Dear friends in Christ,
This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. I imagine regular readers of Forward Today will be in church quite a bit next week, including Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Eve.
As a parish priest, I loved this time in our liturgical year. It gets right at the heart of our faith to move through these sacred days. In our experience of these evocative liturgies, we learn so much about the God we worship. It was also the busiest week of the year, by far. Though the hours were long and the tasks plentiful, I loved the gift of leading people through this pilgrimage every year.
If you are one of the people who helps lead Holy Week worship—clergy, choir member, altar guild, reader, teacher, usher, greeter, preacher—I hope you’ll savor this gift. Take care of yourself in this busy time, and do what you can to enter fully into Holy Week.
If you are a member of a church who is not helping with Holy Week liturgies this year, I invite you to pray for all those who have this calling and this work. Pray especially for your clergy and musicians. They will work long hours.
And let all of us, whatever our role, give our hearts and our lives fully to this week. It will change us.
One of the prayers for Palm Sunday puts us in the right perspective, and I invite you to pray it through the week to come.
Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Yours faithfully,
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Image: Flickr
Today’s Flash Sale: Broken
Before Jesus broke the bread, he blessed it.
In the age of social media, where our lives are curated to show only our best and most beautiful selves, it is easy to believe we are the only ones who are broken. But we are not alone. We are all broken and in need of God’s blessing. No one has it all together; no person is perfect.
In essays both humorous and achingly vulnerable, author Ryan Casey Waller urges us to join him in pouring out our brokenness, not just to God but to each other. Waller takes us through the trials of following Jesus during seasons of doubt and disbelief, anger, shame, and even hate, but always brings us back to the amazing news that Jesus blessed the bread before he broke it.
Through Jesus, our brokenness is blessed, our wounds healed, and our hearts made whole.
Regular: $18
Today: $13.50
*Discount is valid until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time