Note: Today ~ we celebrate Eucharist together at 4pm.                                                                                                                                      Next Sunday ~ with the change to Daylight Savings Time, we begin celebrating Eucharist every Sunday at 5pm.

Dear Friends,

On this Second Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus. 

We notice that he is changed from the inside out. We are prompted to wonder, “How am I changing from the inside out?” On the day of our Baptism, God says to you and to me, just like God said to Jesus, “You are my Beloved...in you I take delight.” Peter, James and John hid their faces when they heard God speaking to them from the heavens. We, too, might find it scary to be God’s Beloved. The challenge is for us to look radiant—to look like we believe it. We should glow, too, walking around and feeling like God’s Beloved. Maya Angelou lifts up for us another way in which we are transfigured. Or at least, growing to be.

A Brave And Startling Truth

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

***

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~ Maya Angelou ~

Our book discussion for Lent is The Way of the Cross: The Path to New Life by Joan Chittister. This meditative walk leads us through the traditional Stations of the Cross and invites us to consider our personal life path.    We invite you to bring to liturgy an element that symbolizes for you what life “station” you discern yourself to be at as you journey through this Lent. For instance, people sometimes ask me (Ron) if I am going to retire. As I reflect on this “station” in my life and discern ‘which way to go when,’ Matthew Fox’s call to action: “refirement” not retirement comes to mind. One symbol of refirement for me is captured in the “fire” of a candle. So I am going to bring a candle to our Lenten community collage that we will build in front of the altar again this year. Everyone is invited to add their symbol to the Lenten community sculpture we will build in front of the altar as we prepare to celebrate Liturgy; and if you are not with us ‘physically’ perhaps you might bring your symbol to your own ‘quiet corner’ at home!

As you enter the sanctuary space tonight before Eucharist throughout Lent, we ask you to enter in silence into the quiet meditative space with reflective soft music. In keeping with our movement into a meditative Lenten spirit, our communion meditation will be Taize chant.

Come and journey with The Spirit of Life community during your Lenten journey...and beyond. Come and make us your ‘spiritual home’.  In our community’s midst you will find support for your inner spirit’s growth. We promise you a unique experience of community; one where members and guests find support and hope in the journey through time and body to deepen our spiritual lives, and work together to transcend our limitations and grow in faith. Our liturgies are not “cluttered’ with non-inclusive language and messages that discount the dignity of all people. Rather, we are radically simple in embodying the “good news” of Jesus Christ... “uncluttered” by messages caught in the moral time warp so present in more traditional Catholic liturgies. At the Spirit of life... the call of women to ordained priesthood is affirmed...the sacredness of all loving relationships is honored and celebrated, and as Jesus did, we welcome ALL to the Table!   If you are seeking a Catholic community where you do not need to mentally/silently “insert” inclusive language into your prayer at Mass, or lament that your children are hearing non-loving messages about people whose sexual orientation is other than heterosexual, or feel that your “voice” is not heard.....we invite you to come and experience life in our community. We are an inclusive and interactive community, where everyone has a “voice.”  We are truly a people of “justice & Joy.”

May your heart be open to and nourished by the blessings of this Lenten journey,

Jean & Ron