Daily Reading for March 1 • David, Bishop of Menevia, Wales, c. 544

Christ hear us, sovereign Lord,
lest I should suffer some oppression;
lamb-lion, alpha and omega,
god-man eternally true,
redeeming king you must dispense
true council to us against death. . . .

True king of heaven for your peace,
for your suffering, for your passion, . . .
for your tribulation on Friday,
and your true light and your wounds,
for your praise, heavenly king,
valiant teacher, and your surpassing qualities
give me understanding to withstand evil,
pure wise lord, for your true blood:
this I wish, this I will get,
this I seek, fine objectives,
the protection of the true cross and protection of Idloes,
and giving me life, me and mine,
the protection of Maria and the protection of Anna,
and the saints of Asaph and the saintesses,
the protection of the saints of Bardsey and of Cybi,
and of David, Nudd of the South,
and of Ieuan and of Cadfan,
and of Sanan, Nudd of the saints,
the protection of Michael and Gabriel,
and of Uriel, the best protection,
the protection of the saints of the world be with me
to safeguard me against the snares.

A Prayer of Iolo Goch (Welsh, fourteenth century), quoted in A Celtic Primer: The Complete Celtic Worship Resource and Collection, edited and compiled by Brendan O’Malley. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 2 • The Fourth Sunday in Lent

For many centuries, dating back to the ancient Jerusalem liturgy, the Church has singled out stories from John’s Gospel to be read at Mass during Lent. In our era, three of these stories—the most sacred narratives in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ public ministry—appear on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent. They are the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), the healing of the man born blind (John 9) and the raising of Lazarus (John 11). . . . Why are these stories given such prominence during Lent? Because during this season, from the earliest days, people were being prepared for Baptism, and John’s stories fitted beautifully into the process of Christian initiation. In time, the three narratives were read at specific stages in the Lenten preparation of catechumens for Baptism on Holy Saturday. . . .

If the story of the Samaritan woman has illustrated an initial coming to faith, this [story of the man born blind] shows that often first enlightenment does not result in adequate faith. Sometimes faith comes only through difficult testing and even suffering. Saint Augustine recognized that this man born blind stands for the human race. And the initial dialogue where Jesus proclaims, “I am the light of the world,” alerts us to the fact that more than physical sight is involved. . . .

Besides recognizing a baptism theme in this story, readers of John would also be taught that a series of testings may be necessary before sight really comes. Only gradually and through suffering does the man born blind come to full faith and enlightenment. . . . How many of us who have a traditional faith stemming from our Baptism come to believe in our hearts only when difficult decisions test our faith in God and Christ? It is then we understand what it means to say, “I do believe.”

From Reading the Gospels with the Church: From Christmas through Easter by Raymond E. Brown (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1996).

Daily Reading for March 3 • John and Charles Wesley, Priests, 1791, 1788

I observed many years ago, “It is hard to find words in the language of men, to explain the deep things of God.” Indeed, there are none that will adequately express what the Spirit of God works in His children. But perhaps one might say, (desiring any who are taught of God, to correct, soften, or strengthen the expression), by the testimony of the Spirit, I mean, an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given Himself for me; that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God. . . .

I do not mean hereby, that the Spirit of God testifies this by any outward voice; no, nor always by an inward voice, although he may do this sometimes. Neither do I suppose, that He always applies to the heart (though He often may) one or more texts of Scripture. But He so works upon the soul by His immediate influence, and by a strong, though inexplicable operation, that the stormy wind and troubled waves subside, and there is a sweet calm; the heart resting as in the arms of Jesus, and the sinner being clearly satisfied that God is reconciled, that all his “iniquities are forgiven, and his sins covered” [Ps 85:2].

From “The Witness of the Spirit, Discourse II” by John Wesley, quoted in Invitation to Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Anthology, edited by John R. Tyson (Oxford University Press, 1999).

Daily Reading for March 4

We hear much of modern skepticism. There is, perhaps, no more in the world now than there has always been, only its forms have changed. Its answer lies not in argument, but in the lives of Christ’s followers. It was Christians who lived like Christ that won the first battle for Christianity, and it must be Christians who live like Christ that shall win the last. The life of faith in the Son of God, when fully lived out, always has been and always will be a victorious argument.

But to live this out faith must be firm. We cannot meet a skeptical world with weak faith. If we would draw our friend out of a swift-rushing current, our own feet must not stand on slippery places. We must seek faith in looking to him who has the giving of it. We must keep him before our minds and come so near him in daily prayer that we can say, “That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life, declare we unto you.”

