Month: February 2011

Walk for a New Spring in Worcester on Saturday

I really miss the Nipponzan Myohoji where I lived in DC in 2009. These folks are walking through Worcester this weekend.

Kieran writes:

Saturday, February 19 · 5:00pm – 8:00pm
Worcester Area Think Tank
36 Harlow st
Worcester, MA

Join marchers from the Leverett Peace Pagoda and from throughout Massachusetts as they arrive in Worcester from Fitchburg.

The Walk for a New Spring is initiated by New England Nipponzan Myohoji, a Japanese Buddhist Order that builds pagodas around the world and initiates walks for peace. They state that, “Just as the generosity of Mother Earth does not fail to bring forth Spring out of Winter, we walk believing that we ordinary people can bring forth the power of peace and equity both within our daily lives locally and within the governmental and economic power structure. We walk for an awakening of conscience, of desiring to do good and putting down harmful actions, believing and esteeming that seed of pure divinity within all people, even those who do much harm”. Continue reading “Walk for a New Spring in Worcester on Saturday”

Mason Street Musings

Expect the unexpected. You’d think, after sixteen years with the Mason Street Irregulars, I would have mastered this one rule of Catholic Worker life. As Scott reminded me many years ago, “You want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.”

My plans for the three days following Christmas were pretty simple. With Claire, Scott, and the family away in New Hampshire, and Dave in the upper Midwest, vacationing with friends and relatives, I was going to stay at Mason Street to assure that the house ran like the proverbial well-oiled machine. Continue reading “Mason Street Musings”

508 #144: Transition Towns

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Joe Scully and Brendan Melican. They are joined by Ian Anderson, Drew Wilson, Jeremy Shulkin, and some Clark University students.

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Installing lectors and eucharistic ministers, St. Peter’s Parish

This past Sunday, I was “installed” as a lector at St. Peter’s Parish. The ceremony consisted of a simple blessing with holy water at mass.

(Pictured: The newly-blessed lectors and eucharistic ministers of St. Peter’s.)

I lectored all through high school without an official blessing, so I’ve been poking around online to learn more about the significance of this ceremony.

Apparently there was a pre-Vatican II “minor order” for lectors, but this is not that. According to The Duties and Ministries in the Mass, I think my role is “a layperson who happens to be reading”:

101. In the absence of an instituted lector, other laypersons may be commissioned to proclaim the readings from Sacred Scripture. They should be truly suited to perform this function and should receive careful preparation, so that the faithful by listening to the readings from the sacred texts may develop in their hearts a warm and living love for Sacred Scripture.

At the same time the lectors were installed, eucharistic ministers were commissioned, which seems to be a more formal blessing from “Book of Blessings, chapter 63.”

508 #143: Co-working

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is TED Fellow Jessica Colaço, Brendan Melican, and Holmes Wilson of the Participatory Culture Foundation. The show was taped at the iHub in Nairobi, and in a snow cave in Worcester.

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