Reflection from our Co-Pastor

January 17, 2023

On Sunday, January 15, Fr. Richard Rohr in his daily meditation, described how speaking truth to power is an essential part of a prophet’s mission. In ancient times, the office of prophet was due to a direct call from God, subject entirely to the divine will. The prophets were spokespersons of God, intermediaries between God and God’s people.

The communications they received from God came through visions, dreams, and ecstasies and were transmitted to the people through sermons, writings, and symbolic actions. At times miracles confirmed their preaching, and their predictions of the future intensified the expectation of the Messiah and of his kingdom. (The New American Bible)

Sr Joan Chittister agrees with Fr. Rohr when she says, “Prophetic spirituality is the spirituality of awareness, of choice, of risk, of transformation. It is about the embrace of life, the pursuit of wholeness, the acceptance of others, the call to co-creation… The truly prophetic action is this Word that rings in every soul. It is the call to be a truth-teller.” Chittister continues, “The times are such that they demand that each of us find our inner prophet.”

Many of us receive Fr. Rohr’s daily meditation. This is one that is worth reading more than once. Let 2023 be the year of the Prophet!

Disrupting the Status Quo

One of the gifts of the prophets is that they evoke a crisis where one did not appear to exist before their truth-telling. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. was blamed for creating violence—but those who had eyes to see and were ready to hear recognized, “My God, the violence was already there!”

Structural violence was inherent in the system, but it was denied and disguised. No one was willing to talk about it. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and others said, “We’re going to talk about it.”

Prophets always talk about the untalkable and open a huge new area of “talkability.” For those who are willing to go there, it helps us see what we didn’t know how to see until they helped us to see it. That’s how we begin to recognize a prophet—there is this widening of seeing, this deepening of a truth that was always there.

Prophets generate a crisis, so it’s almost understandable why they’re usually called troublemakers and so often killed. They generate the crisis because while everybody else is saying the emperor is beautifully clothed, they are willing to say, “No, he’s naked.” We’re not supposed to say that the emperor has no clothes!

It’s the nature of culture to have its agreed-upon lies. Culture holds itself together by projecting its shadow side elsewhere. That’s called the “scapegoat mechanism.”

René Girard, Gil Bailie, and others have pointed out that the scapegoat mechanism is the subtext of the entire biblical revelation. It’s the tendency to export our evil elsewhere and to hate it there, and

elsewhere and to hate it there, and therefore to remain in splendid delusion. If there isn’t a willingness to be critical of our country, our institution, and ourselves, we certainly can’t be prophets. [1]

When the prophet is missing from the story, the shadow side of things is always out of control, as in much of the world today, where we do not honor wisdom or truth.

It seems the prophet’s job is first to deconstruct current illusions, which is the status quo, and then reconstruct on a new and honest foundation. That is why the prophet is never popular with the comfortable or with those in power. Only a holy few have any patience with the deconstruction of egos and institutions.

The prophets are “radical” teachers in the truest sense of the word. The Latin radix means root, and the prophets go to the root causes and root vices and “root” them out! Their educational method is to expose and accuse with no holds barred. Ministers and religion in general tend to concentrate on effects and symptoms, usually a mopping up exercise after the fact. As someone once put it, we throw life preservers to people drowning in the swollen stream, which is all well and good—but prophets work far upstream to find out why the stream is swollen in the first place. [2]

[1] Adapted from Joan Chittister and Richard Rohr, Prophets Then, Prophets Now (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2006). Available as MP3 download.

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Soul Brothers: Men in the Bible Speak to Men Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 31, 39, 40.

This Week at Mary of Magdala

Let’s celebrate +Pablo our new ECC Presiding Bishop

Join us Saturday, January 21st - 10:30 via Zoom

(zoom link shared in this Thursday's email)

And together - live and on Zoom - we will;

lay our hands on and bless Pablo;
share how the ECC is life-giving to us;
& name our mutual hopes.

Social Group Meeting

The next meeting of the "Under 65 Group" (formerly Gen X and Millenials Group) will be on Thursday, January 19, 6-7:30pm - Rm 8 (at end of East wing of TLC)

This event is organized by Jared Orsi, Mary Vogl, and Steve Reising.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

Table for 4

Your table reservation is waiting for you.

It's time to make your reservation for a “Table for 4” for February.

Once you reserve a table the Hospitality Ministry will put you with other members to complete a Table for 4. You will receive an email notifying who is at your table. Contact each other to make a plan to get together once in February/March -- for example, over a meal, coffee, a hike or whatever you decide to do.

If you want to participate, select the RESERVE TABLE button below or call Joan at 970 224-0297 by January 25th.

Those who have participated so far have enjoyed getting to know other members of Mary of Magdala in a small group setting. We hope you can join the fun this time.

If you any questions please call Joan Chapman-Smith 970 224-0297

The next Table of 4 reservation will be in April.

