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Have you ever wanted to
say something biting to someone, but at the last minute decided against it, and
later on were really glad that you showed some restraint? Did you ever label
someone as an enemy only to discover, with the passage of time, that same
person as an ally? Did you ever want to cut someone out of your life, but you
did not and were glad you did not burn what would later become an important

The Parable of the Sower of the Seeds is one of the classic parables.  Parables seemed to be Jesus’ preferred way of teaching.  All parables, including today’s, have these four things in common: 1) They always bring out a truth, not a scientific or historical, more a mythical truth.  Think of when you were a child and your parents read you a fairy tale.  They were not true as far as talking foxes go or trolls living under bridges …

There are two Old Testament prophets of the O.T. who
had particularly keen and powerful visions of a Messiah who was to come. One is
the Prophet Isaiah that
we hear a lot about during Advent. He lived about 700 years before the birth of
Jesus. He speaks about what seems to be impossible scenarios like a lion and
lamb lying down together (lions eat lambs the last time I checked); a
baby putting his hand in a snake’s …

Each time we celebrate Eucharist together, we are reminded that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, a cloud of Saints.  In the Apostles’ Creed, which we profess each Sunday, we say, “I believe in the communion of saints.”  In other words, we believe in an eternal bond between us and all those who have gone before us, between Saints and saints in the making. We invoke the Saints in each Eucharistic Prayer: “And so, with the Angels …

Within this Sunday’s three readings there are a couple of themes which dovetail well with each other, themes prominent in our Christian life. Theme one is dying and being buried with Christ in baptism, and theme two is about hospitality.

The
first reading and gospel have to do with hospitality. We hear in the Book of
Kings about a wealthy woman who welcomes the prophet Elisha into her house and
something good happens to her as …

In the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), and particularly
in the Book of Exodus, there is a strong emphasis on “remembering.” Moses,
speaking the words of God, would often say: Remember the Lord brought you out
of slavery and provided you with manna and water as you journeyed through the
desert. Remember to keep the Sabbath holy. Remember that you were slaves at one
time so never mistreat anyone under you.

Remembering is so important in …

On
this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, a strange thing is happening, both
in the readings and in our lives. As you get older and you grow in your
knowledge of who Christ is more and more, you simultaneously grow in
self-knowledge. This true self, who you are in God, and not who others want you
to be or some persona of who you would like to be, was given at conception and takes
a lifetime …

Worldwide,
the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity today. Theologians,
saints, and mystics have tried to describe the Trinity, three persons in one
God, in various ways. St. Patrick apparently used the cloverleaf as his
teaching tool. Others have used the comparison of H2O; water comes in the forms
of a gas, a liquid, and a solid. As helpful as descriptions are, they are not
what people really want in life. People do not want a …

It has been a week of hitting restart buttons and a
week of watching painful news stories. Last weekend, just when we thought we
had made all the necessary adjustments and satisfied all the essential
requirements to celebrate Eucharist with 50 of you, our plans were unexpectedly
scuttled.  So, we hit the restart button
for this weekend and get over the pain of disappointment. The bigger and more
difficult pain of this week was the pain watching George Floyd …

As you probably have
heard, our provincial health authorities, as well as Archbishop Valery, have
given us the green light to resume weekend Eucharist with a maximum of 50
parishioners. This is good news but comes with a list of protocols as long and
as twisty as the Petitcodiac River. As staff, we have been working diligently,
behind the scenes, trying to prepare our worship spaces and our worshippers for
the new, albeit temporary, way Eucharist will be celebrated. …