From Footsteps of the Master by Harriet Beecher Stowe, quoted in A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings for Lent and Easter Week by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 5

The main reason that the Church is unfinished, of course, is that we humans are ourselves perpetually unfinished. We’ve all experienced the sense that there is always something more to learn, to accomplish, to become. It is this “incurable unfinishedness,” as one philosopher calls it, that sets us apart from other living things, because in trying to “finish” ourselves, we become creators. Our incurable unfinishedness keeps us childlike, capable of learning and growing. We may be trying to head toward perfection, but none of us will ever arrive there.

Benedict understands this, and is constantly making allowances for human weakness and frailty. For example, although he would prefer that the monks abstain from wine altogether, he admits that “monks of our day cannot be convinced of this” and so he allows for a certain amount of wine to be allotted each day. Similarly, after saying “a monk’s life ought to be a continual Lent” he concedes that “few have the virtue for this, so let us at least keep the forty days of Lent in a special way.”

Imperfections, setbacks, and sins, then, are all part of the striving; they’re all grist for the mill. They’re the place where we are destined to meet God—in the gap. Wherever there is that unfinishedness, there is the call to holiness: in the kitchen, the office, the hospital room, or the supermarket. Wherever there is that sense of striving, there is a saint in the making. From this point of view, then, there is no such thing as an “obstacle” to sainthood. Saints may be preoccupied with raising a family and balancing a checkbook; we may be struggling with our too-crowded daily schedule, our short temper, or our jealousy; we may have to live with a painful experience in the past or a physical disability. No matter what, it is through and in the experience of our imperfections that God wants to meet us.

From Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey Through Lent by Albert Holtz, O.S.B. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 6

I don’t believe in spiritual formulae anymore. I believe God presents each of us with opportunities for redemption, and we either name them or not, embrace them or not. We can’t anticipate those moments—we can only become ready as best we can and pray for the grace that we will experience God. We ready our lamps with the enlightening oil of inner work. We feed the soul in the inner world—in meditation, prayer, study, reading, psychoanalysis or therapy, creative arts, woolgathering, dream work, thinking, dialoguing. Each one’s way in unique and belongs to her alone. We commit to know, to love, to become ourselves, and to stay with it. All moments are God’s moments, and through grace we come to recognize some of them. Our lives gradually begin to reflect more accurately who we really are, and we find our own meaning. We truly do experience God. These promises are not empty. They are full to overflowing.

The process is frightening, difficult, dangerous, painful, and consuming of both time and energy. It is also comforting, transforming, clarifying, deeply satisfying, and is the source of inner peace.

From an essay by Lois Ann Peckham, quoted in Gifts from Within: Women’s Meditations for Lent by the Women of Brigid’s Place. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 7 • Perpetua and her Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 202

The day of their victory dawned, with joyful countenances they marched from the prison to the arena as though on their way to heaven. If there was any trembling it was from joy, not fear. Perpetua followed with quick step as a true spouse of Christ, the darling of God; her brightly flashing eyes quelling the gaze of the crowd. Felicitas too, joyful because she had safely survived child-birth and was now able to participate in the contest with the wild animals, passed from one shedding of blood to another; from midwife to gladiator, about to be purified after child-birth by a second baptism. As they were led through the gate . . . Perpetua was singing victory psalms as if already crushing the head of the Eyptian. Revocatus, Saturnius and Saturus were warning the spectators, as they came within sight of Hilarion they informed him by nods and gestures: “You condemn us; God condemns you.” This so infuriated the crowds that they demanded the scourging of these men in front of the line of gladiators. But the ones punished rejoiced in that they had obtained yet another share in the Lord’s suffering.

From “The Martyrdom of Perpetua,” in Patricia Wilson-Kastner, G. Ronald Kastner, Ann Millin, Rosemary Rader, and Jeremiah Reedy, trans., A Lost Tradition: women Writers of the Early Church (University Press of America, 1981). This conclusion to the Vibia Perpetua is thought to have been written by Tertullian..

Daily Reading for March 8

It is true that the solitary life must also be a life of prayer and meditation, if it is to be authentically Christian . . . But what prayer! What meditation! . . . Utter poverty. Often an incapacity to pray, to see, to hope . . . a bitter, arid struggle to press forward through a blinding sandstorm.

Do not mistake my meaning. It is not a question of intellectual doubt. . . . It is something else, a kind of doubt that questions the very roots of a person’s own existence, a doubt which undermines their very reasons for existing and for doing what they do. It is this doubt which reduces a person finally to silence, and in the silence which ceases to ask questions, they receive the only certitude they know: The presence of God in the midst of uncertainty and nothingness, as the only reality but a reality which cannot be placed or identified.

From The Power and Meaning of Love by Thomas Merton (Sheldon Press, 1976).

Daily Reading for March 9 • The Fifth Sunday in Lent

The account of the raising of Lazarus is a wonder marveled at by generations of Christians. It speaks of God’s redemptive action in the midst of human life, of divine fulfillment of the ancient covenant in the person of Jesus. It proclaims Jesus as the Christ, the fount of eternal life.

