Daily Office Readings for Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent: Year 2
Morning, Psalms 97 and 99; Evening, Psalm 94:
Genesis 49:29 to 50:14; 1st Cor. 11:17 to 34; Mark 8:1 to 10:
“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’” (1Corinthians 11:23 – 24)
In the Synoptic Gospels we learn about how our Lord Jesus wants us to remember Him, as well as here in 1st Corinthians, where Paul reports how our Lord Jesus gives us the image of how he wants us to remember Him: by the bread and the cup.
It was the bread and wine, the body and blood, that was missing by not being able to attend Church during the onset of Covid. I never thought I, or anybody, would lose Church attendance for Lent, but we did. I missed it as did all of my flock. As we began to come back to Church, we did so without Holy Communion. Later we resumed with bread only. Then later we returned with both kinds but there is a difference. Now we come to the rail to receive the bread and then some elect to receive wine from individual little glasses and others from the common chalice, each as they are comfortable.
Yielding to change for the sake of safety makes sense. We again receive the body and blood as commanded by our Lord Jesus. But we are using reason, one of the legs of the three-legged stool (of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason), as introduced by Richard Hooker, the 17th Century Anglican Priest. We are a reasonable people who find ways to fulfill our Christ given destiny of eternal life.
Let us pray:
Dear Lord Jesus, as you are made known to us in the bread and wine consecrated in remembrance of you, be in us each week as we then are in you. Let our weekly intake of you sustain us to do those things that are pleasing in your sight, that fortified by your body and blood we will walk in your ways always. Amen.
Today our Church remembers Pope Gregory the Great who had a hand in the formation of our Anglican Communion by sending Augustine to England. His bio can be found at: Gregory the Great (satucket.com)
Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools including St. Augustine in Raleigh, North Carolina.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
onewhoponders 