THE SUNDAY AFTER ALL SAINTS

Gaudeamus

Rejoice we all in the Lord, keeping holy-day in honor of all the Saints:
In whose solemnity the Angels rejoice and glorify the Son of God. - INTROIT for All Saints' Day, from the Anglican Missal

Here are the appointed readings for use on this day.

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Here are the readings (Proper 24, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. In today's Gospel reading we hear the parable about the widow's persistence before the unfair judge; our cries today are still for justice and liberation.

TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Today's Gospel Reading

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

COMMENT What's always struck me about this reading is the Samaritan who returned to give thanks, who was - as Jesus says - a foreigner (and considered an outcast in that society).

Today in his sermon the Dean of St Paul's in Burlington talked about a flyer posted on the stairwell of his daughter's apartment house in Montpellier, France. He and his wife had been to visit her last week...she's an American - a foreigner in that land - doing an international grad student internship. The flyer read:

"Support each other"
"Be kind to one another"

And I think of the debates in this country surrounding the marginalised and those considered foreign in our city, state, country, and on the planet. (How can one be a foreigner on the planet?)

I would also add to that flyer the phrase, "Only connect..."

Here are the readings (Proper 23, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.

Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Sunday in the Octave of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels)

Here are the readings (Proper 21, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost. (It is also the Sunday in the Octave of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels.)

Mutual Caring: Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost

Here are the readings (Proper 20: Year C, RCL) appointed for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Here are the readings (Proper 19, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Via Speaking to the Soul--

O eternal God,
Turn us into the arms and hands,
The legs and feet
Of your beloved Son, Jesus.
You gave birth to him in heaven
Before the creation of the earth.
You gave birth to us on earth,
To become his living body.
Make us worthy to be his limbs,
And so worthy to share
In his eternal bliss.

A prayer of Hildegard of Bingen, quoted in 2000 Years of Prayer, compiled by Michael Counsell. Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Here are the readings (Proper 18, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost: Hospitality

Here are the readings (Proper 17, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

From the Gospel reading for today: "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind."

Hospitality broadens community.

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

God within creation from Speaking to the Soul:

The feature of Celtic spirituality that is probably most widely recognized, both within and outside the Church, is its creation emphasis. Like most children, I had grown up with a sense of awe at creation. Our earliest memories are generally of wonder in relation to the elements. Connected to these moments will be recollections of experiencing at the deepest levels a type of communion with God in nature, but there will usually have been very little in our religious traditions to encourage us to do much more than simply thank God for creation. The preconception behind this is that God is separate from creation. How many of us were taught actually to look for God within creation and to recognize the world as the place of revelation and the whole of life as sacramental? Were we not for the most part led to think that spirituality is about looking away from life, so that the Church is distanced from the world and spirit is almost entirely divorced from the matter of our bodies, our lives and the world? More...

Here are the readings (Proper 16, Year C, RCL) appointed for use on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

The readings appointed for 11 Pentecost are here.