2021 LENTEN MEDITATIONS

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Holy Week | Sunday, March 28 - Saturday, April 3

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Sunday, March 28 | Palm Sunday

A Prayer for Episcopal Relief & Development

Loving and merciful God,
you bestow your grace on all of your children:
Remember our sisters and brothers
here and throughout the world who,
in partnership with
Episcopal Relief & Development,
strengthen communities,
empower those in poverty,
nourish those who are hungry,
heal those who are sick
and uplift those affected by disaster;
so that your Kingdom
might be known to all people;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.

Monday, March 29
“It is in community that we can discover God most profoundly,
even when community is a headache, which it often can be, but
the truth is that we actually need each other. We are at our best
when we come together.”
—Presiding Bishop Michael Bruce Curry

​Nicholas Black Elk, a Medicine Man, Christian and Prophet, had
a vision in which he saw a time of transformation and a time of
togetherness. In his vision, he saw hoops of each nation, Tribe,
and people, dancing together as one large hoop around the
healing tree—or tree of life. Black Elk’s vision reminds us that we
are called to live in right-relationship to one another.
In times of great destruction and sorrow, we remember our
prophets. We come back to our sacred traditions. We are called
back to that deep relationship we need to have with one another,
recognizing one another as relatives, as sacred and as beloved.
Repentance, like love, is an action word. It is not meant to be
something we simply say. It is meant to be something that we
do, that we live, that we embody. That lived, embodied action
of being a good relative, that journey toward right-relationship,
is recompense. Ask yourself, “What kind of relative am I called
to be?” Then live your life, journeying toward being that kind of
relative—and not just to those we see as we go about our lives
but also to those relatives who live, talk, think, vote, pray and love
differently than we do.
—Isaiah “Shaneequa” Brokenleg

Tuesday, March 30
I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things
I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would
have the other.
—Harriet Tubman to Sarah Bradford
   Harriet, The Moses of Her People

​How can we make right what we have participated in making
wrong? How can we make amends for being participants in
causing loss and suffering? How can we commit to rebuilding
what we have contributed to demolishing? How can we get out
of the way so those who have always been in the background,
behind us, can take the lead? How can we soften our hearts
to realize if one of us is not thriving, none of us are? We don’t
have to figure this out on our own nor do we have to do it alone.
As Christians, we have the example of Jesus and saints like
Monseñor Oscar Romero and Harriet Tubman to guide us and
encourage us.
Jesus, in the Bible stories, was always healing or listening or
giving words of encouragement and peace. He built people up
and commanded them to love God, love themselves and love
others. Monseñor Romero, who also gave his life for the people,
spoke with authenticity and conviction; he expressed himself
honestly about the realities he not only preached about but lived.
Harriet Tubman’s life shows us that, when we reach freedom, we
must help others reach that freedom because there is enough of
it for all of us.
—Sandra T. Montes

Wednesday, March 31
Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord
and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord
you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the
Lord Christ.
—Colossians 3:23-24

During my time in college, I worked at the University Children
Center. One child filled my heart with joy because she was always
so kind and attentive to her classmates. During clean up time at
the end of the day, she would always rush to clean her space to
have the time to help her friends. Then, she would run up to me
and ask, “What else can I do, Ms. Sandy?” And as I now read the
news and scroll through videos on social media, I wonder why
aren’t those that can, and should, running to ask what they can
do to help clean up the stains of oppression and ignorance that
are getting harder and harder to remove from the fabric of our
society?
We should aspire to be like this child, who saw a need and
was eager to do more out of love, not wait or want anything in
return. Just the joy of being a source of kindness was enough
for her. There is a lot of need around us, and we are called to put
ourselves into the task of fulfilling God’s dream on earth with
determination, excitement and in community.
—Sandy Milien
​

Maundy Thursday, April 1
Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who
are members of my family, you did it to me.
—Matthew 25:40

In the fourth century, John Chrysostom preached an
extraordinary homily connecting the worship of Christ’s body
in the eucharist to the care and concern we extend to “the least
of these” in society. In his homily, he was invoking what he
considered “the sweetest passage” of Matthew 25:40, a passage
that is the mandate of Episcopal Relief & Development. There
Jesus states, “Truly, I tell you just as you did it to one of the
least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Chrysostom’s homily calls out Christian hypocrisy. Standing
beneath the gilded dome of Antioch’s Great Church, in a
sanctuary filled with polished marble, brass, gold and precious
stones, he asked: “For what is the profit when his table is full
of golden cups but he perishes with hunger? First, fill him
and then deck out his table also. Why offer him a cup of gold
while denying him a cup of cold water? Would you furnish his
table with cloths of gold, while to himself, you afford not even a
basic covering?”
This is an invitation for Christians to reevaluate our priorities.
Chrysostom believed that profound worship occurs when we
see Christ in the “least of these” and feed the hungry, give a
cup of water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger and visit
prisoners. Worship and care for the most vulnerable are
profoundly linked. Let us recommit to living this out every day.
—Miguel Angel Escobar

Good Friday, April 2
Therefore, my friends... we have confidence to enter the
sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that
he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh).
—Hebrews 10:19-20

The youth group at Iglesia San Andrés in Santo Domingo
(Dominican Republic) was going to reenact the Passion of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and the congregation was about to move from
the chapel to the auditorium. I was a 3-year-old girl, holding my
mother’s hand, when all of a sudden I found myself face-to-face
with that man covered in “blood,” crowned with “thorns,” carrying
a cross so heavy that it bent his body forward. His face was in
my line of sight.
My mother moved me to the side so that Jesus could lead the
procession, but I burst into tears and shouted, “No, Mommy, no!”
My mother explained that it was just a play, and we entered the
auditorium to see the rest of the Passion. I calmed down in her
arms until the moment when the same man was being “nailed”
to the cross. My mother had to take me out of the room before
the end. I could not understand that it was a reenactment of
a true story—it seemed all too real to me. Every year on Good
Friday, I remember that man who looked at me tenderly in the
midst of his agony. That is the day when I began my story with
the real Jesus.
I invite you to think of moments that highlight your own story
with the Savior. In the midst of pain, joy, daily struggles and
uncertainties, can you recognize him next to you? This is a good
time for us to consider how to respond to the greatest act of love
ever carried out for humankind and for you. It’s true—you and
Jesus have a story together.
—Patricia Martin

Holy Saturday, April 3
In beauty may I walk, all day long may I walk. Through returning
seasons may I walk. On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk. With dew about
my feet may I walk. With beauty may I walk. With beauty before
me, may I walk. With beauty behind me, may I walk. With beauty
above me, may I walk. With beauty below me, may I walk. With
beauty all around me, may I walk. In old age wandering on a trail
of beauty may I walk, lively, may I walk. It is finished in beauty. It
is finished in beauty.
—Walk in Beauty, closing prayer from
the Navajo Blessing Way Ceremony

Listen to the voice of Divine Creator on the walk. Imagine your
walk in these words. Where do you feel humility and peace?
Where on this spiritual walk in the beauty way do you see beauty?
The Navajo beauty prayer takes us on a journey in seasons of life.
Each pause, each step is a prayer. Every new step is a beginning
as the Holy Spirit prays with us. The Navajo prayer invites us
into ceremony with the Divine to restore our holistic self with
creation. On the trail of the beauty prayer, we are invited to listen
carefully to places where we need healing. We listen, we pray and
we bless our sacred being with the healing medicines of Mother
Earth’s nutrients. This, too, is ceremony where God loves us as
we are. God’s divine creation knows us, too, and shows us how
God’s transforming power restores our very soul. It is how God
makes us whole.
—Cornelia Eaton