III. Seven Mini Meditations For Your Lenten Reflection: What Should Christians Be Up To Today?
Welcome to this series of seven short meditations for the seven weeks of Lent – these Mini Meditations. This represents a departure from my practice of several years now: issuing occasional blogs. I plan, the Lord willing, to return to that practice after Easter.
Here, in a Lenten mode, I’m attempting to do something orderly – and something that anyone can handle, however busy you may perceive yourself to be this Lenten season. A once-a-week reading!
Thank you for tuning in – and I look forward to hearing from you in response, should the Spirit so move you. If things work out as I hope they will, you will be receiving one of these Mini Meditations each week in Lent.
—Paul Santmire, Ash Wednesday, 2025
I. Coming to Terms with an Era of Apparent Church Decline
II. Understanding Our Post-Christian World
III. Attending to the Signs of These Times
IV. Spiritual Discernment or Looking Before You Leap
V. Reclaiming the Child Within
VI. Revisiting Your Local Church
VII. Growing Up Into Christ: But Really Growing Up
Mini Meditation Three: Attending to the Signs of These Times
These days, in this our secular society, some congregations, perhaps more than a few, will decide or be forced to decide to – fold up. The era of “return to religion” that flourished in the U.S. after World War II is long over. Most bishops these days are sadly familiar with the painful processes of shutting down congregations or merging them, with the hope for some kind of realistic fresh start. I, for one, harbor no hope this that situation’s going to change.
With most observers of any stature, I believe that the age of Christendom, which held on in the U.S. long after it ended in Europe, has come to an end. Some might say, joining will all the “cultured despisers” of religion in the modern era, “thank God.” All of us will surely, I hope, want to say of Christendom, “may it rest in peace.” And some of us will want to add: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Then the question becomes of course, especially for those of us who still find ourselves claimed by the faith of the Holy Catholic Church: quo vadis? I want to propose an answer to that humongous question here – in brief (!). In the words of the disciples in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar: “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happenin’.” I propose to tell you what’s a happenin’.
To that end, as I now launch this discussion, I also want to tell you, in short compass where I’m coming from, some factoids about my own ecclesial location and my own faith commitments in these my retired years. After more than 40 years in the ministry, I want to assure you, in particular, mine is in no respect a voice crying in the wilderness. I have found a church home, where I am challenged and blessed in many ways, a congregation that I once attended as an undergraduate and later served as a campus pastor, University Lutheran Church, Cambridge, MA, locally known as UniLu.
Fragile in some ways (there’s always the budget, of course), this congregation, I believe, has been led by the Spirit over the years to welcome persons of all sexual identities as well as to host a homeless shelter that is staffed, among others, by Harvard students. The congregation’s worship has long been shaped by understandings of liturgy that emerged from the international ecumenical Movement for Liturgical Renewal that flourished at the beginning of the last century; and the congregation’s ministry has been consistently driven by the challenges posed by the great cultural, political, economic, and spiritual issues of our era, particularly as those issues have been intensely debated in academia. Few people around Harvard Square have not heard of UniLu. In addition to everything else, it offers an extraordinary ministry of music.
Since I was ordained in 1965, I’ve been around the ecclesial block a few times, and I’ve encountered some of the raw and painful moments of life in the Church in various locations, so I’m most grateful to have landed back at UniLu in my retirement years. These ecclesial roots nourish my own faith existence deeply. If you encounter any good fruits in these Mini Meditations, I hope that you will remember this account of my own spiritual roots.
(to be continued)