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Passiontide is observed the two weeks before Easter, Resurrection Sunday, when the Son of God conquered death to give us life eternal. Lent leads into Passiontide, and we have prepared ourselves with ashes and discipline to face the fullness of Christ’s love for each one of us. To face the fire of this love is no small thing, and so we step carefully through this penitential season, reading and learning the words of love that need to be written on our hearts.

For Passiontide is about freedom, the freedom to love, the freedom to express that love, the freedom to accept that love, the love of our Creator. My bishop of blessed memory often said that “passion” in this sense is the union of love and suffering, meaning the Way of the Cross to death and resurrection. We choose to travel that Way (or not) in our own time on Earth, the days and months and years given to us in which we learn how to love. For love means sacrifice of self to make room for the beloved. A curious conundrum, this love and sacrifice, and each Lent as winter folds into spring we see and hear and know a bit more of that suffering love through our Lenten sacrifices and offerings, through our sacraments and songs.

We are on a journey of love and suffering, a schooling for Heaven. The lessons are life and death to us, literally, so we must pay attention. We learn each time we fall, each time we fail to love enough. We look up from that fallen place, and reach for His outstretched hand. We confess we have not loved enough and He raises us from the dead.

The lessons in this school of love – our own lifetimes – are taught throughout the Church Year. The Church has organized these marvelous works of God, these marvelous words of God, indeed, the Word of God Himself, in seasons throughout our 365 days so that we can walk this path with and within the Church, alongside Christ, re-membering and re-enacting the great moments of salvation history – Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Trinity. They are “tides” or seasons and repeat just as the year repeats, so we walk with those gone before and those alongside and those to come. We are schooled in this story, this passion, engrafting words and deeds on our hearts.

I have found memorizing prayers and scripture to be a good discipline as well as sustenance for the soul. This Lent I am working on the prayer For Our Country found in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer:

For Our Country.

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may
always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry,
sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from
every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many
kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of
government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth
thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day
of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP 36)

It seems an appropriate prayer for this anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, particularly the “honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners” and the union of “the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.” America is indeed the great experiment, and it is true that the Founders of our nation assumed certain truths to be self-evident, given to them by God, for they were largely Christians – Protestants from a Judeo-Christian world.

The prayer was written not by Archbishop Cranmer, who wrote many of the British prayers and put together our marvelous Book of Common Prayer in the 17th century, but in 1882 by Rev. George Lyman Locke (1835-1919), Rector of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Bristol, Rhode Island. For it is an American prayer, not British. It was added after his death (but I’m sure he looked on from above) in the 1928 edition.

America is a nation founded on free will, freedom of choice, which is founded upon self-evident truths and moral obligations, laws ordained by God. And so we pray at this time that “through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.” And we write these laws on our hearts as we follow Our Lord to Jerusalem, walk with Him the Way of His Cross, and learn what love truly is.

Happy Presidents’ Day!

Thank you ACFW for publishing today my post, Authoring Peace, how Christian novelists celebrate the Judeo-Christian tradition of peace and concord, respect for life, and our inalienable rights granted by God. Thank you, American Christian Fiction Writers!

January is the month celebrating the Holy Name of Jesus. It is a month of seeing, of recognition, of friendship, of love. For only with a clear vision of reality can we choose the Way to Heaven, the Truth of our world, and Life everlasting.

My novel, The Music of the Mountain, takes place in the month of January, and as I plotted the days and weeks I looked at the face of a calendar with squares marking time disappearing. In the course of this month, the Feast of the Epiphany (the sixth) grows into a tide of epiphanies, revealing Jesus, the Son of God, and in this “face-time” we can see him, who he was, is, and ever will be. And as we look upon the holy face, we know him. We recognize him and he recognizes us, smiling.

For with our time and our words and our love, all embodied in daily, hourly, prayer, we have invited him into our hearts, to sit with us in our present moment, encourage us to face the next, and recollect those of the past, the losses and the loves. We live the truth, calling on the Holy Name, Jesus, breathing him in and out as we go about our day. We witness to him with moments of remembrance, praying Jesus my Lord, I thee adore, teach me to love thee more and more. For it is this time between morning prayer and evening prayer, this time of temptation and trial, of tedium and testing, that we see more clearly his Holy Face.

If we remember to see. If we remember to say. If we remember to listen and to love.

For he sees us then; he speaks to us then; he listens and loves us. It is then we know joy.

And so as we travel through January, through the gospels of the boy in the temple, the baptism by John, the changing of the water to wine, the healing of the centurion’s son, we grow in grace. We pray the Holy Name and see the Holy Face and know that life wins over death in this precious and glorious journey through time given to each one of us.

January recalls death, remembering the holocaust of abortion and the killing of unborn children, the holocaust of World War II and the genocide of Jews. We mourn and weep, just like Rachel weeping for her children.

January is a dark month, with short days and long nights, but we also see signs of spring, a path toward the light. We reach for the light in January, preparing to meet Ash Wednesday, live through Lent, walk alongside in the Passion, and arrive at the Resurrection of Our Lord on Easter.

In January we hear the faint melody of angels singing, just as in The Music of the Mountain. Storms buffet, cold engulfs, darkness threatens. Yet in the distance the angels sing, and day by day, as we pray his Name and see his Face, we draw closer to the music of light and life, so that soon we sing with angels and the heavenly host, praising our God of love, life, and light.

I have long been an admirer of the work of the British bioethicist and theologian, the incomparable Francis Etheredge. Here is his latest, a volume I am proud to endorse:

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Endorsement: A Shorter BioEthics by Francis Etheredge (Enroute Books and Media: September 2025), 76 pages

Bioethicist Francis Etheredge has distilled the themes and arguments of his earlier works into a heartfelt defense of life, human dignity, and personal identity.

He asks the hard questions, forcing us to face the reality of our humanity: Who are we and why are we here? He answers with logic and precision, for we are persons in relationship with one another and with our Creator – the Holy Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

He goes further, anticipating our doubts, asking why we need to bring God into the debate – revealing there must be a first cause if we are to enter the mystery of human identity. And so, while Francis Etheredge clearly owns a Christian perspective, he explains why this is the best argument, as he blends the love of God, reason and evidence, truth and love, into a definition of our humanity.

As he leads us further into the miracle of life, he considers marriage, conception, gender identity, and family. He faces the reality of fertilization, frozen embryos, and the responsibility we share for the lives of these innocent children. In the midst of today’s silencing of debate, he speaks truth, inspiring us to have respectful conversations and educate the next generation to think critically about these heart-rending realities.

A Shorter BioEthics is a stunning work, accessible, courageous, and caring. He asks us to join him on this journey into the light to discover who we are and who we are meant to be. There can be no greater question and no greater answer.

I highly recommend this excellent guide through the dark woods of our time!

Christine Sunderland, Anglo-Catholic Novelist, Octave of All Saints, 2025

To purchase: Amazon

I visited St. Peter’s Oakland yesterday on the Patronal Feast Day of our Anglican Province of Christ the King. Canon Weber’s sermon clarified issues facing our culture today, and I have reprinted it with his permission. Thank you, Canon Weber:

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Sermon for the Feast of Christ the King, October 26, 2025; Canon Matthew Weber, preaching at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Oakland, CA

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King.  This feast is especially important to our parish because we are part of a jurisdiction known as the Province of Christ the King; today is, therefore, our provincial feast of title (if there is such a thing).  And as you probably have gathered, on any given feast of the liturgical year, the proper texts—that is, the texts which belong to that feast—express something of the nature of the feast, whether it be the celebration of a particular saint, an aspect of God’s being, or a mystery of the faith.

Today’s lessons seem, at first glance, curious.  We start with an epistle which sings of the glory of Christ’s mighty works : deliverance from the power of darkness, redemption, forgiveness of sins.  Christ is the firstborn of creation, the image of the invisible God, by whom and for whom all was created, the head of the Church, the great Reconciler.  I could preach a whole sermon on what just one of those things implies—and I’ve left out a few components of Paul’s impressive list.

The Epistle sets us up to expect an even more grandiose Gospel—perhaps Jesus prophesying his coming again in glory, perhaps some other regal or epiphanic image.  But instead of the vision which we might expect, of the Son of Man coming in glory from the clouds with the Heavenly Host, we get a brief glimpse of Jesus’ interrogation by Pilate before his crucifixion–not a very triumphant or rousing image, by any means.  Pilate wants to know whether Jesus has actually claimed to be King of the Jews, because–for whatever reason–Pilate is reluctant to condemn him.  He doesn’t look or act like the bandits (terrorists might be a better word) that he usually sees charged with sedition, and wants to be sure that the Temple party aren’t just setting up a rabbi they don’t like for the Romans to deal with.  So he asks him, very specifically, whether he is in fact King of the Jews, and Jesus dodges the question, finally saying the most surprising thing : his kingdom is not of this world.  

