Companions of Mary the Apostle

05/11/2026

Shane's Sermon for Easter 6

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson’s poem is famous, though few quote it beyond the first verse. I’m not much of a poetry person, and I have struggled to grasp this poem. I think maybe that’s part of the point; maybe grasping isn’t what poetry is about. And maybe, Dickinson is saying, it’s not what hope is about either.

Whatever the meaning, we need hope right now.

All around us are signs of trouble and destruction. Millions are suffering from war, from famine, from being treated as surplus bodies. Others suffer attacks on their dignity and their membership in the human family. Our environment is rapidly heading toward collapse.

And, in the midst of that, the Christianity that we know has already become a minority position. For many on both the political left and right, Christianity is seen as irrelevant at best, and toxic at worst. White Christian nationalism, a cruel inversion of Jesus’ teaching, is being actively advocated by those in power in this country. The love that Jesus taught, the way he taught his disciples to live, is seen by many as either quaint or dangerous, standing in the way of a brave new world of eugenics and racial supremacy.

We need hope. We are not the first people who have needed it; hope is always needed, like oxygen. We have the records of people’s suffering, and also of their response to that. What sustains them in those times?

In his letter, Peter advises his community to stand firm in the face of suffering. “Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated,” he says. “Always be ready to give an accounting for the hope that is in you.”

The hope that is in you. Or, as it can be translated, the hope that is among you, among us.

But what is this hope? It’s not optimism. Hope doesn’t deny the suffering, or downplay it or justify it, all the things we do to reduce it.

Hope stands in the midst of trouble, indestructible, always bobbing back up when it is thrust down. As a movie title once put it, hope floats.

And this hope is not an accessory, to be taken on or put off. This hope is implanted in you, in me, in the community of believers. It is a gift from God, from Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus knew his time was coming, he promised the disciples that his death would not be the end. I doubt that they heard him at first; certainly they couldn’t understand. And, at the resurrection, they may have thought that this was what he meant; he died, but now he’s back. But Jesus knows that is not the end of this story, this story without end.

He will send them another Paraclete. Another Advocate, Comforter, Counselor; all this is wrapped up in this word, Paraclete. When Jesus mentions “another,” we are meant to notice: there’s been one before this! Indeed; Jesus is the first Paraclete, the first one called alongside them to teach and strengthen and comfort disciples. The Spirit that is coming is all of this, without the incarnate presence. Jesus is planting hope in them.

I imagine the original disciples felt lost without the physical presence, but they will experience the love and guidance again. They will know Jesus in a new way.

What a gift for us! The coming of the Spirit in their time opened the door for us to know Jesus too, to learn and be strengthened and comforted as they were. The Spirit that breathed over the earth, that created all that is, comes to us now as the Spirit of Jesus.

Jesus stresses that the Spirit will come, not to individuals with particular gifts, but to the community. All the “yous” here are plural. Its purpose is not to deliver private mystical experiences, or to elevate some over others; the Spirit comes to uphold the community of believers.
Together, we receive the Spirit.
Together, we continue to believe.
Together, we can stand in hope.
Together, we continue to love.

When Jesus tells us to keep his commandments, we needn’t look for a laundry list of observances or prohibitions. All we need to do, he says, is to love one another. That is his commandment. If we want to know him, if we want access to that love, we will love. In loving one another, we will find God’s love. It’s always there, it always will be, but we can cut ourselves off.

At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus tells the disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Not believing like an assertion, an idea, but believing like trusting, relying on. This believing, this faith, can sustain us through the hard times. In the end, it is all that can.

Faith, hope, and love abide. It’s really that simple. Our faith is not in a particular building, a particular denomination or way of worship, but in the living God in whom we live and move and have our being. Whatever face of God we address - whether Creator, or Jesus, or Holy Spirit - we can put our trust in God, we can hope in God, we can love in and through God.

May God uphold us and encourage us to continue in hope. Amen.

05/03/2026

https://conta.cc/4w5bhlR

Email from Companions of Mary the Apostle The Companions of Mary the Apostle May 2026 Last Year's garden at the Companionary. Things to look forward to! Dear Friends, “And then there are zinnias.” Wel

04/07/2026

Blessed Eastertide!

I opened to this passage from Meister Eckhart this morning, and it seemed so right for the season.

To say as many do that God made the world
is to confuse what is true, for God never ceased

making what was made, and what will be
is already present in God's unending Now.

This truth reminds me that God is making
all things new, even what is past and gone

and also what lies yet unknown in the future -
in your life and mine.

(Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart,
Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows)

Sr. Shane

Photo is our chapel.

04/05/2026

Easter Morn
(after John 20:1-18)

His absence a gaping wound, a dark time, an eternity.
The third day, the early dark, the stone, out of place,
as was his body.
The tomb, empty.
Her beloved gone—again—Magdalene wept.
Quick! Find the others.

They have taken the Lord out of the tomb!
They, too, saw.
John believed:
His broken body, gone.

The two men left. She stayed.
Tears flowed.
Angels ask their absurd question:
Why are you weeping?
Then, the man, asking too… Maddening!

The familiar voice:
Mary!
Rabbouni!

How in God’s name do I take that in?
The nails, the agony, his last breath,
stone sealing the tomb
now rolled away,

Jesus, alive? Alive. Alive!
His heart-wrenching words: Do not cling to me.
Go tell the others!

I have seen the Lord!
Believe!

This year more than many I need this message. I need to trust in God, believe in Jesus and claim the resurrection story as my own. It isn’t complete without the other, without crucifixion, with the agony of the betrayal by his people—most friends, abandoning him; religious leaders insisting on his demise.
This year, more than many, I lean in. I trust that it is true: betrayal, denial and death do not, will not have the final word. God will not have it that way. Love will not be conquered. Bruised and even executed, it will NOT end there.
Getting through the middle, that time between a death and God’s victory over it, is always the hard part. Overcoming the desire to collapse—or getting back up once one does—that is faith—possible only through God’s power. But we must explore, seek, choose. What will we hold as truth in this time rife with lies? How will we, with Mary Magdalene, witness that Jesus’ resurrection is real and saving? What will sustain us? It is actually who.
Only God’s love, poured out from birth through resurrection and even now, by Jesus. He lives, too, through so many who are faithful to the call to love and pour themselves out in ways that are large and small.
Another truth that sustains me. Yes, resurrection is in the world to come—and now! In us and among us, surprising us as times and instruments of transformation are transformed. The cross is the tree of life and bearing ours can be, too.
Just as Mary and the disciples struggled to receive the risen Christ—were caught off guard by the miracle of new life—we grapple with this great mystery. It takes time and community to take it in. Even then we catch only a bit of it. But that bit is enough to change our lives.
The message is clear: no matter what happens, do not despair! So, with Christians throughout the ages, and my siblings now, I shout the joyful Alleluia! Christ is risen!
And so will we be. Happy Easter!
In Christ’s love and mine, E, for the Companions

04/05/2026

https://conta.cc/4tlXEg2

Email from Companions of Mary the Apostle The Companions of Mary the Apostle Easter 2026 Icon by Ferris Cook, a gift to the Companions on our Founding. Thank you, Ferris! Easter Morn (after John 20:1

03/25/2026

In the lineage of YES!

Yes, Mary said to the angel.
“You will conceive by the Holy Spirit…”
“Let it be with me according to your will.”
In other words, YES!
Though I don’t know if she would have capitalized it,
Mary said YES! to this strange occurrence.
Her yes gave birth to YES!

God’s Yes to us in Jesus, his beloved, come to love us into our own YES!
Jesus, born of Mary’s YES! was born in the lineage of YES!
God’s YES! to us, his Yes to his Abba’s Way, his Yes to love.
That YES! took him all the way to the cross
with through a love that was unstoppable.

We too, through Christ, baptism and daily choices,
are of the lineage of YES!
but we have to say YES! to it.
Sometimes our yes isn’t capitalized, isn’t bold or fierce.
Sometimes our yes is meek, with a question mark
as we wonder what it will mean.

God’s YES! to us comes in a myriad of ways
great and small
and invites ours:
YES! or yes to life
to love
to our way of living out our unique YES! to God’s love.

What is the YES! You are called to say?
What is the yes you fear uttering?

We can trust that God’s power will enable us
to live out whatever it is S/He invites us, calls us to be and do.
May we, together, find our yes to life,
to loving the one who created us and to each other.
YES! Blessings to you on this feast of Mary’s great YES!

03/17/2026

Shane's Sermon for Lent 4A, 2026

In 12-Step groups, newcomers often ask how the program works. The answer they might get is, “here’s how: HOW. Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness are the keys to new life.”

This is just as true in our faith lives as in recovery from addictions. In fact, it’s only true for recovery because it uses this spiritual truth. The only barrier to spiritual growth is the inability to learn HOW.

