The Arrow's Path

Maundy Thursday with Holy Communion, foot washing, and the stripping of the altar: 7PM Vigil watch from the end of the Maundy Thursday Liturgy to the closing of the watch at 7:15 AM Good Friday: 12:15 Liturgy with special sermon and Veneration of the Cross     6PM Stations of the Cross Easter Vigil (Saturday evening) with the lighting of the Paschal fire 7:30 PM   Easter Sunday morning: 10AM Holy Eucharist Easter Egg Hunt for the kids after the service

Pretty good stuff . Personally, I'd modify some of it.

One of the schemes I've cooked up for publicity for my current parish was a radio ad. We were a non-profit, so the local radio station gave us a pretty good deal on rates. It was basically just an ad for our Holy Week services that will run next week, so we will see if anything comes of it. You never know until you try, I say. I had to go down to the studio this morning and record the ad. I did it in one take. I was quite pleased. The radio person doing the recording was impressed and guessed (correctly) that I had done radio and recording work before. It had been a few years, but I nailed it. If you are in Brookings next week, see if you can hear it on 1430 AM or B93.7. I so wanted to do an obnoxious radio ad like, "St Paul's: this weekend only! Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" I figured my donors supporting this venture would not have appreciated that.

So, the Palms for Palm Sunday got delivered today. We decided to use the type we used last year, known as the Eco Palms . They are ecologically friendly by being harvested in a manner that does not clear cut a palm tree forest. We tried them last year at St. Paul's, and most people liked them. They are certainly full sized palm leaves. Some churches like getting the weird spiky looking ones, as seen here: I never particularly cared for those because they did not really look like Palm leaves to me. Most people who liked those liked to use them to make Palm crosses. If that is your think, than the Eco-Palms are probably not going to go over really well at your parish. But I do like the Eco Palms as they are big and leafy, and as such I think more historically accurate in terms of the Palm Sunday story. I picture people putting big palm branches on the ground, not the weird, overgrown blades of grass. Again, that is just my preference. The kicker is, the Eco Palms are cheaper ...

(click on image to view full comic.) For all those getting ready to print Holy Week Bulletins!

The Feast Day of St Patrick, one of the Patron saints of Ireland (can you name the other(s)?), was actually not Irish. He was born in modern day Scotland to Roman parents who were Christians, and was kidnapped and taken into slavery in Ireland when we was about 18 years old. He managed to escape, and returned to England briefly before taking Holy Orders and returning as a missionary to Ireland. There is quite a bit of myth and legend surrounding Patrick, mostly thanks to the embellished medieval hagiographies written about him some centuries later. An excellent essay that speaks about Patrick and some of the myths and legends surrounding here can be found here . Some of that information there is a bit dated, but its a good synopsis. There are two known writings by St. Patrick that scholars agree to be genuine. One is St. Patrick's Confession, which is a very interesting autobiography that can be found here  in its entirety. It is relatively short, but fascinating. There is also...

Yikes...I better get cracking on sermon prep for the week.

The reading from the Gospel this morning in the lectionary was the famous parable about the Prodigal Son from Luke. Here are some points I made in my sermon about it. Did you know that the word "Prodigal" does not mean "lost" at all? Most people think that it does, probably because they've heard, literally, numerous sermons and allusions over the years to the Prodigal Son. But the word does not mean Lost. The word is from a root where we also get the modern word "prodigious." Prodigal actually means excessively wasteful or extravagant. In the context of what is going on here in the text, Jesus is getting into an argument with some Pharisees and scribes (the church going, religious folk of the day) about whom Jesus is fraternizing with. They don't much care for the idea that Jesus is hanging out with Tax Collectors and Sinners (the non-religious crowd you might say). To answer this charge of not playing with the right crowd, Jesus tells three ...

Apparently there is a way. This is an interesting bit of reporting from the BBC.

For the baseball purist, the problem and potential solution floated here  is surprisingly simple: Go back to the old form and not have divisions at all. No wild cards, and either the winner in each league takes all in the regular season and goes to the World Series. or else the top two records in each league have some sort of a playoff. Or, hey, here's an even more novel (and old school) idea: How about getting rid of the Anti-trust exemption, and force revenue sharing through busting the monopoly of teams that have more money than Big Tobacco. Or, if you really want competition, force teams to have a high percentage quota of their active players being actual products of their own farm teams. That would take teams like the Yankees out of it overnight because they stockpile talent from the free agent market while their farm system is a joke. There are all kinds of options to make baseball more competitive. The problem is that none of the solutions are going to make for m...

Click here for a good cartoon . Hat tip: Orthodixie .

"W e beseech Thee, Lord, to bless our leadership, and to endue it’s counsellors  with grace and wisdom. We pray Thee also to be gracious and favourable to our country. May it ever abound with that righteousness which exalteth a nation. Bless the ministers of Thy Gospel, and enable them rightly to divide the Word of Truth. Give them grace to warn the unruly, to comfort the feeble-minded, to support the weak, and to be patient towards all men. Bless, Lord, all our relations and friends. Extend to them, we beseech Thee, Thy grace and favour. Have mercy upon all men ; comfort the sick ; succour the tempted ; relieve the oppressed ; be the Father of the fatherless, and the God of the widow. Into Thy hands we now commend ourselves, and all Thy people everywhere ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Tent and Altar, A.D. 1847.)

The BBC did a simulated bombing of a Boeing 747 a la the Christmas Day bomber. The results are actually quite surprising.

In the original movie of Jurassic Park, the Jeff Goldblum character in one part of the movie's dialogue makes a very poignant comment on the nature scientific ethics and technology. Unfortunately, in the flow of that particular scene in the movie, the scientists and lawyer are having dinner and discussing whether it was right or wrong to recreate dinosaurs for purposes of a theme park. The line Goldblum blurts out comes off as little more than an emotively comedic throw-away line, "Scientists are so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they don't stop to think if they should." I had completely forgotten that little bit of movie banter until I read a very interesting article1 in, of all places, Archaeology Magazine this month. The subject of the article is found in the article's title: "Should We Clone Neanderthals?" The title can make the article sound like something from the pages of a Ray Bradbury short story or a chapter from George Orwell...

I have been focusing on "Words of Worship" for my Lenten Adult Education classes. I've been discussing things we say in the Holy Eucharist (prayers, etc.) for my edition this year. We then have a theological reflection on it, and then do Stations of the Cross. I'm curious what other churches are doing? Any good ideas that are really capturing people?