Announcing New Beginnings #2
This retreat will be led by Mary Hayden Manning and Miranda Tubilla, will take place Friday-Sunday, April 15-17 at St. David’s, San Antonio. New Beginnings is a spiritual renewal weekend for all middle school youth in grades 6-8 and is designed to respond to the issues, concerns, and needs of young people, with the goal of helping participants grow in their love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and subsequently, themselves. This second weekend is also open to those who participated in New Beginnings #1. Cost per participant is $50; you can find the link to register here. High school students can apply to be on staff. The Rev. Lisa Mason and the Rev. Matt Wise will serve as the Spiritual Directors. For more information, contact Mary Hayden Manning.
New art has been hung in the Leadership Center to celebrate the “Joy in the Journey” to the Easter Season and of spring. All are invited to come and see! Most of the art is for sale and a portion of proceeds goes to support the St. George Community.
The artists exhibiting are: Sno-Pro Photography, Jim Sparkman, Rita McDaniel, Dr. Michael Orozco, Sherry Humphreys, Shirley Bland, John Roof, Peggy Foerster, and Dawn del Alamo.
The Leadership Center is open from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM during the week and on Sunday mornings. Come enjoy!
St. George Member Bridget Lynch asks for help from the St. George Community.
Bridget writes, “My TMI Science received a small grant earlier from the TeamUp program. Our club’s project is that we create hands-on science curriculums for elementary students and take it to children in Title One schools. So far, we have worked with Mead elementary. With the large grant of $20,000, we want to expand all over San Antonio and bring this opportunity to kids in Locke Hill, Larkspur, et al. The community is allowed to vote for which project they want to receive the large grant. Voting continues through April 1st. We need votes from the St. George community!”
To learn more about their project, click here.
Use the hashtag #TUCvoteTMI in any social media post this week or vote for TMI by visiting: http://
Any help that we can get from the community would be awesome!
Station 14: Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw where he was laid. – Mark 15:46-47
Click here to read.
This reflection was written by Rob Devlin.
Station 13 – The Body of Jesus Is Taken Down From the Cross
John 19:38-40
After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.
Jesus’s sacrifice for us was thoroughly selfless and purely perfect. Humans sacrifices’ for others can never be perfect because that is how God created us. We are fallible and imperfect. When we try to show unbiased and unconditional love and care to other human beings, we are loving and living in Jesus Christ’s image to the best of our frail, human ability. I believe that that is the way He intended it when He sacrificed Himself for us.
When Joseph of Arimathea brought Jesus’s body down from the cross and laid Him to rest, he was treating Jesus with great reverence, care, and respect. In doing so, he was not only showing his love for our Lord Jesus, but he also exhibited Jesus’s love in the gentlest way. Especially since Joseph performed this act of kindness, despite the repercussions that might have befallen him.
In our daily lives, we have the opportunity to show our love for Jesus by showing love and compassion to other people. We do this by showing kindness to a friend or family member in need, or even more difficult, showing kindness to a stranger or an enemy. Being Chaplain of the St. George Middle School, the theme of loving your enemies is one that I try to emphasize frequently, as nothing is more difficult. I believe that nothing could better embody Jesus’s love than caring for those who have wronged us. Another principle that goes along very well with kindness and compassion is respect. Just like Nicodemus showed the utmost respect for Jesus Christ by bringing Him myrrh and aloes to anoint His body, we must also show others respect.
As Christians and followers of the Lord, we all strive to keep Jesus our priority in all that we do. So, how exactly do we do that? Since Jesus sets such an astounding example for us, I believe that the best we can do is set the best example we can for others. By letting God’s light radiate through us various ways, we can truly exemplify what it means to be a follower of the Lord.
So, at the end of my homilies in chapel, I always give my peers a challenge or something to think about throughout the week. So, I will leave you with this:
What actions are you going to take to show that you are a true follower of Christ? Are you willing to love your enemies? Will you set an example for others?