Beyond this, the Johannine passage is an incredibly rich mine of images and ideas that can enliven its hearers. It contains the poignant account of Jesus’ friendship with this family, the encounter with the weeping Mary with her distraught accusation—“If you had been here”—and the episode of Jesus’ tearful response to her grief. Even more strikingly, it contains Martha’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Except for the confession of Peter found in Matthew 16:16 (and the confession of Andrew to Peter in John 1:41), there is no other comparable statement of faith discovered in the gospels. For the early church, to confess Christ in this way was the mark of an apostle. Thus we have here a somewhat lost tradition, apparently current in the community from which the Gospel of John comes, of Martha as the first witness to Jesus as the resurrection, the one who brings new life.

The Lazarus passage speaks eloquently to me of hope and healing, especially as it is discovered in the communities of friendship in which we find ourselves. It is a Gospel that speaks of tears and compassion and the empathetic suffering we share with one another, a suffering which raises us beyond our own small sorrows and limited vision. It is a Gospel that proclaims the miracle of renewal that is discovered as we allow ourselves to know our interdependence. Our personal lifelessness, our private wounds are made whole as we tenderly touch and are touched by one another.

This late Lenten Sunday is one in which we enter into the mystery of pain and brokenness, both our own and the world’s, to discover that we are not alone, that what seems hopeless is in fact hope-filled, that what appears dead can spring forth into life. It happens because we are embedded in a wider, more sustaining matrix of love than we can possibly imagine.

From The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright (Upper Room Books, 1994).

Daily Reading for March 10

This truth of the power of our interconnectedness was brought home to me in an unexpected way not long ago. One recent spring I was referred by my family physician to an endocrinologist because of a growth on the right lobe of my thyroid. The specialist informed me that he needed to perform a biopsy on the growth to gain the necessary information he needed to make an accurate diagnosis. This procedure involved placing several small needles into the lump in my neck and drawing out tissue which would then be analyzed in the laboratory.

To get clear access to the growth, I was asked to lie on the examination table and prop a pillow under my shoulder blades and upper back so that me head fell backwards off the pillow and left my throat prominently exposed. I felt like Isaac, docilely submitting to the one in whom I had placed trust.

Just before the physician inserted the first needle, one of the two nurse assistants who were standing by his side toward the end of the exam table took my hands in hers. I could not see which nurse it was but I knew immediately what she expected me to do—hold on to her. That is in fact what I did. As each of the needles was inserted deep into my throat, I found myself communicating my response to the pain to her hands. As the pain rose I held tighter, as it subsided I let go. I remember thinking that she had remarkable hands, healer’s hands, that they “said” much more than simply, “Hang on here if you have to.” . . .

About four o’clock, driving to pick up my children after school, suddenly the experience came rushing back to me. In the recalling, I became aware of the inner shift that had occurred when I took the unknown nurse’s hands. I had been making the kind of inner preparation that I might usually make, a sort of burrowing down into myself to find the resource, strength, or attitude that could get me through, when suddenly I found myself connected to a source of strength outside myself, a self-transcending energy that was greater than my bounded efforts and capacities. It was a graced moment, a grateful recognition of the holy, if you will, and, flooded with gratitude for it, I broke into tears.

From The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright (Upper Room Books, 1994).

Daily Reading for March 11

Most of all, we don’t want to be alone. We may long for some peace and quiet, assaulted as we are by the needs of other people all day. But we don’t want there to be no one for whom we matter. We want somebody to be there.

People who are dying want that. They are embarked upon a fearsome journey, and it looks, at first glance, like a journey into oblivion. “I’m afraid to go see him—what do I say?” someone says about a friend who is terminally ill, and she stays away. But the dying one doesn’t expect pearls of wisdom from his visitors. Just your presence is enough—your brief presence, usually since people who are dying don’t feel well and need to rest. Tell him you love him, if you’re built that way. Or don’t—talk about baseball instead, if that’s what your friendship has been about. But you don’t need to talk much on his account. He knows who you are.

As death comes nearer, something extraordinary happens. The dying one becomes more resident in the next world than in this one. Less tied to the existence he has known. This can be seen in a certain detachment from the people around him, a quietness with regard to interacting with them. Sometimes the family is hurt by this—doesn’t he care that we’re being separated? But his detachment is a blessing for the dying, a natural anesthetic against the pain of separation. It enables him to focus on the difficult task at hand: leaving this existence for another. It is like the quieting in the womb mothers usually note as childbirth becomes imminent. Both the baby and the dying person are gathering strength for the journey.

In life, in death, it is the same: Whenever we appear to be completely alone, Jesus is there. We began life with God, and we return to God when we die. When we can no longer reach out for the hand of the one we love, he grasps our hands firmly and helps us across.

