Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

Jeremiah 1:5

 

 

4Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 

5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

6Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 

7But the LORD said to me,

"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you,

8Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

9Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me,

"Now I have put my words in your mouth.

10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.”

Jeremiah 1:4-10

image.png

Child’s Bath

CASSATT, Mary

1893

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

United States

 

https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20250201505601718&code=act&RC=56781&Row=18

Captivated by a large exhibition of Japanese prints in Paris in 1890, Cassatt set out to produce a series of color prints influenced by Japanese aesthetics. She then continued her investigation across media, culminating in this bold composition, with its dramatically flattened picture plane, decorative patterning, and bright palette.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111442/the-child-s-bath

 

 

Don’t give in to the lies.

Don’t give in to fear.

Hold on to the truth and hope.

~ Jim Acosta

 

 


In the midst of chaos, 

there is also opportunity. 

~ Sun Tzu

 

 

 

 

 

Centerstage Theater in Evergreen

Ovation West Theatre Company.jpeg

Kimra Perkins and I enjoyed Sisters of Swing on Sunday.

My favorite part was seeing that Patty Andrews 

was played by a totally blind young actress!

 

 

IMG_7256.jpeg

BUNCO - Tuesday evening at Heidi Smithson's

 

 

Japanese Academy of the Rockies

Tina and Ray Yoshioka performed on Saturday!

The Academy teaches Japanese traditions

(although one performance was of the 

Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf)!

IMG_7299.jpeg

 

IMG_7306.jpeg

Junna (my grandniece) and Tina Yoshioka

 

IMG_7323.jpeg

 

IMG_7332.jpeg

Ray Yoshioka

 

IMG_7336.jpeg

Then we had a delicious lunch prepared by Junna.

 

IMG_7338.jpeg

Yum.

 

IMG_7345.jpeg

 

IMG_7361.jpeg

All five Yoshiokas

(Whenever I held Baby Abby, she loved to play with my oxygen cord.)

 

IMG_7364.jpeg

Tina

 

 

 

 

 

Our society is much more interested in information than wonder,

in noise rather than silence …

And I feel that we need a lot more wonder

and a lot more silence in our lives.

~ Mr. Rogers *

 

 

 

 

 

February 2, 2025 - Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - Year C

                  Presentation of our Lord

Previous OPQs may be found at: 

     http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm

 

* Do you have ten minutes? Please listen to “The Best of Mr. Rogers” for ten gentle, loving minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSbYQz3rluM

 

 

Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Luke 4:21-30

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

image010.png

 

The Presentation of the Lord

image.png

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

 

 

February 2nd

Candlemas Day/Groundhog Day/Festival of Lights

 

image009.jpeg

CANDLEMAN

James C. Christensen

https://www.prints.com/prints.php?artist_id=10&print_id=101609&RF=30&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6NOPBhCPARIsAHAy2zDKByqt7VTZRdEkG1SCpgUMaspc4FYI6sf8sosDksnFcGYMwzkUKtMaAt3kEALw_wcB

 

 

image008.jpg

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

 

 

image013.jpg

LECTIONARY

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 

Luke 4:21-30

 

February 2:  The Presentation of the Lord [ABC] 

Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and a sign to be contradicted —and you yourself a sword will pierce— so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” 
“There was also a prophetess, Anna . . . And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about this child to all who were waiting the redemption of Jerusalem.
Luke 2:34-35

THE WORD:

The Solemnity of the Presentation of the Lord is observed on February 2, forty days after Christmas.  This ancient feast celebrates the faithful, devout parents of Jesus fulfilling two requirements of the Law: 

The Book of Exodus required a first-born son to be formally “presented” to God because the first-born sons “belong” to the Lord who saved them when the Egyptian first-born perished at the Passover (Exodus 13: 15).  

Under Mosaic Law (Leviticus 12: 2-8), a woman was ritually “unclean” for forty days after childbirth, unable to touch anything sacred or enter the temple area.  At the end of this period, she was to present herself to the priests and offer a sacrifice of thanks – for a poor couple like Mary and Joseph, the offering was two pigeons or doves.  

Luke’s Gospel (and today’s solemnity) emphasizes Jesus’ first appearance in the Temple rather than Mary’s purification.  In Luke’s account, Jesus was welcomed into the Temple by two venerable elderly people, Simeon and the widow Anna.  For Luke, the two are icons of the faithful Jew—the “remnant” (Zephaniah 3:12) who awaits the coming of the Messiah and the restoration of Israel’s covenant of justice and compassion with God.  Simeon recognizes Jesus as the Anointed of the Lord and his canticle (the Nunc Dimitis, prayed at the close of the day at Compline in the Liturgy of the Hours) prophesies that this Child will be a “light for revelation to the Gentiles.”  In blessing the parents, he warns that this child will be a sign opposed and that Mary will be pierced with a sword. It is the first indication of the cross Christ will take up to realize the salvation of humankind.  Anna, as an elderly widow, is considered among the most vulnerable and poor of society.  Her encounter with the child typifies the theme woven throughout Luke's Gospel: the exaltation of society's poorest and most humble by God. 

Inspired by the words of the Simeon’s canticle, by the 11th century, the custom developed in the West of blessing candles on the Feast of the Presentation (which became popularly known as Candlemas). The candles were then lit, and a procession took place through the darkened church while the Canticle of Simeon was sung.   

https://connectionsmediaworks.com/sundaygospel.html#feb2

 

 

 

First Reading Jeremiah 1:4-10

4Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 

5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

6Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 

7But the LORD said to me,

"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you,

8Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

9Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me,

"Now I have put my words in your mouth.

10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant."

Psalm 71:1-6

1In you, O LORD, I take refuge;

let me never be put to shame.

2In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;

incline your ear to me and save me.

3Be to me a rock of refuge,

a strong fortress, to save me,

for you are my rock and my fortress.




4Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,

from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.

5For you, O Lord, are my hope,

my trust, O LORD, from my youth.

6Upon you I have leaned from my birth;

it was you who took me from my mother's womb.

My praise is continually of you.

Second Reading 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Gospel Luke 4:21-30

21Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" 23He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" 24And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.