I will not leave you orphaned....

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” May I speak to you in the name of the G_d who [+] creates, redeems and sustains us? AMEN.

 

Today’s Gospel is a continuation of readings from the second half of John’s gospel which began last week and will continue next Sunday. This reading comes from the middle of a four-chapter lecture that Jesus is giving his disciples called the Farewell Discourse. It takes place in the Upper Room after Jesus has washed the feet of his disciples, eaten the Last Supper with them and sent Judas out to do what he must do. At that moment, Jesus launches into this extended final teaching.

  

 

Difficult Context, Difficult Lessons  

 

It’s important to get a sense of the context of that moment. The disciples are gathered with Jesus for what all of them fear may be their final time together with their beloved master. Jesus is trying to tell them two important things. First, he is preparing them for his brutal death that will come after being betrayed by one of their peers, after the religious establishment colludes with the hated Romans to turn him over to them where he will be executed as a threat to the empire. After all the lessons they have learned, the life-changing experiences they have had, their time together is over. Jesus is headed to the cross.

 

The second thing, and perhaps more important from the perspective of Jesus, is that he is preparing them to carry on this Way of Jesus that began with him as their teacher and guide. But in his departure, it must stand on its own two feet and carry on without Jesus. It will be up to the disciples to embody and propagate these teachings if it is to survive. And so he gives them this long Farewell Discourse to say goodbye and to reassure them that, whether they know it or not, they are ready to step into their roles in bringing the Kingdom of G_d into being here and now.

 

For just a second, try to put yourself in the place of these disciples. Here is this man they have come to love deeply, to trust with their very lives, who has shaped and reshaped their entire understanding of reality. No doubt, they had hoped he’d be with them to the very ends of their own lives, continuing to teach, heal and embody the Kingdom of G_d which he has told them lies within each of them and all around them.

 

But that is not to be. The disciples are learning a difficult lesson we all must learn: Life is a series of lessons on letting go and the last thing we let go of is ourselves. Now, they must let go of their beloved Jesus. And they must pick up the mantle of his Way if it is to survive his death.

 

Imagine what they are feeling. Fear for their own lives. Grief at the loss of their beloved master. Anger at their compatriot, Judas, who would betray them and Jesus. Anger at the religious authorities who were willing to give up one of their own to protect their vested interests. Anger at the occupying Romans whose idolatry of power extended to using human bodies as means of terrorist propaganda. And then there are the doubts about their ability to live into their calling, the gradual dawning awareness of the sense of enormity of what lies ahead of them. And they must deal with all of this without Jesus. That’s why they must listen carefully to what Jesus tells them at this moment.

  

Called to Love

 

First, Jesus tells them that if they truly love him, they will demonstrate that love by living into his commandments. We should note here that the obedience Jesus is calling for is very different from the ordinary use of that concept. Much of how we understand obedience is cast in terms of power relationships. Ethicist Lawrence Kohlberg observed that the lowest level of moral reasoning emerged from powerless people wondering how to obey those with power over them to keep from being punished. This is a limited vision of the concept of obeying a commandment.

 

Jesus’ use of commandment is more like a calling, inviting voluntary response, not the demands of a power holder with the capacity to punish those who refuse. And that becomes clear as he reminds them what his commandments call them to do.

 

In the chapter just prior to today’s lesson, Jesus begins his Farewell Discourse with what he calls a new commandment. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” This is a love that mirrors Jesus’ own sacrificial love, a love whose very nature he will make clear in the next chapter of this gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

 

This is a love that is self-sacrificing. It is a love that is willing to endure hardships, even tragedies, and that will become clear to the disciples very shortly. Of the 12 disciples, only John, whose gospel we are considering today, would die of natural causes. But this love will reveal and embody Jesus after he is gone. It is how the Way of Jesus will continue to be present in the world, take root, and grow.

 

 

I will not leave you as orphans….