From Living Lent: Meditations for These Forty Days by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton. Copyright © 1998. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 12 • Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, 604

Summer is hard for me physically, and has brought about a long interruption in my explanations of the gospel. But because I’ve been silent my love has not ceased. I’m only saying what you all know within yourselves. Our expression of love is often hindered by other concerns; it remains undiminished in our hearts even though our actions do not show it. When the sun is covered with clouds we on earth can’t see it, but it is still there in the sky. It is the same with love: it produces energy within us even if it does not reveal itself outwardly in our activities. But it is time now for me to speak again. Your enthusiasm is stirring me as I see you eagerly awaiting my words.

From Be Friends of God: Spiritual Reading from Gregory the Great in an English version by John Leinenweber (Cowley Publications, 1990).

Daily Reading for March 13 • James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti, 1911

During the middle years of the 19th century, the position of African Americans in the United States remained unresolved. While white abolitionists battled the institution of slavery, black Americans were divided between the movement advocating a return to Africa and those who demanded freedom on the grounds that so much of this country’s development resulted from their own tears and toil. Though James Theodore Holly was born free in the north, it seemed to him that there should be a place where black people could control their own destinies. Since its revolution, Haiti had been an independent black republic, so Holly felt it would be an ideal place for him to work.

Ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church, Holly served briefly in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and then, after visiting Haiti, took a group of 100 people with him to establish a church there and a center for settlement by American blacks. He established churches, schools, and medical facilities, and in 1874 Holly was consecrated the first black bishop in the Episcopal Church and the second in any major white denomination. . . . By the time of his retirement, the church he had established had twice as many priests as when he was made bishop and twice as many church members. Abandoning its independence, the Haitian church ultimately became an Episcopal diocese, but the strong foundations Holly had laid served well and it continues to grow so that today it is one of the largest dioceses of the Episcopal Church.

From A Year With American Saints by G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for March 14

“Mortal, can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3)

Some setbacks in life are so profound that they feel like death. I called him as soon as I heard. He was in disgrace, incredibly so: stripped of his position, perhaps even of his orders. Everyone was talking about it. The misdeed that brought about his humiliation was a grave one, too grave to overlook. He was finished.

The day of our date arrived, and there was an unsurprising message on my answering machine. He wouldn’t be able to make it today. I called him back. Let’s wait a while, he said. Okay. I knew we would never have lunch. And we never did.

His life and career were dry bones. A gifted ministry dead, dry as dust. I hope there was some other friend, one whose overtures he could accept. But I think there may not have been. I think he may have chosen to be alone. I think the isolation of death may have been what he craved. Life was such a mess. Don’t bother me. I’m dead now.

But he is the same gifted man he was before his sin was revealed. Every good thing he ever did is still good, no matter what bad things he may also have done. This is true of every one of us. None of us can be understood solely in terms of the worst things we’ve ever done. Death may end our lives, but it doesn’t cancel them.

And he yet may rise again. He isn’t really dead yet. In the rubble of his repentance may lie his resurrection, waiting to reveal itself.

From Let Us Bless the Lord, Year One: Meditations on the Daily Office, Easter through Pentecost by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton. Copyright © 2005. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 15

“They came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.” (John 12:9-11)

In the midst of joy and miracle, resurrection and love, we have Lazarus fresh from the dead and under the death threat of the chief priests! This part stops me—“What? This man has just been resurrected and now you want to kill him because people’s beliefs are changed?” For me, this is where the story becomes real. I know people are resurrected, and what a glorious experience that is; yet, I know that the world does not take kindly to resurrection, to fundamental changes in who a person is and can be.

Think of experiences where change threatens us: watch churches separate rather than accept new modes of being; watch society as we struggle to redefine families in the wake of divorce, single parenting, and same-sex unions; watch our nation as we try to understand what it is to be an American in the midst of a global village. Change, coping with resurrection, is scary, hard, and assaults the core beliefs about the way things are or should be.

As Christians, we are called to be a part of resurrection and accepting of the change that it brings—to move beyond our comfort level to see new possibilities. My resurrection experience of being made whole may threaten people just as Lazarus stumbling out of the tomb did. Yet it also may lead me into a new relationship, a new way of imagining the world. So, when fear and discomfort become apparent, I need to remind myself to look for resurrection and ways to welcome this miracle into my life.

From Aimee Estep’s essay in Gifts from Within: Women’s Meditations for Lent by the Women of Brigid’s Place. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 16 • The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

The cross is the exhibition of Life being precisely that; more—as knowing itself to be precisely that, as experiencing itself as being precisely that. We are relieved—may one say?—from the burden of being naturally optimistic. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together.” If we are to rejoice always then it must be a joy consonant with that; we need not—infinite relief!—force ourselves to deny the mere burden of breathing. Life (experience suggests) is a good thing, and somehow unendurable; at least the Christian faith has denied neither side of the paradox. Life found itself unendurable. Life itself consents to shrink from its own terrors; it concedes to us its utterance of our own prayer: “O not this! If it be possible, not this!” I am not for a moment equating our sorrows with that; the point is that the sorrow is centrally there. Life itself is acquainted with grief.

