Husband, father, and Anglican priest living in the North Georgia Mountains. Sermons, reflections, and articles promoting the "Ancient Faith for Modern Times". Subscribe below to get the latest posts in your inbox.
James’s life gives the Collect a particularly sharp edge. The man associated in Matthew 20 with the desire for a place beside the throne is remembered liturgically as a model through whom the Church learns that authority becomes true authority only when it is shaped by self-denying service.
Feast of Mary Magdalene, July 22. She came to the tomb in the dark, wept, asked where the body had been taken. Then Jesus spoke one word: Mary. The risen Lord’s first word on Easter morning was a proper name. She recognized him. And she said: "I have seen the Lord".
The connection with John 20 is especially fitting because Mary encounters the risen Jesus in a garden on the first day of the week. The Christ who was dead now lives with a life death cannot end. Mary therefore carries more than information about an empty tomb. She announces the risen Lord himself.
Proper 11. The wheat and the tares. Let both grow until the harvest. The patience God requires is not indifference to evil; it is the refusal to execute a judgment that belongs to the Son of Man alone. Creation groans. The righteous wait. The harvest is certain.
Isaiah 55:11: "My word shall not return to me empty." Matthew 13 shows most seed producing nothing. But the word accomplishes God’s purpose even when it does not visibly bear fruit in every hearer. In the good soil, it exceeds every expectation.
Matthew 11:29: take my yoke upon you. The yoke is not effortless but good, kind, well-fitting, shaped for the one who wears it. The burden of Christ is light not because following costs nothing but because he carries it alongside us.