Easter

resurrection waiting

Lament for a Tree

By Stephanie Duncan Smith | May 8, 2023

It was a morning like any other, except for the chainsaws. They started early—before my two-year-old was even up—and continued on well past her afternoon nap. While the coffee brewed, I peeked out the back window and saw them: hard hats in highlighter yellow dotting the tree line, and our tree in particular. Our urban…

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remember the resurrection

An Easter Prayer

By Rakhi McCormick | April 26, 2023

God of new life, In this season of resurrection, help us to look for the little miracles. Shatter our disillusionment when the  big miracles fail to materialize before us – Break through with your consolation when our Lazarus isn’t raised from the dead, Break through with Your mercy when our children aren’t healed, Break through…

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God in Anxiety

God’s Abundance in Anxiety

By Samantha Aguinaldo-Wetterholm | April 10, 2023

The mattress sags beside me as my husband sits down, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. My puffy face reveals an evening spent crying, but by now there are no tears left. My hands are balled in my lap, and the evidence of my anxiety is the half-moon indentations from my nails against my palms.…

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On Holy Saturday God longs to gather us close like a mother hen

Lingering on Saturday: As a Hen Gathers Her Brood

By Sarah Bahiraei | April 3, 2023

I lean back at the bottom of the blue plastic slide, aware of my hair sticking to the static, the sandburs piercing the soles of my shoes, and our English words echoing off the wall that lines the perimeter of the park, our clunky foreignness flittering up to the open windows. The playground in this…

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How To Holy Week: A Guide For Where You Are

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | April 17, 2019

Holy Week—from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday—is the most sacred week of the Christian year. Whether you’ve always celebrated Holy Week or you are new to these liturgical feasts, we invite you to enter into the beauty of this week however you can. If you’re expecting: Labor’s Stages: A Triduum. If you have a new…

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The Hardest and Holiest of Weeks 

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | March 23, 2016

Thin places. The ancient Celts gave us this phrase to capture the feeling of space and time when heaven and earth are scarcely separated. My life has held a handful of these sacred moments and holy grounds. I imagine yours has, too. I always recognized these encounters in space and time by their sheerness—the sense that I…

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the joy and relief of birth

Joy, Meet Relief

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | April 7, 2015

Can you hear it in their voices? Once you cut through the baffled wonder and divide the nagging disbelief and set aside the stuttering astonishment, there it is: relief. He is risen. He is risen? He is risen! It’s not a matter of simple punctuation. There are a thousand reactions to surprising news, and the Gospels cover nearly every one. Mary…

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baby's first holy week

Baby’s First Holy Week

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | April 1, 2015

Sweet boy, here we are. In the holiest of weeks. It all started on Palm Sunday. You solemnly gumming the long green palm in your father’s hands. Your brothers waving their palms wildly around the air (bonus points for whacking a sibling in the eye). Me watching all of you, half wondering why we bother to bring…

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labor's stages like triduum

Labor’s Stages: A Triduum

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | April 24, 2014

A journey of four days, each unique. Holy Week reveals itself in new shades every year, shadows of dark and light. It pushes through the broken, cold dirt of Lent’s long winter with a fresh green curl of hope. With only a few short weeks to go before baby’s birth, I see these feasts through a new slant. Each…

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forgotten days of Holy Week

The Forgotten Days of Holy Week

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | April 14, 2014

Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. How easily we pass over them, eyes set eagerly on Easter Sunday. Or anticipating Thursday’s opening of the Triduum (the three liturgical days from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday). Our first half of Holy Week probably looks a lot like yours. Work. School. Kids. Meetings. Chores. Bills. The lackluster pregame show before…

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the courage to forgive

Courage From The Tomb

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | April 3, 2013

What took more courage: going into the tomb or coming out? On Good Friday the thought of going into the tomb overwhelms me. Too much blood and betrayal, too much violence and grief. I drag my feet, wanting to stay in Holy Thursday where we break bread and wash each other’s dirt away. Yes, there’s…

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parent interruptions at church

Gospel, Interrupted

By Laura Kelly Fanucci | March 25, 2013

How I heard Palm Sunday: When the hour came, Jesus took his place at table with the apostles. Mama, I need Polar Bear. Read Polar Bear. Read. Please. I tell you, Peter. Before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me. Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? I hear…

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