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Rector's Study
We Proclaim the Mystery of Faith
 Fr.
Timothy Perkins, SSC
Vth Rector
“Christ has died”
The Lenten Mystery
Entering into the penitential season of Lent, we embark
upon a stage of our lifelong spiritual journey that has
a particular destination. While all of our pilgrimage
of faith may rightly be thought of as movement towards
our ultimate goal of entering into God’s everlasting
kingdom, this time of “worthily lamenting our sins and
acknowledging our wretchedness” (BCP, p. 264) is
time bound. We look to the past by attempting to look
at ourselves and our misdoings with honesty and
integrity in hopes of departing from those former
failings. We attend to the present by taking on
disciplines and devotional practices that may become
sources for ongoing strength in our journey. We look
forward to the assurance that we will yet receive mercy
from him who forgives “the sins of all who are penitent”
(ibid.).
The destination toward which we turn in departing from
the sins of our past, in the continuance of our journey,
and in our anticipation of what lies ahead is the place
of new beginning. No wonder then that Lent has its
roots in the preparation of those converted to faith in
Christ for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. At every
celebration of this Holy Sacrament, we affirm our belief
that through baptism we receive a spiritual rebirth into
the new and everlasting life of the heavenly kingdom.
Because we are sinners, we need the opportunity Lent
provides to return to our baptismal purity, to regain
that forgiveness once poured out in mercy upon us.
So, in the footsteps of Jesus, we embark “throughout
these forty days” (Hymnal 1982, 142) on the way
of the Cross. It is at the Cross and through Christ’s
Passion that we die to our sin and allow our tendencies
toward continuing in sin to be put to death within us.
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul demonstrates this
interconnectedness of the Cross with Holy Baptism.
How can we who died to sin still live in
it? Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism
into death (Romans 6:2-4).
The right observance of a holy Lent leads us to Good
Friday. There we present ourselves with Christ that our
sins may be nailed with him “on the hard wood of the
cross” (BCP, p. 101). It is only through the
agony and the shame, the suffering and the death of the
Cross that our sin is put to death that we might be
forgiven and made free. So let us proceed with faith
and in penitent prayer to the place of our redemption,
the Holy Cross, which is mystically also the baptismal
font.
Previous Issues:
Winter 2009
Advent 2008
Summer 2008
Pentecost
2008
Easter 2008
Lent 2008
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
Summer 2006
June 2006
Lent 2006
Advent 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
Summer 2004
Easter 2004
Lent 2004
February 2004
Epiphany 2004
Advent 2003
Easter 2003
Lent 2003
February 2003
Epiphany 2003
October 2002
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