 

Second, Jesus recognizes that this calling to his disciples is daunting. He knows how devastating his crucifixion is going to be on them. And he knows how his being taken from them suddenly will leave them feeling abandoned. The word he uses is “orphaned,” left behind by a parental figure who has died.

 

Some of us know that feeling on a personal basis. My Mother lost her Mother when she was 10, my Father lost his Mother when he was 13. Both would be farmed out to relatives to be raised. That very trying experience would mark the lives of both of my parents and prompt them to avoid risk taking that might deprive their own children of one or both of their parents. Indeed, when my Father died 10 years ago, the first feeling that came to me was that I had become an orphan. Much like the disciples, I was grateful for the time I had had with my parents and all they had taught me. But I also knew there was suddenly a great hole in my life that no one else could ever fill. I suspect many of you understand that response quite well.

 

That is why Jesus reassures these disciples that he is not abandoning them. “I will come to you,” he says. When they gather in his name, break bread together, engage the world in the healing and uplifting of the broken hearted, Jesus will be present with them. We recognize that presence in our response to the breaking of the bread in our Eucharistic Prayer C: “Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the Bread.”

 

Jesus also assures them that an advocate, called the paraclete in Greek, will come to be with them. It will embody the Spirit of Truth, a spirit the world of empire cannot understand or appreciate. Not surprisingly, the values of the Kingdom of G_d will always be at odds with those of the kingdoms of Caesars, including our own empire. And it only takes a half hour of scrolling through our newsfeeds each night to see that.

 

Lessons for St. Richards

 

So what does this lesson have to say to us here at St. Richards?

To begin with, we have just come through an encounter with power that, to paraphrase the words of American patriot Thomas Paine, tries human souls. We know what it is like to watch our community’s beloved leader suffer at the hands of those with power and ultimately taken from us. We know what it means to be faced with carrying on the values our leader had instilled in us, to embody the radical hospitality that the Way of Jesus requires. We know what it means to seek the Spirit of Truth to enlighten and guide us in the face of a reality driven by power holders willing to abuse it and those who cannot or will not hear that Truth. It’s not too hard for us to understand the disciples in that upper room listening to Jesus’ Farewell Discourse.

 

But it’s important to consider how they responded to that calling. The fact we are reading this gospel this morning evidences that they stepped up and carried on the legacy of their beloved master.

 

There were some who forecast doom and gloom when the crisis with our rector began last fall. Some spoke of the parish falling apart, of parishioners departing, of the possibility that St. Richards might go the way of all flesh. Much like the disciples in that upper room, odds were not high that they or we would survive, much less thrive.

 

But the naysayers have been proven wrong. Like the disciples, the people of this parish have stepped up, taken responsibility for our worship and communal life together. Our pastoral care to the sick and dying has blossomed along with our beautiful landscaping now recovering from a devastating freeze and a community garden we will bless this day, all under the loving care of dedicated parishioners. Our new mural icon is a tribute to the creative spirit of this parish, the outward and visible sign of its inward and spiritual grace.

 

This parish has worked hard at naming, owning and transforming its anger, its grief and its fears. It has taken seriously Richard Rohr’s observation that when it comes to woundedness, “That which we do not transform, we transmit.” It has also taken very seriously Jesus’ calling to obey his commandments to love each another as a mirror of his love and as a beacon to others seeking a refuge. That calling will inform us as we continue on our way to locating a new leader. Despite the odds, this parish is well on its way to recovering from unmerited blows which left us reeling and which for many parishes would have proven an existential threat. For all of this I am deeply grateful.

 

We still have a way to go to fully recover from this long dark night of the soul we have come through. Our search for a new rector has just begun. But today’s Gospel ought to give us encouragement. The disciples did live into the commandments Jesus had given them, as do we. They continued to love one another as a model to the world of the way of Jesus, as do we. They continued to listen to the Spirit of Truth that whispered in their ears even as the empire brought the full weight of its power down upon them, as do we. Like them, we continue to recognize the presence of Jesus with us as we live into those commandments. And that presence will become very clear with the breaking of the bread we will share in just a moment at this very altar.

