Category: Religion

Lent 2011

Tomorrow (March 9, 2011) is Ash Wednesday, the first day of 40 days of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving that we call Lent. This season ends on Easter Sunday.

My special project this year will be reading the gospel of Mark with a map in hand, as suggested by my bishop. Most Catholics give up eating mammals and birds on Fridays in Lent—for a long-time vegan like me, this isn’t a change, so I’m always experimenting with different fasts. This year, I’ll cut back my eating on Fridays to just a snack for breakfast. (The giving up soy idea is interesting, but hasn’t been fruitful for me.)

As usual, I also have an ambitious plan for reading and watching movies that connect with my search for Christ. If I get around to doing any of that, I’ll post my thoughts here.

One online prayer resource I’m going to try, for the first time, is Praying Lent. I’ll let you know how this goes.

Installing lectors and eucharistic ministers, St. Peter’s Parish

This past Sunday, I was “installed” as a lector at St. Peter’s Parish. The ceremony consisted of a simple blessing with holy water at mass.

(Pictured: The newly-blessed lectors and eucharistic ministers of St. Peter’s.)

I lectored all through high school without an official blessing, so I’ve been poking around online to learn more about the significance of this ceremony.

Apparently there was a pre-Vatican II “minor order” for lectors, but this is not that. According to The Duties and Ministries in the Mass, I think my role is “a layperson who happens to be reading”:

101. In the absence of an instituted lector, other laypersons may be commissioned to proclaim the readings from Sacred Scripture. They should be truly suited to perform this function and should receive careful preparation, so that the faithful by listening to the readings from the sacred texts may develop in their hearts a warm and living love for Sacred Scripture.

At the same time the lectors were installed, eucharistic ministers were commissioned, which seems to be a more formal blessing from “Book of Blessings, chapter 63.”

Merry Christmas!

Enough of this pre-Christmas and post-Christmas blogging; today is Orthodox Christmas.

Last night I stopped by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Nairobi a few hours before Christmas mass, which I considered attending but was warned off from by a couple non-Amharic-speakers.

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Here’s a photo of the inside I took at the urging of a member of the congregation. The painting of the three bearded men depicts the Trinity. I was told that the TV screen, though not working at present, is intended to give people a view of what’s happening in the inner sanctuary when the curtain is closed.

I love watching people showing up for Ethiopian mass, the women in white packed into cars, emerging like circus clowns turning into butterflies.
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Friends Meeting, Nairobi

Last Sunday I stopped by the Quakers on Ngong Road in Nairobi for the mostly-silent “unprogrammed worship.” This is one of the few religious services where I feel obtrusive—it’s like sitting in at an AA meeting when you’re not part of that community.

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The unprogrammed worship didn’t go very long, so we walked over to another building where they hold, you guessed it, “programmed worship.” I had no idea such a thing existed. It’s similar to an evangelical service. (Though on the tamer side.)

One more surprising fact: Kenya has the most Quakers of any nation. I am told that the Ngong Road congregation is mostly Luhya.

Merry post-Christmas!

As predicted, we welcomed Christmas on the road, but within a few hours were in the arms of family, and had a very lovely Christmas day.

We celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family at St. Austin’s Parish in Nairobi, Kenya, where the church was packed, the music lovely, and the homily namechecked Facebook.

No photographs of the church, I’m sorry to say, but continuing my long-running “quirky creche” series, here are a couple of nativity scenes that caught my eye this week.

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The household nativity scene above is pretty standard, except for the Godzilla-sized sheep lurking behind it. “You should see the shepherds….””

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This one is at the Mwangaza Jesuit Centre. There are several pieces of fantastic religious sculpture there, but our subject today is nativity scenes, so here it is. I like that the shepherd is playing some sort of bagpipes, and also that the background decor is made of gift wrapping paper and Christmas lights. Nice touches, which I’ll keep in mind next time I help make a creche.

Merry pre-Christmas

We had a little pre-Christmas celebration today, lighting all the Advent candles, exchanging gifts, and listening to holiday music.

We’re travelling over the next few days. If all is well will celebrate with family, but what with this week being what it is, there’s a good chance we’ll end up spending the 25th in an airport somewhere, and we thought we might as well have a little Christmas celebration at home just in case.

If we have to spend Christmas stranded, we’ll be part of a long tradition, including many TV specials and the birth of Christ itself.

I don’t know what my internet access will be this week, either, so here’s my #1 nativity scene of 2010, from the Christmas pageant at Pleasant Street Baptist Church.

A Christmas tree, a tabletop nativity scene, kids on a couch, a living nativity scene, a huge cross, the Snow Ghost, and a hymn on a huge screen among the angels. There’s enough theology here, even at low resolution, for a novel, with a couple icons left over.

508 #137: Jeff Barnard

This week’s show is a “highlight reel” of the late Jeff Barnard’s appearances on the show. Produced by Mike Benedetti and Nicole. Co-hosted by Brendan Melican. Featuring Jacob Berendes, Kevin Ksen, Anne Lewenberg, Nat Needle, Bruce Russell, and Scott Zoback. Like the episodes from which it was compiled, this show has a tremendous amount of complaining about the newspaper.

This program will be cablecast on WCCA TV13 in Worcester at 7pm tonight, and on the homepage at wccatv.com.

Audio: mp3 link, other formats, feed

Video: Downloads and other formats

Contact info.

Clips from episodes 10, 19, 37, 38, 40, 42, 46, 47, 50, 51, 100, 114, and 131.
Continue reading “508 #137: Jeff Barnard”