By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster Dionysius “the Great” was the first to be called “the Great,” an honorific that gives us a picture into why his prayers remain part of prayer books to this day (plus this prayer is so beautiful of course we’d pass it on to the next generations). Dionysus came [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster Origen was a spiritual guide, debater, preacher, prolific writer, and considered the first systematic theologian. It is presumed that his father was of Roman citizenship and his mother was Egyptian, and he grew up in Alexandria, which was an intellectual and commercial center of the Roman Empire [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster The “Liturgy of St. Mark” dates back to the second century and has been prayed by the Orthodox Church of Alexandria every century since then, especially on the feast day of St. Mark. Manuscript specialists know this prayer is from the second century because there are small [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster Ancient prayers still speak truth into our lives today. Clement of Rome was the third bishop to preside over Rome after Peter. It is said that he “has the preaching of the apostles still echoing in his ears, and their traditions before his eyes.” Though he was born [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster In a world that feels unified by global pandemic, and yet remains divided by difference, I often wonder what spiritual practices might help create solidarity, build cooperation, and lead to real change. I love the idea of this contemplative chant that connects across global faith traditions. It [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster This prayer comes from the new “Book of Common Worship” published in 2018 by the Presbyterian Church (USA). It is to be used in evening prayer, every night with silence preceding it. There is so much spiritual power in the evening light, and the way that shadows [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster I continue to be in awe of the way you all—the people of Kenilworth Union Church—are making a way through these odd, challenging, heart-rending, beautiful, justice-seeking, quiet, noisy, impossible, tense, change-filled days. Every day I hear of another person finding joy in the midst of hardship, finding [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster Thirst. It’s a bodily response, a deep need, an unyielding and recurring—shared across species. The deer yearns for fresh water, just as we do. The ancient people of faith who wrote and recorded and kept on praying the 42nd Psalm understand that prayer can be akin to bodily [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster I always wonder what prayer was like for Jesus. I am grateful for the many contours of prayer we see modeled by Jesus across scripture. This scene in Gethsemane, for example, is not uncommon for Jesus: he goes off a ways and without us knowing what is [...]
By The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster Morning awakens us with hope: rest, renewal, sunrise—we are ready for the gift of a new day. Morning also holds the burden of the unknown: what might happen as the day unfolds? I love how this prayer stands between hope and mystery, acknowledging what might be hard and [...]