And not grief alone. Crucifixion was an obscene thing. It was revolting not merely because of the torture and the degredation, but also because of the disgust; or rather it is revolting to us—I do not know that it was revolting to those who saw it. They were as accustomed to it as our fathers were to burning and castration or we to many years’ imprisonment or to the gallows. It was, however, definitely more spectacularly obscene than the gallows; we can hardly, in the nature of things, realize it so, and even our best efforts tend to make it a little respectable. But then again life, as we know it, is obscene; or, to be accurate, it has in it a strong element of obscenity. Again and again we become aware of a sense of outrage in our physical natures. Sometimes this is aroused by the events of which we read in the papers, but as often by the events which happen to us. The family, for example, is a sacred and noble thing, but the things that happen in the family are the result of blood antagonistic to itself. “Love,” it is said, “is very near to hate.” Without discussing the general truth of that, it may be allowed that were it is so, the hate is often of a particularly virulent and vehement kind.

I take these two qualities—the sorrow and the obscenity—as examples of that dreadful contradiction in our experience of life which is flatly exhibited in the living of life by Life.

From “The Cross” by Charles Williams, in Charles Williams: Essential Writings in Spirituality and Theology, edited by Charles Hefling (Cowley Publications, 1993).

Daily Reading for March 17 • Monday in Holy Week

The story of the woman anointing the head of Jesus with precious ointment is yet another story of conflict. The woman is immediately despised for her action. The indignant critics condemn her for senseless waste: that stuff of hers should have been donated for the relief of the poor instead of being emptied over Jesus’ head. The voices are pragmatic, moralistic, high-toned. Jesus, with the oil trickling down all over him, springs to her defense. “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mark 14:6, RSV).

The critics see only a frivolous and meaningless gesture. Jesus experiences it as rich with meaning, gracious, grave, and truthful. She is saluting him magnificently as the one getting ready to die for all. . . .

This woman breaking open her costly flask appears again and again in stories of faith. She has inspired artists in their creation of works that glorify God in wood, stone, paint, gesture, movement, melody, and thread, while the pious sneered that these things were unnecessary, wasteful, impractical, and unspiritual. She has inspired men and women following the Spirit’s call to monastic life, to make adoration their reason for being, when their friends and family complained that they were wasting their lives. She has smiled upon thousands who tend the flame of prayer and love of Jesus in the midst of busy lives, when those around them view their devotion as wasted effort diverting them from achievement and doing good. Her memory has been present like a fragrance in thousands of bold responses to Jesus in the face of condescension and disapproval.

From Martin Smith’s A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent. © 1991, 2004. A Seabury Classic published by Church Publishing, Inc. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for March 18 • Tuesday in Holy Week

Reflect, my son, Do you walk too quickly for God?
Hear that song which the Lord sings with your life. Recall that:
There is one time for the lattices of heaven to give dew,
And another for the sun to fire the sands.
There is one time for children to play with coloured toys,
And another when they rest upon their pallets.
There is a time when life blooms and youth is all,
And another when white hairs close life’s door.

Reflect again my son, Do you climb too high for God?
Recall that a solitary:
Seeks not the voice of God, but hears it in cracking ice, blowing reeds and brethren’s laughter.
Seeks not the gifts of God, but finds them in new bread,
the darkness of dawn and brethren’s love.
Seeks not the vision of God, but spies His Print on bee’s wing,
fishes’ fin and brother’s heart.

Reflect again my son. Do you ask too much of God?
Know that:
When His prize is downfalling, you may find a rising.
When His favour is silence, you may catch a melody.
When His blessing is suffering, you may sense deep peace.

So:
The heart of darkness is new light.
The heart of despair is fresh hope.
The heart of death is eternal life.

Only those who have nothing
can accept everything.

“Having Nothing” by Abbot Nicholas and John the Dwarf, in the Abbot and the Dwarf by Derek Webster (St. Paul’s Publications, 1992). Quoted in The Desert: An Anthology for Lent by John Moses. © 1997. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 19 • Wednesday in Holy Week

Sin, sorrow, and suffering, and death itself, were indeed taken away at the Cross, but we mortals must enter into the depths of this mystery in actual experience. The fact that the Savior bore all this for us does not mean that we bear nothing of it; rather, it means that we are invited in to that place (the Cross) where suffering is transfigured. We (the Church) are his Body, says St. Paul. As such, we share in his suffering for the life of the world.