And yet, at this very moment we have Christians who are focused on creating a Christian kingdom (or government of some sort) in this world.  Based on the teachings of Reformed theologians like R.J. Rushdoony, Gary North, and Greg Bahnsen, we have pastors and politicians who are quite sure that establishing a Christian theocracy will bring about Christ’s goal of “teach[ing] all nations, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”  Just look at the wickedness of the world today, they say; people commit heinous sins, and the governments of the world rubber-stamp it.  The Church is divided, often against itself.  The West, once shaped by Christianity, is in the process of discarding it as a culture.  I can see how the idea of establishing an avowedly Christian government, with laws to prohibit all the sins that our secular government currently allows, can be attractive to anyone who is dismayed by the state of the world.  Just get Christians elected to positions of secular power and get them started on changing the Constitution and the laws, and everything will fall into place.  Right?

What could go wrong?

Well, as you may have guessed, I think quite a lot could go wrong; but that’s the least of it.  I find that there are several objections that could be made, and the first is this: If political dominion were the goal of the Church, wouldn’t the life of our Lord and his Apostles have looked rather different?  If Jesus had wanted political power, why did he scold Peter and tell him to put his sword away when he attacked the Roman soldier?  If the ministers of the Church were meant to be secular rulers, why did the Apostles scatter to the ends of the globe to preach the Gospel and suffer martyrdom for it?  Why was it that martyrdom was considered the holiest possible death for a Christian in those early days?  And let’s not forget what Jesus says in today’s Gospel, which I quoted for you at the beginning of this sermon: “My kingdom is not of this world.”  So by the witness of Scripture and the early Church, this idea would seem to fail.

Following upon that point, it is true that the Church held an immense amount of political power beginning in late antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages.  Here the record of history shows us dozens, if not hundreds, of unedifying examples of Christian princes making bloody war on other Christian princes, and going back to ancient history we see that Israel, which had direct access to God and received the Law as though from His own hand, falling into pagan practices again and again.  Their hotline to the Almighty didn’t prevent them from being corrupted.  And we can adduce numerous examples from history as to the disasters that occur when the Church and the State attempt to march in lockstep: the Eastern Roman Empire, which for all its Christianity could not prevent the Iconoclast heresy from taking power; the English crown, which swung like a crazed pendulum between various forms of Catholicism and Protestantism throughout the 16th and 17th centuries (and which now has all but abandoned the faith); and right here in North America, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in which a person who overslept on Sunday morning might find himself flogged in public for neglecting divine service.  All these arrangements eventually collapsed under their own weight or succumbed to the inevitable tensions between the Church’s ideal and the State’s reality, and in every case both Church and State suffered for it.  Through the lens of history, we must conclude that this is a failed idea.

And then too, there are practical problems.  Whose Christianity becomes the state religion?  Reformed?  Catholic?  Baptist?  What kind of Baptist?  Free-Will, Reformed, Regular, Independent Fundamental, and so on?  Here again, the adoption of any particular distinctive form of the Christian religion will force the government to persecute members of dissenting faiths—because if dissent is tolerated, then the slow sink into indifference will be all but assured.  And these dissenters will quite likely outnumber the conformists, which is a problem of its own.  

Another possible practical problem: how will this Christian government deal with commerce?  There is much that occurs in the world of business which may be legal, but is hardly moral.  How will a Christian government make this distinction?  Will it also tolerate sharp practice in business, risking the taint of corruption in the newly-Christian state?  And in a global economy, what will such a government do about trade with countries like China, which persecutes Christians and is involved in active genocide against the Uighur people?  How could our Christian government continue to trade with a country that commits such evil?  And so we see that for practical and moral reasons, this idea fails again.

Lastly, and I think most importantly: Does passing laws to enforce Christian behavior make people more holy?  Does it contribute to their sanctification?  I think not.  It is crucial to salvation that we be free to make the choice.  And being free to make the right choice entails also being free to make the wrong choices!  If we coerce people into joining the Church, we become just like those of other religions that we criticize for spreading the word by means of the sword.  So it seems to me that from the perspective of mission, this idea fails miserably.

