Celtic Odyssey

All loving and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

One night, during our Thursday night chats, Fr Andy said (paraphrasing), “God’s love is the greatest, most powerful thing of all. If anyone resisted God’s love, then that person would be more powerful than God. I don’t believe that.” That night, I disagreed. God doesn’t force Godself upon people. If a person doesn’t want to love God or accept God’s love, that doesn’t make her more powerful than God. That’s just how love works. But, I have to be honest, that thought gnawed at me more and more. The more I thought about it, the more I could see truth in it. If God is anything, God is Love ( 1 John 4.8 ). I do not think, nor have I ever thought, that anything within creation was more powerful than the Creator. To quote Pete from O Brother, Where Art Thou? , “That don’t make no sense!” So the idea that God’s Love would be cosmically victorious stewed within me. More so than I would have ever thought. Then, while checking the RSS feeds of websites that I read, a discussion popped up ab

Give us grace, O God, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of your salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of you marvelous works; with Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

'I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.' Albert Einstein - statement made upon joining the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club (1950)

Loving God, whose Child our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world; Grant that your people, illuminated by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that Christ may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Father-Mother in heaven, who at the baptism in the River Jordan proclaimed and anointed with the Holy Spirit, Jesus your Beloved Child: Grant that all who are baptized into Jesus' name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess Christ as Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of the One who was humbled to share our humanity, your Child Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This month’s reflection comes at time between Christmas and New Years. Well, at least in the US. My wife made a very good point several years back about New Year’s resolutions. ‘Don’t make them’, she said. ‘The reason they never work (or hardly ever) is because we’re still in the middle of winter, the time of reflection. We need to make our resolutions in the Spring, the time of New Beginnings.’ And since then we have done just that. The book for this reflection, however, has really started my resolution juices flowing! It’s Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren. The subtitle is The Return of the Ancient Practices. We are going to be reading through this book in our men’s group. We were debating between this one and Richard Fosters’ book, Celebration of Discipline . We chose this one for a couple of reasons. First, it has ‘Spiritual Exercises’ – questions and reflections and prayers – at the end of each chapter. Second, the chapters are somewhat small and easy to read a