Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.St. Paul’s, San Diego4/10/2022 Today is the first Palm Sunday in three years that we’ve been able to fully engage with this liturgy. The highs and lows of it all feel more tangible again, for me at least. There is a great divergence between these extremes. Where at one moment we … READ MORE…
Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 3 2022Penelope Bridges This story from John’s Gospel comes out of the blue for us today, after many weeks of walking through the Gospel of Luke. It might be helpful to know the Scriptural context of this extract: had we been following John, we would have just read the stunning … READ MORE…
Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.3/13/2022 This gospel passage, though only five verses long, offers a veritable kaleidoscope of ways to view it. Jesus’ references agrarian symbols with mentions of a fox, a hen, and a brood of chicks while also being alerted by the Pharisees of a murderous plot of Herod’s hatching, all the while Jesus … READ MORE…
Third Sunday in Lent, March 20 2022Penelope Bridges There’s news, and then there’s gossip. Rumors have always abounded, especially in tense times of invasion, conflict, and war. Atrocities are reported but not always substantiated. We want those we consider our enemies to be monsters so that it’s easier to hate them; we are too ready … READ MORE…
First Sunday in Lent,March 6 2022Penelope Bridges Immediately after his baptism and commissioning by God, Jesus goes on an extended retreat in the wilderness. If your experience of the wilderness is the Southern California desert, I want you to know that the Judean desert is different. I have driven through that desert, and it is … READ MORE…
Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego2/13/2022 There is an immediacy to this gospel that extends from the promise of God’s love into our present moment. It penetrates the mundane with a pronouncement that defies what we perceive to the be the “natural order of things.” Jesus is upending what we consider normal, it … READ MORE…
Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego1/30/2022 ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ When I try to put my feet into the shoes of someone listening to Jesus when he said this at the synagogue, I imagine it is an utterly baffling statement. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus is a known quantity … READ MORE…
January 23, 2022, 3, Epiphany, Cathedral DayPenelope BridgesOne Body/Un Solo Cuerpo For seven or eight summers, my sons attended an Episcopal sleepaway camp in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Each year I made the trip twice to drop each child off at his age-appropriate camp. At the end of each camp session, we parents would … READ MORE…
Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego1/16/2022 A wedding feels like an impossibility right now, doesn’t it? Omicron is surging, and we are experiencing it at St. Paul’s through the lens of caution and care for our people, even though we know the sting of disconnection lingers with each event we pull away from … READ MORE…
The Baptism of our Lord: 1/9/22Penelope BridgesBeloved On this first Sunday after the Epiphany, we have leapt from the visit of the wise ones to the adult ministry of Jesus, inaugurated by his baptism at the river Jordan. Jesus receives God’s benediction while he is praying after his baptism. Luke doesn’t tell us if other … READ MORE…