From the Archives: Singing the Church Year with Paul Gerhardt - Part II

The Church Year begins with the Advent of our Lord, His threefold coming:in the flesh, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; in the preaching and administration of the Gospel in His name and stead; and in the Final Judgment at the last. It is a season of repentance, marked especially by the preaching of St. John the Baptist, who goes before the Lord to prepare His way. Gerhardt does not mention St. John by name in either of his two hymns for Advent, but he serves the great forerunner’s task; not so much by a proclamation of repentance, as by the prayer of repentance that he gives the people to sing.

HymnsRick StuckwischSeptember 2, 2024Paul Gerhardt, Hymnody, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter Comment

St. Caesarius of Arles on the Approach to Lent

If we notice carefully, dearest brethren, the holy days of Lent signify the life of the present world, just as Easter prefigures eternal bliss. Now just as we have a kind of sadness in Lent in order that we may rightly rejoice at Easter, so as long as we live in this world we ought to do penance in order that we may be able to receive pardon for our sins in the future and arrive at eternal joy.

Stefan GramenzFebruary 11, 2024St. Caesarius of Arles, Lent Comments

The Resurrection and the Life by the Way of the Cross

Now it is that death itself suffers an intrusion, and its own violence is turned back upon its head, because Life Himself has entered in where He had no need to go. His own Love compels Him, nothing else. Here He befriends the whole world of sinful mortal men at their worst and most helpless. He does not intervene to spare His friends from the pain of death, but He approaches death in the Flesh, in order to reconcile the world to His God and Father. He invades the tomb in order to empty it, to raise the dead and give them Life and bring them to God in faith and love.

SermonRick StuckwischMarch 27, 2023Sermon, Lent, Raising of Lazarus, Cross and ResurrectionComment

Proclaim a Solemn Assembly

“Blow a trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the porch and the Altar, and let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not make Your inheritance a reproach, a byword among the nations’" (Joel 2).

Rick StuckwischMarch 19, 2020Coronavirus, Covid-19, Prayer, Repentance, Discipline, Lent Comment