12/8/25

Heading west!


    Photo: KimCollective

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
On Tuesday, December 9, I'll be heading to Georgetown, Colorado to spend Christmas and New Year's with my sister and bro-in-law!  I'll be returning to the east coast on Friday, January 2.  I won't be posting over the next two days - see you again on Thursday morning!

 

  

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NIGHT PRAYER: Monday 12/8


Today we celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, Ann.  In my homily today I spoke about Mary's purity and invited people to pray that each us might be even just a little more pure tomorrow than we were today.  I invite you to make the same prayer...
 

Lord, help me be pure,

   at least a little more pure tomorrow 

      than I was today...

 

Lord, help me be: 

more pure in my thoughts
more pure in my deeds,
more pure in my speech,
more pure in my motives,
more pure in my intentions,
more pure in my relationships,
more pure in my imagination,
more pure in my desires,
more pure in my dreams,
more pure in my hopes,
more pure in my ambition
more pure in my deed,
more pure in my choices,
more pure in my will,
more pure in my heart,
more pure in my mind,
more pure in my vision,
more pure in my love of you, O God,
and more pure in my love of my neighbor,
and more pure in my love of myself…

I know, Lord - 

   I'm asking for a lot of purity

        but I'm praying for what I need...

 

And I'm remembering 

    the angel's word to Mary:

         "Nothing is impossible for God..."   

 
Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake
and watch over me while I sleep
that awake, I might keep watch with you
and asleep rest in your peace...
 
Amen. 
 
Sing of Mary by Thirst of Christ 
 
It's not easy to access this song! 
Click here: Thirst for Christ 
    and then click on Sing of Mary 
 

 

  

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Praying on December 8

    Image: Michael McGrath

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 8 is the feast of the Immaculate Conception.  The "family portrait" above shows us Anna and Joachim, parents of Mary (at the top of the image); and pictured in their embrace are Joseph with Mary and her son, Jesus; a dove nearby reminds us that Mary conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary is venerated as the Immaculate Conception, she who was conceived immaculately, preserved from original sin, in the womb of her mother, Anna.

The preface prayer from the former Sacramentary offers us a short lesson in the theology of this day and provides us with our prayer...

Father, all-powerful and ever-living God,
   we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.
You allowed no stain of Adam’s sin
   to touch the Virgin Mary.
Full of grace,
   she was to be a worthy mother of your Son,
   your sign of favor to the Church at its beginning,
   and the promise of its perfection
   as the bride of Christ, radiant in beauty.
Purest of virgins, she was to bring forth your Son,
   the innocent lamb who takes away our sins.
You chose her from all women
   to be our advocate with you
   and our pattern of holiness.
In our joy we sing to your glory
   with all the choirs of angels:
      Holy, holy, holy!
Ave Maria by Schubert, 
 
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12/7/25

Monday Morning Offering: 12/8

Image: George Mendoza


Good morning, good God!

I pray today, Lord, that you take from my heart whatever might keep me from welcoming you with joy this Christmas...

That's my hope and prayer, Lord, so I offer for your mending and healing those things that stand between me and the joy of this season...
 
In this season of giving, my selfishness holds me back, Lord - my desire to keep things for myself when I already have so much - so I offer you my heart to open with your healing...

I offer you the impulse, to buy and buy some more - and have and still want more - while others, in the millions, have little or have nothing...

Help me, Lord, to deem the needs of others as more important than my own - so to welcome you with joy as Christmas day draws near... 
 
I offer you my grudges and resentments, Lord, because they keep me from reaching out and loving - so I offer them to you for your gentle, healing touch...
 
I offer you the backpack of stale arguments, old disagreements and tired arrogance that weighs me down and keeps me from running to greet you, to meet you at the stable in Bethlehem …
 
And there are fantasies and daydreams, Lord, that keep me from receiving you with a joyful, pure, unsullied heart: cleanse and heal my thoughts and my imagination... 
 
And my grief, Lord, my loss and disappointment: my grief clouds my mind and drains my spirits - so I offer you my soul to anoint with healing peace, to free me for the peace and joy
your holy birth affords me... 
 
