In what feels like many lifetimes ago, at the age of eighteen, I started my novitiate as a Benedictine Monk in the most enchanted of places: a red-bricked fifteenth century monastery, adorned with frescoes by Sodoma and Signorelli, surrounded by the “crete senesi”, a striking Tuscan landscape south of Siena, marked by rolling clay hills, […]
Sermon Topic: God's Love
Keep the Feast
“In war and in peace, in chaos and in calm, St. Thomas Church has borne witness to the centrality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with its demanding, thrilling, puzzling, powerful, frustrating, elevating message that in this world of tribulation, we should be of good cheer, for Our Lord has overcome the world. And this […]
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter 2024
Redeemed from Fire by Fire
In a remarkable section of the abundantly remarkable Four Quartets of T.S. Eliot, there is this: “The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre- To be redeemed from fire by fire.” We don’t have the choice not to burn with something. Something will enflame us, motivate us, empower us, […]
God's Love Our Glory
Happy New Year, everyone! How’re those New Year’s Resolutions coming along? Personally, I’ve yet to meet a Resolution I couldn’t eventually excuse myself from pursuing. Do I want to eat more healthily? Sure. But oatmeal raisin cookies haven’t stopped being completely delicious last time I checked. So. You know. Do I want to learn a […]
Jesus Wept
At the beginning of her recent book, ‘Late Migrations – A natural history of love and loss,’ Margaret Renkl reflects on the death of her maternal grandmother and how her grandfather passed away just a month later. She uses this most beautiful phrase, “the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only […]
Can I learn to sing Mary’s song?
Mary is known as the Mother of God – or ‘God-bearer’; the Greek word Theotokos. 1. A title given to her by the Council of Ephesus in 431, but a title that only makes sense in relation to her Son who is fully God and fully human. Everything we say about Mary points to Jesus […]
Self Discovery
Turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God but of men.” St. Mark 8:31-38 In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. Last Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, the Gospel contained […]
The Cost of God's Love
In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, welcome. Today following this liturgy we have no coffee hour, neither do the clergy do our normal greetings at the door. We are not being unfriendly; rather, of all Sundays in the year today is the Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – as we heard, his trial, […]
The Shape of Love
“For God so loved the world…” Without question that has to be the best-known Bible verse in the world. John 3:16 – you see it on billboards, in stadiums, in tracts and on bags. You hear things like, God is love or God loves you. People say this love is what Christianity is all about. […]
