Good morning, friends. My name is Pat Krol, and I’m happy to be sharing my Emmanuel journey with you today. The first time I came to Emmanuel Church was September 2006, because I had just become Executive Director of Emmanuel Music, known internationally for its weekly presentations of Bach cantatas as part of the Sunday liturgy. I knew that Seiji Ozawa, Music Director of the Boston Symphony, where I worked, conducted Bach cantatas here, though I never attended.
Author Archives: Kevin Neel
Building Bridges of Compassion and Peace
Good morning! My name is Carol Reiman. I am a newer member of Emmanuel, attending regularly for a little over a year.
The website drew me. The prospect of listening to a Bach cantata as part of the Sunday service–wonderful! The invitation beyond issues of belief. I was interested in revisiting communion, which had been a part of my childhood in an interfaith family. As it turns out, Emmanuel has a warm family relationship with Central Reform Temple, which also holds services in the church. I am delighted to have become a member of that congregation as well. I was also impressed by the programs that provide such things as food, shelter, connection, and art sessions for those with few resources.
You are set free from your ailment.
11th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17C, August 21, 2022; The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski
Luke 13:12. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
In our Gospel portion today, the authors of Luke describe an encounter between a woman living with long-term consequences of something like Guillain–Barré Syndrome, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, or tuberculosis of the spine. As so often happens in the Gospel stories, when a diseased, wounded, or psychically-damaged person encounters Jesus, a profound healing results. These accounts of Jesus’s cures, however, are not selectively recounted in the Gospel just to convince us that Jesus is divine. Usually, there is a message or lesson embedded in the account of the healing. Continue reading
Do you not know how to interpret the present time?
The 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2022; The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski
Luke 12:56. Do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Believe me when I tell you that clergy in Christian churches using the Revised Common Lectionary dread August. That’s when we have to deal in our preaching with the apocalyptic passages in the Synoptic Gospels. When last we shared a meal, I joked with Pam that she always takes her vacation during this month so she can escape all these “doom and gloom” passages. Seriously, there is a lot of gloom in the portions from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that are assigned for August’s Sundays. Suffused with what we could call an apocalyptic vision, they focus on the inevitability of divine judgment and the imminence of the end of time.
Do not be afraid.
9th Sunday after Pentecost, 7 August 2022, The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski
Genesis 15:1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1. Do not be afraid, little flock.
Luke 12:32.
On the island of Torcello in the northern reaches of the Venetian lagoon, stands a Romanesque basilica built by the Veneti people over several centuries. They had left their cities on the mainland to seek refuge from the ravages of the Huns. There they worshipped with their bishops until malaria drove them to the group of islands we know now as the city of Venice. The basilica remains on the almost-deserted island, a relic of earlier Christian worship.
Directly in front of the central doors of this basilica, which is really a museum, are the
ruins of an octagonal building which was pillaged for marble and bricks for constructions in Venice. It served as the baptistry, a separate building which opened into the basilica’s narthex. Looking into the eight-sided ruin, which had been topped by a dome, one quickly realizes that the structure focuses on the exact center where a large stone basin would have been placed. We know a good deal about the practices of the first centuries of the Church through the writings of hierarchs and scholars of the time, but also from the structure of buildings, many in ruins like Torcello’s baptistry, built around the liturgies of baptism and the Eucharist. Continue reading