Here’s a video of Stephen Colbert talking with James Martin, SJ, mostly about Lent.

(Via Crux, the Boston Globe Roman Catholic web site whose motto is Covering all things Catholic)

Remember the moment in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit is about to leave the office on Christmas Eve? Scrooge snaps, “You’ll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?”

“If quite convenient, sir”

“It’s not convenient, and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half a crown for it, you’d think yourself mightily ill-used, I’ll be bound.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And yet you don’t think me ill used for paying a day’s wages for no work.”

“It’s only once year, sir.”

“A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December.”

So, just how much is a half crown, I wonder every Christmas? And now I know how to find the answer to this and many similar questions: a web site called historical currency conversions. It turns out Scrooge was threatening poor Bob Cratchit over $22.45 in today’s money.

But is it accurate? Of course it is: I found it on the Internet!

(From here)

In anticipation of tomorrow’s Gospel reading, here’s a cartoon meditation on Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness.

(via Commonweal)

From the diocese:

As part of our year-long discovery and discernment process focused on the theme of Becoming More Missional (and in the spirit of the New England “Town Hall” meeting), Bishop Ely will host a series of 10 “Church Hall” meetings throughout Vermont to present and consider discoveries and ideas emerging from the various consultations and conversations underway throughout the Episcopal Church in Vermont since June, 2014.

For more information, click here. I’m going to the one at 10am on March 7th in White River Junction.

Peace,

Mark.

Dear friends,

Here are a few Lent ideas, in case you’re looking for some.

First, here at St. Martin’s we’ll be holding Lent Discussions right after church on each of the Sundays of Lent. These will be on a variety of topics — sometimes we’ll dig deeper into that morning’s scripture readings, sometimes we’ll look at larger issues. There’s no preparation required, and you can miss a few sessions and not feel left behind. I hope you’ll join us for some or all of these.

We’ll also be celebrating Evening Prayer every Wednesday at 5pm. It’s a simple, brief service (20 or so minutes). You can leave when it’s done, or bring a brown bag supper and stick around to eat it with others.

By the way, I’m reading two books this Lent — if you’d like to read along, that would be great. Let me know and we’ll find time to talk about what we’re reading.

The first, by Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is “Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer.”

The second is “Give Us This Day: Lenten Reflections on Baking Bread and Discipleship,” by Christopher Levan. The truth is, I’ve always wanted to take up bread baking,  and this seems a good opportunity.

More generally, here’s what’s in the traditional Lenten toolkit:

And here are a few ideas from around the web:

If you want to pray, Sacred Space is a good place to look. It guides you through praying with a daily reading from scripture. When you get to the page with the reading, you can click a “Need Inspiration?” button that suggests insights and pathways to making the passage your own. It’s run by Irish Jesuits, and has been around for years.

If you’re feeling a little more ambitious, you could pray the daily “offices” (Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and/or a few others) from the Book of Common Prayer. The services in the Prayer Book involve lots of choices and page turning, but this site puts it all together for you.

The (episcopal) monks at the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, are producing a daily video series during Lent, called It’s time to… Stop, Pray, Work, Play & Love. Your daily meditation just appears in your email inbox.

I hope you know about Episcopal Relief and Development. They do very good things in our name all around the world. They’ve published a booklet of meditations which you can read online or have them send to you daily during Lent. If you choose a Lenten discipline that involves giving up something you spend money on then giving that money to a good cause, ERD is one good option.

Choosing a Lenten discipline can (and maybe should) be very personal, and flow from your own  habits and prayerful observations about your life. Here is a sometimes quirky list from religion journalist Rachel Held Evans to help your thinking (from fasting from National Public Radio to cleaning out your closets).

The point of Lenten disciplines, or one of the points anyway, is to allow ourselves to be knocked a little off balance. If I give up chocolate, for example, and find myself really wishing I could eat a piece of chocolate right now, then I can let that moment remind me of the larger journey I’m on, and that that journey calls me to a different set of priorities. It’s not about feeling proud of ourselves for suffering through 40 days of heroic self-denial, it’s about finding ways in the middle of day-to-day life to remind ourselves of who we are. It’s about the luxury of taking ourselves seriously.

Peace,

Mark.

If you’re a Kindle-user, here’s a web site that highlights christian titles on sale at Amazon. Some interesting, some not so much (click on the image to go there):It seems to be published by the Englewood Review of Books, which looks pretty interesting in its own right.

The Living Church, a magazine devoted, believe it or not, to covering the Episcopal Church, has a review of children’s Bibles, here: Goo-Goo Formation (their title, not mine!).

This Sunday, we’ll celebrate one of the most ancient and important holy days of the church year: it’s in the “top ten feasts” list on page 12-13 of the Book of Common Prayer.. It’s a feast with many names: the BCP currently calls it the feast of The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, but the “old” prayer book called it The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the eastern Orthodox church it’s often called The Meeting, but I’ve found it’s hard to get 21st century people excited about coming to a meeting (“couldn’t we just use Skype?”).

Forty days after the birth of their first son, families were to go to a priest and ceremonially dedicate their child to God. So, on February second, 40 days after Christmas, we hear the account of when the holy family went to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer the appointed prayers and sacrifices. Just as they’re leaving, an old man named Simeon takes the child from Mary’s arms, declares that he has been told by the Holy Spirit that he would see the Lord’s Messiah before he dies, and says “Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace, just as you promised; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the presence of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

We’re about halfway between Christmas and Lent, a time when the church traditionally begins to shift its gaze from the manger in Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemene (some of you may remember when Sundays this time of year had funny names like Quinquagesima, which counted down the days until Easter). It’s also halfway between the shortest day of the year and the beginning of spring, and we’re all beginning to notice that the days are getting longer, and beginning to believe that spring might actually come this year after all.

In honor of Simeon’s words about light, people long ago came to see the Presentation as a day to celebrate the return of the light that spring promises. Large processions of people with candles and torches went all around the great cities of Europe in the late winter darkness, and all the candles that were to be used in the coming year were blessed in church on this day. So the feast gained another new name: Candlemas.

One tradition that grew up around Candlemas was that you could predict how harsh the second half of winter was going to be by looking at the weather on that day. An old Scottish saying says, “If Candlemas day is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”

This tradition crossed the ocean to America with the settlers. In 1841, a shopkeeper in Morgantown, PA named James Morris wrote in his diary, “Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.” Candlemas collected yet another name: Groundhog Day (and inspired the classic 1993 Bill Murray movie, but that’s a topic for another sermon).

So this Sunday we’ll take our part in an ancient celebration of hope. As our ancestors longed for light in the darkness, so do we. The warmth and life of spring are on their way, just as surely as Easter follows Good Friday.This Sunday we’ll bless some candles and put away our Christmas creche, and we’ll warm ourselves in the depth of winter with warm drinks and conversation following the service. It’s all ages worship this Sunday — just one service, at 10. Please join us!

A young evangelical reflects on how he’s “found something meaningful in the Episcopal Church, something disorienting and comforting all at once, something that feels vaguely like… home” in:

11 things I love about the Episcopal Church

Have a look!

(via Episcopal Cafe)