Category Archives: lectionary reflection

The road to Emmaus

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

If the risen Christ stumbled through our doors, unexpected and unrecognized, visibly wounded in his head and his heart and his hands, how would we treat him? As a victim of our human violence, or as a threat? Continue reading →

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Blessed

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

He breathed on them the scent of grave-clothes, myrrh, and aloes, the stench of forgiveness; I imagine that smells of olive oil pressed from the groves in the Garden of Gethsemane, drowning out with unction the fetor of betrayal and blood.  All day long they shed … Continue reading →

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Easter 2023: it’s (still) a love story

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

It isn’t like any love story we could conjure up, because it is true, a true story: Jesus lived among us, the Son of God was crucified, descended to the dead, and on the third day rose again, and he could not wait to greet his beloved disciples on the road, could not wait to see their shining, astonished faces; he could not wait to love them back. Continue reading →

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Preaching from the shadows

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

The sound of mallet on metal
wood and splintered flesh
ricochets around the city walls
shivering the fabric of
the crowd that clothes the alleyways
too often lost in thought and prayers
we fall without an echo
into the open grave Continue reading →

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Afterwards

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

It was the following day that sealed it for him waking with the rooster an hour before dawn the darkness of the room unfamiliar tangled in bedsheets he shivered still straining his hope to conjure up that sun light and … Continue reading →

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Seeing, seen

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

It is no sin to be blind, but it is sinful willfully to avert our eyes from injustice, to pretend to see no evil, to blur out the blemishes that spoil our vision of our own lives, our own country, our own souls. “You who say you see, your sin remains,” he warns us, we who have seen the light, who have been awoken.  Continue reading →

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Living water: A love story

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

Read in a certain way, the banter between Jesus and the woman can sound almost like a flirtation; but the spark is the long, slow heat of the love of God that has drawn each of them to an understanding of how God so loves the world.

In the noonday, the sun has stood still as they linger in the light of eternity. Continue reading →

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Thaw

Posted on March 11, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten story, based on Psalm 104:29-30: When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew … Continue reading →

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Living water

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

I have always loved the sea. Continue reading →

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Running out of water in the holy lands

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Rosalind C Hughes

A little Lenten story First in the north, between fruit trees and shade, it seemed it should be more difficult than this to die, except for the envy of avocadoes and apricots, hoarding the hidden streams of mercy for themselves; It made more sensein the south, where … Continue reading →

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