In his sermon last week, Fr. Schultz said this: If there is any real magic in this world (and I think there is) It is love. If there’s anything worth knowing in this world (and I think there is): It’s only worth knowing in and through love, in and through the wisdom of God, Jesus […]
Sermon Topic: Lord's Prayer
Showing Mercy, Abroad and at Home
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. Our gospel reading today, from Luke, is the story about Martha and Mary, two sisters who welcome Jesus into their home. But before we look at them, I’d like to remind us of our gospel reading from last week, which directly precedes […]
Allowing the Lord's Prayer to Shape Our Lives
“Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples”. Jesus gave his disciples the words of a prayer that many have said is the pattern of all prayer. In order to understand this prayer, we need to first understand the context of where it comes in the narrative of Matthew or Luke. What precedes […]
Vanity of Vanities!
“Mortal pride and earthly glory, sword and crown betray our trust; though with care and toil we build them, tower and temple fall to dust. But God’s power, hour by hour, is my temple and my tower.” (Robert Bridges; 1844-1930) My wife and I are very blessed in that we have had some wonderful vacations […]
Glory
This evening’s gospel comes at a time that is just days away from Jesus’ own death, at a moment when Jesus’ enemies are circling in and soon to grab him and take him off. Some non-Jews, “Greeks,” have come up to the disciples and asked, in a positive way, to see Jesus. All this has […]
Hallowed be thy Name
I was first taught the Lord’s Prayer sometime in September 1973 when I began first grade at St. Bernard’s School up on Ninety-eighth Street. It would not be an outrageous overstatement for me to claim that I have said that prayer almost every day during the intervening thirty nine years. I wear it as part […]
And Forgive Us Our Trespasses...
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Over the forty years of my life as a priest, the issues raised by this sentence in the Lord’s Prayer have been among those matters most regularly […]
But Deliver Us from Evil
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. “Deliver us from evil” is the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer before the Doxology, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” Sometimes, as in Choral Evensong, the Lord’s Prayer […]
For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory...
Are “the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” three things or one thing? The traditional wording suggests that they are one thing: we say, “For thine is . . .”—using the singular verb “is” to cover kingdom and power and glory. But in a contemporary version, you will hear: “the kingdom, the power, and […]
Thy Kingdom Come
It was a month or so ago that this course began with a fine foundation-sermon by my colleague Father Victor Austin explaining prayer itself. It was clear, brief to the point of sparseness. I was helped as I listened. And I remembered the simplicity of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who in a three-part […]
