science and religion – Holy Cross Episcopal Church

Acts 9:36-43Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

Revelation 7:9-17Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

John 10:22-30

Sheep metaphors arenâ€™t what immediately come to my own mind when I think about my life, but mulling over this passage from Johnâ€™s gospel, I realize that a lost sheep is exactly what I feel like a lot of the time as a priest in the Church today. And what Jesus in the gospel has to say to me is welcome comfort. So maybe it is for you too.

We live in a hard time to be committed Christians, faithful Church members. The climate of the culture is against us. We have dozens of other claims on our time. In coming to church on Sunday, most of you are choosing not to do something else â€“ particularly if you bring your kids, because sports and dance and sleepovers pay no attention to Sunday being church time. You may also very well be leaving your spouse or children at home, because in many families not everyone is a church-goer.

Isaiah 60:1-6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

Ephesians 3:1-12Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

Matthew 2:1-12

[At Holy Cross Church, we celebrate major feasts that fall on weekdays with informal evening house Masses. A congregation of a dozen or so gathers at the vicarage. The celebrations are followed by potluck desserts.]

Increasingly these major feasts in the Church calendar â€“ All Saintsâ€™, Ascension, the Epiphany â€“ can be celebrated on the nearest Sunday. Thatâ€™s true with the Epiphany now in the Roman Catholic Church in North America, the Anglican Church of Canada, even the Church of England. The Sunday celebration allows the whole congregation to share in what are important liturgies of the Christian faith. But keeping the celebrations on weekdays does have the advantage of reminding us that the Church moves to a deeper and more ancient rhythm that the commercialized, secular world around us. We have lost a lot of the richness of a world that was oriented around the cycle of feasts and fasts, holy days with their rituals and stories.

Sometimes I come up to a Mass like the one tonight and I wonder what I can possibly find to say â€“ to say that is fresh and new for this congregation of faithful house Mass attendees, who have all heard my thoughts many times before. But then, praying with the readings, they begin to open up and reveal new depths of richness, new allusions and insights. And these major feasts also are so much more than the readings appointed for them. They gather up thematically all sorts of strands that interweave in the great matrix of the Catholic faith.