by Janice MacLean | Apr 1, 2020 | Reflections, Visual Intercessions
LENT SOUL SONG VISUAL PRAYER Psalm 118 Set Your Face Toward the Riot And on this path the gates are opening wide — Psalm 118 Read Psalm 118: 1,2 -19-29 What parts of this Psalm speak to you? Inspire, resonate or call to you? What feelings, longings, hopes are evoked...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 22, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“What now?” Into the disorder of the week he pours water in a basin and wraps a towel around. I like to imagine he got the idea from Mary Magdalene. It was her gift to anoint his feet, her tears pouring love, her hair a towel of tender care. Great love....
by Janice MacLean | Mar 19, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“Two stones cannot occupy the same place, but two fragrances can.” – Sufi saying Two fragrances. [Open bracket Mary Magdalene breaks open the costly perfume and anoints the feet of Jesus wiping his feet with her hair. And the whole house was filled with the...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 18, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
It happened in the Temple the part that was more like a marketplace than a church, a widow, poor and of any imaginable age pays her temple tax with two small coins, a mite, but all she had. And Jesus says something like: “The truth is, this woman has put in more...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 15, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
As the week unfolds there is conflict, urgency, and loss. I imagine Jesus reaching for these words in the prayerbook of his soul. “Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 15, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
Provocative, he is. Perhaps not a warrior on a horse; Yet even a donkey rider in a Passover crowd is bound to attract attention. And he did. They reach high snapping leafy branches from the trees. They bend low throwing cloaks on the path before him. Hosanna! Voices...
by Janice MacLean | Apr 4, 2015 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
Today I have to buy potatoes for Easter dinner. Today we have agenda. Today returns us to ordinary time a housekeeping pause, between the bleak of Good Friday and the colour of Easter. Yet. In the alchemy of these three days this day something powerful is taking...
by Janice MacLean | Apr 2, 2015 | Photos for Eye & Soul, Reflections
In stillness nailed To hold all time, all change, All circumstance in and to Love’s embrace. Poem found in an English convent. Read other Holy Week...
by Janice MacLean | Apr 1, 2015 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
They sit around. There is urgency in the air. This simple meal could end badly at any moment. It’s that kind of tension. It’s that close to disruption. On Maundy Thursday the situation is very fluid. Water washes feet. Humble sign of service. And there is...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 28, 2015 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
In Israel, a small percentage of the population is Christian. It seemed all were in the streets on Palm Sunday, a procession winding from the Mount of Olives making a slow entry through the Gate of the city following along the Via Dolorosa pooling at the Church of the...
