10 year anniversary of our Prayer Wall - Rector's Rambling for April 12, 2026

 Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!

We continue our celebration of Easter today, and throughout the remainder of the 40 days of the Easter Season.  It seems only fair that if we spent 40 days of fasting and penitence for Lent, then the celebration should be at least as long!  The Easter Seasons ends with the Feast of the Ascension, which falls on May 14th this year.  We then add 10 more days of special prayer and intention in preparation of the gift of God the Holy Ghost on the Feast of Whitsunday, also known as Pentecost. 

Thank you to the many people who pitched in last week for our grand celebration of the Feast of the Resurrection.  The music was sublime, the liturgy transcendent, coffee hour delicious and plentiful, and the congregation joyful and exuberant.  It was a wonderful day and I am thankful to God for the Feast Day and to the many people of St. John’s who participated in making it such a wonderful day.

Today marks an interesting milestone.  It was on the First Sunday after Easter in 2016 that we dedicated The Prayer Wall on Montcalm Aveue. 

Joe Alff, who with his wife Marge now live the Chicago area, had a great idea that we needed a place were people could offer their prayers in a tangible way 24 hours a day, without having to come inside the church.  The design is based on the idea of the Western Wall of the former Temple in Jerusalem where people write their prayers on slips of paper and insert it in the slots between stones of the foundation of a place were God dwelt in a special way, until it became redundant because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Joe approached his neighbor Gene Pluhar with an idea for the design, and from there was born the the prayer wall we now have located on Montcalm Street on the side of the parish parking lot.  People walking by for events at the stadiums, arena, and, as well as those  just passing by, stop to put a prayer in the wall.  On Sunday a team of parishioners spend a few minutes out there reaffirming their prayers, asking God to grant them as may be most expedient for them.   I have personally witnessed people stopping to pray very late at night, and very early in the morning.

 

He is risen indeed! - Rector's Rambling for April 5, 2026

     
    Alleluia!

Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed!

Alleluia!

 

This is our Easter Proclamation as we celebrate Jesus’ victory over sin and death.  What a wonderful statement of faith, which is absolutely essential and central to who we are as members of the Body of Christ, the Church.  His Resurrection is an absolute basic requirement for belief, along with our statement that Jesus Christ is Lord!

This past week we have had a glorious journey, starting with Palm Sunday.  There we celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, being welcomed with cries of  “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  Surely this would be the great king who would throw off the yoke of Roman oppression.  But his kingship was not to be of this world.  On Thursday he had his Passover celebration with the apostles where he took that meal and with it instituted the Blessed Sacrament of His own Body and Blood.  From there he is arrested, tried, and as we commemorated on Good Friday, was put to death.

Today we celebrate His Resurrection!

Welcome to St. John’s Church.  We give thanks for the many people who make St. John’s their High Holy Day destination, and for those worshipping with us for the first time.  Easter is a grand day, especially with the brass accompanying the choir.  The flowers are glorious, and it is always wonderful to see the Easter joy on each other’s faces!

The other 51 Sundays a year are also a celebration of the Resurrection—the reason we worship on Sundays!  Although we won’t have the brass each week, the choir leads us in sublime worship as we work our way through the Liturgical Year.  We work our way through Eastertide, Trinitytide, Advent, Christmastide, Epiphanytide and then back to pre-Lent and Lent!   Each season and each week has a different emphasis, teaching us about Our Lord and His Will for us.

He is Risen!  Let us rejoice today, and each week of this year!

 

Holy Week - Rector's Rambling for March 29, 2026

     This is the most important week of the year!  Holy Week begins today, and between now and next Sunday you will have 14 opportunities to be at St. John’s for the public worship of the Church.

Three of those worship opportunities actually happen most weeks of the year here at St. John’s: Holy Communion on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 12:15 PM and Evening Prayer will be prayed in the Ministry Center Monday through Thursday.

For Holy Week we add several important opportunities for worship and devotion.  On Wednesday evening we have a service of psalms and lessons at 7:00 PM called Tenebræ.  On Maundy Thursday the one celebration of the Holy Communion will be at 7:00 PM (no 10:30 AM Mass this day), which is followed by the stripping of the altar and an opportunity to spend time at the Garden Watch in the chapel.