There are so many circumstances, Lord, that might keep me from the joy that comes my way this Christmas:
    my worry about keeping my job,
        finding a job, needing a second job;
    my limbs grown weak, my fingers feeble fingers
        and my heartbeat now too fast, 
           and my movement oh-so-slow;
    my maxed out credit 
        and the bills all marked past due;    
    my family’s troubles;
    my failing will power;   
    and then of course, there's this, Lord: 
 
          _________________________
 
So I offer you this morning, Lord, the unsure, broken pieces of my everyday existence...  
 
I offer you my failed past efforts - and my recent halting steps - as I try to make things better...  

I offer you the dull and empty feeling that I've nothing left to offer…

Be with me in my troubles, Lord, and help me trust and know you’re there, right there by my side... 
 
Help me lean on others for support and accept the help they offer as your gracious gift to me 
sent through their living hands... 
 
Heal and mend me, Lord, and give me peace of mind and heart that I might welcome you with joy as Christmas day draws near...

I offer you all the hope and faith and trust I have, Lord - especially in those moments when they're all in short supply...

But what I have I offer, Lord, and pray you make of that, by your power and your grace, all I need to warmly welcome you with joy - when Christmas comes...

Amen.

  

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Homily: a scrawny, piddling, trivial dream

Above you'll find a video of my homily for the Second Sunday of Advent and below you'll find the text.  Here's a link to the scriptures I preached on, especially the first reading from Isaiah.

Are we dreaming of a white Christmas?

Just like the ones we used to know:

When the treetops glisten and children listen,

to hear sleigh bells in the snow.

Are we dreaming of a white Christmas

with every Christmas card we write?

Hoping everyone's days will be merry and bright

and all our Christmases be white?

 

It's a nice song. 

But I think I have to say it's not much of a dream. 

In fact, it's a scrawny, piddling, trivial dream. 

 

Snow? Shiny treetops? Sleigh bells?

Things that melt, shed needles and make noise!

Is that what Christians dream in advent?

Is that what Christians dream for Christmas? 

 

How about a real dream? Like the dream you heard this morning in the words of the prophet Isaiah. A dream of a swashbuckling hero who comes to slay the wicked; who comes brandishing justice for the poor and the afflicted; who comes with a champion's belt around his waist, the belt of loyalty and fidelity. How about dreaming of the peacemaker of all time? What kind of peace? Dream this peace. Dream a peace that pervades all of nature, all of creation - such that a lamb will take a wolf out to dinner; a leopard and a kid goat will go down for a nap together; a calf and a lion will go for a walk and a little child will lead them; where cows will pasture with bears; where a cobra's den becomes a baby's playpen - with no fear of harm. Isaiah's peaceable kingdom…

 

Perhaps it's our history, our pride, our stubbornness - perhaps it's our apparent preference for war - that keeps us from dreaming such a peace. But this is precisely the kind of peace the Lord desires to establish on the earth - not just in heaven. He calls us to make this kind of peace now, to make this dream come true, the kind of peace he commands us to make among ourselves -- if we have any understanding of the peace Jesus was born, Jesus came to bring us.

 

Perhaps the imagery of Isaiah among the animals there seems beyond our reach - because the prophet dreams of a peace between natural enemies. But Isaiah's imagery is just that: it's imagery.  It's intended to stand in for another reality. Isaiah calls for us to dream of peace, not between natural enemies, but rather between brothers and sisters: creatures of the same kind - all of us children, all of us, all of us, all of us - made in the image of God.

 

Through Isaiah, God invites us to dream of a world where all nations, faiths and peoples will live together in peace, and not just to dream about that, but to give ourselves over to negotiating a justice that makes such a peace, such a world, a possibility - even a reality.

 

God invites us to dream of a world where there's peace between all of those who are: separated, alienated, marginalized, shut out, left behind, abused, forgotten, and abandoned. And not only to dream of such a peace, but to do everything in our power to make that very peace - and to let no one and nothing stand in our way.