Jesus tells his followers that they will drink the cup of which he drank and be baptized with the baptism with which he was to be baptized (he was speaking specifically of his imminent suffering in Jerusalem). Where, suddenly, is the theology that teaches that because the Savior did it all, we thereby are reduced to the status of inert bystanders? Whether the sorrow of the moment is a lost glove or a lost spouse or a bombed city, I am invited by the Divine Mercy to unite this terrible loss (for the child, the loss of the glove may threaten the end of the world) with the suffering of the Savior at Calvary and thus to discover that my suffering is his suffering, and that—paradox of paradoxes—his is ours (again—we are his Body).

From “The Crucifix” by Thomas Howard, quoted in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Plough Publishing House, 2003).

Daily Reading for March 20 • Maundy Thursday

“Take, eat, this is my body,” Jesus said. Then he took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Have we done it so often that we have forgotten how to be shocked by it? Of course it is not real blood in the cup. It is probably Taylor’s Tawny Port, but clearly, this is a blood covenant we are being asked to enter into, with staggering implications. . . .

The death cannot be overlooked, nor should it be, but it is the life that is being offered, the life that rushes out of that cup like a spring of living water. It is God’s promise from before time and forever, spelled out this time in flesh and blood. It is the new covenant and the last one—new because it is offered to us fresh each day and last because there is nothing more that God can say or do. This is as close as God can get: blood kin, indissoluble union, friend bound to friend for life, forever. When we lift the cup to our lips and drink, we accept the gift, renewing the covenant and reminding ourselves that we do not live for ourselves alone. We are possessors of a double life, having taken our friend’s life and nature into ourselves. Inside of us God rides in our bloodstreams straight to our hearts where the covenant is written: I shall be your God and you shall be my people.

From “Blood Covenant” in Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor (Cowley Publications, 1995).

Daily Reading for March 21 • Good Friday

In Jesus’ time, crucifixion was not against the law. It was carried out by the law. It was an exceptionally gruesome method of torturing a person to death, carried out by the government not in secret dungeons but in public. Everyone knew what it looked like, smelled like, sounded like—the horrific sight of completely naked men in agony, the smell and sight of their bodily functions taking place in full view of all, the sounds of their groans and labored breathing going on for hours and, in some cases, for days. Perhaps worst of all is the fact that no one cared. All of this took place in public, and no one cared. That is why, from the early Christian era, a verse from the book of Lamentations was attached to the Good Friday scene: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” (1:12). . . .

The crosses were placed by the roadside as a form of public announcement: these miserable beings that you see before you are not of the same species as the rest of us. The purpose of pinning the victims up like insects was to invite the gratuitous abuse of the passersby. Those crowds understood that their role was to increase, by jeering and mocking, the degredation of those who had been thus designated unfit to live. The theological meaning of this is that crucifixion is an enactment of the worst that we are, an embodiment of the most sadistic and inhuman impulses that lie within us. The Son of God absorbed all that, drew it into himself. All the cruelty of the human race came to focus in him.

In his first word from the Cross, Jesus does not pray for the good and the innocent. He prays for people doing terrible things. He prays for men who are committing sadistic acts, offering them to his Father’s mercy. It is for his enemies that he prays, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

There is a suggestion here that human beings are in the grip of something they do not fully comprehend. The evil that lodges in the human heart is greater than we know. This means at least two things. It means that there is nothing that you or I could ever do, or say, or be, that would put us beyond the reach of Jesus’ prayers. Nothing at all. And it also means that no one else, no one at all, is beyond that reach. His prayer for the worst of the worst comes from a place beyond human understanding. From that sphere of divine power we hear these words today as though they were spoken for the first time, as though they were being spoken at this very moment by the living Spirit, spoken of each one of us: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

From The Seven Last Words from the Cross by Fleming Rutledge (Eerdmans, 2005).

Daily Reading for March 22 • Holy Saturday

Clearly for these Greek-speaking Christians [Clement of Alexandria and Athanasius] our human reconciliation with God was effected by the entire dynamic of the Christ-coming. The salvific emphasis was placed upon the incarnation as much as upon the crucifixion. And the sense of redemption was universal and creation-centered rather than individual and focused solely upon humankind. This is a precious insight to take forward with us into the twenty-first century as we grow increasingly aware of the symbiotic and endangered relationship between our own species and all the species in the ecosystems of the earth. God is not simply above the earth, raising us up from our God-lessness by bypassing the created order. Rather, God in Christ breaks the chains that enslave us and our earth-home, and radically frees creation to realize its own intrinsic God-likeness. . . .

This descent to the dead, while not deeply explored in any other quarter of Christendom than Eastern Orthodoxy, is wonderfully rich in its implications. The descent to the dead as it is elucidated in that tradition speaks symbolically to the length and breadth of divine compassion, to the extent of the redemptive promise and to the utter intimacy of a God whose love penetrates to the furthest reaches of creation’s fallen depths. There is no place God is not.

