Tag Archives: soul proclamations

Soul Proclamations: God Is With Us

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Luke 2:41-52

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the

festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

Meditation for Sunday January 3, by Christine McSpadden

As you enter St. Martin-in-the-Fields parish church across from Trafalgar Square in London, you confront a remarkable sculpture by Mike Chapman. I have seen it many times, and it still takes my breath away and brings me to tears. Under the portico, outside the west doors, presides a large, four-and-a-half ton block of light grey Portland stone. The opening line from the Gospel of John is inscribed in the stone and wraps around the plinth of the block: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” On the top of the block, hewn out of the rough surface, a life-sized baby emerges from the stone—an infant utterly vulnerable in his nakedness, chubby arms spread apart ending in tiny, clenched fists, plump legs kicking open. The stone breathes and pulses with this fragile babe, his umbilical cord still tethered to the rock.

I cannot help but think of my own newborn son, minutes after his birth, pulled from my womb and thrust into this world, fragile yet fiercely alive! I am amazed again and anew that God deigned to take human flesh, so that the Almighty might share the divine self so intimately with us. It utterly stuns me that the Creator God who fashioned all that is seen and unseen, the Cosmic God whose existence knows no bounds, the Infinite God beyond all time and space, the eternal God who is, who was, and who shall be from everlasting to everlasting, the Omnipotent God all powerful, the Omniscient God to whom nothing is not known, and the Loving God in whom everything brings delight, meets us at our most vulnerable in this most vulnerable form of human being.

The Rev. Christine McSpadden, a graduate of the University of Virginia and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, has served in congregations from New York City to San Francisco. She currently lives in London where she is a member of the clergy team at St. Paul’s Cathedral. She has written several times for Forward Movement, including as an author of meditations for Forward Day by Day. She and her husband have two children.

Soul Proclamations: Singing the Magnificat with Mary is a new collection of daily meditations for the Advent season. Authors include broadcast journalist Ray Suarez; Christopher Wells, editor of The Living Church; Kate Moorehead, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral; Thomas E. Breidenthal, bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio; and Christine McSpadden of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The book invites you to share Mary’s journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons. To walk with Mary each day this Advent, order a copy of the full volume of Soul Proclamations ($5).

Soul Proclamations: Being and Belonging

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John 1:1–18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Meditation for Sunday December 27, by Christine McSpadden

Conversations about religion held in diverse and pluralistic settings often focus on the commonalities between faith traditions. But highlighting the similarities often tempts a reductive downplaying of real differences. I often hear the statement that all religions are really saying the same thing at their core. But different faith traditions actually do embody very different conceptions of God, of the human condition, and of salvation. Various faith traditions proscribe their characteristic paths as they journey toward the consummation of their particular conception of salvation. And those conceptions of salvation, those distinct salvations, can vary markedly.

Christianity’s path, for instance, implores particular commitments and devotion to a singular savior. Mary cries out in the Magnificat: “My spirit rejoices in God my savior,” placing her personal faith and trust in the great I AM who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. She stakes her life in the triune Blessed One of Israel, the Word of God, the Holy Spirit who is known in sacred scripture, in the breaking of bread, in the faithful people of God gathered, and in the midst of the lowly being lifted up.

In song, Mary’s explosive joy as the bearer of that same Holy One in the flesh catches us up in its fidelity to the living God who ever seeks relationship with us—a God whose very constitutive essence is relationship and who is the source and ground of all relationship.

And in engaging that relationship, we open ourselves to the fulfillment of our mortality and to the willingness to be wholly transfigured and continually changed. Choosing to follow in the way of Christ, and accepting him as Lord and savior, we pledge ourselves to belonging to a particular way of being.

The Rev. Christine McSpadden, a graduate of the University of Virginia and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, has served in congregations from New York City to San Francisco. She currently lives in London where she is a member of the clergy team at St. Paul’s Cathedral. She has written several times for Forward Movement, including as an author of meditations for Forward Day by Day. She and her husband have two children.

Soul Proclamations: Singing the Magnificat with Mary is a new collection of daily meditations for the Advent season. Authors include broadcast journalist Ray Suarez; Christopher Wells, editor of The Living Church; Kate Moorehead, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral; Thomas E. Breidenthal, bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio; and Christine McSpadden of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The book invites you to share Mary’s journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons. To walk with Mary each day this Advent, order a copy of the full volume of Soul Proclamations ($5).