Good Friday starts with the opportunity to spend time at the Garden Watch (beginning at 9:00 AM) before the Good Friday Liturgy, which takes place from Noon to 3:00 PM.

On Holy Saturday [Easter Eve] the great Vigil Service of Easter begins at 6:00 PM, which includes the first Communion service of the Easter Feast, and on Sunday we will have the grand celebration of the Resurrection at 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM (Brass Prelude at 9:30 AM).

Information about these various services can be found in the insert in today’s Order of Service called Holy Week Explained.

More importantly, I cannot stress more strongly that we need you to attend these services!  This is the most important week of the year, and I would love to see a larger percentage of parishioners avail themselves of one or more of these services that lead up to Easter Day.

I understand that we are a busy people, and that many of us live very far away from the church facility.  But it is important for your spiritual life to participate in this holiest of weeks, and your presence will also be an encouragement to those others who have taken time and distance to be here, especially our visitors.

God willing, see you in Church!

 

Veiling for Passiontide - Rector's Rambling for March 22, 2026

       As you may have noticed, the crosses on the altars and around the church are now veiled.  Although most Episcopal churches follow the modern Roman Catholic form for veiling the crosses on all the Sundays of Lent, we keep to the old tradition of doing so from Passion Sunday onwards.  Dr. Taylor Marshall, a former Episcopal priest writes on his blog Canterbury Tales,

“In the old days, Passion Sunday (5th Sunday) ‘ramped up’ the Lenten season.  Passion Sunday (also called Judica Sunday from the opening Introit) is the traditional day for veiling the crucifixes and statues in the churches.  The practice allegedly derives from Bavaria (though I’d love for someone more knowledgeable to shed light on the origin of this custom).  The crosses and images remain veiled and add to the dramatic effect of the Paschal Vigil when they are unveiled for the glory and wonder of our Lord’s resurrection.  The famous medieval triptychs that opened and closed were constructed for the purpose of closing them for this season.”

Additionally, starting today we no longer use the “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and every shall be, world without end.” to the end of psalms and canticles, as well as the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer.    Removing this Doxology is another liturgical reminder that we are another step closer to Good Friday, and then Easter Day!

Wednesday, March 25, is the Feast of the Annunciation.  That day marks nine months until the celebration of the birth of Jesus, so that day the Church remembers the day that the Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son by the Holy Ghost.  This can be found in St. Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 1, verses 26 to 38.

We will celebrate this Feast within our Lenten Fast on Wednesday, March 25, at the 12:15 Holy Communion Service.

 

Laetare! And Covid shutdown anniversary - Rector's Rambling for March 15, 2026

     Today we take the opportunity to ‘lighten up’ a bit with the celebration of Laetare Sunday, also known as Rose Sunday because of the rose colored vestments used at today’s Masses. After six weeks of the heavy purple of the three pre-Lenten gesimas and first three Sundays in Lent, we get to lighten up just a bit before going headlong into the much deeper next two weeks of Passiontide and Holy Week!

To help with lightening things up, we will be having a Corned Beef luncheon downstairs following the 10 AM Service.  I hope you can join us!

Recently a friend noted on social media that he was having the “Lentiest of Lents" he could possibly be having.  I immediately thought back to the last time I heard someone say that!  It was this week, six years ago, that the Covid Shutdowns began!  As I wrote in the Chronicle for that Sunday in 2020 (which was only published online for people to see since we couldn’t actually be here in Church)

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“On Tuesday, March 17, (2020) the bishops of the four Episcopal Church dioceses in Michigan issued a Pastoral Directive, stating,

In addition to continuing to forgo all public, in-person worship services, we direct you to cease all other Sunday, Saturday and weekday in-person gatherings, including weddings, funerals, memorial services, bible studies, prayer meetings, and non-emergency baptisms, and place all of the groups that gather at your congregation on hiatus for the CDC’s recommended eight weeks, or until May 10th, including both Holy Week and Easter.”

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Those eight weeks of mandated shutdown were extended into over fifteen weeks as we went from trying to slow the spread to trying to stop the spread.  Reopening happened July 1 with all sorts of restrictions over the next year.  St. John’s was the only parish of the diocese in the city of Detroit to open for an entire year, and did so without a single outbreak in the parish.

In some ways is seems like ages ago, and other times the pain of it quite fresh.  Some parishioners never returned from the shut down, and the addition of regular livestreaming and the morning meditations allowed for others to join us electronically.  Just last week I got an email from another person in England thanking us for our YouTube channel.

