Moving Diagonally

Morning Prayer at home. Took Brenda to yet another healthcare appointment. Sent greetings via email to one of our priests who has to live this year with the cognitive dissonance of having his birthday fall on Good Friday. Of course, in as many years, if falls on Easter, most likely. Spent an hour in prayer and reflection in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar of Repose, and in the desolation of the nave and sanctuary of the cathedral. Came home at lunchtime. Habits are hard to break on a fast day. Worked from there the rest of the day. Opened a file on a sermon for Easter VI, April 29 at the Chapel of St John the Divine in Champaign. Took a first pass at the readings. Made some notes. Took care of some routine time-of-the-month chores related to my calendar. Responded to some late-arriving emails. Greeted our younger daughter and her family, in for the weekend from the Twin Cities. They arrived hungry, so we took them to Popeye's for some chicken. Headed of...

Customary Thursday early AM treadmill workout. Morning Prayer in the cathedral. Polished, printed, and scheduled for posting my Easter homily. Met with an individual in the discernment process for holy orders. Lunch at home. Leftovers. Took Brenda to a scheduled healthcare appointment. Spent the balance of the afternoon on a pastoral/administrative matter that is inordinately complex, sensitive, and just plain difficult. Read, consulted, pondered, made notes. The issue is already bathed in prayer. Ran home to retrieve Brenda and grab a quick bite at Tacos Pepe on Chatham (where Smashburger, of blessed memory, used to be). Back to the cathedral to make last minute preparations for the beginning of the Triduum. The Dean presided and I preached at the Proper Liturgy for Maundy Thursday: Washing of Feet. Mass of the Lord's Supper, Stripping of the Altar.

Springfield Cathedral Human beings are prisoners of time. Speaking theologically, I’m not sure whether to attribute that to God’s intention in creation, or to our fall into sin. Whichever one it is, though, you and I cannot exist without reference to the past, the present, and the future. The mystery of time, this fundamental human experience, is something we can neither fully comprehend nor transcend. We don’t understand time, and we certainly can’t break free of it. Of course, this doesn’t keep us from fantasizing. Any new book that is well-written, any new movie that is well-made, and includes the theme of time-travel, is bound to be popular. We also process the mystery of time in more subtle ways. This decade is, of course, fifty years after the 1960s. Every week, it seems, there’s some big fiftieth anniversary milestone. Only six days from now is the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. In June, it will be the same thing for Bobby Kennedy. 1968 was a hu...

Morning Prayer at home, since I needed to hang around for an electrician to arrive and take care of a list of long-deferred issues. (still from home) Worked on my sermon for Easter III (April 15 at St Thomas', Salem), taking it from "message statement" to "developed outline." (in the office now) Dealt by email with a matter pertaining to my membership on the board of the Society of King Charles the Martyr (and also with the fact that I am a bishop and therefore a member of General Convention and a member of the committee that will consider the inclusion of King Charles in the calendar of the Episcopal Church). Stepped out for lunch downtown with my Roman Catholic counterpart, Thomas John Paprocki. It's always good when this sort of thing can happen. Dealt with some technology issues. My email client started suddenly misbehaving. Reached out to tech support. Everything seems to be OK now. Kept up a chain of email volleys with a young man who sought my h...

Weekly/daily task planning at home; Morning Prayer in the cathedral. Did just a little bit of desk-straightening; it's gotten rather out of hand. Reviewed the mockup of the next issue of the Springfield Current . Made a small tweak. Worked via email with the ad editor of The Living Church, coordinating some adjustments to the dioceses "sponor's column" in an upcoming issue. Wrote an email to a lay communicant who had written me a rather detailed letter that I read last week. Got to work on a long-term "archival" scanning project. (Not diocesan archives, per se , but personal papers related to my ministry.) Attended the midday Mass for Tuesday in Holy Week in the cathedral chapel. Lunch from HyVee (Chinese), eaten at hope. Continued with the scanning project, finishing the chunk I had bitten off. Performed major surgery on the text of an old Maundy Thursday homily. The illustrations from contemporary culture were no longer ... contemporary. Walked a...

So begins my customary (and eighth) Holy Week at St Paul's Cathedral. I preached at 8:00 and 10:30, and presided as well at the later celebration. It was all done with elegance and grace, a good start to this most sacred of weeks.

Springfield Cathedral -- St Mark's Passion When we read the Passion like this on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, it sometimes feel likes a sermon is superfluous, an anti-climax. Of course, it’s not, really; it’s not superfluous. It’s important that we break open and shine a light on what we’ve just done and set it in the larger context of everything that we’re going to be doing this week. Nonetheless, there is certainly a level at which the narrative of Jesus’ agony in the garden, his arrest, his two trials, his flogging, his crucifixion, and his death just speaks for itself. About fifteen years ago there was a controversial movie made by Mel Gibson called The Passion of the Christ . Many people found it revolting, because the graphic detail in which Jesus’ suffering was depicted was monstrously gruesome. Many critics asked, “What’s the point? Why subject the viewer to such gore?” One response to that criticism is surely that the film didn’t depict anything that, according to wh...