Score One, St. Matthew's Cathedral

Having swatted at St. Matthew's for fumbling a bit on Sept. 11, it's only fair that I credit the Rev. Msgr. Ronald Jameson for giving one heck of a sermon at the 5:30 Ash Wednesday mass last night. Right out of the gate he equated the ashes of the day with the ashes of Iraq, then spent about 10 minutes making an impassioned plea for the couple thousand people packing the pews to use the Lenten season to start actually doing something about injustice here and globally. I would have run up and hugged the chap, but I didn't want to smudge him.

This morning I called the monsignor and without even hesitating at my explanation and request, he said he'd email me a segment from the sermon. (Just hearing him say "Oh, I see, Brunch Bird," when I was explaining the blog title to him was enough to make for a sweetly bizarre kickoff to my morning.) Less than five minutes later I had it in my inbox. We already know who our favorite lawyer in town is. I'm thinking we might have a winner for favorite religious leader. Anyway, here's how he brought it home, which I present as food for thought, regardless of your religious affiliation:

"May our prayer, our fasting, and our almsgiving this Lent lead us to a new awareness of who we are and of what we are called to be. May they also awaken us to the sorry state of our world: the rampant injustices, the great gulf between haves and have-nots, which are the breeding ground for so much of the terrible violence in the world. Lent is about our own change of heart, it’s true, but it is human hearts changed one at a time that ultimately change the world."