It must seem terribly attractive to simply seize the reins of power and compel everyone to behave the way they ought, to actualize the Kingdom of God on earth.  But Christianity in this world is over and against; joining it with the powers that be weakens it and forces it into compromise with the demands of politics, which  will inevitably corrupt the ideal.  We know that Jesus will return at the end of all things, to judge the world and to institute his Kingdom.  We cannot make this happen according to our desires or our schedule; God cannot be compelled by our actions.  That would be, not religion, but magic—and magic is forbidden to us.  Our work here on earth is to love God and to love our neighbor: nothing more and nothing less.  That is a life’s work which I have yet to perfect, and I suspect the same is true of most Christians—so what is most important is that we keep at that, and trust in God’s mercy and love to supply what we cannot: so that at the King’s return, when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead, he will find us all ready.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Once again, we mourn for America, for her freedoms, for her free speech. It appears that speech isn’t free, that we must earn it, or pray or pay for it, or simply do all we can, peacefully with words, to protect it.

We mourn Charlie Kirk, a true patriot, assassinated on the eve of September 11, the devastating attack on our country, that bombing of the World Trade Center and Washington D.C. by radical Islamist terrorists. The Texas flood and the lost children, the murder of children praying in school in Minneapolis, and the Ukrainian immigrant murdered on a train, have formed a chain of sorrow running through these summer days. We mourn. We cry. Our hearts are breaking.

As I wrote in my last post on this site, Christians look to Christ to bring us into that glorious liberty as children of God. And in this fallen and broken world, we live that liberty with love and learning, educating those who do not know, comforting those who mourn alongside. So we are the lucky ones, the believers in this loving God of life. We are the ones to heal our nation and the world. And so we must not be silent. We must use our words to give witness to life, the life embraced and enfleshed in the Judeo-Christian tradition of the West.

For Christ was the Word made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the Father. He was and is the light in our darkness. We must be his light in the world.

Just like Charlie Kirk.

And so, my quarterly contribution to American Christian Fiction Writers was published on Nine-Eleven, Thursday, Patriot’s Day, the third in a series on the Virtues, Visible Virtues: Prayerful Prudence. I dedicated this to Charlie and his family.

Each of us is a word made flesh, a word created by God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, at the moment of conception. On this thirteenth week of the Trinity season, we are strengthened by the Holy Trinity, feeding us and nurturing us with word and sacrament through Christ’s bride, the Church.

We give thanks for the life of Charlie Kirk, and we mourn his passing, a great loss. And we pray for the healing of our country.

For Our Country
ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us this good land for
our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may
always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and
glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry,
sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence,
discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from
every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one
united people the multitudes brought hither out of many
kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom
those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of
government, that there may be justice and peace at home,
and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth
thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of
prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day
of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we
ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 1928 Book of Common Prayer, 36

It is a curious thing, I often think, that mankind, in his overweening pride, believes he can conquer nature, whether it be outside or inside. The natural world seems an unnatural world.

And so, when disasters happen, especially when children are lost, we cry out, “Why?” Like St. Paul in today’s letter to the church in Rome, we “groaneth and travaileth in pain together… groaning within ourselves…” (Romans 8:18+)

We have, it appears, an irrational hope and expectation that is dashed when children are lost, when innocents suffer, when plague and famine kill, when the unborn are slaughtered, when human holocausts rage.

The real question is, why do we ask “Why?” Why do we have this hope and expectation that things should be different than they are?

Light and dark. Joy and sorrow. Life and death. Truth and lies.

When I consider the Texas floods I groan within. When I consider the slaughter of the unborn I groan within. When I think of those lost in the Nine-Eleven terror I groan within. And so many other times of pain and suffering in this life throughout our world.

But I know, and I am so very glad and grateful to believe in that certain knowledge, that, as St. Paul writes, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us… because [we] shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” The glorious liberty – yes, yes, yes.

We are children of God, and we shall be reunited with those lost. This is not a vain promise, but the act of God himself on a hill outside Jerusalem. And we must remember that it was Herod who slaughtered the innocents. Yet we ask, “But why? Why must this be?”

We know why – because of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Because of a snake and fruit and disobedience and lies. Because of banishment from that garden, that paradise. And so we live and work and grow old and ill and feel death’s sting until we go home to Paradise and our bodies are redeemed from the bondage of corruption.

