Journal

Tag: Lent

Cruciform Love

Cruciform Love

The power of God was shown most clearly at the resurrection of Jesus. God defeated death. The love of God was shown most clearly on the cross of Christ. God poured out his life for us. And Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John...
Abide in My Love

Abide in My Love

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Abide in my love. – John 15:9 As we move into Lent next Wednesday, here are some thoughts that are helpful to keep firmly in mind and heart. When you’re going to truly consider and climb down into the depth of...
Lent Resources

Lent Resources

As we approach the season of Lent one week from today, please see this printable PDF that we put together of some resources we really like. We want to particularly point you toward An American Lent, an online tool which we helped develop to dive into this season of...

The Tangible Love of Christ in Lent

Fifteen years ago my wife Peggy and I had the incredible opportunity of spending two weeks with Dallas Willard and a community of brothers and sisters at the Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, California.  As that week progressed we were given...

Small Surrenders

Thomas Merton said: “We are not converted only once in our lives but many times, and this endless series of large and small conversions, inner revolutions, leads to our transformation in Christ.” As a child, I was considered a Pollyanna in our family. A...

Lent Resources 2017

Liturgical seasons can act as guideposts through the year and Lent is a particularly special one.  It’s easy to get caught up in the “sackcloth and ashes” part of Lent, with all the self-denial and focus on our own sin.  This is important to...

A Song for Good Friday

Many of us know this traditional African-American spiritual, passed down for many generations since the 19th century. First printed in 1899, it was the first spiritual to be published in a major American hymnal (1940 in the Episcopal Church hymnal). We invite you to...

Palm Sunday Poem

We’re borrowing from G.K. Chesterton and posting a poem told from the perspective of the animal on which Jesus entered Jerusalem.  Welcome to Holy Week everyone! The Donkey BY G. K. CHESTERTON When fishes flew and forests walked    And figs grew upon thorn, Some...

A Prayer to Open Lent

This is one of my all-time favorite poems and prayers, from a man well-acquainted with God, and with sin.  Regarding sin, who cannot agree with his refrain, “I have more”. Yet it ends in hope and freedom from fear, which is precisely the destination of journey of Lent...

Take, Eat, Be : Living the Eucharist

Mother Teresa said once “If I can give you any advice, I beg you to get closer to the Eucharist.” JRR Tolkien wrote in a letter to his son Christopher, “Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the...