Category Archives: Lent

If Ye Love Me

So many ways to wash feet: the posture, not the precise nature of the action, matters – poised at ground level, familiar with the dust and grime of the day’s streets, outer garments shed to throw off all show, the creak in the knees accompanying the splash and the mess of the self washing offContinue reading “If Ye Love Me”

Good Friday

Lent ends with a mirror: I am the mocker, the spitter, the thief. Like a child resenting their small role in the pageant, I greet grace with a petulant, What about me? This is me. My role is the soldier with the reed and the crown, the voice crying, Crucify! and, Messiah, come down. I’mContinue reading “Good Friday”

Maundy Thursday

Like Peter, I am thrown. The new commandment is old – older than water – but never does it feel old when it knocks where the heart’s most calloused, with desert-worn feet, soles encased in grime and travail. Water washes, but the command penetrates. And the action – the knees bent, the teacher’s degradation –Continue reading “Maundy Thursday”

Palm Sunday

I have been there in the festal throng, the waving of palms, the shouting of Psalms: Hosanna – the highest – hosanna. And I have felt the surge of pride to see my king, as prophesied, come in, triumphantly, astride his Zechariah-steed, and I confess that I have hoped to find what, in the end,Continue reading “Palm Sunday”

Kyrie in the Desert

Father, What have I done with the food you gave me? The bread of life grows mould where I left it. The leaven of self sickens and spoils. Puffed up by bread alone, no Word, I am fat and famished. In the desert of abundance, Lord have mercy. Brother, All the kingdoms of the worldContinue reading “Kyrie in the Desert”

The Consolations of Lent

Comfort sits, unexpected, in our waiting with weakness. No giant leaps needed, only the baby steps of the heart slowly learning contrition. Begin with incapacity, then the slow-dawning knowledge that you are nothing but dust. Dust transfigures at His breath. Exhale in the sigh of your Lenten frailty. Then inhale, inspire. O brother in ourContinue reading “The Consolations of Lent”

L is for learning, L is for Lent

This year I do not so much give up my temptations as face the temptation to give up. Perhaps it was so for the forty desert days when stone may have seemed a fair alternative to bread. Yet stones, when given the chance, can become a chorus of praise. So this year I teach stone:Continue reading “L is for learning, L is for Lent”