As a kid, the Maundy Thursday service was always one of my favourites of the year. I was fascinated by the symbolism of the foot washing ceremony and always deeply moved by the stripping of the altar (and entire worship space) at the end of the service. But now that I’m in a season of … Continue reading A New Commandment (Just like the Old): A Reflection for Maundy Thursday 2025
Today is Palm Sunday, the day when we transition from Lent into Holy Week. Symbolically speaking, after forty days in the wilderness, we have arrived at Jerusalem and ready ourselves to accompany Jesus on the last days of his earthly life. The day also has apocalyptic signification, since, as we remember Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into … Continue reading Rolling Out the Red Carpet: A Reflection for Palm Sunday 2025
Today this series on the Ways of the Saints comes to an end. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen how holiness expressed itself in a wide variety of people: men and women, Eastern and Western, monks and laity, from the first through twentieth centuries, and from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. They’ve also … Continue reading St. Maria Skobtsova and the Way of Breaking the Conventions but Keeping the Commandments
There are few words that get the Christian imagination going more than ‘martyr’. Indeed, our faith cut its teeth in times of periodic and local, but nonetheless violent persecution, when many Christians were executed, often in gruesome public spectacles. But our language here in English hides something important. For the Greek word martys, from which … Continue reading St. Oscar Romero and the Way of the Martyr
Towards the start of this series on the Ways of the Saints, we looked St. Herman of Alaska, a Russian missionary who stood up for and alongside the local peoples being exploited by the colonial administration; we also saw a wonderful example of the fruition of what he began in the figure of St. Olga … Continue reading St. Innocent of Alaska and the Way of Curiosity
Matthew Root 