“Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?” These beautiful lines capture the scene presented in today’s Gospel. Christ asks these questions to Saint Mary Magdalene, whose feast day we…
In his strange and extraordinary novel, Descent into Hell, Charles Williams tells the story of a young woman named Pauline who has a series of encounters with what seems to…
The meaning of the lessons appointed for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity is in some sense clear. In the Epistle lesson we have heard a continuation of last Sunday’s lesson…
The Old Testament love poem, the Song of Solomon, describes the relationship of Jesus and the Church as that of a Bridegroom and Bride – lovers. In the poem, Christ…
I have mentioned before that my first parish included Onion Lake First Nation, a large Cree community that straddles the Saskatchewan-Alberta border. The congregation was small even though the population…
In a small Jewish school in New York City featured in a documentary made some years ago, children are introduced to the Hebrew alphabet at a very young age. The…
“To be childlike…”, wrote the great German romantic poet Novalis, “To be childlike: that is best of all.” Novalis wrote these words shortly before his death of tuberculosis in 1801,…
Our observance today, Trinity Sunday, is the conclusion of our week-long celebration of Pentecost. This is (as the Prayer Book reminds us) the octave day of Pentecost. Last Sunday we…
In or about the year 412, the North African Bishop, St Augustine, received a letter from a widow concerned about the words of St Paul from the second lesson this…
I suggested a few weeks ago that to pray is to be made poor. I did not mean by this, of course, that it is to be made materially poor,…