 

God calls us 

   to dream and to build a world where there's peace 

between the right and the left,

between the east and the west,

between blue, red, and purple states,

between the rich and the poor,

between natives and immigrants,

between male and female,

between Democrats and Republicans

-- even between Red Sox and Yankee fans.

See how real it gets?

How much peace God wants us to make?

 

Isaiah dreams a peace that changes everything: that makes friends of enemies and families of foes. A peace that ensures there will be no more harm on God's holy mountain. And make no mistake about it: the world that you and I live in is God's holy mountain.

 

So does it sound like I'm talking about an impossible dream? If it does, then you and I have missed altogether the message of the scriptures. If peace among people seems an impossible dream, then we have missed entirely the message of Advent, the message of Christmas and therefore, the message of Jesus.

 

I wonder how much the mess in the world we live in is ours, because we've decided that peace is impossible - an impossible dream.

 

Or perhaps the dreams we do dream are too small. Do we limit ourselves to scrawny, piddling, trivial dreams, dreams not even worth imagining? Not worth dozing off for? Dreams not worth the dreaming? Advent calls us to dream, to believe in and to work towards what may seem impossible, not doable, unachievable.

 

Advent calls us to dream the impossible dream:

- dreaming of making that peace we need to make with that relative in our family - and all of us have one;

- dreaming of making peace with that neighbor down the street - and we all know who that is;

- dreaming of making peace with ourselves, which usually means making peace with God.

 

If we've given up on the dream of making peace in the house we live in, in the family that's ours, in our own households and neighborhoods - if we've given up on that - how will we ever dream of, how will we ever make peace in the world?

 

Perhaps the saddest sin of believers is this: to give up on dreaming for peace. To tire of looking for the peace Christ promises us. To lay down on the job of working to make that peace of Christ a reality in our world.

 

How and where is God calling you this morning, and me - how and where is God calling us this morning to refresh our dreams of peace and to work for that peace in our own situations, in our own circumstances, in our own stuff.

 

The problem with dreaming of a white Christmas is that it's a dream that asks so little of us - while God's dream asks so much of us -- because it promises us everything.

 

We find ourselves in the season of God's dream: Advent. The season of a dream in which God visits his people; where God is born as a child in Bethlehem; a dream in which that child grows up to become a carpenter - and a preacher of dreams: dreams of love and mercy - for everyone; dreams of healing and peace - for everyone.

 

This dream asked a lot of the preacher born in that stable. It asked everything of him. And so he gave everything he had - for the peace he promised us.

 

Even this morning, weeks before Christmas,

the God-man-preacher- dreamer comes again,

and invites us to gather around his table, to share a meal that's not a dream, a meal that is very real.

 

The Eucharist is the dreamed-of-presence of God at our table in the bread of life and the cup of salvation.

 

The Eucharist is the food of the peace we dream.

 

The Eucharist is the banquet where the peoples of the whole world and of all time are invited to come and take a seat - to take a seat where we, unfaithful wolves, are invited to share in the supper of the Lamb.

  

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NIGHT PRAYER: Sunday 12/7


On Sundays, Night Prayer takes its lead from some element from the day's liturgy. Tonight we begin with a line from the first reading at mass, "a spirit of wisdom and understanding..." 
 
Because I'm often foolish, Lord, 
be generous in giving me
a spirit of wisdom: 
    I need it! 
 
In these short, dark December days,
shine your light upon my path 
to help me follow where you lead
especially when I'm not sure
    of where I've been
    or where I am
    or where I'm going...
 
May your wisdom bring:
    order to my chaos,  
    faith to bear on all my doubts, 
    common sense to sort out my confusion,
    truth to enlighten my choices,     
    reason to course-correct my foolish ways
    and hope to help me see beyond today
        to all tomorrow offers... 

Because I'm often foolish, Lord,
be generous in giving me 
a spirit of wisdom: 
   I need it!

Be my wisdom, Lord:    
    fill my mind with your counsel,
    shape my thoughts with your truth, 
    bless my imagination with insight,
    and strengthen my heart's convictions...

Let your wisdom be my guide, Lord:
a star to draw me close to you
in this holy Advent time
and through the seasons of my life...

