Continue (Midweek Message)

Continue

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

February 19, 2020

As we approach Lent, we often start thinking about ways we need to change, sins we need to repent of.  But amendment of life need not be a grim joyless task of breaking with the past.  I share here with you a poem that captures it as holding a deep continuity with what we have experienced and done before: 

My Wish

By Maya Angelou

My wish for you
Is that you continue

Continue

To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness

Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden
Of your tender heart

Continue

In a society dark with cruelty
To let the people hear the grandeur
Of God in the peals of your laughter

Continue

To let your eloquence
Elevate the people to heights
They had only imagined

Continue

To remind the people that
Each is as good as the other
And that no one is beneath
Nor above you

Continue

To remember your own young years
And look with favor upon the lost
And the least and the lonely

Continue

To put the mantel of your protection
Around the bodies of
The young and defenseless

Continue

To take the hand of the despised
And diseased and walk proudly with them
In the high street
Some might see you and
Be encouraged to do likewise

Continue

To plant a public kiss of concern
On the cheek of the sick
And the aged and infirm
And count that as a
Natural action to be expected

Continue

To let gratitude be the pillow
Upon which you kneel to
Say your nightly prayer
And let faith be the bridge
You build to overcome evil
And welcome good

Continue

To ignore no vision
Which comes to enlarge your range
And increase your spirit

Continue

To dare to love deeply
And risk everything
For the good thing

Continue

To float
Happily in the sea of infinite substance
Which set aside riches for you
Before you had a name

Continue

And by doing so
You and your work
Will be able to continue
Eternally

Next Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  During the day, the Church will be open and I will be hearing confessions and giving absolution ("shriving" penitents).  At 5:30 p.m., we will have the Party of Parties Auction and Baked Potato Dinner in the Parish Hall to raise funds for our soical justice, corporal acts of mercy, and charitable outreach grants program.  On Ash Wednesday, we will have Sung Morning Prayer at 8:15 a.m., and then Holy Eucharist at noon and at 7:00 p.m.  We will offer the Imposition of Ashes and Invitation to a Holy Lent at all three services.   

Grace and Peace.

Fr. Tony+