practicing pilgrimage at home and abroad
With Advent nearly upon us and Christmas festivities around us in full swing, Jenn Giles Kemper of Sacred Ordinary Days shares with us how we can infuse spirituality and intention into this season and the seasons to come through following the Liturgical Year.
Be sure to listen all the way to the end—we’re giving away a new Sacred Ordinary Days Liturgical Day Planner to a lucky winner!
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It’s an in invitation to walk instep with Christ in his final days, marking moments with ritual, meeting him in his vulnerability, descending with him into death, darkness, and the uncertainty that it brings, and finally with Easter Sunday awakening to new life.
To me, entering Holy Week is essential to fully experiencing the joys of Easter and the season to come, and in today’s new episode of the Sacred Ordinary Days Podcast we invite you to do just that.
Listen/download below or through iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and catch up on past episodes here. And if you like what you hear, would you mind sharing it with a friend and leaving a review? Here’s how.
I didn’t intend on posting today, but it seems these words were waiting to come out. If you follow the Christian liturgical calendar, I hope they invite you deeper into the tension of Holy Week, and if you are simply a seeker on a spiritual journey, I hope these words remind you of the power of staying amidst the uncertainty. Blessings to you in your descent.
This is my first year to actively engage the events of Holy Week, including Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. I went to my first Maundy Thursday service last night and was deeply moved by the evening’s rituals. Sue Monk Kidd (one of my favorite authors) describes rituals as enacting meaning, and as the sanctuary was stripped bare in silence at the end of the mass, I felt as if I was being stripped bare, too.
No longer were we remembering events that happened nearly 2,000 years ago. The intimate supper, the heart-wrenching prayer, the tragic betrayal, and the sudden arrest were unfolding before me, and the tension was palpable. I carried this tension with me as I exited in silence, leaving the garden more alone and confused than when I arrived, Jesus’ desperate plea to his disciples now my very own invitation: “Will you stay? Will you join me in this place?”
I am still figuring what this looks like for me within the tension of these poignant few days, but a quote from Richard Rohr recently shared by Abbey of the Art’s Christine Valters Paintner offers some guidance amidst the mystery:
Oooh, I love to fix things. And I’d love to jump right on ahead to Easter because this place of tension doesn’t feel good and I sure could use a Reese’s egg right about now. But this time I’m accepting the invitation to stay. Instead of grasping for answers, I’m choosing to “look at the questions.”
After all, it’s part of being a pilgrim, right? I so hope you’ll join me on this leg of the journey.