Because I'm often foolish, Lord,
be generous in giving me 
a spirit of wisdom: 
   I need it!
 
Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake
    and watch over me as I sleep
that awake I might keep watch with you
    and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen. 

The Perfect Wisdom of Our God

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Pause for Prayer: SUNDAY 12/7

It's hard to believe that it was 35 years ago that I recorded the lead vocal on Rachel Burckardt's beautiful Advent song, One Voice.  This piece was included on the album, Gross Santa's Yuletide Favorities (which isn't as weird as it sounds!). Musicians for One Voice came from the Wood Harbor Ensemble and the choir of St. Ann University Parish in Boston where I served as a campus minister for Northeastern University and Emerson College from 1982-1991.  In today's gospel we'll hear the words, "A voice of one crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths." This morning's prayer and the song that follows it complement that scripture.

Your one voice calls me, Lord:
    you speak to my heart
    in all its dry and barren places,

    in the wilderness my life can sometimes be...
 
You call me by name
    to prepare a way for you
    who come to make of my desert
    a lush and blooming garden...

You call me to change,
    to change my desires, my habits, my ways:
    to clear a smooth path
    for you to come and make your home in me...

You call me to make peace
    where I am, where I live,
    where I work and where I play
    with all I meet and know,
    whose paths cross mine each day...

Of all the voices 'round me, Lord,
    help me hear your one voice calling me
    to make a way, a place for you to dwell
    deep within my soul this Christmastide...

Amen.

One Voice by Rachel Burckardt 

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12/6/25

Lighting the Second Candle on the Advent Wreath

  
At sundown today we begin to celebrate the Second Sunday in Advent: a season to prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christmas and for the day when Christ will come again at the end of our lives and in the fullness of time...
 
Last week we prayed for peace, this week we pray for faith...
 
If you have an Advent Wreath at home, light the second and first candles each night this week.  If you don't have an Advent Wreath, light any candle you have. And if you have no candle, use the virtual candle above and join us all in prayer...

As we light the second candle on the Advent wreath, 
    we pray for the gift of faith...

- for the deepening of faith

       in the hearts of all believers...

- for deeper personal faith 
       in trying, troubling times...

- for the gift of faith
       for all those who seek it...

- for the strengthening of faith
       when in we're in doubt...

- for faith to sustain us
        in worry and fear, 
            in anxiety and grief...
 
- for the faith we need just to make it 
        from day to day 
            and through the night...

- for any whose faith
       is tenuous, shaken or broken...

- for faith to help us survive
        unexpected crises and changes...

- for faith to embolden our words and deeds
        with courage and zeal...

- for the prudence of faith to help us discern
        with clarity and compassion...

- for the wisdom of faith to anoint our thoughts
        with reason, vision and truth...

- for faith that leads us to love one another
        with integrity, justice and honor..   
 
- for the faith we need to share our faith
        with humility and conviction,
            with freedom and joy...

- for faith that seeks to live in peace
        with people of other beliefs and faiths,
 
We pray for faith to lead us, Lord,
    to respect and revere the whole of creation,
    to work for a harvest of justice and peace,
    to share from our want when serving the poor...
 
Give us deep faith in you and your love, 
    faith in your mercy, your word and your truth,
faith in our neighbors, near and far,
    and faith in ourselves to do what you ask...
 
Protect us, Lord while we're awake
    and watch over us while we sleep
that awake, we might keep watch with you
    and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.
 
We Walk By Faith by Marty Haugen
 
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We walk by faith and not by sight
No gracious words we hear
Of him who spoke as none e'er spoke
Yet we believe him near
 
We may not touch his hands and side
Or follow where he trod
Yet in his promise we rejoice
And cry "My Lord and God"
 
Help then, oh Lord, our unbelief
And may our faith abound
To call on you when you are near
And seek where you are found
 
That when our life of faith is done
In realms of clearer light
We may behold you as you are
In full and endless sight
 
We walk  by faith and not by sight
No gracious words we hear
Of him who spoke as none e'er spoke
Yet we believe him near

  

  

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