Consider adding these things to your Rule of Life in Lent:

• Attend worship more regularly
• Give up a bad habit and replace it with a good habit
• Read a chapter a day from one of the gospels
• Pray daily one of the family devotions from the BCP (p.137-140)
• Call friends who aren't present at church to see how they're doing
• Speak words of kindness and encouragement, not criticism and judgment
• Try on a new ministry with a heart to “give” and not just “receive”
• Focus on developing a heart of GRATITUDE rather than complaint
• Ask someone how you might pray for God to bless them…and/or consider asking about starting a new group reunion prayer group
• Be a prayer champion for a particular person and/or pray daily for our parish members and friends using a copy of the list to be provided in the parish hall.
• Invite and offer to bring someone to worship or a church event
• Ask the Holy Spirit to let grace & love characterize your life….maybe consider signing up for an upcoming Cursillo weekend.
• In ALL things, give thanks to the Lord, and focus on the good and positive! Remember, our thoughts determine our behavior.

​Lent is the most penitential season of holiness in the Church Year, preparing us spiritually for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection 40 days later. Christians are expected to set aside time for increased personal devotion, prayer, fasting, Bible reading, meditative reflection, self-examination of our conscience, confessing and repenting of our sins, and receiving forgiveness from the Lord. Focusing on Jesus’ crucifixion helps make us aware of the gift of salvation that is too often taken for granted. This is a time when we fast on certain days to give more careful attention to our spiritual nature. We may also abstain from certain rich foods as a means of simplifying our diets, taking better care of our bodies which are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and identifying with those who don't have enough to eat. Fasting is primarily an act of worship acknowledging that God’s throne rules our heart by giving priority to feeding our souls over indulging our appetites. Lent slows us down so we can listen to God. All Sundays are resurrection feast days. So even in Lent, Sundays are not technically counted among the 40 days of self-denial between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, yet they retain a penitential character to remind the Body of Christ gathered that repentance and grace are the keys to living in the Kingdom of God.

Preachers talk when we get together, and most that I know admit that Christmas and Easter sermons are among the most difficult preaching challenges of the year. Odd, isn’t it? The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is such a simple but profoundly complex reality. It’s anything but the trivial sentimentality we too often assign to it. I wonder a lot about why…..

Has the beautiful Christmas story become so familiar that we’ve lost any real sense of what its mystery really means to us? Has the amazement at what makes Christmas truly amazing escaped us, and been replaced with superficial amazement of culturally self-manufactured excitement? Has it become nothing more than an annual food fest of gathered family units, with joyful gift giving, overindulgent parties, and acts of kindness done in the “spirit” of Christmas, without any comprehension of what that spirit is really all about?

Is it no more than a magical time that takes place once a year but wears off within a few days, when we return back to our “normal” lives, having enjoyed what we either considered a “good” Christmas or a “bad” Christmas, depending on our level of happiness or depression? How many ways has the script of Christmas been rewritten to conform to our preferences? The alternative stories are certainly not evil, but neither are they real. Yet they serve to promote good feelings, and that’s what Christmas is supposed to be all about, right? How is Christmas more than that? Or is it? We’re usually too distracted to really have much care or awareness about the incomprehensible. It’s just easier to focus on the simple pleasures of a different narrative.

History is re-written all the time, and always has been. I naively expected to study an objective discipline when I became a history major as an undergrad...amazed and shocked when I found that there are all kinds of varieties and perspectives of history. If we can just focus on the WHAT questions, we get a pretty uniform answer, but when we delve into the WHY, we have a lot more diversity. It can become very subjective then, with lots of levels of interpretive “truth”. And yet, the WHY is essential.

The WHY is the most important question in most cases, as it gets to the depth of the superficial WHAT, and leads us to the whole point of the enterprise we're studying, practicing, believing, worshiping or living. But the WHY cannot be pure speculation or else it's just another perspective among many. It has to have merit based on truth by a clear understanding the author, poet, philosopher, religion or morality, which usually requires spending much more time analyzing the WHAT.

Anyone can rewrite the WHAT with a whole slew of WHY's and be doing no more than guessing what the real “truth” is, of the WHAT. But when one truly observes the WHAT while pursuing the true WHY, without any preconceived notions (if that’s even possible), it at least has the potential to teach and enlighten us as well as reveal truth at the deepest level

For instance, the WHAT of Christmas is a joyful thing to celebrate (however it’s done), but the WHY of Christmas is perhaps the most profound consideration ever beheld, experienced or contemplated by the world…and in many cases, ignored and rejected. Does any of that make sense to anyone?

In a couple of weeks, I’ll preach about something so incredible that one can only fall to one’s knees in adoration if you believe what the Church proclaims. The angel says to the shepherds in the field, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” That’s the WHAT of Christmas. I pray that by the time the gospel is read at the Christ Mass, I will have some compelling words regarding the WHY of Christmas, that will “give flesh,” so to speak, to the biblical narrative…. For unto us a Savior is born, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Have a Blessed Advent and a joyous Christmas!
​Fr. Randy+