Category Archives: sermon

Great Vigil of Easter: 2013 update

(For the fire and water demo that accompanies this sermon, see last year’s offering: https://rosalindhughes.com/2012/04/07/easter-vigil-sermon-new-fire-and-living-water/) New fire and living water. Extremes of existence, held together by the cross and the resurrection, like life and death. Fire. It falls from the … Continue reading

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Maundy Thursday: the sacrament of love

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in one of the early centuries of the church, believed that the washing of feet instituted by Jesus was as sacramental, as important and as necessary as the two sacraments that the churches have all ended … Continue reading

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Year C: Palms and Passion

I am going to guess that you already know the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, and then I’m going to tell it to you, anyway. Once there was an emperor, who wanted a splendid new costume for his grand … Continue reading

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Year C Lent 5: a royal priesthood

The story of Jesus’ anointing is told in all four gospels, although there are differences in the details that each reports. Only John names the woman who performed the prophetic act: Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, of Bethany. … Continue reading

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Nothing, nor anything else

A grace-filled daily reflection from a colleague got me thinking. He was writing about those wonderful words of Paul, which are included in the little rationale for joy and grief coexisting at funerals which is included in our Book of … Continue reading

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Year C Lent 4: The hungry sons

I’ve been thinking this week about titles for this story, this famous parable of Jesus, so familiar and so well-thumbed that we defy ourselves to find anything new in it. I do wonder if it needs a new title. “The … Continue reading

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Hungry

My brother was one of those children – maybe you were, or maybe you had one like him – who would, from time to time, express his displeasure at his parents by leaving home. He would pack up his little … Continue reading

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Prodigal

“The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” So Jesus told them a few stories, about things that were lost and then found, about a boy who got a little lost then found … Continue reading

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Year C Lent 3: manure and mercy

The thing about a parable is that it can be read from many different angles, with different results. Like those silhouetted pictures that can be a vase or a pair of faces, depending on where you place your focus, or … Continue reading

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Aflame

Aflame with a passion which has yet to be quite requited, reaching out tongues of everlasting fire to melt the perennially hard-hearted with the patience of Time itself, burning with love, yet unconsumed.

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