-Sophie Velez
Station 12 – Jesus Dies on the Cross
“Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Hunger. Thirst. Happiness. Sadness. Anger. Delight. Health. Pain. Friendship. Betrayal. Birth. Death.
Jesus deeply connects to what it means to be human. Whether one lived in the first century or lives in the twenty-first century, being human is full of ups and downs, unexpected detours and sudden stops. Jesus embodies the fullness of humanity.
The cross represents for us the fullness of the human experience and gathers up every emotion, every aspect of a life lived in a broken, sinful world. The cross is the unwavering, unrelenting, unyielding hardness that squeezes our hearts with sorrow, that steals our breath little by little, that drains us, as we watch helplessly, of the life we hold dear.
Jesus surrenders his own life to the hard wood of the cross. Jesus offers his very own self on the cross to give us hope in the midst of all that might cause us despair. Out of the soil of sorrow and fear will sprout a new life, a resurrection life. But first Jesus must surrender to the cross, must commend his very own spirit to the care of his loving, faithful Father.
We who walk the way of the cross, who are followers of Christ Jesus, also are called to surrender our very selves to the cross. We do so trusting that as we commend our own lives, our own spirits, over the the care of our Loving God we will experience glimpses of the resurrection life that Jesus has promised, indeed, that Jesus has victoriously claimed for us by destroying death by his death thereby ushering us into newness of life in him.
As we draw near the end of our Lenten journey with Jesus we are invited to commend, to surrender, our very deepest selves to God trusting that we will experience abundant joy. Joy that strengthens us in our weakness, that promises life in the face of death. Joy which calls and sends us out into the world to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ victory over death once and for all.
-Fr. Ram Lopez
The Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
Recently my husband Richard and I saw the movie, Risen, in which Jesus’ death and resurrection are seen through the eyes of the Roman tribune Clavius. While the character Clavius is a dramatic invention, what he experiences is not. In Risen, Clavius was charged with carrying out the sentence of Jesus’ crucifixion. As Jesus hangs on the cross as a common criminal, there are some who see something different about him. An awestruck Roman soldier quietly tells Clavius, “This man was innocent.” Pontius Pilate later says, “It’s as if he wanted to be sacrificed.”
But Jesus did not simply die to make a statement, there is – there has to be – more to his sacrifice. I have read that, in being crucified, Jesus entered fully into our human experience of pain, that we can then take comfort in knowing that he has felt suffering. While there is some merit to that view, I do not think it is complete. One of my spiritual directors put it this way:
“Jesus died to lead us through our suffering to a better, stronger place. While the suffering might continue, what changes is how we view and process what we experience. God’s presence in our suffering is more than mere comfort, it is transformative. We move from victims to victors as our faith converts our hurt to healing, our injury to strength, and our experience into gift. It moves from pain to gift when we then stand with another going through what we’ve been through and help them through their ordeal, converting hurt to healing, etc.”
In Risen, the disciple Bartholomew exclaims, “Our only weapon is love!” As we follow Jesus’ example of love, the world is transformed.
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.
Collect from Morning Prayer, Rite II, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
–Erlinda Blevins
Station 10 – Jesus’ Clothes Are Taken Away
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things. – John 19:23-24
Jesus Christ, God with Us, surrendered himself to us through his love on the day He was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. He put no conditions on his surrender other than that we witness his love for us and love him in return.
It is one thing to sacrifice one’s self for a cause, say in a battle or in a life-long struggle, or by dedicating one’s own life to something or someone that is dearly loved. By all Human standards, it is quite another to stand by and allow one’s self to be tortured and humiliated by one’s oppressors when one simply doesn’t have to. Isn’t that true? Who would? Certainly not God himself!