Soul Proclamations: Be Not Afraid

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Luke 1:39–55

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Meditation for Sunday December 20, by Tom Breidenthal

Today we are brought alongside Mary, as she races through the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She has just been informed by Gabriel that she is to give birth to the Messiah by the power of the Holy Spirit. No doubt she is motivated by the need to share what has happened to her, to seek the advice and encouragement of a trusted adult, and to sort out what is real from what she may have imagined in her impressionable heart. But Mary’s driving emotion is excitement: any self-doubt is the byproduct of her whole-heartedness.

Mary has received a call—one so sudden and so new that even now she cannot know for sure whether new life has been conceived within her. When she questions Gabriel— “How can this be, since I have not known a man?”—he says she will be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. Luke uses that expression only one other time in his Gospel, when he describes the cloud that envelops Peter, James, and John as they see Jesus transfigured in glory on the mountaintop (Luke 9:34).

Some have identified this overshadowing cloud with the dark night of the soul, the “dazzling darkness” we enter into when all the normal props of life are removed, and we are simply in the presence of the living God. Luke notes that Mary was among the disciples when the Holy Spirit lighted on them on Pentecost. Was this a reprise for her? Or perhaps nothing noticeable happened after her yes to Gabriel: I am the Lord’s servant—be it to me according to your word. In any case Mary believed what she had been told by Gabriel and proceeded accordingly. Can we who have been promised so much do the same?

The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal was consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio in 2007. With a Master’s degree from Church Divinity School and a Doctor of Philosophy in Theology degree from Oxford University, Breidenthal has served congregations in Oregon, Oxford, England, and New York as well as serving as a high school chaplain. He taught at General Theological Seminary from 1992 to 2001 and served as dean of religious life and of the chapel for five years at Princeton University. He is the author of two books, Christian Households: The Sanctification of Nearness and Sacred Unions. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Margaret Garner Breidenthal. They have two adult daughters.

Soul Proclamations: Singing the Magnificat with Mary is a new collection of daily meditations for the Advent season. Authors include broadcast journalist Ray Suarez; Christopher Wells, editor of The Living Church; Kate Moorehead, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral; Thomas E. Breidenthal, bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio; and Christine McSpadden of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The book invites you to share Mary’s journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons. To walk with Mary each day this Advent, order a copy of the full volume of Soul Proclamations ($5).

Soul Proclamations: Proclaiming the Good News

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Luke 3:7–18

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Meditation for Sunday December 13, by Kate Moorehead

I wish I could sit down with John the Baptist and ask him to tell me about his life. What an autobiography it would make!

John is a fascinating character. In the Gospel of Luke, we hear of his birth to Zechariah and Elizabeth, prestigious Jews who lived in Jerusalem. Zechariah was a high priest in the temple. His son John would have had the best education, a solid religious upbringing, good food, and beautiful clothing. John was born into the elite class of Judaism.

The next time we see John, he is dressed in camel’s hair and eating bugs. Obviously, there was some major break between his childhood and adulthood. He gave up a life of privilege to serve God. For John, proclaiming the good news is about shedding all the social privileges of this world in order to rightly see and live into the kingdom of God.

John does not seem to be concerned with what anyone thinks of him. He has let that all go. For John, it is not important to please anyone but God. He always tells the truth about what he sees. When people come to him to be baptized, he can tell that they come only for security and not for discipleship. Their cowardice and selfishness make him angry. John is fiery, untamed, and insistent in his mission and message.

What would John say to you if you came to him to be baptized? Are you ready to give your life to God? Are you ready to be hated by others if that is necessary? John said goodbye to a life of privilege and had the courage to say yes to God.

The Very Rev. Katherine B. (Kate) Moorehead is the tenth dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida. As dean, Kate serves as vice president of the Episcopal School of Jacksonville, the Cathedral School Early Learning Center, Cathedral Arts Project, Cathedral Care nursing facility, and Aging True Community Senior Services, all nonprofits birthed from the cathedral. Kate is a graduate of Vassar College and Virginia Theological Seminary. She is author of four books, Organic God, Between Two Worlds, Get Over Yourself: God’s Here, and her latest book, Resurrecting Easter. Kate and her husband have three sons.

Soul Proclamations: Singing the Magnificat with Mary is a new collection of daily meditations for the Advent season. Authors include broadcast journalist Ray Suarez; Christopher Wells, editor of The Living Church; Kate Moorehead, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral; Thomas E. Breidenthal, bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio; and Christine McSpadden of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The book invites you to share Mary’s journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons. To walk with Mary each day this Advent, order a copy of the full volume of Soul Proclamations ($5).

