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Ash Wednesday Homily: 2026 St. Alfred's Episcopal Church

Ash Wednesday 2026  The Rev. Dale C. Hathaway Liturgy of actions We begin a season of liturgies that convey as much through our actions as through our words. Today is one of two days the Prayer Book stipulates as fast days. Just two days, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we’re asked to fast. Some of us will. Some of us won’t. This beginning to the season of Lent, Ash Wednesday, of course means ashes, ashes on the forhead. We do that even though the gospel reading seems to say, “Don’t do that.” At the end of Lent we will wave palm branches, branches we could have pruned from our own trees at home. Traditionally on Maundy Thursday we would wash feet, at St. Alfred’s we wash hands, not in private but quite publicly. One of the illustrations for how powerful our actions can be is a clear memory I have. On an Ash Wednesday more than 40 years ago, my oldest son, then about 3, was so upset by seeing the ashes on people’s foreheads that he immediately walked out of the service. Each Sunday w...
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Advent 4c -- Dec 21, 2025

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  author: Dale Hathaway date: St. Alfred's Episcopal Church title: Advent 4 Sermon Draft 3 Intro I remember sitting up late beside the bunk beds that were shared by my little brother and my cousin Peter who was older than I. We were forcing ourselves to stay awake in order to see the signs of Santa flying across the sky and appearing in our house. Peter was several years older than I, so I looked to him as an authority. There was a part of me that was old enough to be silently wondering, "Was I being too childish or childlike? Surely Peter is old enough to know." We didn't make it that night. We were asleep when Santa arrived. There's some part of me that, with some kind of irregular schedule in my subsequent years, I never gave up. I have looked for signs throughout my life. Signs of what's really going on. Signs in the midst of chaos happening in my life that might indicate that it was going to be okay. Signs as I grieved when my children moved 1,000 m...
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Proper 20c -- St. Alfred's -- Palm Harbor

author: Dale Hathaway date: September 21, 2025 subtitle: Hearing the prophets in our midst A long time ago A long time ago, in the 1970s, I was younger then than now. My priest at the time thought that I would be interested in listening to a man, a Carmelite priest, who had recently published a book called  Mystical Passion . We drove down to Pueblo from Colorado Springs — that’s pronounced Pe'ehbla not Pueblo. Some things were different in those days and some things were the same. I had hair that ran down to the middle of my back then just like today. But it was brown then. There were great divisions in the country then just like there are now. One thing that was different than is that I knew far more things than I know today — At least I thought I knew. Today the list of things, important things, that I really know can be written on a paper napkin. There was also a spirit in the times then that was searching for a new way to experience the divine. William McNamara, that was the a...
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Homily Proper 12c

  Proper 12c July 26, 2025 Opening As a child I remember being a fair facsimile of a first child . I felt in my gut the expectation that I needed to succeed. I got the message that I was supposed to be like my father, whose name I carried. I took it for granted that I would follow the rules. When given the assignment in kindergarten to color pictures, I thought the number one rule was to stay within the lines. Around about puberty I began to reject that persona. Slowly at first. Then with more and more purpose I began to discover that going against the grain of the expectations placed on me, at the very least, opened up new possibilities. Where I had once been a good first born son, I was now becoming something of an imp . “A mischievous fairy or demon.” It is with that sort of outlook that every time today’s lessons would come around – I preached every 3 years for over 30 years on them – I would get a bit of a smile – an impish smile you might say. Here, after all, was: ...
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Funeral for Carl Feddeler, July 18, 2025

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title: Carl Feddeler Funeral author: St. Alfred's Church date: July 18, 2025 Opening I did 't know Carl the way most of you did. The reason you all are here is because you can tell the poignant, funny, sad, unexpected, long-forgotten stories about him. I can't do that. I've only been attending St. Alfred's for a couple of years, and I only know Carl from the time that I became aware that there was this tall well-dressed man who sat in the same seat every week. For the most part, when I extended my hand in greeting, he smiled back warmly and kind of nodded. Seeing him left me feeling something like "there's a man who is secure in his place in the world. He knows who he is and he's OK with that. He know's where he's come from and he's OK with that. He knows whose he is and where he's headed and he's OK with that." I want you to know that every time I saw him -- even more when he smiled and nodded as I shared the pea...
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