 

Collect Appointed for Easter VI, 2026

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

A sermon delivered on Easter VI 2026, Sunday, May 10, 2026, St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL.

You are invited to listen to the sermon as delivered at the link below beginning at 29:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3q9oUgcZc4&t=2540s

 

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  frharry@cfl.rr.com

 

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 

 If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

 

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

 

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

 

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

 

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What Happened at Emmaus

“Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…” May I speak to you in the name of the G-d [+] who creates, redeems and sustains us? AMEN. 

Celebrating 130 Years 

 

Saturday I had an experience that prompted me to come home and rewrite the beginning of this sermon. I had been given the privilege of attending a prayer breakfast to celebrate the 130^th anniversary of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, the oldest African-American parish in the Diocese of Central Florida which is across town in Washington Shores. The room was filled with over 100 people who had gathered to celebrate their life together as an Episcopal parish.

 

The parish was founded in 1896 and has been at the epicenter of the civil rights movement here in Orlando all these years. Its late rector, Nelson Pinder, was a deeply admired servant of the church and of the people of this city. Yesterday, I was representing our parish at that event. This morning, Dale and some of our parishioners will be present at St. John’s to join in its festival eucharist commemorating 130 years of faithful service.

At one point in the breakfast, the senior warden conducted a moment of silence to remember those parishioners of St. Johns who had died but remained in the fond memories of those present. The audience was then invited to speak their names. And soon, much like that magical moment in our service of All Souls Day when we remember our beloved departed, the room resounded with the names of those who once shared their lives and today share the company of heaven.

They were present... 

As I looked around the room, I watched the faces of the people near me. Their gazes were not focused on their immediate surroundings, their attention far way. Many of them smiled as they spoke and heard names of loved ones who once played such important roles in their lives. And on more than one face, tears rolled down their cheeks.

 Suddenly I was struck by the analogy of that moment to our gospel lesson today. It was clear to me that the hearts of the people around me burned with the loving memories that this exercise had brought to consciousness. And amidst the happiness of those memories, there were also the tears of recognition that these loved ones no longer walked among us in physical form. And yet, at that unexpected moment, they were present with us once again.

For my ability to be present for that unexpected moment of grace, I am deeply grateful.

 A beloved but puzzling gospel... 

There is a reason today’s gospel reading is one of the most beloved passages from the New Testament. It relates the story of grief-stricken followers of Jesus fleeing Jerusalem where their master has just been brutally executed by the hated Romans. Along the way they meet a stranger they invite to accompany them on their walk. Quite unexpectedly, he begins to teach them. At their destination, they invite him to stay for supper. When he engages in a ritual blessing of the food they suddenly realize it is the resurrected Jesus. and then he disappears. Now, what are we to make of all that?

Renowned biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan makes the following observation about this passage: "Emmaus never happened. Emmaus is always happening." His comment reflects both a refusal to historicize the symbolic language of the gospels as well as a recognition that the archetypes of this story speak deeply to the human soul. Our reading today from Luke reflects the wrestling of the disciples to understand what that resurrection meant. And it has much to offer us as a community of Jesus followers in making sense of it today.  So let’s look at the story piece by piece.

First, it is important to note that Jesus simply shows up without warning in this story. His grieving followers are leaving Jerusalem, walking the seven miles to Emmaus, and this stranger appears. It’s the risen Jesus. But the disciples don’t recognize him even as they welcome him to walk with them.  Along the way he begins teaching them, as he always did. Surely at this point they must have wondered what was up. Eventually, they come to trust him, sharing their broken hearts with a complete stranger. When they get to Emmaus, they note that it’s late and their companion has no place to pass the night. So they invite him to stay with them.

 When do the players reveal themselves?