Soul Proclamations: Preparing the Way

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Luke 3:1–6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”

Meditation for Sunday December 6, by Christopher Wells

In Advent, the Christian year begins again. What does this mean for us personally? It means that we have another chance to walk with Jesus and find that he is walking with us, along the way that God has “prepared for us to walk in” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 339). In this way, on this road, God the Father helps us to “make his paths straight” by being born again with his Son, listening to his word, taking up our cross, dying every day, rising again to new life, and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As they are lived and followed by Christians, the original order of the events in Jesus’ life no longer particularly matters. Every aspect of the story is true, and each interprets the other. From our perspective in history, as we meditate on his passion and death, bearing the sins of the whole world, we know that he is also already risen. In moments of fear or sadness, in the throes of depression, or facing terrible pain and suffering, we may cry for this cup to pass from us—and find that the Holy Spirit has gone before, guiding our prayer, interceding “with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). If we do not know Jesus, we may anticipate meeting him for the first time, but he was always with us! In each way, God graciously shapes us into the form of Jesus; and because we are mortal and sinful, with so much to learn, God in Christ comes to us again and again, making everything new. As the psalmist exclaims: “All my fresh springs are in you” (Psalm 87:6).

Along this pilgrim way, God gives us friends with whom to practice the praises of God, given in the glorious company of the apostles and the fellowship of prophets, with noble martyrs, and the holy Church throughout the world. With John the Baptist, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Elizabeth, and our own faithful companions, both those who are living and those who have passed away, we sing in gratitude to God: “My soul magnifies the Lord!” That is, I am in awe of you, Lord, and in awe of what you have done. I am in awe that you created me and grateful that you hear me when I call. This is the beginning of the response of every disciple: our preparation for the Word made flesh, again, in our own hearts and lives.

Christopher Wells has served as executive director of the Living Church Foundation since September 2009. He holds a Master’s degree from Yale and a doctorate from Notre Dame and edits The Living Church, a biweekly magazine with news and theological reflections. In 2014 he completed a round as theological consultant to the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue in the U.S. (ARC- USA), and he serves on the board of the American Friends of the Anglican Centre in Rome. He is a member of the Cathedral Church of All Saints, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Soul Proclamations: Singing the Magnificat with Mary is a new collection of daily meditations for the Advent season. Authors include broadcast journalist Ray Suarez; Christopher Wells, editor of The Living Church; Kate Moorehead, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral; Thomas E. Breidenthal, bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio; and Christine McSpadden of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The book invites you to share Mary’s journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons. To walk with Mary each day this Advent, order a copy of the full volume of Soul Proclamations ($5).

Soul Proclamations: Watching and Waiting

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Luke 21:25–36

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

Meditation for Sunday November 29, by Ray Suarez

The juxtaposition of this time of awareness and preparation with our celebration of the birth of Jesus is a gift to any wide-awake Christian. Jeremiah, born seven centuries before Jesus, urges God’s people to live in expectation: ‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land’ (Jeremiah 33:14-15).

Jeremiah is telling people to be ready. Jesus is telling people to be ready. Ready for what is not clear. Jesus seems to be getting us ready for something cataclysmic, world- shaking, life-changing. For centuries, his warnings have fired the imaginations of mystics and would-be prophets.

As disturbing as it might be to hear the preaching of a young man who has walked out of the wilderness with his friends, talking of a new world, Mary has heard even wilder news—news that transcends, renews, rejuvenates, and restores the promises Jeremiah communicates to the children of Israel.

This young woman has her ordinary day interrupted by an angel who gives her the most extraordinary news: she will give birth even though she’s never been with a man. There are no histrionics, no argument with the heavenly messenger. Instead, we hear rejoicing and acceptance. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Mary, this young innocent, is the one who finally finds out what everyone has longed to know: God chooses to save us, to hold and love us, with the tiny hands of a most unexpected baby.

The world is still waiting for the second advent foretold by Jesus. Mary experiences the events promised by the angel, an Incarnation that immediately cleaves the history of the world in two: All that ever happened before, and everything that’s happened since.

Ray Suarez is an American broadcast journalist and host of Inside Story on Al Jazeera America. He was the host of the National Public Radio program Talk of the Nation from 1993-1999. In his more than thirty-year career in the news business, he has also worked as a radio reporter in London and Rome, as a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, and as a reporter for the NBC-owned station WMAQ-TV in Chicago. He and his wife live in Washington, DC, with their three children. He is active locally and nationally in The Episcopal Church.

Soul Proclamations: Singing the Magnificat with Mary is a new collection of daily meditations for the Advent season. Authors include Ray Suarez; Christopher Wells, editor of The Living Church; Kate Moorehead, dean of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral; Thomas E. Breidenthal, bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio; and Christine McSpadden of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The book invites you to share Mary’s journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons. To walk with Mary each day this Advent, order a copy of the full volume of Soul Proclamations ($5).