As evening fell, Paul Fromberg, our priest, was setting up for services. A long-haired homeless guy, kind of sweaty and intense, strolled in looking for groceries, and Paul explained to him that the food pantry was closed for Good Friday. “But don’t you have anything to eat?” the stranger asked.
Saint Thomas’ Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City is Web casting audio files of its Holy Week services.
Bishops in England are getting down on their knees this Maundy Thursday to shine the shoes of office workers and shoppers in towns and cities across the country. The free act is inspired by the night of the Last Supper when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet before his trial and crucifixion on Good Friday.
The word maundy is an English corruption of the Latin mandatum, from the ‘new commandment’ that Jesus gives his disciples after washing their feet.
It is easy for us to say that we love our neighbor, and in fact, many of us repeat those verses every Sunday. It is easy to strike our chests and claim we have given a certain amount of our money to the local shelter, a hospice in Guatemala or even for the Millenium Development Goals, but would we be willing to leave the ease of modern life and share all we have with the miserable? No, we would not.
Washington National Cathedral is compiling an excellect collection of videotaped Lenten reflections. The Cathedral’s Sunday Forum collection is also worth a listen if you’ve got
During the first week of Lent, Café contributor Derek Olsen nearly died of a poisonous spider bite. Here he reflects on his brush with death.
First, there is the cell phone. I can be reached anytime, anywhere, by anyone and it all seems urgent. When I am not on the phone, I am at the computer (like I am now) getting all the news and weather and commentary about all sorts of vital things. When I am in the car, I like to listen to public radio or books on tape so I can keep up with the whole Hillary vs. Obama thing and The New York Times’ picks of good books to read or listen to.
In the midst of the messiness of raising three children under 5, God is there. In the balancing of the checkbook, God is there. In the waiting room of the hospital, God is there. In the boring meeting, God is there. In the frustrating traffic jam, God is there. Lent might be a time when we can be attentive to the place where we are, and attentive to God.
As a child, I was somehow convinced, the priest rubbed the charred remains of dead people on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. I’m sure no one had ever told me that, but it seemed to fit in with the big, gloomy picture: Jesus was dead, everything was draped in purple, and it was all our fault.