The designation of Lent 5 Sunday as “Passion Sunday” in the BCP 2019 is a return to the same designation in the BCP 1928, where the two-week period from Lent 5 Sunday through Holy Saturday is also called “Passiontide.” The Collect and readings assigned in Lent 5A continue the trajectory of the penitential season, highlighting…
Hymn Guide: Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness
We may put on this facade because of social pressure, self-deception, or a theology that forgets that Jesus himself wept, suffered, and died. Then there is also the opposite temptation, to wallow in sadness, as if our Lord did not rise again from the grave. “Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness” is a hymn that addresses these complex emotions with honesty, beauty, and authentic hope.
Why Was St. Gregory So Great?
Who is St. Gregory, what makes him so great, and why do Christians, specifically Anglicans, celebrate him 1,400 years after his death?
Today in the Spirit: Lent 4A
Lent is a season the church employs to teach that, by the light of the Son of God coming into the world, darkness opposed to his arrival is exposed. In these middle weeks of Lent Year A, the church assigns long Gospel readings from the Book of John in which there is significant dialogue between…
Miserable Offenders and the Mercy of God
In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, we confess, “O Lord, have mercy on us, miserable offenders.” Those are deep, strong statements that reveal our condition and status.
The Bread of Life: Healing and The Eucharist
The risen Christ showed his scars—healed and transformed—to his disciples. The Eucharist joins us to that same reality. Not to minimize suffering or explain it away, but to acknowledge it. The table knows that we often need care before we consciously recognize it.
John and Charles Wesley: Anglicans with Kindled Hearts
On March 3rd, we celebrate the feast of John and Charles Wesley, two Anglican priests credited as the founders of Methodism, but whose lifelong loyalties lay with the Church of England, from which they never formally left. The Anglican Church in North America recognizes them as “Reformers of the Church” (2019 Book of Common Prayer,…
Today in the Spirit: Lent 3A
“It gives me great pleasure to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.” The scriptures, contrary to Albert Einstein, regard stubborn disobedience to the word of God as a non-conformity in which the Almighty takes no pleasure (though he forgives through Christ). As a group, the readings assigned for Lent 3 perhaps deliver…
From Episcopal to Anglican: The Beauty of Biblical Faithfulness
Where the Episcopal Church had a rich legacy of historic buildings, the ACNA seemed to be building for the future. It had a missional energy, an ethos of going out and proclaiming the pure gospel to a needy world.
Book Review: The Gospel After Christendom
In The Gospel After Christendom, the writers, pastors, and scholars of The Gospel Coalition and the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics have applied a similar understanding of cultural apologetics in a unified collection of essays designed to “define cultural apologetics, explain its biblical and historical grounding, and demonstrate how it is important for the church today.”
Today in the Spirit: Lent 2A
In our worship during Lent 1, the church introduced, in dramatic fashion, the intense opposition in the world to the revelation of the Son of God. Now in Lent 2A, the prayers and propers highlight a critical internal conflict within the believing community: faith versus works as the path to fellowship with God. The assigned…
The Bible: Believing God’s Word Written (Jerusalem Declaration 2.1)
Clause 2 has two sentences. Taken together, they capture the twofold dynamic of the Bible, moving from God’s gracious self-revelation to our thankful response.