‘Weekly Post. Anno Domini 2024 February 27

Beloved of the Lord:

Today is Tuesday, 27 February, in the year of our Lord 2024. The scheduled services are as-follows:

• Tuesday (today): 6:30 PM, Mass, monthly Parish Requiem.
• Wednesday: 12:10 PM, Mass, Lenten Feria.
• Thursday: 6:30 PM, Mass, Lenten Feria, followed by Soup & Study.
• Friday: 10:00 AM, Mass, S. David, Bishop & Confessor, with the Gregorian Canon.
  Immediately following, Stations of the Cross.
  Immediately following, Eucharistic Adoration, 'til Noon.
  5:00 PM, Stations of the Cross.
• Saturday: 5:00 PM, Mass, S. Chad, Bishop & Confessor.
• Sunday: 8:30 & 10:00 AM, Mass, Lent III. ONE CITY MARATHON.

As-noted above, the One City Marathon will be taking-place this weekend. The run will substantially interfere with all traffic on Warwick Blvd. If you use 'Warwick as a part of your route to get to the Parish, you'll want to determine an alternate route for Sunday.

A week from this-coming Sunday, on 10 March, we will lose an hour of rest, as we Spring-forward. Most clocks are automatic, these days, but for the other Luddites out there, on that Sunday morning, 2:00 AM will become 3:00 AM, thus robbing us of an hour. Don't let yourself show-up at the Parish for Mass, just as it's ending!

In last week's 'Post, we examined the heart-mind interface, and the notion that thoughts were perhaps the easiest aspect of that complex to access; thus, the natural place to begin our Lenten examinations. Fr. Seraphim, of S. Symeon's Skete, which has recently entered-into the OAC, some years-ago gave a Lenten retreat, in which he pointed-out that we are not our minds. They form a part of us, to be certain, but we can, with comparatively little effort, observe our minds, watch them as they complete their revolutions, and execute their manoevers. We are not controlled by our minds ~ this is not where we live.

Having devoted all of my early life to reason, it was with both discomfort and displeasure that I began to realise that we are ~ continuing to use a physical locus ~ controlled by our hearts, rather than our minds. If we properly use our minds, and have that magnificent virtue of integrity, which always seeks only the Truth, a careful examination of our lives will show, regrettably readily, to my mind, that all of our decisions are based in emotion, rather than upon reason. Why, do you suppose, that our hearts play this central role?

One very important reason is that therein lies the Holy Ghost, after He enters-into our beings at the time of our Baptism. This is the center of the Temple, washed clean for His presence, where all things begin. From the point in time of His entry, through ages of ages to come, the heart is the ground whereupon we meet and know the Holy Ghost, and from which He speaks to us. He is ~ or should be ~ our Guide, our Dante, as we plumb the dark depths of ourselves.

There is something else dwelling in our hearts, at the very core of us. Can you think of what it might be? 'More next week. I remain

in His praise,

The Rev'd Canon. T. L. Crowder

Pastor, Saint Matthew's Parish