From The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright (Upper Room Books, 1994).

Daily Reading for March 23 • The Feast of the Resurrection: Easter Day

The last certainty is the certainty of death. It is the one thing of which we can be sure. We may try to forget it, but it will not forget us. Nor can we ever really forget it until we have faced it and come to a decision about it. In the midst of life we are in death, unless we know that in the midst of death we are in life.

Faith in eternal life is and must be the logical conclusion—using logic in its fullest human sense—of the instinct of self-preservation. As we grow, so grows that divine discontent that severs us completely from the rest of the animal creation and bids us reach out to fuller and fuller life. We can find endless reasons to justify the instinctive craving, but it is the instinct that sets us reasoning, and unless the world is a fraud, that instinct points to something real by which it can be satisfied.

Unless then life mocks us and has no meaning, the instinct for self-preservation must have its perfect work and must lead to truth, not falsehood. The Christian hypothesis is that life is as good as God revealed in Christ and that behind the Cross there is ever and always the resurrection. And it is only by taking that hypothesis and living life as though it were true, flinging ourselves upon it recklessly in the faith that God keeps the good wine until the last, that we can come to that triumphant certainty which destroys death and makes us sure that in the midst of death we are in life everlasting.

From The Wicket Gate by G. A. Studdert-Kennedy, quoted in A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings for Lent and Easter Week by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 24 • Monday in Easter Week

Of all the mysteries our faith invites us to contemplate, the Resurrection is by far the most astonishing. Not simply in the sense of being difficult to believe in a logical fashion. That, in a way, is the very point of it. The very idea of resurrection shatters all the categories of comprehension with which we make sense of our world. It draws us instead into a reality that transcends present possibility. For myself, the wonder of the Resurrection is not so much discovered in my shoulder-shrugging acknowledgement of the power of God to effect the impossible. It is discovered instead in our own capability, pried open by the sight of the empty tomb, to live into our most poignant longings, to dream our farthest dreams, and to hope with the full expansion of our hearts. We are met, at the far limits of our resources, with limitlessness. We are met at the gates of death with a freshness and fullness of life barely grasped by the wildest stretches of our imaginings.

From The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright (Upper Room Books, 1994).

Daily Reading for March 25 • Tuesday in Easter Week

For Paul the Resurrection was no metaphor; it was the power of God. And when he spoke of Jesus as raised from the dead, he meant Jesus alive and at large in the world not as some shimmering ideal of human goodness or the achieving power of hopeful thought but as the very power of life itself. If the life that was in Jesus died on the cross; if the love that was in him came to an end when his heart stopped beating; if the truth that he spoke was no more if no less timeless than the great truths of any time; if all that he had in him to give to the world was a little glimmer of light to make bearable the inexorable approach of endless night—then all was despair. . . .

The earliest reference to the Resurrection is Saint Paul’s, and he makes no mention of an empty tomb at all. But the fact of the matter is that in a way it hardly matters how the body of Jesus came to be missing because in the last analysis what convinced the people that he had risen from the dead was not the absence of his corpse but his living presence. And so it has been ever since.

From The Faces of Jesus by Frederick Buechner, quoted in Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner, compiled by George Conner (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992).

Daily Reading for March 26 • Wednesday in Easter Week

Easter is not merely an event of long ago. It is not only the celebration of divine desire to be at one with humankind. It is not only the renewal of the cosmos. Nor is it simply our kindled hope for what is promised us. Easter is also realized when we are most fully alive and aware of all that is. A former bishop of Romania has been quoted as saying, “If we only knew the truth of it we would know that each day is Easter.”

From The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost by Wendy M. Wright (Upper Room Books, 1994).

Daily Reading for March 27 • Thursday in Easter Week

The Bible tells us one thing—only one—about the dead who have passed out of our sight. They are with God. How simple that is! How sufficient it becomes! How cheap and tawdry as we dwell on it, it makes the guesses and conceits with which people try to make real to themselves what the dead are doing! They are with God. Their occupations are ineffable. No tongue can tell their new, untasted joy. The scenery in the midst of which they live speaks to the spirit with voices which no words born of the senses can describe. But the companionship and care—those are the precious, those are the intelligible things. The dead are with God. O you who miss even today the sound of the familiar voices, the sight of the dear, familiar faces, believe and be more than satisfied with that.

From a sermon on the resurrection by Phillips Brooks, quoted in A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings for Lent and Easter Week by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 28 • Friday in Easter Week

Holy Week is the world’s sacred Winter;
The earth is a widow, the skies are sere,
There’s a sound of scourging and nailing in the vinegary wind;
And the darkness chokes the Son of Man.