On the Road to Emmaus, Duccio, early 14th CE, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence

This is the first place these disciples reveal themselves as followers in the way of  Jesus. Radical hospitality is the mark of the Jesus movement, including those whom polite society would say good Jews should avoid, not the least complete strangers on the highway. Here they have invited a stranger into their home to spend the night.

 

 Supper at Emmaus, Mathias Strom, 17^th CE

That hospitality quickly extends to a shared meal. Again, we should hear the Jesus movement in this. Jesus shared common meals with outcasts – prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners. Inviting the stranger to share one’s meal is consistent with the radical hospitality of the Way of Jesus. And it is only after they reveal themselves as his followers that the Jesus whose way they follow reveals himself to them.

This is the key moment in the story. Before they begin eating, Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and then offers it to the disciples. This was a pattern engaged in the common meals Jesus shared with them. More importantly, it reflected the Last Supper they had just shared in an upper room less than a week previously. It is that familiar pattern that causes their eyes to open and they recognize their Lord sitting among them, only to see him suddenly disappear.

 After he is gone they speak of how their hearts burned with joy in experiencing the presence of their master even if only for a few moments, even as their hearts still ached with grief over his crucifixion. While Jesus was no longer physically present with them, they knew they had just encountered him in their communal meal. And at that point they got up and returned to Jerusalem to join their fellow disciples who were waiting on them. This is the moment the disciples begin to say, “The Lord is risen, indeed.”

 

 Rembrandt, “Supper at Emmaus,” 1629.

How did they recognize their Master? 

Luke’s account has an important lesson for us. How did the followers of Jesus recognize his presence? In the breaking of the bread. Where did it happen? In the context of community. When did it happen? At the end of a long walk during which they heard his teaching, after extending radical hospitality to a stranger inviting him into their dwelling and offering him a place at their table. Then, and only then, they are able to recognize the Jesus who has been present with them all along.

 

Sound familiar? It should.

 

Consider what we do every liturgy. We enter the sanctuary from the road. We have travelled a distance to get here to engage this loving community that is St. Richards. We have heard the stories of our faith tradition provided by our lectionary and now developed by a sermon. After we have greeted one another in peace, as was Jesus’ custom, we will hear the very words we just heard in Luke’s gospel: “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” And with that, we will get up from our pews, come to this altar, shoulder to shoulder with one another, and we will share bread and wine that we understand to be the body and blood of Christ. In that moment, Jesus will be palpably present with us. And we may well find that our hearts will burn with joy as we recognize that presence.

Real Presence Doesn't Lend Itself to Rational Explanation

This miracle that we call the real presence is a mystery. It doesn’t lend itself to rational explanation any more than the resurrection did. But what we can know is how that presence comes about. It occurs in community that has assembled to remember Jesus, a community that practices radical hospitality and openness to strangers revealing itself as followers of Jesus.

 

There is a reason we invite everyone to our altar with the words “The gifts of G-d for the people of G_d.” All of them. No exceptions. No ID check in the aisles. Because we know that as we assemble at this altar, something incredible happens. We lose our self-focus to become part of something much larger than ourselves. And in that very moment, Jesus is present with us.

 

As Crossan puts it, while Emmaus never happened as a historical event, among those who follow the way of Jesus, Emmaus is happening all the time. We should not look to this gospel story for a history lesson. That is not its purpose. But what it does offer is much more valuable – the recognition that when we become fully present here and now in this liturgy we celebrate in beloved community, the Jesus we follow will be present with us. And for that I say thanks be to G-d.

Let us pray: 

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

A sermon preached Easter III, April 19, 2026

St. Richard's Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL 

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  frharry@cfl.rr.com

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 

 If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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Stations of the Cross: When Pilgrimages Return

Last Friday afternoon was my assigned time to conduct the Stations of the Cross. I love that liturgy. Its Franciscan roots speak to my soul.  The engagement of the entire person - body, mind and spirit - provides a holistic encounter of the Holy. It can touch the worshiper deeply as they walk between the stations, singing the Stabat Mater, considering the station’s image and then entering into what is happening at that point in Jesus’ life. At that moment, we are there with Jesus. 

