We had the season of Advent after Thanksgiving. (Man did that go by fast.) Then there were the Epiphany Sundays after the TWELFTH Day of Christmas when we celebrate the Magi coming to see the Christ Child.
Now we have the three "esima" Sundays before the beginning of the season of Lent. Our Priest spoke this past Sunday of a preparation for Lent in these two weeks before Lent begins on February 17th. I found this quote in a Roman Catholic journal discussing why in Vatican II they chose to take the "esima" Sundays out of the Roman calendar and just have "Ordinary time" between Epiphany and Lent.
"The note of sadness in most of the texts of these Masses has given rise to the theory that they were composed at a time when Italy, and Rome in particular, were once more exposed to barbarian invasions, and threatened with misfortunes similar to this which had overwhelmed them in the fifth century. The sixth century, the time of the institution of Septuagesima, was also a period of pillage and havoc, and hence we have a sorrowful echo in the petitions framed at this time (The Year’s Liturgy, Vol. 1, Fernand Cabrol, p. 101)."I am not a scholar of 6th century Rome, but as an Anglican in 2021 I feel a great sorrow in my country. There are some who would describe it similar to the quote above.
New Year's Resolutions
In the United States, and perhaps many places around the world, we make a New Year's Resolution in January each year. Often it has something to do with a 1st World need to eat less, exercise more and be kinder to our fellow man. By February 1st many people have already forgotten the resolution and gone back to their prior ways. I heard on the radio today that gyms all over the US have extra machines put in at the first of the year, but only rent them for a month as they will not be use and returned to the manufactory after January 31st.
I personal avoid resolutions, but have a "One Word" for each year. This year my word is Kindness. My goal is to exhibit more kindness to everyone. Listening to each person and only saying what is of help and not what I think needs to be said. I am a work in progress, but I hope by December 31st I can say that I am a kinder person than I was on January 1st. How can I be Kinder? First of all I needed the month of January to start reflecting on being kind to myself. In Mark 12:31 we are told to "...love our neighbor as our self." I have had so many put downs in my life that loving myself was something I am learning to do and it is a process. Now it is February and I will take these next two weeks until Lent begins to decide what I want Lent to look like.
Lent for me is not about giving up something as much as it is to give more of something. Even before becoming an Anglican I would give up something for Lent to make a bargain with God. One year we were very poor and I was attending a church that taught illness and physical deformity were from sin. If a person prayed enough and gave enough they would be healed. I went around without my glasses for the season of Lent in hopes to get a job for my husband and my family in a better living condition. It didn't work.
Another year I fasted for the 40 days of Lent, hardly eating a thing and drinking only water. I watched the other people of the church leadership become gaunt from the fast and saw no difference in behavior toward me and my condition. I was still judged as doing something wrong, because my husband didn't have a job.
That was over 20 years ago. That church has grown to the largest congregation in Redding. It makes me sad to think how very wrong they were and I pray for them.
New Life In Christ
I believe that we all have a journey that God takes us on to help others who are following behind. I don't believe I was the only woman who was judged for her husband not keeping a job. I don't believe God did not heal my eyesight from lack of faith. My faith in those years was very strong. Actually, my faith in those years was the only thing that kept me from putting my head in an oven.
Vatican II can say whatever it wanted, but these are not "Ordinary Times." 2020 was devastating to our world as a whole. 2021 only seems to be a great year for "Game Stop" and other in home gaming companies.
The Epistle for Sunday was found in I Corinthians 9 and 10. Paul is telling the church in Corinth that just as a man in a race must keep his head up and eyes forward so must we who run the race of faith. We all need to eat better, exercise more, but it is our spiritual life that needs to be examined. (I say, "we" with one finger pointed toward you and three pointed at me.)
I gifted myself a set of C.S. Lewis books for Christmas. The paperbacks I have are over 30 years old and I needed new copies to read as well as additional books I did not own. Lewis reminds me that the refining that we have from the LORD is not painful in an earthly pain. Yes, it does hurt to be told that you are wrong. However, the pain of reconciliation is a cleansing experience. Some believe that God has a time call Purgatory before entering Heaven. My Bishop described this as a kind of cleansing, to wash away the world. This reminds me of C.S. Lewis's story were Eustace is a dragon and then becomes a boy again...I feel it must be something like that to go to Purgatory and be cleansed in preparation for Heaven. Meanwhile, I have a lot of dragon skin that needs to be dealt with on earth.
EPISTLE 1 Corinthians 9. 24-27; 10. 1-5
Lesson from the Epistle of blessed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians.
"Brethren: Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. And everyone that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty; I so fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea : and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink : (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ). But with most of them God was not well pleased."
Some food for thought: Our goal on earth is to say as Paul writes to Timothy in chapter 4: 7,8.
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the LORD, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."
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