HOLY WEEK MESSAGE – 2007. There’s a lot going on in your life today, and in the parish and world, indeed more than enough for most of us. For me it all comes together in the recent birth of a new parishioner. A new baby born to parishioners on St. Patrick’s Day! Just imagine the adventures that await her and her big brother and their generation in this century.

Yes, there’s a lot going on out there today. For some of us, okay let’s admit it, for all of us it gets pretty overwhelming at times. It takes faith, family, fortitude, and hope for the future, in combination or all together to get through it all sometimes. How can we help little Chloe prepare to meet all these goings-on well and fully, as a mature Christian person, in the spirit of the saints of God? Remember, we want to be one, too!

In the mysteries of Holy Week and Easter I encourage you to remember your Baptismal Covenant and especially the prayer offered for the newly baptized. You know the one, the one where the rector walks the baby down the aisle, reciting holy words. Here are those words –

Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon this your servant the forgiveness of sin, and have raised her to the new life of grace. Sustain her, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give her an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.

We all need to remember the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all need to be sustained, enlightened, emboldened, both loved and loving, and enthused in life. It’s a great adventure, life and to truly celebrate life in all its fullness, we must admit unto ourselves the rest of the story, and never be afraid to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Only if we are ready and willing to own the truth including the dark side where evil and death have dominion, will we be truly empowered to practice resurrection.

This Holy Week begins with a Friday Al Jezeera Lecture as part of the Cazenovia Forum, a great recent addition to Cazenovia’s intellectual life, established by new St. Peter’s parishioner and friends. On Saturday, parishioners are invited to join our Peregrini on a solemn tour of the Peterboro Civil War Cemetery. Then there’s Palm Sunday including an afternoon workshop for our confirmands who are helping to design an Area-wide Youth Anti-Racism Event in September. On Tuesday afternoon the rector will share in a Cazenovia College Symposium on Conflicts and Differences. On Wednesday evening our Faith Adventurers and Teen Peregrini will enact their interpretation of the traditional Stations of the Cross. Other liturgies follow on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and finally, Easter Sunday.

Yes, there’s a whole lot going on in your life, in the life of the church, and in the world today, and it can be pretty overwhelming. In the face of it all, we might be tempted to back up and deny the reality in which we live or said differently in biblical words, to leave the Garden of Gethsemane be things get really out of hand. This is not our religion and practice however. We have been taught by our Lord that the way of life is the way of the cross. We press on knowing that God, our God is there, already there wherever it is that we find ourselves. We can never fall out of God’s everlasting Arms. Do not be afraid, therefore. Be of good courage for God, our God is here, there, everywhere. He is Risen!