Anglican Mainstream

Tuesday 2 March  am: 61, 62 pm: 68  Gen 42:1-17 1 Cor 5:1-8 Mark 3:19b-35

TUESDAY- LENT II - St. Chad of Litchfield, Bishop and Abbot,672

LITURGICAL THEME FOR THE DAY: Chad of Lichfield and Mercia ( also called St. Caedda) was a missionary, bishop, and healer who spread the catholic Faith throughout the British Isles. He travelled about (as he had when Archbishop of York pro temp), always on foot (until the Archbishop of Canterbury gave him a horse and ordered him to ride it, at least on long journeys), preaching and teaching wherever he went. He served there for only two and a half years before his death, but he made a deep impression. In the following decades, many chapels, and many wells, were constructed in Mercia and named for him

MEDITATION OF THE DAY: The opening of this 5th chapter of Paul’s letter through the sixth chapter deals with issues none of like to address in our life and that is namely the lack of discipline in our lives and our communities. As many in the church well know (particularly Anglicans these days) this lack of Godly discipline oft times is due to the fact that there is reflected within individuals and a community a crisis of authority. Who is the author of my life? If is me, than I will abide by one set of norms, if it is God there is a very different set. Lent is about coming to terms with that different set.

Paul is very strong with the community at Corinth because they were arrogant

and valued many worldly concepts such as prestige and power which created chaos for

them as a lived community and so Paul begins to lay the foundation of how to address

it? Does this sound familiar to anyone?

How this crisis of faith and authority in the Church originated has caused many different

analysis. However one would be hard pressed to deny that the subjective spirit of our

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times has created a resistance to Godly authority. Increasingly there a subjective world

view that calls for every individual to evaluate the validity of a situation before he or she

affirms and accepts it. Paul is seeking to address that within the community? Do we

have the courage this Lent to address it within ourselves, perhaps with a Spiritual

Director or Prayer/Fellowship Group? The faithful Christian seeking a Holy Lent does

not stand on the shore as a mere spectator to judge the community of faith and its Lord

with the eye of a stranger. Each of us recognizes we are in the ship, involved with all in

the faith on the same adventure!

PRAYER OF THE DAY: God of grace, rouse up within your people fear of the Lord, and

call us to remember this holy season knowing that you will come in the clouds in great

power and majesty to judge the living and the dead. May we respond to God's claim on

us with due fear and love so that as often as God disturbs the sky, yet spares us still, we

should implore God's mercy, examining the innermost recesses of our hearts and

purging our sins all for the love of you. Amen – - St. Chad

ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE – Christianity does not consist in any partial

amendment of our lives, any particular moral virtues, but in an entire change of our

natural temper, a life wholly devoted to God. –William Law.

LENTEN DISCIPLINE – All of us have been accused of being or doing something that perhaps

was not true and we hold a grudge towards that person. In the spirit of St. Chad be

reconciled and in humility state that while you do not agree you recognize the concern

of the others and submit to Godly authority for a way of peace and justice.

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