Back in the days when live sports on television were an ongoing expectation – it seems like it was only yesterday, but it was before the world ended last March – I would get caught up in it. Weekends, especially, became a ritual of sitting in front of the television, watching football or baseball. Where I live now is not where I was born and raised. I was born and raised in a major city in the United States, which offered professional sports of several varieties: Baseball, fo

This is the Gospel reading that is the selection for the Seventh Sunday of Easter. It is next scheduled to be read aloud in churches that will be empty because of pandemic fears on Sunday, May 24, 2020. This is the Sunday known as Ascension Sunday. Many churches recognize the Ascension as being on Thursday (May 20, 2020 this year) because they calculate Thursday is forty days from Easter Sunday (including Easter, I guess, meaning Jesus rose on the Sabbath [Saturday]). It is

We have reached the seventh Sunday of the Easter Season. In a way it is the last Sunday of Easter, as Pentecost is the bridge from Easter to the Ordinary, although it falls under the Easter heading.  Like Pesach is one festival and Shavuot is another, so too do Easter and Pentecost reflect. The last five Sundays we have incorporated a prayer into the service that represents a counting of the Easter Omer. Today is the Seventh Sunday, meaning a complete fifty days have passed s