 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Our parish priest, Rev. Ted Curtis will be presiding.  After the 10:00 a.m. service, we will be enjoying an Eastern luncheon. There will be a special offering taken up for the Night Ministry on Easter and the following Sunday.

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This has been a time of reflection for me. Normally by this time in Lent, I am just ready for Easter to get here and be done and over with it. But not this year. This year I am not minding staying in the self-examination of Lent. I’ve journeyed through this Lent with Jan Richardson’s Garden of Hollows: Entering the Mysteries of Lent and Easter. It’s been a journey of acknowledging my hollows, my empty spaces, and the wounds that need healing. A Year of Loss and New Beginnings came out of this reflection. I needed to write about what happened last year. I needed to tell my side of the story. It was necessary for that wound to heal.

I have lived with hollows of depression, fear, anxiety, weakness, and procrastination. And it’s been okay. I haven’t gotten lost in them. They aren’t big canyons that I can never crawl out of. They are hollows, but there is an ascending side as well as descending. I have experienced a great deal of peace this month. It’s okay to admit to my problems and weaknesses. It’s okay to live with them and just let them be. It has been a time of letting go. Letting go of the demons that drive me that shouldn’t.

Not that the demons have gone any where. But their voices are not as loud. I’m not procrastinating as much. Fear is not freezing me as often. I’m having more ideas, and I am writing more. I’m exploring. I’m going to be taking some risks. It feels good.

This last week of Lent will be spent quietly. I plan on continuing daily prayer and centering prayer, letting myself breath, and allowing my hollows just to be. I plan on writing and posting, cooking and laundry, community time and solitude. And I’ll see where me and my hollows are on Easter.

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This is from Anne Fontaine writing at The Daily Episcopalian:

The current stage of my life with Mary began when I was teaching a class on the creeds. We were using Joan Chittister’s In Search of Belief as a basis for the study. I was facilitating the discussion and reading along with the class when we came to the chapter on “virgin birth.” Rather than explore the modern science or pre-scientific ideas about conception, Chittister spoke about the amazing story the creed tells about who are worthy to bear Christ into the world.

As I understand what she is saying, the fact that Mary was a young woman, a virgin when God called her to bear Jesus shows us the nature of God’s relationship to us. In Mary’s day she was seen as property. She was vulnerable in a culture that did not value women and especially not girls. Their value came from their connection to a man, first to their fathers and then to their husbands and their ability to bear sons. Today young girls are still at risk in many countries to be sold or bartered away. Even in the United States they are easily dismissed as less than anyone else. Although changes have been made – movies, popular music and media off all sorts views females as objects and not agents of their own lives.

This is why the creed’s affirmation of Mary is so amazing. God chooses the least in the social hierarchy to be the one to bear God into the world. It is a statement by the church of the worth of the individual in the face of cultures who say “not worthy.”

She ends with this incredible poem by Sylvia Kantaris.

It seems I must have been more fertile than most
to have taken that wind-blown
thistledown softly-spoken word
into my body and grown big-bellied with it.
Nor was I the first: there had been
rumours of such goings-on before my turn
came – tales of swansdown. Mine
had no wings or feathers actually
but it was hopeless trying to convince them.
They like to think it was a mystical
encounter, although they must know
I am not of that fibre – and to say I was
‘troubled’ is laughable.
What I do remember is a great rejoicing,
my body’s arch and flow, the awe,
and the ringing and singing in my ears -
and then the world stopped for a little while.
But still they will keep on about the Word,
which is their name for it, even though I’ve
told them that is definitely
not how I would put it.
I should have known they’d try to take
possession of my ecstasy and
swaddle it in their portentous terminology.
I should have kept it hidden in the dark
web of my veins…
Though this child grows in me -
not unwanted certainly, but
not intended on my part; the risk
did not concern me at the time, naturally.
I must be simple to have told them anything.
Just because I stressed the miracle of it
they’ve rumoured it about the place that I’m
immaculate – but then they always were afraid
of female sexuality.
I’ve pondered these things lately in my mind.
If they should canonise me
(setting me up as chaste and meek and mild)
God only knows what nonsense
they’ll visit on the child.

Sylvia Kantaris From Dirty Washing, Bloodaxe 1989. ©Sylvia Kantaris

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