Dear Friends, Join us in Weston at 4pm today if you can safely get there! 

Our book discussion for Lent is The Way of the Cross: The Path to New Life by Joan Chittister. This meditative walk leads us through the traditional Stations of the Cross and invites us to consider our personal life path.   You may remember last year for Lent, everyone brought a cup to liturgy

as they meditated through Joyce Rupp’s The Cup of Life. This year we invite you to bring an element that symbolizes for you what life “station” you discern yourself to be at as you begin this meditation with Joan Chittister through Lent. For instance, people sometimes ask me (Ron) if I am going to retire. As I reflect on this “station” in my life and discern ‘which way to go when,’ Matthew Fox’s call to action: “refirement” not retirement comes to mind. One symbol of refirement for me is captured in the “fire” of a candle. So I am going to bring a candle to our Lenten community collage that we will build in front of the altar again this year. We invite you to discern what “station” in life you are at and imagine what symbol you could bring to liturgy to represent that. We invite everyone to add their symbol to the Lenten community sculpture we will build in front of the altar as we prepare to celebrate Liturgy.

As you enter the sanctuary space tonight before Eucharist, we invite you to enter in silence into the quiet meditative space with reflective soft music. If you want to catch up with each other in conversation (especially after not meeting in person for two weeks), we ask you to do that in the gathering space before entering the closed sanctuary doors. In keeping with our movement into a meditative Lenten spirit, our communion meditation will be Taize chant.

As we transition from Ash Wednesday to this First Sunday of Lent we are launched by Jan Richardson calling us to enter the mystery that “scorches” us. This prompts me to imagine the spring that will blossom from all this snow! We invite you to join us in walking with the mystery.

Blessing for Ash Wednesday

So let the ashes come as beginning and not as end;

the first sign but not the final.

Let them rest upon you as invocation and invitation,

and let them take you the way that ashes know to go.

May they mark you with the memory of fire

and of the life that came before the burning:

the life that rises and returns and finds its way again.

See what shimmers amid their darkness,

what endures within their dust.

See how they draw us toward the mystery

that will consume but not destroy,

that will blossom from the blazing,

that will scorch us with its joy. –

©Jan Richardson

We invite you to wander with The Spirit of Life community during your Lenten journey...and beyond. Come and make us your ‘spiritual home’.  In our community’s midst you will find support for your inner spirit’s growth. We promise you a unique experience of community; one where members and guests find support and hope in the journey through time and body to deepen our spiritual lives, and work together to transcend our limitations and grow in faith. Our liturgies are not “cluttered’ with non-inclusive language and messages that discount the dignity of all people. Rather, we are radically simple in embodying the “good news” of Jesus Christ... “uncluttered” by messages caught in the moral time warp so present in more traditional Catholic liturgies. At the Spirit of life... the call of women to ordained priesthood is affirmed...the sacredness of all loving relationships is honored and celebrated, and as Jesus did, we welcome ALL to the Table!   If you are seeking a Catholic community where you do not need to mentally/silently “insert” inclusive language into your prayer at Mass, or lament that your children are hearing non-loving messages about people whose sexual orientation is other than heterosexual, or feel that your “voice” is not heard.....we invite you to come and experience life in our community. We are an inclusive and interactive community, where everyone has a “voice.”  We are truly a people of “justice & Joy.”

May your heart be open to and nourished by the blessings of this Lenten journey,

Jean & Ron