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Among Women, Blessed
The following poem, for a long time while I kept revising it, bore the working title, “Closing in on Christmas.” I’m glad my poetry group agreed I should change the title once it found its final form. And now that we’re deep into Christmas, why don’t I share my Advent poem? Click on the title
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Epiphany
Year A—January 6, 2026 Readings: The image above is a very small piece housed at the Met. It’s a mere 5.75 x 4.5 inches (14.6×11.4 cm), though the frame it’s in probably almost doubles the size. That small size seems appropriate: Like the magus shown on his knees adoring the Christ child, we must lean
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The Second Sunday after Christmas
Years A—January 4, 2026 Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas. The readings for this Sunday are: Since these are the same readings assigned to all three years of the lectionary cycle, I will use the first Gospel listed for today. (Additional note: I will cover the Feast of the Holy Name in a subsequent year.)
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The First Sunday after Christmas
Year A—December 28, 2025 I feel for preachers. My instinct is to try to draw something out of each of these texts and weave it all together…but what hasn’t already been said about these passages? Not only does Christmas recycle John’s Prologue every year in multiple services, but it’s just so familiar. And yet, familiarity
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Christmas Day
Selection I—All Years Merry Christmas! [There are three different sets of readings for Christmas Day. In my experience—admittedly, only with cathedrals—the first set is used on Christmas Eve, while the second and third are used in services on Christmas Day. Since they don’t change from year to year, my intention is to use one each
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The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Year A—December 21, 2025 We are closing in on Christmas! This week’s readings are compact: they get to the point. Sort of. They hold out familiar words and images, and we can walk right in and take those words and images as if from the shelf, and move along our merry way to Christmas. Unless,
The Sound 