Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Lent begins

Hello again my friends - as I write this we are in the 3rd week of Lent, how you doing?  Are you having a happy Lent?  Well you should!

That was actually the theme of my Ash Wednesday homily - in Lent we are called to repent, a call to prayer, fasting and almsgiving (not exactly the most uplifting of tasks).  Yet, it is through repentance that we are forgiven - and in forgiveness we have JOY!  Happy Lent!

Each Ash Wednesday our church and the Anglican community have an annual joint Ash Wednesday service.  We take turns hosting and whoever hosts keeps the collection - whoever is guest, preaches.  So this year it was the Anglican church's turn to host and I preached.  I always enjoy this and it seems they enjoyed my message.  The church was full and many of my parishioners were there.  The Anglican church, of course, has its roots in the Catholic Church so many parts of the service were identical, but there were many differences as well.  The bottom line however, is that the Word was proclaimed and we joined together as we began our Lenten Journey.

Ash Wednesday, however, did not begin with the ecumenical service.  That was actually the last of 5 services that day for me.  We started at 9AM with our Ash Wed liturgy in Cargill Creek.  That was followed by an 10:30AM drop-in at the Bowen Sound Primary School, then the 12:00 noon service at AUTEC.  I stayed at AUTEC until 1:00 so that those whose lunch break didn't allow them to be present at noon could still come by and be 'marked'.  At 1:00 I left AUTEC and drove the 90 minutes north to Mastic Point where, at Mastic Point Primary School over 60 received ashes, then back south to the ecumenical service with the Anglicans at their church in Calabash Bay (boy, was my thumb black).

Of all these services, by far, I had the most fun at Mastic Point Primary.  Just like last year the Principal had called an assembly and when I arrived they were all seated in the school auditorium.  This school has Pre-K, Kindergarten, and grades 1-6.  Different from the US, Kindergarten starts at 4 years old.  The little ones are so precious, I really enjoyed them.

This is a pic of the younger ones singing "This Little Light of Mine".  Its a great song for the kids because  I can make up different words that the kids sing, for example "Shine all over Mastic Point, I'm Gonna Let it Shine" - or - "Shine all over Mrs. Edgecombe", I'm Gonna Let it Shine" (Mrs Edgecombe liked that one).


Now, as we are singing I notice a teacher waving frantically to someone behind me.  I turns out this girl arrives late and she came in from the stage door, behind me.  The teacher was trying to tell her to go around, but when I realized it I hammed it up a bit.  "Who is this?"  All the kids shout her name.  "Shanika", I say, "come sing with us"

"Shine all over Shanika, I'm gonna let it shine", and the song went on with me holding her hands and clapping them as we sang - it was great and the kids loved it - even Shanika whose smile was literally from ear to ear.


After the song I began to explain why we put ashes on our heads.  To do this I told the story of Jonah and the whale - except I started with Jonah being swallowed by a Grouper "Nooo", the kids shouted.  OK he was swallowed by a shark, "Nooo Deacon", was he swallowed by a Lionfish? "Nooo, it was a whale".
As you can see I was a very animated preacher.
 

I had lots of fun with them, explaining that when the people of Nineveh repented they put ashes on their heads to show they were sorry for being bad - and today we are going to do the same thing.  We put ashes on our heads in the shape of a cross because, while we do bad things, it is through the cross that Jesus came and we get forgiven - and so the line of kids began, beginning with the youngest.


and it continued, and continued


 and continued and continued


 and even included the teachers!


When we were finished they all thanked me very much and I must say  it was a joy - which is what Lent is supposed to be - a time to experience the Joy of Repentance.


Once I finished here it was back on the road to get home for the 7PM ecumenical service and then, after a rather full day, get home, put my feet up, and begin to plan a homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent. 

How blessed am I do have the honor of being allowed to serve like THIS!
Till next time
Peace







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