IN THIS ISSUE
Call to a Holy Lent
What is Maundy Thursday?
What Makes a Saint a Saint?
Can you eat pancakes virtually?
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Pictures from Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper on Zoom
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The contemporary icon shown above is one of many variations of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper that have been used by Christian iconographers for centuries. By Mary Jane Miller. |
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Call to a Holy Lent
by Rev. Brit Frazier
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On the first Sunday of Lent this year, the Gospel of Mark carries us immediately into the action. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, and the Spirit descends upon him. The voice of God cries out, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” But before we have even a moment to give thanks, we hear that, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.” (Mark 1:12-13).
It is the wilderness into which we are invited in this holy season of Lent. It is a time for clarity, reorientation, and prayer. In the wilderness, there is nothing for us to gain or achieve. There is nothing there for us to produce or to master. We find only an emptiness that refuses to be filled by anything that is not God.
The wilderness is a place of temptation at times. Satan promises Jesus power, sustenance, and glory, and in Jesus’ human state, we might imagine that these offers were not always easy to refuse. But in his sinless flesh, Jesus shows us the rightly ordered path through wilderness. With the words of scripture on his lips, Jesus relies on the Father alone.
As we move through our own forty days in the Lenten wilderness, we are called to a renewal of trust in our heavenly Father. We are invited to look away from the things that keep our eyes from beholding him, to release those burdens from our arms that stop us from taking his hand. Though our own flesh continues to know sin so well, we can rest easier in what the Gospel tells us about the wilderness. Temptation may be there, yes, but so are the angels that minister to us. So is the Word of God, in scripture and in the Person of Jesus Christ. Just as God provided food and drink for the Israelites in the desert, so too does God provide for us in the blessing of his perfect Son.
This Lent arrives on the heels of a year of wilderness, but Jesus has walked this path before us. His Gospel remains on our lips and in our hearts, a harvest of grace. In Psalm 78, a skeptical voice demands, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” We give thanks that in the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, we find a richly appointed table here indeed.
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What is "Maundy Thursday"?
by Teri Ballou
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Have you ever wondered what “Maundy Thursday” stands for, and why churches around the world and through the ages (including All Saints) have a ceremonial foot washing during the service that day?
On the Thursday before Easter, the church commemorates the events that took place on the night before Jesus's crucifixion. Christians remember the Last Supper, when Jesus established the Eucharist, and the events that took place later that night, when he was betrayed by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Maundy is derived from the Latin word for "command," and refers to Jesus's commandment to the disciples after washing their feet: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34) It is common at Maundy Thursday services to practice a ceremonial foot-washing, in imitation of Jesus’s actions that evening, and as a sign and example of loving humility.
From Mother Brit: It’s such a humbling and beautiful thought that our Lord cared so tenderly for his followers, even when that gesture would’ve shocked the world as the task of a servant.
It is customary at the end of this deeply meaningful service to strip the altar in silence, and to shroud the cross in black, in preparation for Good Friday, and the remembrance of Jesus’s death on the cross.
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What Makes a Saint a Saint?
by Peggy Eastman, Poet-in-Residence
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Our church is called All Saints, so as part of my Lenten discipline this year I decided to choose a saint and do research on him/her. Since I had met Mother Teresa of Calcutta (now called Kolkata) years ago at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, I chose her.
We know from the Bible that God chooses a wide variety of people to carry out His kingdom work on earth; Mother Teresa was small and slight and spoke in a very soft voice. When I met her, I had to lean close to hear her. Albanian by birth, she became a citizen of India, where she worked among the poor. In her book “My Life for the Poor,” she describes how at the age of 12 she first decided that she wanted to belong entirely to God. For six years she prayed about it, and during times of uncertainty about her vocation she thought of what her mother told her: “When you accept a task, do it willingly. If not, don’t accept it!”
At age 18, Mother Teresa decided to become a missionary. She joined the Loreto Sisters and went to their mother house in Rathfarnham, Dublin, Ireland. After six weeks, she traveled to India in 1929 for her novitiate. She took her vows as a nun with the Loreto Sisters in Darjeeling and worked for 20 years in education in St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta, which was mostly for middle-class children. Although she was happy, she heard a strong inner call: to serve the poor in the streets of India, those who were hungry, ill, homeless, destitute, dying, unloved and abandoned. As she said, “I understood that God wanted something from me…The message was quite clear: I was to leave the convent and help the poor whilst living among them.”
Leaving Loreto in 1948 was “my greatest sacrifice, the most difficult thing I have ever done,” writes Mother Teresa, who died in September 1997 and was canonized in September 2016. But she prayed earnestly for a way to resist the temptations of material comfort and help the poor of India, especially the “untouchables” in Calcutta. Young girls, some from very old, good castes, started to come to her and asked to join her in her work. Ultimately, she received permission from the Catholic Church in 1950 to form the Missionaries of Charity, a new religious congregation serving the poorest of the poor. You may have seen Sisters from this order in their white habits banded in blue; in 2020 there were more than 5,000 religious Sisters in this congregation.
We can’t all live as Mother Teresa did, nor are we called to do so. She and the other saints of the church are examples for us of Christian service. They inspire, they encourage, they motivate. What can we learn from Mother Teresa’s example? We can learn about: devotion to God above everything else; hearing and acting on God’s call; the power of prayer; humility in manner and words; what it means to love “the least of these;” always putting concern for others above self; lack of interest in personal comfort; and disregard for material possessions. We are all part of God’s family, and we all have a place in His kingdom church. So this Lent let us invite the inspiration of Mother Teresa and all the saints to guide us in our spiritual reflections.
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Can you Eat Pancakes Virtually? |
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Our virtual pancake supper and reunion with Dr. Silvia from the Dominican Republic on Shrove Tuesday was fantastic! Your prayers worked! We had so much fun - and praise God that Dr. Silvia’s wifi didn’t freeze up one time in 75 minutes of zoom. Thanks to all who joined us for this special time! |
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Did you miss the February issue of Connect? We highlighted local outreach at All Saints, including the many ways that All Saints was able to serve our community during the holiday season.
Previous issues of the Connect! also celebrate God's faithfulness to us and work among us:
Please join us in continuing to celebrate the good news of God working in our midst - ideas for the Connect newsletter are always welcome! You may submit possible topics, photos, or short (1 - 3 paragraph) articles to Communications Manager Teri Ballou.
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please call (301) 654-2488 or email info@allsaintschurch.net. All inquiries confidential.
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