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

 

  

EastertideThe Fifth Sunday after Easter

Rogation Sunday

 The Collect
O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen  

The Epistle  James 1:22

BE ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The Gospel  St. John 16:23
VERILY, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.