remembrance




Dimly see Davis Point and the wooded part of Shell "Island" closest to the Pass, but it's that hazy not the flat part directly across from 7H, and the Gulf beyond. 73° 88% but he who said visibility 9 mi didn't drink his coffee yet. The nice breeze W 10 mph not carrying away the powerful mothball smell meant to discourage Mickey Mouse or whoever's been leaving the calling card on 7H porch deck. I might rather have Mickey. 

Besides the piercing shriek of the osprey circling close, and seagull cries, hammering sounds prove workers are busily recovering us from Cat5HMichael, which is why the scaffolding is still up on the Bay side. The dumpster in adjacent Oaks by the Bay Park has some Harbour Village windows piled in, but there's no sign of the hundreds of replacement windows that we thought to see arriving on 2 April. Okay, that was before the plague. 

Thursday in Holy Week is Maundy Thursday. Collect and two of the lectionary readings: 

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament
Exodus 12:1-14

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 

This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.



The Epistle
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The day commemorates Novum Mandatum, the New Mandate: You Shall Love as I Have Loved, and the Last Supper when, according to tradition, Jesus instituted what, before and beyond but not during the plague, Christians celebrate as the sacrament of Holy Communion. It's all founded in the Exodus tradition of Pesach, the night different from all other nights, when Jews throughout the world remember Adonai saving them out of Egypt.  

The foggy haze is clearing a bit, but the curve of Tyndall Bridge is still hidden.