Sister Joan Chittister famously said, "We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again." Reflecting on that journey -- a blog at a time -- is the focus of this site.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Happy Summer ...
... Happy Father's Day!
[Here's a little "slice of what summer looks like" in my neck of the woods:]
How peaceful; how calm. No wonder you stay so cool and in control of yourself -- your slice of summer just oozes tranquility. Thanks for sharing, but, like Mark, I'm a little jealous. BJ Landen
This last Sunday we had an "Instructed Eucharist" at my parish. What we did was to add a narrator, who at various points stopped and explained what we had just done (or were just going to do) and why. He explained things like what the Collect was, what the Eucharist is, why those terms are used, what their origins in Christian (or Jewish) worship were, etc.
The pastor cooperated by making his sermon a whole 3 minutes long while still making his point - which I commented to him later would be an excellent exercise for seminarians to see if they could communicate the essential lesson out of the day's Scripture lessons in such a brief fashion. It reminded me of a letter that Mark Twain sent a friend of his. It was lengthy. At the end he said "I'm sorry to have written you such a long letter. I did not have time to write a short one."
At any rate, we've got a few new people in the parish and I thought it was a good idea. Most of our new people are disaffected Catholics, but from what I hear of your parish you may well be getting in a bunch of people whose liturgical experience might be ever farther away from Episcopal practice. Have you ever done anything like this?
I've seen Instructed Eucharists done really well ... it's not part of our practice here at All Saints on Sundays but I'm thinking there are texts out there that might be helpful. Friends?????
6 comments:
OK, so now I am really jealous. How do I get invited for a visit?
Mark ... Reservation Operators are Standing By ... :)
That is a beautiful slice of summer!! Our slice of summer was 108 degrees today!!
How peaceful; how calm. No wonder you stay so cool and in control of yourself -- your slice of summer just oozes tranquility. Thanks for sharing, but, like Mark, I'm a little jealous.
BJ Landen
Off topic question:
This last Sunday we had an "Instructed Eucharist" at my parish. What we did was to add a narrator, who at various points stopped and explained what we had just done (or were just going to do) and why. He explained things like what the Collect was, what the Eucharist is, why those terms are used, what their origins in Christian (or Jewish) worship were, etc.
The pastor cooperated by making his sermon a whole 3 minutes long while still making his point - which I commented to him later would be an excellent exercise for seminarians to see if they could communicate the essential lesson out of the day's Scripture lessons in such a brief fashion. It reminded me of a letter that Mark Twain sent a friend of his. It was lengthy. At the end he said "I'm sorry to have written you such a long letter. I did not have time to write a short one."
At any rate, we've got a few new people in the parish and I thought it was a good idea. Most of our new people are disaffected Catholics, but from what I hear of your parish you may well be getting in a bunch of people whose liturgical experience might be ever farther away from Episcopal practice. Have you ever done anything like this?
I've seen Instructed Eucharists done really well ... it's not part of our practice here at All Saints on Sundays but I'm thinking there are texts out there that might be helpful. Friends?????
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