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Lent: A Specific
Proposal
One way
to seek the full benefit of the Lenten season is to take on, or
give up, something in an area in which you would like to see
change in your life or in the world. We invite children to put
money into a box to collect donations for the Episcopal Relief
and Development fund for the purpose of alleviating world hunger
and poverty. Some people take this season to begin changes in
things as mundane as diet, manner of speaking, or consumption of
alcohol.
We
offer an enhanced schedule of educational and fellowship events
and worship liturgies in this season, and committing to
participate in one or more of those is a good way to use
discipline to find blessing this season.
A new
beginning I especially commend to you the weekday services of
Morning Prayer at 8:30 am in the Chapel. We began this service
just one year ago at the beginning of Lent last year. I thought
we might have two or three who would come, and I intended for it
to end with the end of Lent. We turned out to have a regular
attendance ranging usually between six and nine.
Some
people make attendance on one day of the week their custom for
Lent or throughout the year; some attend every day; some attend
most days as their schedules permit; some join the congregation
from time to time, and they, too, are a blessing.
Quiet
fellowship and a sense of holy community characterize this
liturgy. We do the entire service seated, there is no singing,
no preaching. We use the Rite I (traditional) version of
Morning Prayer, and the entire service lasts perhaps twenty
minutes. The Morning Prayer schedule of readings tends to move
directly through a book of the Bible so that we hear the whole
arc of a story, and not just the dramatic highlights to which we
are limited on Sunday mornings.
The
Themes of the Prayers Each day we have two special prayers. As
we move through the week we prayer for the whole human family,
for those in the armed forces, for schools and colleges, for
families, for parents, for the care of children, for young
persons, for the raising of children, for education, and, being
mindful of the place of Good Friday in our tradition and the
continuing presence of injustice, suffering, and death in the
world, at the end of each week we include a special collect for
Fridays. We chose the time of the service to coincide with the
beginning of the school day in our community, with special
reference to the informal procession of children headed off to
Willard who pass by our large arched windows as, a few feet to
the east in the Chapel, we are praying for them and their
colleagues beginning another day.
The
early morning light streaming through the stained glass window
showing Jesus receiving bread and fish from children prior to
blessing it and distributing it to the crowd adds a dimension of
bright beauty to the setting. One of the delights of this
service for me is having regular time to sit in that space and
enjoy the window, the light, and the view of the effects of the
changing seasons in the trees visible through the top level of
the window.
This Lent I hope you will consider setting aside a little time
each morning, or one or more mornings a week, for peace, beauty,
quiet fellowship, and prayers for our young people and families.
JGH
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Help Make the Lenten Pot Luck Suppers Happen this Year
Our Lenten tradition at St. Elizabeth's is to offer a series of
pot luck suppers on the Monday evenings of the season. To
continue that custom this year we need people to sign up to
share in the preparation of the meals.
We need
a weekly chair who will oversee coordinating the dinner for
their week. All that the chair needs to do is see that the
tables are set, coffee and tea made, wine opened, and everything
cleaned up at the end. The wine is purchased, the food is
brought by others, and John sets the discussion.
Ann
Dowling has created a set of instructions to make this job even
easier. The dates of the potluck suppers are February 11, 18,
and 25, and March 3 and 10. Please consider being a weekly chair
for one of the five weeks during Lent.
We also
need people to sign up to bring food - look for the sign-up sheet
in the corridor.
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Lenten Pot Luck Supper Discussions: Violence and Religion
The
relationship between religion and violence, from four
perspectives, was the theme of this year's Trinity Institute
based at Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street. Trinity Church
uses their considerable financial resources each year to present
a series of addresses on a single topic by world-class
speakers. This year's topic was "Religion and Violence" and
featured James Cone, an Afro-American theologian; Susannah Heschel, a Jewish professor of religion at Dartmouth and
daughter of one of the most distinguished Jewish theologians of
the mid-twentieth century; James Carroll, a Roman Catholic
former priest who is now a prize-winning author; and Tariq
Ramadan, a Muslim scholar and author who holds appointments in
Canada, Britain, and the Netherlands.
You may hear the lectures over the internet at your own
convenience, or you may join us at St. Elizabeth's at 6:00 pm on
the evening of the dinner to hear them with others. The
website is http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/ and once you get
there, click on the box for "Webcasts on Demand Here."
We will
address the lectures in the order in which they were given,
following this schedule:
Monday,
February 11 The Presiding Bishop's introductory sermon
Monday, February 18 Dr. James Cone
Monday, February 25 Professor Susannah Heschel
Monday, March 3 Mr. James Carroll
Monday, March 10 Professor Tariq Ramadan
Let me
know if you have any questions!
JGH
