Mother Claire's Sermons

This year’s Lent Madness winners were Constance and her companions, also known as the Martyrs of Memphis. In August of 1878, yellow fever invaded the city of Memphis, Tennessee, for the third time in ten years. By the month’s end, the disease had become epidemic and a quarantine was ordered. While more than 25,000 citizens had fled in terror, nearly 20,000 more remained to face the pestilence. As cases multiplied, the death toll averaged 200 people per day. When the worst was over, ninety percent of the people who remained had contracted the fever and more than 5,000 people had died. In that time of panic and flight, many brave men and women, both lay and ordained, remained at their posts of duty or came as volunteers to assist in spite of the terrible risk. Notable among these heroes were four Episcopal sisters from the Community of Saint Mary, and two of their clergy colleagues, all of whom died while tending to the sick. The Sisters had come to Memphis in 1873, at the bishop’s reque...

Wednesday night, my husband and I were watching Survivor . At the end of every episode they have Tribal Council where one member of that episode’s losing tribe is voted off of the show. As that tribe enters tribal council, host Jeff Probst instructs them to take a torch and light it in the fire because, “This is part of the ritual of Tribal Council because, in this game, fire represents life. As long as you have fire, you are still in this game. When your fire’s gone, so are you.” As Jeff was giving his spiel, I turned to my husband and said, “the liturgy of Survivor ”. He chuckled and I said, “I’m not joking” and he said, “oh, I know you’re not”. While we most often think of liturgy as occurring in the church, so many other things in our lives have what are essentially liturgies. I read an article last month about the liturgy of Taylor Swift concerts. The word liturgy comes from the Greek leitourgia which roughly translates to “the work of the people”. While it is often written down -...

One of the great privileges of parish ministry is that of walking alongside families who are mourning the death of a loved one. In Episcopal “last rites”, which the prayer book calls “Ministration at the Time of Death”, the opening prayer recalls to us the resurrection: “Almighty God, look on this your servant, lying in great weakness, and comfort her with the promise of life everlasting, given in the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen .” In the words of this prayer, we are reminded of the small space between death and life eternal as we then begin the Litany at the time of Death - which is recommended, when possible, to be prayed by a group of people, not just the priest alone. It is a beautiful experience when family members and friends are there to pray the responses and help usher their loved one into the arms of Jesus. Today, we have the opportunity to be that loving community to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To come face to face with his suffering and death....