Ascension Day will have passed, and because it is always celebrated on a Thursday, too few of us will have taken notice. For that reason, the BCP 2019 has restored the practice of titling this Sunday the “Sunday After Ascension Day,” suggesting, of course, that some attention will be given to the ascension of Christ…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 6C (Rogation Sunday)
Easter 6 in the BCP 2019 carries the specific title “Rogation Sunday.” The term “Rogation” generally refers to a solemn Sunday. In the context of our liturgical celebration, it is connected with devotions associated with our Lord’s final days on earth (before his ascension). Because of its proximity to Pentecost, originally a harvest festival, Rogation…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 5C
At Easter 5, the church begins to highlight some of the teachings of Jesus in the upper room discourse in John. The assigned Gospel reading out of John 13:31-35 in Year C begins that discourse after Judas departs the scene. Directing his attention to the eleven, our Lord says, “Now is the Son of Man…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 4C (Good Shepherd)
Though the Fourth Sunday of Easter contains the same readings in most contemporary three-year lectionaries, only in the BCP 2019 do we find the title “Good Shepherd” for the week. The Gospel readings across the three-year schedule cover all of John 10 where we find the explicit references to Jesus as the “good shepherd”. In…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 3C
In the lessons for Easter 3C, the church leads us in worship to the third resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples, as recorded in the Gospel of John. In the assigned text, in John 21:1-14, our Lord reveals himself to a group of seven disciples while they are fishing on “the Sea of Tiberias”…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 2C
The church utilizes the two Sundays following Easter Day to center its worship around the resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in Luke and John. (The one account of an appearance to his disciples in Matthew 28:16-20, the Great Commission, is appointed on Trinity Sunday A, and the one in Mark 16:9-20 is an alternative Gospel…
Easter Vigil: A Rookie Anglican Guide
There may be no more powerful portrayal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Christian liturgy than that which happens in the dark of night before Easter morning. In the Easter Vigil, a service that begins in total darkness, light is carried into the midst of the people and spreads, culminating in the jubilant proclamation…
Today in the Spirit: Easter Day C
“Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” At no time is the thrill of making this acclamation greater than on Easter Day. Enter then, all of you, into the joy of your Master. First and last, receive alike your reward. Rich and poor, dance together. You who have fasted and you who…
Let Us Keep the Feast: Reflections on the Pascha Nostrum
The world God made is a world of rhythm and rhyme. Seasons change and come again before leaving us once more. There is a predictable stability in the constant diversity that God has made, something C.S. Lewis once brought out in his masterpiece The Screwtape Letters. As his fictional demon once put it, God has…
Today in the Spirit: Pentecost Sunday B (Whitsunday)
“Pentecost Sunday already!?” While this might well be our reaction to the arrival of this feast day on the church calendar every year, we can only imagine how the disciples felt when Jesus ordered them to go to Jerusalem and wait until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). As they gathered…
The Liturgical Home: Ascension
The Feast of the Ascension, or Ascension Day, is one of the highest feast days in the liturgical year. It is the day we remember Jesus’ bodily ascent into heaven and its profound significance. The Ascension might suggest sadness since Jesus physically left the earth. However, instead, it abounds with great joy as we celebrate…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 7B (The Sunday After Ascension)
As opposed to the Ascension Day readings, which center around the narrative of the event itself, the Sunday after Ascension Day (never Easter 7 as in the BCP 2019) assignments focus more on the implications of Christ’s ascending and taking the throne with the Father for the life of the believer. Particularly in Year B,…