We have all had our share of tragedy and heartbreak, sin and death. We have all been a part of this saga of suffering. We want to cast blame, find a scapegoat. But when we confess our own failings, hourly, daily, we are not so quick to condemn. We clean out our hearts, scour them with the love of God and the bright light of Christ, that glorious rule of love. And when we are clean, the door opens and Our Lord returns. He now resides in our hearts – and there is no greater joy, no greater life, no greater truth than opening our hearts to the Love of God. It is a healing love, one that helps with our groaning and grief.

There was something diabolic about the Texas flood, this slaughter of innocents. It happened in the dark, while they were sleeping. It happened on the Fourth of July, our celebration of life and liberty. It happened to Christian campers, trusting and loving.

And yet, the stories of heroism, those who saved others, are resurrecting those lives lost, reminding us that these innocents are in Paradise and Love lives on in our country.

Still, we groan and grieve. We look to Christ to redeem this time and in the meantime, this mean-time in which we live outside the garden, we play our part in the redemption of the world, celebrating the Judeo-Christian promise of the West – freedom, faith, and family. And our children.

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Congratulations to the ten winners of the Goodreads Giveaway for Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020) in celebration of Western Civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition of life and liberty.

Today, Memorial Day, we celebrate Western Civilization and those brave men and women who fought and died to defend our freedoms, our way of life embracing the moral code of Christianity and Judaism. We honor you and we thank you! We will never forget the sacrifices you made for us. Your courage and fortitude are an example to our children and our grandchildren.

And so today I’m pleased to announce that American Christian Fiction Writers has published my post, Visible Virtues: Fearless Fortitude, the second in a four-part series on the Cardinal Virtues, encouraging Christian novelists to tell tales of virtue and create heroes with fortitude who embody the Judeo-Christian ethos, the foundation of Western Civilization.

Fortitude can be found in my own novels (not sure how much I have, but I try), and my sixth novel, The Fire Trail, has now been sent to the ten winners of my recent Goodreads Giveaway. Nearly four thousand readers entered over the thirty day period ending on May 23. As many might recall, this story involves our current cultural threats, the line between barbarism and civilization, and the definition of peace and freedom in our world today. Where is America heading? Set in 2014, the signs were ominous and the need for a cultural renewal in America was urgent. Many today are heeding that call, and throughout the West revivals of faith and freedom are lighting the way. Will the world heed the light or choose the dark?

Today is also a time of population implosion with a spiraling birth rate, and many predict a doomsday scenario given the “birth dearth” recognized, albeit belatedly. Can we turn this depopulation crisis around? Catherine Pakaluk addresses this question from an interesting point of view in her new book, Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth. In this clear analysis (the author holds a doctorate in Economics and is the mother of eight) she considers the motivations of women who have large families, five children or more. The results are stunning – for these mothers are quietly testifying to the joy of giving life and nurturing that life. They see birth as the greatest event of all time (which it is, I would think) and one which they want to be a part of as often as possible, this birthing life. They choose this way of living, indeed, this path of loving shared with children and spouses in the social construct we call the family, the cornerstone of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I believe it was the Anglican mystic, Evelyn Underhill (highly recommended), who wrote that the family is the school of charity (love), where we learn to love one another unconditionally, to resolve conflicts and encourage civility, to be selfless and not selfish, to finally enter the wide world as adults, graduates of this remarkable school, the family.

And of course these adults carry with them the virtues of that school of love, virtues taught and embodied by their parents in this first social community, the family. They become responsible citizens of a larger community, the town, the state, the nation. They hold the virtues close to their hearts, reinforced by Church and Synagogue – the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity (love), the cardinal virtues of temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice. They honor the Ten Commandments, the social contract that allows peace and freedom to flourish. They have learned to try and love their neighbor and care for the poor, to celebrate mercy and the sanctity of human life, regardless of race or creed, including the unborn and the aged. These things, these first things, they have been taught in their families, and in the family of God, the Church and Temple.

I give thanks for Catherine Pakaluk and all those who give witness to a better way of living, one tried and true, ordained by our Creator, God Almighty. I give thanks for those men and women who give witness to this way of life and who died protecting it. I give thanks for our national memory, for this Memorial Day when we celebrate these first things, these virtuous things, these living things.

Memorial Day reminds us to remember and to never forget.