Father Goodrich

A Prayer for Father's Day

On Father's Day, we give thanks to God for the divine gift of fatherhood. We pray for all the fathers among us today, for our own fathers, those living and those who have died; for the fathers who loved us and for those who fell short of loving us fully; for all who hope to be fathers someday, and for those whose hopes to have children have been frustrated; for all fathers who have lost children. We pray this all in the name of our one, holy, and living God, who loves us like a father.

Next year, in May, I'm leading a pilgrimage to England. We'll be going to places with cultural, historical, and spiritual significance.

Included will be visits to places associated with all 5 of the classic English mystics (Julian of Norwich, Walter Hilton, etc.), and to my knowledge, the only trip ever to have done so.

I've included some photos from my various trips over the years to these places. Join us! It will be a trip of a lifetime.

Today is the Feast of Evelyn Underhill

Spiritual writer, teacher and director (d. 1941).

"Underhill's most valuable contribution to spiritual literature must surely be her conviction that the mystical life is not only open to a saintly few, but to anyone who cares to nurture it and weave it into everyday experience."

- Lesser Feasts and Fasts

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer

Today is the Feast Day of St. Kevin of Glendalough

St Kevin and the Blackbird

And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labour and not to seek reward,' he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.

Seamus Heaney (d. 2013).

Today is Trinity Sunday

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer

Today is the Feast of Pentecost

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer

Great to spend the last few days at a Trappist monastery co-teaching doctoral students. Prayer, study, reflection, research, and more.

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer