That's My Boy!

Hello Everyone!
If you're a parent, are you proud of your children? Jesus took his disciples Peter, James and John up on a mountain to pray. This prayer was really a meeting with Moses & Elijah to discuss Jesus' upcoming death in Jerusalem.
Peter tried to fill the moment with some useless prattle, but God's shadow covered them and spoke in no uncertain terms "This is my Son, whom I have chosen---listen to him!"
When we are proud of the way our children do a good job, we want others to know it too. How much more then does God want us to listen to his perfect son?

Download and listen now: That's My Boy!

Illawarra Lutheran Parish
18th February 2007
Transfiguration Sunday

Prayer of the Day

Almighty and loving God, we thank you for revealing your son Jesus in glory before he suffered and died. Give us faith to recognize him as your dear son and strengthen us to suffer with him until we come to share his glory. For he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Todays Readings

Exodus 34: 29-35
2 Corinthians 3:12 to 4:2
Luke 9: 28-36

Major & Minor Festivals This Week

Ash Wednesday
21 February
Violet

In the Western Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. It occurs forty-six days before Easter, but Lent is nevertheless considered forty days long, because Sundays in this period are not counted as days of penance. It falls on different dates from year to year, according to the date of Easter; it can occur as early as February 4 or as late as March 10. Ash Wednesday can fall on Leap Day only during a leap year for which April 15 is Easter Sunday. The next time Ash Wednesday will fall on Leap Day will be in 2096, the first such year since the 1582 adoption of the Gregorian Calendar.

At services of worship on this day, worshippers are blessed with ashes by the celebrating minister. The minister marks the forehead of each participant with black ashes, in the shape of a cross, which the worshipper traditionally retains until washing it off after sundown. The symbolism echoes the ancient Near Eastern tradition of throwing ash over one's head signifying repentance before God (as related in the Bible). The minister offers the worshipper an instruction while applying the ashes. These are three examples:
"Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return."
(Latin: Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.) This wording comes from Genesis 3:19.
or "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." or "Repent, and hear the good news."

The ashes are prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations and mixing them with olive oil as a fixative.

St Matthias
24th February
Red
Though there is no mention of a Matthias among the lists of disciples in the three synoptic gospels, according to Acts 1, in the days following the Ascension of Jesus, Peter proposed to the assembled disciples, who numbered about one hundred and twenty, that they choose one to fill the place of the traitor Judas in the Apostolate:

23.So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24.Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen 25.to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." 26.Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

According to Nicephorus (Historia eccl., 2, 40), Matthias first preached the Gospel in Judea, then in Ethiopia (made out to be a synonym for the geographically quite separate Colchis (now Caucasian Georgia) and was crucified in Colchis. A marker placed in the ruins of the Roman fortress at Gonio (Apsaros) in the modern Georgian region of Adjara claims that Matthias is buried at that site.

(Source: Wikipedia.)

Thought for the Week

"Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance." -William Shakespeare

Photo credit: 'A Walk with Dad' by Crissy Watkins, United States.