Category Archives: Holy Days

The Magi by Night

Posted on January 5, 2021 by Rosalind C Hughes

They travelled by night.
They followed his star, meaning
they had to wait for darkness to fall as a mantle
about their shoulders to know the way; Continue reading →

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The first breath

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

scented with humanity – the particulates of life – held for what seemed like eternity, let loose at last (his mother, astonished at the audacity of her body, gasped) with the force of a singular creation, splitting the skies, setting … Continue reading →

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Mary and Joseph’s no good, terrible, wonderful year

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

A homily for Christmas Eve, 2020 At the turning of the year, as the days began to push back against the pushiness of night; as the light grew longer and the shadows shorter, the people were going about their business … Continue reading →

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Solstice

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

This poem first appeared at Bearings Online, a publication of the Collegeville Institute, at last year’s winter solstice Solstice At the abyss of the yearthe sun is silent;but in the bleak midwintersomething shiftsA fearful hope, homunculus,wakes the woman: lightbeyond the … Continue reading →

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Promise and practice

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

Promises require practice. It is our call and our promise to bring comfort to the broken-hearted, to make peace without sacrificing justice, or mercy, for peace cannot survive without them. … It is our call, and our promise, to resist evil, to proclaim the gospel by word and practice, to serve our neighbour as Christ himself, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. And God promises us eternal life and an end to this separation, this wrenching of the spirit, not because we do these things, but because Christ does these things. Continue reading →

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Friday

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

Breaking open pistachios by the Friday fire, pitching shells toward the pit. I wonder whom the meat of casements that arrive empty fed. Others refuse to open, peeling back my thumb nails; I surrender, hurl them to the fire. A … Continue reading →

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Trinity Sunday: what will become?

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

Christ calls me to repentance. If I am to call myself a Christian, I have to do the work. Continue reading →

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Another Pentecost

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

How quickly the crowd turned from Hosanna to Crucify; from hearing the miracle of the Holy Spirit poured out upon God’s chosen ones to proclaim salvation to writing them off as a dangerous and drunken mob.
But those who remained to listen learned something that day about the nature of God’s mercy, and the love of God that would go even to the Cross for us; love that would suffer in solidarity with the oppressed, the undermined, the unjustly executed, the betrayed. Continue reading →

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Preaching Pentecost

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

More than 100,000 people have died in the US of COVID-19.
Nearly 360,000 people have died from the disease worldwide. Close to 6 million cases have been confirmed overall.
George Floyd died after saying, “I can’t breathe,” as a police officer knelt on his neck in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Continue reading →

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Ascending

Posted on May 21, 2020 by Rosalind C Hughes

An arpeggio rising beyond our ear, they who strum and straddle the lines between heaven and the earth, the angels incorporeal, they think us foolish to strain after touch, sight, sounds, the echo in our marrow of a descending chord … Continue reading →

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