An appearance…beyond human resemblance

I got to the parish early. As I waited for the faithful two parishioners who would join me for the Stations, I was finishing my reading of Dr. Marvin Dunn’s A Black History of Florida Through Black Eyes on my Kindle for an article I am writing for a local Black newspaper, The Orlando Times. I had just read the section in which he details the lynching of 14-year-old Emmet Till in Mississippi in 1955 when my parishioners arrived.

 

The first of my three pilgrimages last year was to the Mississippi Delta, starting in Memphis, continuing to Little Rock Central High in Arkansas and ending at the landing at Glendora, Mississippi where the bloated, decomposing body of Till was recovered by two young white boys his age on a fishing trip.

Our pilgrimage had gone to the site, to stand in a circle on the banks of the Tallahatchie River and together lament, voicing our anger, our grief, our fears, our hopes, our prayers. And we did so knowing that the collective Shadow of a racist America which took the life of this beautiful young man has been given license to run rampant in our nation today.

But we were still there, standing together, hoping that the popular maxim will prove to be true: Love is stronger than death.

I had not thought about that day for a long time. Dunn’s account had brought it back into focus. But it was not until we arrived at the Sixth Station, A Woman Wipes the Face of Jesus, that suddenly it became very real to me:

We have seen him without beauty of majesty, with no looks to attract our eyes. He was despised and ejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of men. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

It is my custom when I lead the Stations to have parishioners read the text. This day, I heard this account in a beautiful baritone voice from a young Black man from the Bahamas whose father is an Anglican priest there. As he spoke these words, the memories of Glendora, Mississippi came flooding back, disturbing visions of a young man whose appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, that he was nearly unidentifiable by the local coroner.

His Mother would insist that his funeral be open casket so that the world could see what had happened to her boy. The Black magazine Jet would run the photo of his marred appearance on its cover. It would be a wakeup call for an America in deep denial, the moment America was required to take seriously its acquiescence to – and thus its role in - the terrorism that marked the Jim Crow South.

But that was not the only pilgrimage to come swimming back into focus for me last Friday.

The Gospel Was Hazardous to the Health of the Preacher

As a seminarian, I had taken two pilgrimages to El Salvador in the early 1990s, the first during the cease fire overseen by the United Nations peacekeeping team. I was there with a group of observers of the cease fire under the direction of the World Council of Churches.

The Episcopal calendar observes the Feast Day of the Salvadoreño Martyrs on March 24. They include the beloved Archbishop Oscar Romero. On March 23, 1980, he had just delivered a sermon by nation-wide radio which concluded with the words, “In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people... I beg you, I implore you, I order you, stop the repression!" The very next day he was  shot down while celebrating the eucharist at the chapel in the convent where he resided.

On our visit there I stood on the gold star implanted in the terrazzo floor of that chapel at the spot behind the altar where Romero was standing. As I looked to the open door where his U.S. trained paramilitary soldier stood, taking aim at a saint, a coldness washed over me that disturbed me down to my very core. This was a place where evil temporarily had its way.

 

We also visited the University of Central America whose Jesuit priests had been slaughtered by the paramiltary at their dormitory along with their housekeeper and her daughter. Preaching the Gospel in an authoritarian state driven by the global corporate interests had proven hazardous to the health of Salvadoreño clergy who dared speak out against the terrorism employed to to keep the populace under control.

In addition to the Jesuit priests whose liberation theology called out systemic evil as a sin, that terrorism would take the lives of the the Maryknoll Sisters whose only crime had been to minister to the young women of El Salvador, seeking to provide them food, education and medical care.

Their raped and mutilated bodies would be found dumped on the road to the international airport, a warning to those entering El Salvador of what the powers that be demanded of anyone entering their borders. Like the Rome that was willing to use the body of Jesus for propaganda in a public crucifixion, the point was clear: We are in control here, do not resist us. We will crush you.

