What does the word “Maundy” mean? As we progress through this holy week of Christ’s passion, I paused and realized I didn’t really know the definition. The name "Maundy" derives from Latin, mandatum novum, the first sung response of the traditional ceremony for the washing of the feet. (See John 13.) The Christian church observes Maundy Thursday as the commemoration of the sacrament of Holy Communion and, in some traditions, the footwashing.Another place claimed the word came from the Latin word mandatum, meaning "commandment," Maundy refers to the commands Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper: to love with humility by serving one another and to remember his sacrifice.The observance is one of Christianity's oldest celebrations, dating back to the first century church. In the 12th century, the English Church initiated a custom of distributing money to older adults who had performed outstanding service to the crown. Known as "Maundy Money," these specially minted coins are … [Read more...]
Mother Teresa (1910-1997) Women’s History Month
March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month. The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers. Enjoy!Mother Teresa – my final post for Women’s History Month. This well-known inspirational woman lived a life of sacrifice, prayer, service and love. A woman, many of us watched on television and read about while she was alive – makes growing a heart of God and following him sound possible when we have a “real” model, doesn’t it?Born in Albania, she felt strongly the call of God at the age of twelve. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India.Hearing God once again in 1946, … [Read more...]
Spring – the Season of Singing – Lectio Divina – March 28, 2010
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:11-13 (NIV)The season of singing has come!Lord, I love how you wake up the earth in spring. How your hope blasts through the trumpets of daffodils with the music of “I am alive and love you.” The bells of pink and yellow tulips ring in triumph beating away the chilled wintry air. The scent of lilacs drift through the warming breezes. Spring does make me want to sing.The season of singing - what a great way to describe the feeling of this year. I can almost hear the earth singing with you, Lord. Can I join in too?I hum my little tune of thankfulness for arriving safely through dark January and February into the light-filled March and April. I jump with joy seeing the robins, dancing in the rain puddles. I am like a child anticipating Christmas when I see the first signs of pointed green leaves erupting from … [Read more...]
Women’s History Month – Catherine Marshall (1914-1983)
March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month. The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers. Enjoy!Catherine Marshall was my favorite writer as a child. As a teen I devoured her books like Something More, The Helper, and Beyond Ourselves. I loved her honesty in her writing and how she shared her intimately struggles to walk with Christ. She was always seeking Him. Multiple times I thought, “I want to be like her. I want to write like her.” She is a major reason why I am a Christian writer today.Catherine, originally from Johnson City, Tennessee, was married to Presbyterian minister and Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, Peter Marshall. When Marshall died of a heart attack in 1949. Mrs. Marshall wrote a biography of her late husband, A Man … [Read more...]
Beneath the Cross of Jesus – Elizabeth Clephane (1830-1869)
March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month. The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers. Enjoy!The last hymn we sang on Sunday – Beneath the Cross of Jesus – contained words that lingered within me.Slowly read some of the lines:Beneath the cross of Jesus I long to take my stand….and from my contrite heart, with tears, two wonders I confess; the wonder of his glorious love and my unworthiness… I take O cross, your shadow for my abiding place; I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face.The whole hymn swelled as a prayer within me.Who wrote these meaningful words of devotion to Christ? I never heard of her before: Elizabeth Clephane.Elizabeth Cecelia Douglas Clephane (1830-1869) was born in Edinburgh, but lived most of her … [Read more...]
God Holds Us Firm – Lectio Divina – March 21, 2010
When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm. Psalm 75:3 (NIV)“it is I who hold its pillars firm.”Another earthquake? I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news. Lately it seems as if the earth is restless.Yet, Lord when I read this verse, I feel safe knowing you hold the pillars firm.What an image! God cradling the earth in his mighty hands. Staying with us no matter what life and nature heaves into our lives.God holds us firm.Though destruction surrounds us, you restore and rebuild,God holds us firm.Though all we knew and relied upon is gone,God hold us firm.If our hearts break with loss beyond our comprehensionGod holds us firm.Our actions and sins threaten the world, Lord, yet you are there, holding us firm. You never let go and I rest in that promise. God holds us firm. … [Read more...]
Dorothy Day (1897-1980)
March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month. The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers. Enjoy!I wrinkled my nose and shook my head in disbelief as I read the life of Dorothy Day. This is going to be a very long two years studying the life of this woman so different from me. Maybe I should switch to another inspirational spiritual person.In the first year of my two-year program to learn to be a spiritual director, each of us chose someone from history to be our spiritual mentor. We studied their lives. Read books about them. Gave presentations about how they discerned God in their moments and how walking with someone of faith changed our own spiritual journey.My instructor suggested Dorothy Day to me. I recently found information … [Read more...]
Anne Frank (1929-1945)
Anne Frank wrote one of the world’s most famous diaries. Since I keep a journal, she, of course, has to be one of the women I mention during Women’s History Month. On a sad note, March is also the month of her death from typhus while in a concentration camp in 1945.Many of us know her story: Born on June 12, 1929, Anne Frank was a German-Jewish teenager who was forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust. She and her family, along with four others, spent 25 months during World War II in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After being betrayed to the Nazis, Anne, her family, and the others living with them were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps. She died in March 1945, just a few weeks before the camp was liberated.On Anne’s 13th birthday, her father gave her a small cloth covered book with a lock on the front. It was meant to be an autograph book, but Anne decided to use it as a diary. Three weeks after her birthday, the … [Read more...]