At Epiphany 3, out of the church’s selection of Sunday Gospel readings, we contemplate in worship the glory of Jesus Christ revealed in the earliest events of his ministry in Galilee (northern Palestine). In Year A, the assigned Gospel reading this week is from Matthew 4:12-22. In his narration of Jesus’ move north, Matthew (as…
The Rev. Geoffrey Little is a lifelong Anglican and New Englander. After coming to Christ in college, he served for ten years with the South American Missionary Society (SAMS), first as a lay missionary in southern Peru and then on their staff in Ambridge, PA. While there he completed his divinity degree at Trinity School for Ministry. Ordained in 1992 in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, he moved with his young family to New Haven, CT, where he has lived and worked ever since as a pastor in intercultural urban ministry. In 2010, Geoff and his wife, Blanca, joined the ACNA Anglican Diocese in New England and established All Nations Church and All Nations Christian Academy in New Haven. All Nations Church brings together Spanish- and English-speaking people in bilingual worship and fellowship. All Nations Academy is a K-4 Christian elementary school dedicated to offering children from the city an opportunity to hear the Good News while acquiring a first-rate education. As a pastor, Geoff is a firm believer in the Anglican Sunday lectionary as an effective tool of evangelism and discipleship, and over thirty years of ministry has studied its presentation in the Book of Common Prayer. Geoff is the proud father of two adult children and the grandfather of four.
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 2A
Liturgical churches most often consider the period after the Feast of our Lord’s Baptism and the day before Ash Wednesday to be “Ordinary Time” in the season of Epiphany. The term “ordinary” refers not to space for the mundane but to a period ordered by numbers in the BCP and a series of Gospel readings…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 1A
Prepositions are important in the Book of Common Prayer. One change in the BCP 2019 that can easily go unnoticed is the designation Sundays “of Epiphany” in the new book compared with Sundays “after Epiphany” or “after the Epiphany” in earlier versions. What does the new title communicate? One response is that the Epiphany (the…
Today in the Spirit: Christmas 2A
We continue to celebrate the Christmas season on the Second Sunday of Christmas. For Christmas 2, the Church gives two options for the assigned Gospel readings in all three lectionary years. These, together with the various options for Gospel readings on Christmas Day, provide coverage of all the infancy and childhood narratives of our Lord’s…
Today in the Spirit: Christmas 1ABC
The Fourth Sunday in Advent, explicitly titled “Annunciation” Sunday in the BCP (but not to be confused with the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25), focuses our attention in worship on God’s work preparing for the coming of Messiah in the hearts of those who would become Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph.
Today in the Spirit: Advent 4A (Annunciation)
We all know that sense of heightened desire that accompanies the arrival of a big day, like a wedding day or the first day of a new job. A moment of transition is at hand, and, like a child waiting for, well, Christmas, we feel more intensely that combined force of eagerness from not yet…
Today in the Spirit: Advent 3A (Gaudete)
In all three years of our Sunday lectionary, Advent 3 is also “The Baptist” 2. After reacquainting us with the character and preaching of John the Baptist in Advent 2, the church assigns a collect and readings to take us deeper into consideration of the power of biblical prophecy in general and John’s role, in…
Today in the Spirit: Advent 2A
On the second and third Sundays of Advent, our attention is drawn to the NT Gospel accounts of John the Baptist’s ministry. So, the church abruptly shifts our adoration from the contemplation of Jesus’ second coming to his first. Like many good films that give their audience the end before the beginning, we wonder, as…
Today in the Spirit: Advent 1A
The first Advent Sunday marks the arrival of a new year in the life of the liturgical church. While there is little fanfare to celebrate that fact, we find the church, after the slow drip of nourishment in the Pentecost season, urgently inviting us, as worshipers, to take stock of our lives in view of…
Today in the Spirit: Proper 29C (Christ the King)
The feast of Christ the King is the Church’s celebration of Jesus Christ’s kingship over all things, earthly and heavenly. Though many Anglican provinces around the world have unofficially celebrated the feast for a century, the only official Prayer Book designation I could find of the final Sunday of Pentecost as “Christ the King” is…