We see this with our story today. This blind man – let’s call him Fred – does not ask for healing. Jesus just decides to heal him to show God’s glory at work. The disciples, like many people of the time, believe that blindness is a punishment for sin. Today, many people think that addiction is a matter of bad character, of sin, that either should be punished or is bringing punishment from God. But Jesus says, Fred didn’t sin. God isn’t punishing him. Blindness in Jesus’ world is an occasion for God to show power by healing, not by punishing.

So Jesus heals Fred.
It’s simple, really; he puts some mud on his eyes, mud made with his spit, and tells him to go wash.
It’s simple, and it’s wrong by the standards of good behavior. It’s the Sabbath, for one thing; this is too much like work. And it’s unclean, full of bodily mess and mud.
Only a desperate man, or a really willing one, would go along with this. But Fred does, and he’s healed.

Now, Fred can’t explain what’s happened to him. He can tell that it happened, but he can’t tell why or how. But he knows that he was blind, and now he sees. That puts him ahead of all his neighbors and the Pharisees. They are so certain of what is what that they can’t admit that Fred is healed. Maybe it’s not him. Maybe he was never really blind. Maybe – maybe anything! Just not that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath.

And isn’t that like us lots of days? We want God to make sense, even if it makes us blind to what God is doing among us.

Or maybe, in our heart of hearts, we don’t want to know what God is doing if it upsets out view of how the world should be.

Fred tells his story. I was blind but now I see. This man put mud on my eyes and had me wash.

Instead of rejoicing, his parents get scared. They know that Fred could be in trouble with the Pharisees, and they want to dodge that bullet. So they step away from him.

The Pharisees are upset because if Jesus is from God, if he’s healing on the Sabbath, then they don’t understand God like they thought they did.
Instead of being honest, open-minded and willing, we have a bunch of people who are being shifty, stubborn, and closed. They aren’t any more closed than they were before; but now, in the light which is Jesus, their resistance is made manifest.

Fred, on the other hand, allows himself to change. And in his open-minded honest quest, even as Fred is losing his family and community, he grows closer and closer to Jesus.
He starts out just saying, “This guy did this thing.” That is all he knows, and it’s enough to get him in trouble. He can’t explain how it happened; but he can’t, won’t deny that it did.

Then he’s pressed to have an opinion about Jesus. He makes a leap and says, “He’s a prophet.” That’s quite a commitment. That’s enough to get him in trouble. He is cast out of the synagogue, out of the community.

It’s no coincidence that Fred finds himself alone once he’s healed. Often people who choose to recover, or who turn their lives around, find that their families and friends are less than thrilled.

It turns out that no one is sick alone. We are part of systems, usually our families to start, where we each have a role and a function. If anyone changes their part, everyone has to adjust. If you start to behave differently, I might have to notice how I behave. So if I don’t want to look at my behavior, my best bet is to keep you doing what you’ve always done.

Finally, Fred finds new footing. Jesus asks him to believe in him, the Son of Man, and he does. He worships him; the first in the Gospel of John to do so. He knows what he’s seen – the first thing he’s seen in his life. It’s enough for him to commit.

Fred has gone from reporting a fact to confessing faith. This is the moment when he really gains his sight. He has been saved.

I want to invite you to sit for a minute and ponder your faith story. Don’t worry about explanations or ideas. Stick with description. You may even start, like Fred, with this: “All I know is . . .”
“All I know is that he put mud on my eyes and had me wash.”
“All I know is that when I was lost and hopeless, something put this book in my hand and this friend by my side and led me to . . .”
"All I know is that I stumbled into a church to sit in a quiet place, and I came out feeling at peace.”
“All I know is that when I look up at the stars, I feel a loving God around me.”

Whatever your story, it is precious. Later you might want to write down what has happened to you and your beliefs, or share it with someone else. But whether you share it or not, tell yourself what has happened to you.

And as you write, ask yourself, where do you fit in Fred’s story? It’s important to own all the dimensions of ourselves, not to be blind. Do you find yourself:

With Fred, willing to confess what has happened to you even before you fully understand it?
With the parents, private believers but afraid of losing status or connections if you share in public?
With the Pharisees, committed to the institution over against new experience of God?

All of these live in us. We may be children of light, but light casts shadows as well. Only by owning those other parts will we be able to resist them.

Honest, open-minded and willing: That’s how you will see God.

03/15/2026

https://conta.cc/4dncVs0

Email from Companions of Mary the Apostle The Companions of Mary the Apostle Lent 2026 (2) O ____________, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under he

02/24/2026

Shane's Sermon for First Sunday in Lent (which got snowed out)

We enter Lent with a hard landing. In the space of a week, we go from the sight of Jesus’ glory to our expulsion from the garden, and the whole sordid story that will follow. And this week, Jesus appears as one of us: hungry, thirsty, lonely.

