Readings and Reflections

 "The world is changed by your example not by your opinion!" —Paulo Coehlo  

“…being a Christian cannot be a little Sunday world in addition to our workaday world, something we build as an addition in some devotional corner of our life; rather, it is a new foundation, it is transformation that changes us.”

— Joseph Ratzinger

from Teaching and Learning the Love of God

2026 Easter Message

to the Diocese of the West

“Because upon the first glad Easter day,

The stone that sealed His tomb was rolled away;

So, through the deepening shadows of death’s night,

Men see an open door…beyond it light.”

Ida Norton Munson

I would encourage you to take a few moments to consider just what is that

“light beyond”. What was it, what is it, and what could it be?

Initially, that light meant to the disciples that Jesus had triumphed over death. He had survived the brutal journey to the cross. They had witnessed his death. They had experienced the end of their hopes and dreams, a complete destruction of their ideals and religious certainties.

And yet, at their darkest time, from the garden came the almost unbelievable

news: THE LORD IS RISEN!

The most amazing news is that we, too, may witness and experience His triumph in our lives when each of us commits unreservedly to Him. When we begin to share in His light, that wondrous victory of Easter, we can find the strength and courage to daily embrace Him and live in that “Peace which passeth all understanding”.

HE IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA!

May God Bless you this Easter Season with the joy of His Resurrection.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

The Right Reverend Robert M. Hammond

Asceniontide

The Sunday after Ascenion

 The Collect
O GOD, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen  

The Collect.

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. 

¶ This Collect is to be said daily throughout the Octave

The Epistle  1 St. Peter 4:7THE end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel  St. John 15:26 and part of Chapter 16
WHEN the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them.