WEEK OF LAST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, 2011
BLESSING OUR LIVES
Afterwards, the confirmands, Bishop and I stood for a group photo in front of the altar. The Bishop and I then stood at the baptismal font where we held up Cooper for a similar keepsake photo.
I am glad that we will have those pictures to remind us of this day when confirmands, baptisand, priest and bishop, parents and relatives, the people of God in this little upstate church stood together for something greater than themselves.
What connects you to your most important moments? How do you keep the times of your life that mean the most to you? How do you mark the highlights of your life? And more importantly, when you are gone, what will others know and think of you when they look at the markings of your life. What mark are you leaving? What mark are you living?
From a different perspective, where do you see God's maker's mark in your life's journey, past, now, future?
For me, a priest who was first and foremost an infant baptisand, I know God most palpably present each week in the Eucharistic exclamation - "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us! Therefore let us keep the feast."
We live in an age where individual experience is so highly valued and our values are so highly individual that there really is little that carries over time and connects us to our deeper selves, to others, to creation, to family or to nation, literally to our souls. We are losing the meaning and practice of sacrifice, and without sacrifice, we can have no hope going forward.
The ability to make meaningful connections beyond ourselves, beyond our own individual beings and interests, needs or desires, is what makes us truly human, vulnerable yet hopeful. Hope we are told in scripture comes from suffering. Where does your hope come from? My hope to carry on comes in the relationships of faith and family, both repositories of whatever offerings of sacrifice I am capable of making.
There are other sacrificial places of equal value where hope arises from shared and mutual enterprises. These holy places include art and performance, athletic skill and competition, intellectual and recreational interest, professional and business career, civic duty and volunteerism, military service, and others.
Wherever we invest ourselves, our souls and bodies, what matters is that we come out of what Mary, the mother of Jesus, called the "imaginations of our hearts" and take our stand with others in something more than narcissistic or utilitarian self-interest. One can readily hear Mary's voice of religious conscience supporting her son as Jesus fought the temptations in the wilderness, where he prepared to sacrifice his life for the sake of others.
Baptism and the other sacraments of the church are wonderfully and beautifully instituted by God to help us mark the great passages of life: baptism for birth. Eucharist for nurture. Healing for care. Confession for forgiveness. Confirmation for learning. Ordination for vocation. Marriage for community. A healthy church knows and celebrates these sacred passageways well and fully.
This past Sunday, we made a good observance of confirmation and baptism.
From a different perspective, where do you see God's maker's mark in your life's journey, past, now, future?
For me, a priest who was first and foremost an infant baptisand, I know God most palpably present each week in the Eucharistic exclamation - "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us! Therefore let us keep the feast."
We live in an age where individual experience is so highly valued and our values are so highly individual that there really is little that carries over time and connects us to our deeper selves, to others, to creation, to family or to nation, literally to our souls. We are losing the meaning and practice of sacrifice, and without sacrifice, we can have no hope going forward.
The ability to make meaningful connections beyond ourselves, beyond our own individual beings and interests, needs or desires, is what makes us truly human, vulnerable yet hopeful. Hope we are told in scripture comes from suffering. Where does your hope come from? My hope to carry on comes in the relationships of faith and family, both repositories of whatever offerings of sacrifice I am capable of making.
There are other sacrificial places of equal value where hope arises from shared and mutual enterprises. These holy places include art and performance, athletic skill and competition, intellectual and recreational interest, professional and business career, civic duty and volunteerism, military service, and others.
Wherever we invest ourselves, our souls and bodies, what matters is that we come out of what Mary, the mother of Jesus, called the "imaginations of our hearts" and take our stand with others in something more than narcissistic or utilitarian self-interest. One can readily hear Mary's voice of religious conscience supporting her son as Jesus fought the temptations in the wilderness, where he prepared to sacrifice his life for the sake of others.Baptism and the other sacraments of the church are wonderfully and beautifully instituted by God to help us mark the great passages of life: baptism for birth. Eucharist for nurture. Healing for care. Confession for forgiveness. Confirmation for learning. Ordination for vocation. Marriage for community. A healthy church knows and celebrates these sacred passageways well and fully.
This past Sunday, we made a good observance of confirmation and baptism.
