Bishop Jake's Lenten Message

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,                

Lent is rapidly approaching. Ash Wednesday falls on February 13. Just one week away. Many of you have already made plans for the Lenten journey. Some will add a Bible study. A few will take advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Giving alms and doing works of mercy will be a part of your Lenten devotion.

The early Christians prepared for Baptism at the Easter Vigil during Lent. In keeping with this ancient practice, I invite you to reflect on the Baptismal Vows that you have made and that you renew each time we baptize someone. Turn to page 292 in The Book of Common Prayer and spend time at some point during Lent contemplating the Covenant that guides your walk with Christ.

The Baptismal Covenant begins with the Apostles' Creed. Reflect on your relationship with God. Is it personal? Or does God seem like an idea or a philosophical principle? How does the Creed help to map out your experience of God? Where does it confuse you or confound you?

After the Creed, we make a series of commitments about how we will live our lives:

* Following Jesus is a group project, not a solo performance. We will participate fully in the devotional life of a Jesus-following community.  

* We never promise to be perfect. But we do say that we'll fight the good fight against evil and let our failures become the occasion for growing and stretching. In other words, we aspire to the spiritual courage to admit our failings and to accept the gracious do-overs that God gives us.

* Proclaiming the Gospel is what followers of Jesus do. Words are important, but they only really work as clarifications for what we are actually doing. We are committed to doing the Gospel.

* And speaking of doing the Gospel, we understand ourselves as servants. We serve Christ, and the way we serve him is to serve each other.

* Finally, following Jesus means that we are weavers. We weave relationships of respect and nurture and love between people. We don't promise to feel deep affection for everyone we meet. Instead, we strive to remember that Jesus loves them enough to die for them and to do our best to act like it.

Schedule some time this Lent to reflect on how God is helping you to fulfill these promises. Ask yourself how you might cooperate even more fully with the gracious work that Christ has already begun in you.

Several congregations and groups have invited me to speak at their Lenten series, and I will be at St. James, Alexandria, on Ash Wednesday. Whether I am present with you in body or absent in body but with you in spiritual devotion, I look forward to spending this holy season with my Western Louisiana family.

Blessings for a holy Lent.

In Christ's Love,

    

The Rt. Rev. Jacob W. Owensby, PhD, DD

The Diocese of Western Louisiana

Presiding Bishop's Lenten Message

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2013. Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori presents a challenge in her Lent Message 2013 to pray, fast, study and give alms.

 “As you engage this Lent, I would encourage you to pray, to fast, to act in solidarity with those who go without,” she offers. “Learn more, give alms, share what you have.”

 The Presiding Bishop’s video message, filmed at a park in New York City.

This Week

Canterbury@ULM meets                                 

Tuesday

5 - 6 p.m.

Student Center 163

Tomorrow we begin our discussion of the Episcopal Church and what it stands for. For those who wish to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church, this prepares you.

For those who don't want to become Episcopalians or those who don't know, that's fine too. You'll know more about us and we'll have plenty of opportunity to discuss the politics of religion, the role of the Bible and other interesting topics along the way.

Food provided. See you there!!

Isn't this Joseph's son?

Thought you might be interested in the sermon I preached today at St. Andrew's in Mer Rouge and Church of the Redeemer in Oak Ridge, La.

View from "The Precipice" in Nazareth

Today’s Gospel story (Luke 4:21-20) sounds to me like nothing so much as overheard gossip at a family reunion.. perhaps especially a family reunion here in the deep south, where family pedigree matters so much!

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” the great aunts and uncles cluck. “I mean, the son of the carpenter? Who’d ever have thought he’d turn out like this!”

This lesson is a continuation of last Sunday’s lesson, so we know the context. Jesus has returned home to Nazareth from being baptized by John in the Jordan River and spending 40 days in the wilderness in a meet up with both the devil and God.

In Nazareth, he goes to the synagogue in keeping with custom, stands up to read from the prophet Isaiah—a passage we today categorize as one of “the servant passages”—then proceeds to claim for himself the identity of The Servant as laid out in Isaiah.

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” he says. And the hometown community beams with pride. Everyone is amazed that the carpenter’s son speaks so well.

 

But… how quickly the clucks of surprised approval from the small-town “family” turn into murderous rage! What in the world does Jesus say in those few intervening verses that his own people go from adoring family to angry mob?

  

More

 

 

You Are What You Are Seeking

 You Are What You Are Seeking

Fr. Richard Rohr teaches that all of the major world religions have things in common. He calls these commonalities "the Wisdom Tradition." The Christian belief in Incarnation--the belief that God took on human form--is part of this tradition. He says the Wisdom Tradition...

includes a recurring theme in all of the world’s religions and philosophies. They continue to say, each in their own way:

• There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things.
• There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Divine Reality.
• The final goal of all existence is union with this Divine Reality.

Adapted from a document distributed at a conference in Assisi, Italy, May 2012.

Published online, 21 January 2013.

Freedom for Love

Freedom for Love   

Mystical moments may be described as a kind of emancipation. If it isn’t an experience of new found freedom, I don’t think it is an authentic God experience. God is always bigger than you imagined or expected or even hoped for. When you see people going to church and becoming smaller instead of larger, you have every reason to question whether the practices or sermons or sacraments or liturgies are opening them to an authentic God experience.

On a practical level such experiences will feel like a new freedom to love, and you wonder where it comes from. Why do I have this new desire, this new capacity to love new people, to love the old people better, maybe to enter into some kind of new love for the world? I will find that even my thoughts are more immediately loving, patient, and compassionate.

Clearly, you are participating in a Love that’s being given to you. You are not creating this. You are not generating this. It is being generated through you and in you and for you. You are participating in something larger than yourself, and you are just allowing it and trusting it for the pure gift that it is.

Adapted from Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate
. . . Seeing God in All Things, by Fr. Richard Rohr

Note: I am a big fan of Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk and Roman Catholic priest, and I've been promising for some time to share some of his ideas with Garrett. I decided the best way to do it is to publish some of Fr. Rohr's daily meditations on our blog for everyone. We might even want to discuss them at our meetings!

This Week: Rain

But I'm not talking about the weather. At least not our weather here in Monroe!     

At tomorrow's Canterbury@ULM meeting, we'll screen "Rain" by Rob Bell, and consider the question, Where was God in that?

Tuesday, 5 p.m.

Student Center 163

Don't forget that we changed our meeting to 5 p.m.!

Look for our ad in this week's Hawkeye. Bring a friend. Canterbury@ULM is open to all. 

See you there.