Volume 1 Issue 29

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us.” --Dorothy Day
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“The most serious study of the use of violence in the history of Islam and Christianity is “Islam and the West: The Making of an Image,” by Oxford historian Norman Daniel. He concludes that Islam has been no more violent than Christianity, and probably less violent. He cites many instances, the Spanish Inquisition among them. Under Moorish rule, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Spain lived together in peace and harmony. But when the Christians drove the Moors out and took political dominance, they either killed, expelled, or forced into conversion every Jew and Muslim…. Of course, it is certainly true that people everywhere use religion to achieve political ends, and we have to distinguish between the political distortion of religion and the intrinsic religion and its fundamental principles.” --Huston Smith
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
the early Christians observed with great devotion
the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection,
and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration
there should be a forty-day season of spiritual preparation.
During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.
It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins
and had separated themselves from the community of faith
were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness,
and restored to participation in the life of the Church.
In this way the whole congregation was reminded
of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ
and the need we all have to renew our faith.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,
to observe a holy Lent:
by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.
To make a right beginning of repentance,
and as a mark of our mortal nature,
let us now bow before our Creator and Redeemer.
(The United Methodist Book of Worship, 1992, The United Methodist Publishing House)
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Until next week…….Shalom!