Dear Online Friends,
I gave up “contending” for Lent, but it struck me as appropriate during Holy Week not to take up the sword but to “enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts by which you have promised us life and immortality.” So I am publishing as a thank offering an octave of meditations on the Passion of our Lord, beginning with Palm Sunday and ending on Easter Day.
These are pieces I have written and preached before, but since the mighty acts are sempiternal, they are, I trust, of ongoing relevance.
Other than the first and last days, they are taken from Good Friday meditations on the Words of the Cross. On Good Friday itself, I am including a triptych of George Herbert’s poems: “The Agony,” “The Sacrifice,” and “Love” (III).
Each day, I shall include the Collect for the Day from the Book of Common Prayer 2019.
I shall also add a select hymn, drawing greatly from an online series by David Duerr called “Hymn History.” Here is a sample: Reginald Heber’s “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
I wish you all a blessed Holy Week and a joyous Easter.
Stephen Noll
