Message in a Bottle #12

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 of Minneapolis begging for a little air and ...

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Reflection – Inheritance

In the name of the Father

The first reading on this Trinity Sunday tells us about Moses on Mt. Sinai when he broke the cuneiform laws carved into tablets and transcribed, transformed and translated them onto papyrus.  In that same reading Moses gives a new name for God, the first “Lord”. ‘Lord’ in the reading, stands for the traditionally unspoken “I Am”.  Moses is stating a new First Commandment–“I Am Lord and God Almighty”.  

Those cuneiform tablets came with Abraham when he left his traditional home between the Tigris and Euphrates ...

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Homily – May 31st, 2020 – Pentecost Sunday

Imagine that you are setting out on a new venture, creating a new business, for example. As part of your preparation you recruit a number of people who you think will make good workers for you, workers who will learn the business and after a while will be experienced enough for you to take time for yourself, do some traveling while being able to get updates on your business. Not a big challenge to do that as we are learning. However, things do not go as ...

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Message in a Bottle #11

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. We anticipate hiccups, frustrations, and returning to the ...

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Reflection – Come Holy Spirit…

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.”

Pat Marrin, of NCR’s “Pencil Preaching” compares last week’s feast of the Ascension to a graduation. Jesus is preparing his disciples for a new and transformed way to live out their understanding of Jesus and his mission. I can imagine Jesus delivering a rousing, convocation speech to the disciples, “You’re ...

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Homily – May 24th, 2020 – Ascension Sunday

The first reading came from a book within the Bible called the Acts of the Apostles and written by the same author who wrote one of the four gospels, the Gospel of Luke. The opening line in Acts, Luke writes, “In my first book, Theophilus.” The first book refers to the Gospel of Luke. Acts of the Apostles his second book. So, think of the Bible not as a book but as a collection of books or a mini library.

Who is this Theophilus? Probably a high-ranking ...

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Message in a Bottle #10

If you are keeping track, you know that we have not gathered for Sunday Eucharist since March 15th, the third Sunday of Lent. I half-jokingly suggested we were celebrating our “Last Supper” not realizing then that my words would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are all waiting, including Bishop Vienneau, for the health authorities to open churches for limited gatherings like we see in some sectors of society. Throwing the doors of the church wide open, though, will probably not happen until a universal vaccine is available. Until ...

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Reflection – Relentless Hope

It is a quote that I use frequently when sleep does not come.  This week has been one of those weeks.  We are being battered, and though important to put it in perspective, remembering that others have suffered much worse for far longer, the tragedies are relentless.  Every week there is something else.  Poor Nova Scotia; I’m not sure how much more they can take.

“Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  Those with faith know that to be a truth.  ...

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Homily – May 17th, 2020 – 6th Sunday of Easter

‘I will not leave you orphaned….’  The early Church must have relied heavily on this promise of Jesus because it moved forward even under the most trying of circumstances. In the reading from Acts we hear how Philip, the deacon, not the apostle, went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed Christ to them. The impetus for this action of Philip was the persecution that followed the death of Stephen. On that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were ...

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Message in a Bottle #9

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) authored 57 books during his lifetime, but perhaps his most notable work was his book entitled Night. Read it if you have not already. Wiesel was born in Transylvania which was annexed by Hungary in 1940 and subsequently invaded by the Nazis in 1944. Although only about 100 pages long, Night is a powerful telling of the horrors that he and his family went through in the Nazi-run concentration camps. Elie’s mother and sister were murdered in Auschwitz. Elie and his father were imprisoned ...

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