But wait, He did just that. God as Jesus came to us all-in with his love for Humanity. He left nothing out, held nothing back, and He never changed the rules after the figurative game began. Jesus stepped right up and took everything we could dish out to him. In our best Human form we betrayed him, we beat him nearly to death, and we took from him everything we could; right down to the clothes he wore and every last bit of his human dignity.
Yet he carried that cross and let us nail him to it with our deadly intent. He hung out in the sun dying and still he asked his Father to forgive us – forgive us – for having put him there. He died naked, beaten, bleeding and broken and all the while asking us to join him in Heaven. How can I not love that man for His gift?
Those of us who wish to die in peace sleeping in our own beds might take a moment to reflect on Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, who gave all that up to die as He did for no other reason than that He loved us so very much. Unconditionally. Eternally. And He still does.
-Barry Marks
Station 9 – Jesus Falls a Third Time
As the collection of small children and adults walked up to the Ninth Station, the children wailed, “Jesus fell again!” Their concern for Jesus was palpable. Over a dozen parishioners, young and old, were touring the outdoor Stations of the Cross under the guidance of Director of Family Ministries Happy Wilson. For two consecutive Sundays as part of St. George Church’s C 3:16 Family Ministry, Wilson had led families through the fourteen stations, discussing the colorful tiles depicting Jesus’s progression to crucifixion. She had concealed a plastic egg near each station which contained a symbol of the event on the tile. The children were immediately focused on finding the egg and identifying how it related to the tile. My granddaughters Corgan and Parker Bankey can still describe the things that were in the eggs, especially the ones they found.
Until their tour of the Stations of the Cross, most children’s perceptions of Easter revolved around new spring outfits, Easter egg hunts, and school holidays. Happy and positive, right? Although many of the children knew intellectually that Easter was about the resurrection of Christ, most had not absorbed the concept of the horrific suffering required to prepare Jesus for resurrection. On the second tour day as the children reviewed the Stations they had seen previously, their comments showed that they had gained a more profound understanding of the Easter reality.
Have we refrained from telling our children of the heinous nature of Jesus’s suffering because we thought they were too young to understand it or have we just assumed that they would “get it” with little explanation? Or have we waited for their spiritual studies teachers to impart the knowledge? Those of us adults who accompanied the children on the tour and heard their comments felt their compassion and empathy for Christ grow with their knowledge. Our children, even the littlest ones, can grasp and value the resurrection story.
I walked the Stations with the children and another time with a group of adults led by Father Ram. I wondered how many of us, including myself, think about the cross in terms of a nice piece of James Avery jewelry or the now-ubiquitous crucifix wall seen in many homes and work places. Have we sanitized our perception of the cross to be a wardrobe accessory instead a symbol of our Lord’s pain?
I would encourage everyone to take advantage of the lovely setting of the St. George courtyard to walk prayerfully through the Stations of the Cross and examine your own perceptions of Jesus’s pain. I know it has made me examine my own.
-Pam Piedfort
Once a child is conceived, mothers become selfless and worrisome. The commitment to herself vanishes and is replaced with concern for the child, both in terms of the immediate moment and the future, simultaneously. Jesus must have been aware of the struggles parents face in raising a family. The power of love and sorrow, felt in moments of pride and shame, brought on by children can never be severed. The finality is always an unconditional love for them.
Acts of terrorism in schools affect me deeply. Being a mother and teacher reinforces daily feelings of an unknown outcome. Watching the news, reading the horrific instances in an article, or watching videos during lock-down trainings stir up feelings of compassion for all involved. The most innocent of human beings, children, are often the target of individuals who are lost or broken. Everyday I pray and entrust all five of my children’s safety to the Lord. My faith gives me peace in this often times tumultuous world.
Personally, to weep means finally letting go of all the built up emotion whether it is sadness, anger, or happiness. So as I reflect on Jesus telling the women to weep for themselves and their children, it means to let go of the worry and to trust. Trust he can handle the situation. Trust it’s all in his plan for life here on earth.
-Anonymous