We need to start here, with these stories. We need to hear again of how we go astray, and how Jesus shows us the way back to God.

We can be so familiar with the story of Adam and Eve that we skip by it. We have heard interpretations, from a variety of perspectives. So many of them focus on disobedience as the primal sin. Now, the word for sin is not mentioned here, but over time that became the name for what happened in the the garden. And the sin, we are told, is disobedience. The consequence is death.

Not so fast.

Let’s start with death. The original creation in fact included the cycle of nature. Plants and animals would be born, grow, and die. Humans were part of that natural order. Death was natural decay, a return to the source.

Another part of the original creation was an intimacy between God and humans. We are shown that intimate relationship here, where God is speaking to humans, and walking with Adam and Eve in the garden. We were meant to till the garden, and keep it; to steward it in ways that would foster the flourishing of all its creatures. God clearly loved and trusted Adam and Eve, while knowing that they were creatures as well, subject to the natural order.

Then the serpent speaks. The serpent is a type of all that is opposed to God’s will for us and for creation. The serpent will introduce the death that is not natural or peaceful. As one writer puts it, this death is a force “opposed to creation itself, unmaking that which was good, always threatening to drag the world back toward chaos.”

How does the serpent do this?

The crucial element in our relationship with God is trust. Obedience, listening, follows from trust in God’s love for us, God’s truth with us.

The serpent interrupts that trust by telling Eve (and Adam, who is clearly right there) that God has lied to them. “You will not die.” No, the serpent says, God just wants to keep you in your place. So Eve, and Adam, decide to rely on themselves, their perceptions, their reasoning. The fruit looks good, and it will make us wise; what’s not to like?

The result is not what they expected. Instead of advancing in wisdom, they see their vulnerability and their need. They feel shame for the first time. Shame, the killer that isolates us from others, from ourselves, from God. They know just enough to know their weakness. Chaos has entered the world.

This is what Jesus comes to repair. But he doesn’t do it by being superhuman; the early Church emphasized his common humanity, his weakness and need. The temptation story is about a person like us. Only through his humanity can he show us the way back to intimacy with God.

Have you ever wondered by Jesus had to go out to the desert after his baptism? Why did the Holy Spirit lead him there? It’s in this encounter with Satan that the breach will begin to be repaired.

Satan sees that Jesus could be trouble; he’s been named the Beloved Son in his baptism. So he tries to sow distrust in Jesus as he did through the serpent in the garden. With each temptation, Jesus has to choose between trusting God to provide, and using his own resources. His hunger, his human appetite, is used against him. His lust for power is provoked. His pride and vanity are tweaked. At each stage, Jesus has to choose whom to trust. He chooses God.

It’s his trust, not his obedience, that opens the door. He will indeed obey the call to serve and to give of himself, but that follows from his deep trust in the love of the one he calls “Abba,” Father. Right up to the cross, he will trust that this is God’s will for him. He will pray, in order to hear rightly. He will listen for God’s voice rather than his own motivations.

Now, Paul says that byJesus’ obedience “the many will be made righteous.” He doesn’t mean that we will be off the hook, that believing in Jesus will excuse us from our sins. Jesus opens the door through which we are invited to walk. We too are invited to trust in God rather than ourselves or those voices around us that would lure us into chaos. Voices of hate, of distrust and suspicion, of anger and despair. Those voices, within and around us, carry the characteristic hiss of the serpent. Even the devil can quote Scripture.

The temptation is not just a moment in Jesus’ life. It is a moment in each of our lives, coming again and again. Jesus’ response shows us what it means to be a child of God. Trusting in God, while knowing that we will not be exempt from the realities of life, gives us the anchor we need.

In turn, we can become anchors for others. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will call the peacemakers children of God. When we make peace, we share in the repair of creation. We sow seeds of order amid chaos, of truth amid lies. We return to our rightful place and vocation, caring for the earth and its creatures (including humans!), restoring the garden.

Without trust, no relationship, no community, is possible. Watch for the serpent, and tell it to be quiet. We are God’s beloved children. Period.

02/18/2026

https://conta.cc/4kGXUTN

Email from Companions of Mary the Apostle The Companions of Mary the Apostle Lent 2026 Ash Wednesday opens the door to Lent and invites us to step through boldly and with care. Each year I find myself