Ash Wednesday
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Not-So Secret Faith
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6 min read
How can we talk about always telling the truth and being honest, if we are also keeping secrets and refusing to share with one another? The love (without hypocrisy) Jesus longs for Ash Wednesday | Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 Secret Faith One of the historic battles around Ash Wednesday is based on this gospel passage. A church fight,…
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Ashes
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2 min read
Ashes (Day 1 of A Simple Lent) Today isn’t a normal day. I wake up early, before the sun rises. I get dressed with extra layers and I prepare to share a public invitation. An invite to the anti-party. No loud music or dancing. The food is meeger. It isn’t an invite ordinarily welcomed. I…
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Ash Wednesday 2016
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1 min read
If you are in Terre Haute on Wednesday, I invite to join St. Stephen’s in inviting the community into the observance of a holy Lent. In the morning, we’ll impose ashes upon the foreheads of those rushing to class and work. We’ll move inside and give the same invitation to students at the volunteer fair…
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Make the Kingdom
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7 min read
What Ash Wednesday tells us about what Jesus really wants. It is a time of wrestling with weighty issues of faith and of community; of justice and of the nature of GOD. To wrestle and prepare one another for greater unity. To heal the broken, to care for the weak, to help flip over and…
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ReMembering is Messy: Ash Wednesday and black thumbs
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6 min read
a Homily for Ash Wednesday Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Beyond Black Thumb Day Today is Black Thumb Day. What? Never heard of it? It is the day that priests all over the world put on nice white albs, dip their thumbs in black, flaky ashes, and smudge those ashes on everything. It begins with people’s…
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Getting Some Ash: finding our place in creation
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2 min read
Ash Wednesday is symbol-rich day. It is marked with one of the most evocative Christian symbols in all of our liturgies. We smudge a cross of ash on each other and we say to them: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. For most Christians, we deal first and primarily with…