Aside from celebrating the Feast of All Saints, today at St. Paul’s we welcomed Simone, Adalee, and Caedmon into the Body of Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism. I love baptisms in the Episcopal church. Not only is this an occasion to welcome new individuals into the Body of Christ, we have a chance to renew our vows of Christianity and I am always reminded of the magnificence of this covenant I have entered into.
The Gospel reading for the day was from Luke 6:20-31.
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
As we contemplated the beatitudes today we were reminded that being a part of the Body of Christ is buying into a paradigm that is contrary to popular belief. Being a Christian means loving things that are true, fully beautiful, and good.
Upon winning the Nobel Prize for literature Pablo Neruda was asked a question: “Which is the most beautiful word?” I think this is a fitting question for a poet.
I’m going to reply in a fairly vulgar way, like in a radio song, wiht a word which is extremely hackneyed: the word love. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. And there’s no harm abusing the word either.
This was Neruda’s response.
My prayer this week is that I will learn to love the right things, that I will see true beauty, and that goodness will be readily apparent to me.
Life as it happens 