The Revs. Smiths’ Message for March 28, 2021

Dear Friends, 

The worship celebrations for this strange COVID year bring us now as the people of God to Palm Sunday, where we follow Jesus in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the solemn events of Holy Week.  He will break bread with his friends, wash their feet, be betrayed by one of them and denied by another, tried and executed, with words of forgiveness on his lips at the end.

Santa Teresa de Jesús” (St Teresa of Ávila), painting from between circa 1850 and circa 1860 by French artist Alfred Dehodencq (1822–1882); from the collection of the City Council of Seville and held at the Casa consistorial de Sevilla; taken from the Wikimedia Commons.

By coincidence, this Palm Sunday is also the birthday of St. Teresa of Ávila, a 16th century Spanish noblewoman who felt called to life of poverty, simplicity and prayer in the convent. She is remembered for a series of mystical visions that she received which shaped her spiritual life.  One of her best loved reflections, and one that seems good to guide us as we move into this sacred week, is this quotation.

Christ has no body now, but yours.  No hands, no feet, but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world.  Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good.  Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.

St. Teresa of Avila

In Christ,

Revs. Bob and Helen Smith

A version of this message first appeared in the Saturday, March 27, 2021, edition of Tidbits.