The Candle of Joy? Otherwise known as the Shepherd Candle, this candle reflects the joy that comes through Jesus’ arrival, and through the salvation he has gifted us. Christians may wonder why the church decided to make this particular candle a different color than the others. Although Christians have presented several reasons for the pinkish  Read more …

Not surprisingly, the Bible has a lot to say about peace, as it attributes peace to Jesus himself: the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). In fact, the word peace appears somewhere between 200-400 times in the Bible. In addition to the items listed above, biblical peace: Guards our hearts from the devil (Philippians 4:7) Brings  Read more …

What Is the Candle of Peace? Each of the five candles of the advent wreath represents something different, an important element in the coming of Christ and our expectation of him. Three purple candles , a pink candle , and a white candle represent the five elements of the Christmas story. This week, we’ll cover  Read more …

Advent comes from the Latin word Adventus meaning “the coming”, but the coming of what? It is a preparation for the coming of Christ in three ways: The remembrance of the Birth of Christ The anticipation of the 2nd Coming of Christ The coming of ourselves to Christ The Advent Wreath An Advent wreath is  Read more …

Reflection for First Week of Advent–A time to prepare Advent is here. What a marvelous time in which to renew your desire, your nostalgia, your real longing for Christ to come – for him to come every day to your soul in the Eucharist. The Church encourages us: ecce veniet – he is about to  Read more …

I’m sure you’ve heard and read about how we are supposed to be giving people. While we may accept and agree with that, many of us have an inner dialogue that occurs when God asks us to give something. We wonder why God is asking us to give, especially if we don’t have much to  Read more …

A FORGIVING SPIRIT This Sunday’s gospel talks about the need for forgiveness, it talks about the reward of forgiveness, about the consequences of the lack of forgiveness. Forgiveness is something we all struggle with, have struggled with or will deal with at some point in our life. The difficulty lies in the understanding or the  Read more …

When Aaron built a golden calf for the Israelites to worship in Exodus 32, severe judgment came upon the people. Yet Aaron went on to serve as high priest. It hardly seems fair that he should escape punishment—he was the one who made the idol, after all—while others were judged. There are two possible responses.  Read more …

Wrestling Against Evil Speaking of the condition of man in the world, St Paul attests that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Today‘s Gospel tells a heartbreaking story of a nobleman, stripped down by life, but  Read more …

The doctrine of apostolic succession—central to the Anglican-Catholic Church’s identity with the Church founded by Jesus in the first century—involves there being an unbroken line of bishops from the beginning of Christian history to the present. Christ conferred upon his apostles the original task of shepherding the earthly Church in his absence. As the Church  Read more …