A Positively Poetic Priest

 At the end of a ecumenical trip to Sweden in 2016, Pope Francis offered six new Beatitudes: ""Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart. "Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness. "Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him. "Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home. "Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others. "Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians." "All these are messengers of God's mercy and tenderness," Pope Francis said.  "Surely they will receive from him their merited reward." The Beatitudes are so well known that even people in secular situations will occasionally use the format to offer their own blessings or to make their own poetic commentar...

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (All Saint's Day BCP 245) It is a good time of year for knitting. The days and nights are cooler, making us all desire warm, comfy, cozy things. Knitting is not only creative, it creates something warm and comfy as well. However, if you think about knitting from the perspective of the yarn, it is a strange twisting and entangling process through which the whole, the end goal, cannot be seen.  The Collect for this coming Sunday starts by acknowledging that God has knit all of us together in community in Christ. As the people being knit together, we are like the yarn,...