Reserve Your Table Here by January 25

Request for Prayers

Praying for peace, health and well-being through challenging times

+ Jim Carroll, husband of member Dori Carroll

+Everly, five years old and Kiersten, friends of Lynne Barnes, member

+ Mary Detweiller, member

+ Peter, friend of Sharon Troyer

+ Sarah Reveron and her daughter, Aliana - niece and grandniece of Rev. Jane Reina

+ Uriah - grandson of Mother Rosean

+ Joanne Gallagher - member

+ Edward for healing and Marge for hope, relatives of Ruth Conley, member

A special prayer request from Jeff Akkerman - In finding new employment. "Please contact me if anyone has connections or knows of a business looking to fill an entry level position for Python programming, Data Science, or even web development." 805-216-0702

+ Rosemary - Fr Michael's mother

+ Suzanne King - member-

+ Harry, 11 year canine companion to Gray La Fond.

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A blessed and peaceful repose of souls for those who've passed and comfort for the friends and families.

+ Lee Yeazell, brother of Bruce Yeazell, member

+ Miles, young friend of Ted (nephew of the Devlin's, members)

+ Sherry Shead, wife of Tim Shead, administrator at Light of Christ

+Steve Muzikar, cousin of Co Pastor Jane

+Wendell Schwarz, brother of Sr. Mary Colleen, OSB

+ John Hynes - father of Rev. Jane's children

+ Mother of Bishop Kae Madden

+ Dennis Snyder. brother-in-law of Ruth Alexander, member

+ John Crowfoot, friend of Jean Christen, member

Please send prayer requests to marymagdalafc@gmail.com. Prayers will be listed for one month unless requested for longer. Prayers for the repose of souls will be listed for six months unless requested for a longer time.

Service Recordings and More

Sunday Mass January 15 2023 - Celebrating Dr Martin Luther King, and 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

A video recording of the readings and the homily given by Ruth Alexander are available here.

Social Justice Reflection - January 15

Tom Moos, Chair of Social Justice Ministry

We’re aware of Martin Luther King’s activism, strategically applying non-violent protest and civil disobedience against segregation, Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination and to promote voter and labor rights. We know of the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955, his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Birmingham Campaign which resulted in King’s 13th out of 29 lifetime arrests and produced his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, the march on Washington in 1963 and the “I Have a Dream” speech, and the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 when brutal violence against peaceful marchers by state police and white supremacist mobs dramatically exposed racism in Alabama and aroused national outrage.

After President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dr. King broadened his mission and perspective. Though long opposed to the Vietnam War, he started preaching against it. He focused on building a “multiracial army of the poor” to implement a vision for change that was more revolutionary than reforming, addressing systemic flaws of “racism, poverty, militarism and materialism”. Some believe Dr. King was assassinated due to fears that this “Poor People’s Campaign” threatened the established American socioeconomic order.

Today, almost 55 years after his murder, our country, sadly, still faces similar issues exacerbated now by the impacts of ecological devastation. Indeed, in the decades since the civil rights movement, Colorado’s Black and LatinX residents have lost ground compared to whites as measured by income and education, poverty rates, home ownership and inequities in health and judicial systems (e.g., see this Rocky Mountain PBS report).

How can we be prophets in our own time? Dr Ibram Kendi, one of America’s foremost historians and anti-racist scholars, suggests that we get to know more people of color, discuss the current state of upheaval, form or join a diversity group, talk to our kids and families about these issues, mentor a person of color, confront subjective bias with objective fact, insist on diverse leadership, challenge our own stereotypes, and speak out publicly against microaggressions and inequities.

May God bless us in this work!

Mass and Service Schedule

Wednesday January 18 - 11:00 am

In the Fireside Room
No Zoom available

Sunday January 22 12:30 pm

3rd Sunday Ordinary Time
Mass at 12:30 pm (no 5pm Mass)
Father Michael Nicosia presiding

Wednesday January 25 - 11:00 am

In the Fireside Room
No Zoom available

Sunday January 29 12:30 pm

Mass at 12:30 pm (no 5pm Mass)
Bishop Kae Madden presiding
Following Mass is a Update and Q&A with Bishop Kae
Join us for pizza and beverages

Our Vision – ‘Our guiding Light’

Weaving a tapestry of love, hope and justice for the world.

The 301 Faith Partners--Mary of Magdala, Trinity Lutheran, St Paul's Episcopal --have a Vision, Mission and Values statement that guides our relationships, interactions, and shared projects and ministries.

Read about our Mission, Core Values and Covenant here.

The ECC Regional Website is now live - View here.

Newsletters of Trinity Lutheran Church and the St. Paul's Episcopal

What are our partners in ministry up to? Click here for the Trinity Lutheran Church monthly newsletter, "Tidings". And here is St Paul's weekly bulletin.