Let us feast on simple pleasures, and fast from all that gets our bodies and souls out of balance.

The practice of creating Stations of the Cross for meditative reflection on the final hours of Jesus' life is a very old one. To this day, many Catholic and other churches have gardens or sanctuaries in which the stations are situated.

Structured for Lent, but practical for any time of the year, this new resource examines the lament psalms for their connections to contemporary experiences. The introduction acquaints the reader with Dr. Walter Brueggemann's analysis of the psalms into the categories of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. A contemporary psalm/poem for each entry discerns the emotional tenor of the psalms and makes it relevant for the challenges of contemporary life and relationships.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The quintessential cry of despair, when all hope is lost.

"Weep not for Me, Mother, 
 in the grave I have life."

The shocking thing about the story of Jesus is that it turns common wisdom on its head.

The dry bones raised by Ezekiel are a metaphor for those who died in the service of God’s justice: those who died working to restore God’s distributive justice-compassion to God’s Earth, and who themselves never saw the transformation. The army of dry bones is an army exiled from justice. Fairness demands that if Jesus was resurrected into an Earth transformed into God’s realm of justice-compassion, then all the other martyrs who died too soon should also be raised with him. “But in fact,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” It is the Christ – the transformed and transfigured post-Easter Jesus – who has started that general resurrection, which restores justice-compassion to a transformed Earth. The transformation has begun with Jesus, and continues with you and me – IF we sign on to the program.

A Lenten tradition in Western Christianity is to meditate upon the journey Christ took to Calvary. These stations or steps are found both in the Scriptures and in the traditions and legends of catholic Christianity. For many this practice is used to participate in the suffering and sacrifice endured by Christ. I encourage you to also take up this journey seeing within each station a calling for the modern, progressive Christian to grow in the ways and love of God. Meditate upon each station considering the questions or thoughts presented with a Scriptural verse to ponder and a brief prayer of the heart. In John 15:12 Jesus tells us, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Only by walking with Christ and seeing just how much he truly loved everyone can we begin to love others in the same fashion.

Beatitude Nine: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

“No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (l John 4: 12) It is through the heart that we experience God directly.

We come here today to remember a man. A man… who had dreams, who had those dreams shattered,...

Beatitude Five: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Jesus was merciful, but didn’t receive mercy.

Beatitude Four: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.”

Beatitude Three: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The word “meek” might better be interpreted as “gentle” or “considerate”.

I am standing before the cross in all its brutality And feel overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Why could the church not have a nice Life-affirming symbol instead of a cross?

the world weighs heavy our brokenness wearies us and yet God is here

It is tattooed on our hearts Etched on the walls at the core of our being There is no escaping the reality And yet we still ignore it

This guide focuses on the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and on the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which symbolize the events remembered on Good Friday.

Children ~ This first Sunday of Lent, we give up the idea that we have no voice.

It was carved with hand tools on a rough slab of native red rock: “Marcelito L. Baca - murio a la edad de

This is the Passion story. The story of Jesus' betrayal and his death.