 

Upon entering the UCA Chapel, I would feel my life breath sucked right out of my body. The Stations in the Chapel were all charcoal drawings of victims of the terrorist activities of an authoritarian state upheld by my own country. Its paramilitary agents who carried out that terror had been trained in the School of the Americas directed by our “security” agencies and funded by American taxpayers. The stations did not depict mythical figures of a religious rite. These were real human beings who, like Jesus, had become targets of the empire.

The images of those Stations were deeply disturbing. And as they came flooding back into my mind’s eye as I led the liturgy in our memorial garden, the words of our Sixth Station were unavoidable:

His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of men. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

The Stations Tell a Story About Humanity

As I stood at the Sixth Station in our memorial garden last Friday, listening to my Bahamian parishioner read the text of that station, I found myself back in that Chapel, breathless, devastated by the evil in front of me. And I found myself standing on the banks of the Tallahatchie River in Glendora, Mississippi, painfully aware of how these words reflected my experience there.

 

In my understanding, what makes the Stations so powerful is not that they remember a single event in human history. Rather, they tell a story about humanity that continues to occur all around us. That is why we walk those 14 Stations, remembering Jesus’ last day, knowing that his life story speaks to our own, knowing that they raise a question about how we will respond to these events here, now, in our own lives.

The Stations are a lament, a willing entry into the suffering of our world. It would be easy to engage this rite and walk away congratulating ourselves on having met our Lenten duty. But the Stations demand more from us than that.

Jesus continues to suffer in his people here, now, all over the world, in places with names like Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Venezuela, and Minneapolis. The Stations connect us to “the people of God” to whom we offer “the gifts of God” each eucharist. All of them. That includes those who are suffering and those who cause that suffering.

When Pilgrimages Return….

 

The impact of a pilgrimage is always hard to predict. Pilgrims are not tourists. They come to see, to be present, to know what happened in these places, to learn the stories of atrocity. Like our eucharist in which the context is set by the words “On the night before he entered into suffering and death…” pilgrims willfully enter into the same, if only vicariously. And they return changed, no longer the person who came to those places and entered into the events that would never allow them to continue to see the world as they did before.

And sometimes the pilgrimage, permanently etched in the pilgrim’s soul, returns when they least expect it.

Pilgrims know there is nothing they can do to heal the wounds they have chosen to engage, even as they may ask themselves what possessed them to do so, as I have often done. But they have come. And they return to their homelands with wounded hearts, disturbed souls and stories of suffering that they will feel compelled to tell others, knowing that most do not want to hear them even as they know they must speak their truth nonetheless.

A Privileged Pilgrim’s Gratitude 

 

This day I am conscious of the role that the Franciscan spirit has played in our world. Francis insisted upon meeting with the Sultan in the middle of a war zone, hoping to end the Crusades he rightly saw as destructive and thus completely counter to the G-d both the European knights and the Islamic Saracens believed they served. That Franciscan connection would play out in a long pattern of guardianship of Christian holy sites in lands controlled by Muslims who had come to trust the Franciscans. And the friars would bring back a liturgy reenacting Jesus’ final day in the form of the Stations of the Cross that soon would spread to parishes across Europe.  

I am grateful for my rootedness in an order founded by a Francis who gave up his life of privilege to work with the poor, the sick, the outcast. And I seek to follow the Way of a Jesus who, as Richard Rohr notes, can always be found in the Gospels by going to where the suffering is occurring, knowing that suffering which is not transformed will always be transmitted.  

Finally, I am grateful that as a man of privilege, in a world where that makes all the difference, I have been able to engage pilgrimages which have broken me open, required me to reconsider the world I thought I knew, to hear the stories of broken but unbowed peoples, to be entrusted with them, and to be commissioned to tell them to my own people. Just as I am doing here. It is an incredible gift as well as burden. I welcome them both.

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  frharry@cfl.rr.com

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

       © Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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