But spring, two springs, are coming to the world
From the depths on the third morning:
The lily, the primrose and the daffodil
Will follow the Saviour from the Egypt of soil.

The rejoicing is green and white, the praise is yellow
Because the new Adam has risen alive from the grave;
And the ivy, tying itself round the tree like the old serpent,
Is for us eternal life with God.

Gwenallt, Gwreiddiau, 1959 translated by Patrick Thomas, quoted in A Celtic Primer: The Complete Celtic Worship Resource and Collection, edited and compiled by Brendan O’Malley. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 29 • Saturday in Easter Week

No season of the Christian year speaks to the soul as does the Easter Tide. It is the beautiful season of the year, when the winter is ended and all things bud forth; the graves and sleeping-places of the dust are broken up and the beauty of the floral kingdom comes back to us in the fresh glory of living green and painted leaves and with the perfume of the incense-breathing gardens of spring. Now best may the gospel of immortality be preached, when ten thousand times ten thousand witnesses confirm the word; when bud and leaf and flower, when every little branch that swells with new life of the spring, and every brook that frees itself of ice and resumes the song of the past, and every gentle bird and beast, and tiny creatures of the dust, and all that have life and health, seem to rejoice in the morning of their returning day; now comes to us the gospel of immortality, attested by a great cloud of witnesses in earth, sea, and sky, and vouched for by the deeper tones of years that are past; by the testimony of all ages since Christ was here; by the voice of those who have lived and died believing that, to God, there are no dead, that “for to him all are alive.” This is the thing which has been most surely believed among us; the event from which all else is reckoned backwards and forwards; the stay of those on their journey, the inspiration of genius, the melody of music, the strength of manners and morals, the support and consolation of the mourning heart. From the natural and the moral world, the world of history and art, the worlds of mind, of matter, and of religion, come voices announcing that Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that sleep.

From the sermon “The Morning of Eternity” by Morgan Dix, , quoted in A Time to Turn: Anglican Readings for Lent and Easter Week by Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2004. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 30 • The Second Sunday of Easter

Wendell Berry, the great environmentalist poet-theologian, has written a piece about somebody he calls a “mad farmer” who goes around shouting, “Practice resurrection!” “Practice resurrection.” That’s not bad advice. It’s certainly what Thomas does—and maybe, just maybe, the other disciples are rehearsing the story and replaying the experience, too. Most of us don’t “get it” the very first time. Most of us spend our lives learning what the reality of resurrection looks like, feels like, sounds like, and tastes like—because it keeps on happening in new ways every day of our lives. . . .

Practicing resurrection means living in openness. It’s a vulnerable attitude. Jesus invites Thomas to examine his wounds—come and see the ugliest thing you can imagine. God has made it a source of beauty and healing. It means that our fears, our inadequacies, the wretched parts of ourselves, can be the vehicle for new and more abundant life—if we’re willing to confront them honestly and openly. . . . But it’s not just our wrongdoing—the weak and untried parts of ourselves can be the stuff of new life, too. That’s what exercise is all about—stressing, trying the weak parts of our bodies so that they become stronger. Our psyches and souls can find new strength too if we’re willing to journey within and confront some of that darkness or fear or mystery. . . .

Practice resurrection. Live in open expectation of the new thing God is doing at all times and in all places. It means opening ourselves to that new thing, recognizing that the change it brings will cause some distress. But there is always more abundant life on the other side of the pain and grief that comes with change and growth. Like Thomas, all of us get opportunities to learn something that we can’t believe without firsthand experience. True joy and abundant life come out of those experiences of resurrection.

From “Practicing Resurrection” by Katharine Jefferts Schori, in A Wing and a Prayer: A Message of Faith and Hope by Katharine Jefferts Schori. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for March 31 • St. Joseph (transferred)

We know that Joseph was concerned about his future with Mary because they were not yet married when she conceived. We know that he considered divorcing her, as the Jewish law allowed. So Jesus’ life began in a difficult and even dangerous situation in that small town in Israel.

This difficulty provides us with what is perhaps the most important ethical lesson we can learn from the Nativity of Our Lord. Not only in his teaching but even in his birth, Jesus showed us that the way of life is a difficult way, and may even collide with the rules of polite society. We can never say that we have fulfilled righteousness because we have followed the rules; Jesus went beyond the rules to the mercy that often lies on the other side of them.

We might object to this idea, saying that the case of the Holy Family was a special case, a case involving a miracle, not like our cases. And so it was. But the purpose of miracles in God’s plan is always to show us something about the way God works in the world, to show us the fullness of what God intends for us. None of us is the Blessed Mother or St. Joseph. But by showing us these people in the context of their world, a difficult one as ours is, the Scriptures challenge us to live up to the miracles we see in their pages.

From A Year of Days with the Book of Common Prayer by Bishop Edmond Lee Browning (Ballantine Publishing Group, 1997).