I am so grateful for the faithfulness of this parish, for the many people who wanted to get back to worship, to being with each other, and to receive The Blessed Sacrament.  May we never find ourselves in this situation again!.

 

The Daily Office - Rector's Rambling for March 1, 2026

         The Daily Office is one of the crown jewels of the Book of Common Prayer.  Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in the 16th Century, developed the first prayer book (with the help of others) to reflect the western Christian worship of the Church, BUT in English, and in some ways, streamlined, so that it would be accessible to not only the clergy, but the laity as well.  The Holy Communion, of course, is lead by the clergy, but the Daily Office could be said by all, and not just in Church, but in one’s own home as well.  However, with the cost of purchasing a book in the 16th Century, combined with relatively low literacy rates among the laity, it would take some time before this would become more common.

The Daily Office of Morning Prayer is a combination of the old Latin offices of Matins and Lauds, and Evening Prayer a combination of Vespers and Compline.  The offices of Prime, Terce, Sext, and Nones (smaller, minor offices between morning and evening) were jettisoned all together.

The website for The Anglican Office Book (www.AnglicanOffice.com) puts the entire 1928 Book of Common Prayer Daily Office at your scrolling fingertips, including the appropriate psalms and readings for the day, plus a few extra hymns each day for good measure.  The minor offices can also be accessed for each day on the same site as well. 

As time has gone on, and there has been a revival of the religious life in the Anglican Communion (Monks, Nuns, Friars, etc.), there has been a movement to redevelop a fuller expression of the daily prayers for those who have the dedicated time for it as a part of their vocation and ministry.  One great example of this is a book called The Anglican Breviary, based on the pre-1950s Monastic Breviary translated into Prayer Book English, but retaining many of the ancient hymns of the church lost in Cranmer’s compilation.

It is something that takes time.  Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer has three to four Psalms, along with two lessons of Scripture, and two Canticles.  In the Breviary, Matins and Lauds has 15 Psalms and Canticles, and either three or nine lessons, depending on the day in the calendar.  And those lessons are not just Scripture, but also the writings and sermons of the saints.  The rest of the seven Offices have three Psalms (or for longer Psalms, three portions) each.  Whereas the 1928 BCP accomplishes the entire 150 Psalms in a month, the Breviary does it in a week.  It’s a lot of praying.

However you decide to do it, I encourage you to do it!

 

Thank you, and Knee Time - Rector's Rambling for February 22, 2026

 First let me say a hearty thank you to everyone who organized and participated in last week’s 25th Anniversary Celebration.  Thank you for the gifts, the tributes, and expressions of love and gratitude!  Last week was a celebration but now the season of penance begins!

Knee time.  That is the expression glibly used to refer to prayer time in the chapel at my seminary.  When we were stressed, or overwhelmed, the prescription from the faculty and spiritual director was to make more time for knee time.

As we begin Lent, with all its extra classes, giving things up, and special devotions, one of the best things to do is to make a special emphasis on more time in prayer, both corporate and private.

Corporate prayer is prayer that we do together.  Holy Communion, Evening Prayer, and Stations of the Cross are all prayers that we do in a group setting.  Stations and Evening Prayer can also be done individually, but there is a special grace for those coming together in a small or large group to pray together.  Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. (Matthew 18:20).  The Book of Common Prayer implies in it’s very title that it is prayer done in common!  Praying with others uplifts us and helps is to connect with God as well as with others.  It is highly encouraged, and as you see from the parish schedule, there are plenty of opportunities to do this at St. John’s during the week.

Morning and Evening Prayer, the Stations of the Cross, and other devotions such as the Rosary can also be prayed privately, and their foundation in Scripture which points us back to Jesus, is a helpful aid in the life of prayer that we are called to do.  Their solid foundation helps us with the habit of prayer – to pray regularly.

And of course, we also need to learn to spend time in personal prayer.  This is that time of intimate conversation – speaking directly to Our Lord, and pouring out our praises, gratitude, petitions, and intercessions in our own words.

As my favorite professor at seminary used to say, “if you make time for prayer, you will find you have more time for everything else”, and I have found this to be true, over and over again!  So, this Lent, let us be dedicated to more and more knee time, whether it be in community or during the time alone with our Lord.