The season of Epiphany begins on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, and ends with Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It is the first block of ordinary time in the church year.
The Feast of the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6 (the twelfth day of Christmas), celebrates the awakening of the world to the new Messiah. The world, represented by the kings or wise men, comes to see the Son of Mary as the one prophecised to lead the Jews and shine into all the world.
Liturgically, the season of Epiphany is ordinary time, not a particular celebration or season, but part of the great body of weeks that include the weeks after Epiphany and the weeks after Pentecost. The lectionary runs continuously for these weeks, being interrupted with the special readings for Lent and Easter. But even in ordinary time, we celebrate a little feast of the resurrection -- a bit of Easter -- every Sunday.
How do we make the weeks of ordinary time between Epiphany and Lent something special? What can we do to set the time apart? This year, I'm going to use the season for respite, catching up on the disciplines of life that have been swamped in the Advent and Christmas seasons. Ordinary time is a great time to focus on the rhythms of life, to work on getting our routines of the spirit well established. Steven Covey talks abouts "Habits of the Heart;" it's time to focus on those habits.
I'm going to focus on building my prayer life. I use this web site as part of the framework, I'll be re-establishing a discussion forum as part of the site to allow communications. If you have any ideas feel free to contact me. Watch the board for new discussion space. And spend some time taking care of yourself, body, soul, and spirit.
grace & peace
will
Many of us find it easier to do daily prayer if we have a guide for our prayer. While the various prayer books have such guides, they include formulae for the daily readings and prayers that take time to use, complexities that make them less than useful for a daily routine. While there are missals written for the monastic communities, few are readily accessible to laity. This site has been created to build a virtual missal, a book of hours for the office. The first phase is to make prayers available, first for the various times of day, then for the days of the week. Eventually, this will be coupled with a mechanism for varying the prayers and readings in an automated way. It is hoped that regular users will be able to access the site and see the office appropriate for their local time. Someone checking in at 8:00am on a Monday would see the Monday Start of Workday office; a 10:00pm visit would bring up compline.
As prayers are added, links will be added below. Your prayers for the site are appreciated.
grace & peace
will