GARDEN OF GRACE
If God is a gardener and we are his plants, how do we grow? What fruit do we bear?
LOVE OUTPOURED
It has been said that the longest journey anyone can take is from the head to the heart. That’s true for some, but so is the converse. The journey from the heart to the head is just as long. The point is that the two must become one. In this homily Dcn Timothy shows us the divine secret to bridging the gap between the heart and the head.
LAUNCHING OUT
God’s ways are not our ways. After we’ve done all we know to do, all we can do, the Lord often challenges us to do something counter-intuitive by faith. Like Jesus, we find ourselves at a crossroads of decision: My way or Thy way? The way we respond determines whether we enjoy godly quietness or not.
Independence Day
Christian, if your citizenship is in heaven are you exempt from civic duties? Does following Jesus Christ excuse you from performing civil responsibilities on earth? How can Christians live with dual citizenship?
Passing Through Things Temporal
“This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through.” This line from a hymn is oft quoted by Christians who are sick and tired of this old world. And yet they often leave off the rest (and best) of the line: “My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” How do we get from here to there? The collect and homily for Trinity 4 point the way forward.
MERCIFULLY HEAR US
Does God’s silence always equate to his absence? Can he not be silent and present at the same time?
POETRY IN MOTION
True Love has skin in the game. But how do we what true love is, how it lives, moves, acts?
Consolation
Real Consolation for all those who, in the midst of this transitory life, are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.
GRANT US GRACE TO PRAY
That gulf was not fixed at the moment of death. It was being fixed, slowly and silently, across the entire span of his life…The distance between his soul and God grew wider, the chasm deeper, until what had been a life’s habit became an eternal condition.
THE OPEN DOOR
What fills that throne room — what defines it, what never ceases within it — is the worship of the Triune God. This is where Trinity Sunday begins. Not with a doctrine. Not with a definition. With a throne, and an open door, and a voice saying Come.
Pentecost: Spirit, Mary, Church
The Magnificat takes on new shape, new dimension, new meaning in the mouth of the Church who sings along with the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Consider the Magnificat afresh and anew as Mother Church sings these beautiful words with the help of the Holy Spirit.
LOVE COVERS SINS
Does cover mean to sweep under the rug, ignore, pretend nothing is wrong? No. It means to pursue and practice forgiveness. How? By letting it slide, not taking offense, but enduring wrongs — and by seeking a true change of heart and life with quiet patience.
Offering A Life Of Prayer
We are not God’s customers; we are his children. Our relationship is sacramental, not transactional. My friends, beyond every answered prayer is the greater gift: the One who listens, who welcomes us, who draws us close.
GOOD AND PERFECT GIFTS
One of the most precious gifts the Father has given you is the gift of standing at a crossroads and deciding what you will do with the time and life that God has given you…
Love the thing that God commands in his word; and long for the promise that God covenants in the Word made flesh.
Not Long but Hard
On our pilgrimage from Easter to Pentecost and beyond, we are confronted with diverse temptations and trials in the day to day rough and tumble of life. It’s as if the joys of the resurrection are threatened by the struggles of temptation and the sorrows of our moral corruption.
On this Feast of Saints Philip and James we meet two men who, like Jesus, share in our humanity and sympathize with the infirmities of our struggles in the real world.
STAYING NOT STRAYING
When a person settles into life — and stays not strays — things begin to change for the better. Staying is better than straying.
Permanent Record
Do you keep records of wrongs against yourself? Do you tell yourself what a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person you are? Do you play back past failures, mistakes, and sins over and over just to beat yourself up over them? If so, it is likely that you are keeping a different set of Permanent Records against yourself than God does.
Conversion of St. Paul
Beloved, let us remember Paul’s conversion not as an account of some distant history, so much as a living call. The risen Christ still confronts, He still converts, still incorporates, and still feeds His people. And as we come to this Altar, like Paul, let us proclaim, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
First Things First
“Jesus crossed the Jordan River in baptism in order to fight the good fight of the faith and to wage war on the world, the flesh, and the devil. And he embarked upon that mission – not as a lone wolf, a maverick, or a superhero – but as the Son of God in the power of the Spirit and the love of his Father. “
