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There are a lot of wonderful Lenten activities going on at PWC this week. Please take advantage of them to grow in your relationship with Jesus and others during the Season of Lent.
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Lenten Soup and Bread
Tonight
Wednesdays:
March 4, 11, & 18
5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
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Tonight, Wednesday, March 4,
7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
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On Wednesdays March 4, 11, & 18 during Lent, PWC will have four classes on the book:
The Return of the Prodigal Son
by Henri Nouwen.
The book is now on sale in the Cross Shop for $15.00. Please purchase it and start reading it!
We look forward to these exciting classes!
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Lenten Reflections
with Pastor Mark
This Friday, March 6!
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Join Pastor Mark on Friday mornings for Prayer and Lenten Reflections. We will spend an hour breaking open the Word of God and examining how we can deepen our faith through this Lenten journey.
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Friday Mornings
9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
March 6, 13, 20 & 27
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This Friday, March 6
6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
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All married couples are welcome to attend.
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This Saturday,
March 7,
9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
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Topic: Contemplative Prayer Vision/Training
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Women of Faith Bible Fellowship
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Women of PWC & your friends -- please join us!
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We continue our series on 2 Corinthians
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9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
this Saturday, March 7
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Our Theme Song for Lent 2026 at PWC
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by Phil Wickham
Please see the link below:
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Our Weekly Online Reflections
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Check out a new reflection from Monday, March 2 from Pastor Mark. Here is the link:
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This coming Sunday, March 8
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Please contact Helen Dipree for more information about the Children’s Ministry @ [email protected]
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Pastoral Counseling is available at PWC
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Fr. Mike Lessard is available for pastoral counseling on Wednesdays at PWC. Please call the church office to make an appointment at 480-649-0300.
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Blood Pressure Checks take place at PWC on the first and third Sundays of the month from 11:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Our medical team is providing the blood pressure checks.
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At PWC
your tithing & generosity allow us to minister to so many who come through our doors with their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs.
Thank you for your tithing and
commitment to PWC!
From pastoral counseling to grief support, to bible study and adult education, to providing food through Matthew’s Crossing for families who are economically struggling, to Marriage Enrichment and our funeral ministry -- your consistent giving makes a difference, a big change in people’s lives!
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Here are the different ways you can tithe to PWC:
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• Mail in your gift to: Praise and Worship Center, 2551 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, AZ 85225.
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• Sign up for monthly giving with a credit card or voided check. Just call the office at 480-649-0300 or stop by the office.
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Do you want to be inspired again by Fr. Dale or Pastor Mark? You can listen to Fr. Dale or Pastor Mark’s sermons on our podcast page. Here is the link:
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Are you homebound? If so, Deacon John Null can bring you communion. The only exception is if you have or are recovering from COVID. The best way to get in touch with Deacon John is by contacting the church office, at 480-649-0300, and leaving a message.
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A Reflection
by Ronald Rolheiser
The Cross as Revealing Christ’s Descent into Hell
There’s a curious line in our creed which says that, immediately following his death, Jesus “descended into hell”. What, possibly, can that mean?
Within the popular Christian mindset, we have the conception that, because of original sin, the gates of heaven were closed so that, from the time of Adam and Eve until the moment of Jesus’ death, nobody could enter paradise. Only a divine act of reparation could again give human beings access to heaven, and that act of reparation was Jesus’ death which “paid the debt of sin” and so opened the gates of heaven.
In this view of things, all the just who had died from the time of Adam and Eve until Jesus’ death were asleep somewhere, in a Hades of sorts. Immediately following his death, Jesus descends to that underworld and awakens these souls and then triumphantly leads them into paradise. That descent to the underworld to wake the souls of the dead and take them to heaven is what is understood as “the descent into hell”. The image of this is wonderfully captured in an ancient homily that the church now uses as one of its readings for the hour of vigils on Holy Saturday.
But that’s an image, something that captures, as might be an icon, a deeper reality. It’s not a videotape of an actual happening. How is it to be interpreted? How did Jesus descend into hell?
Let me try to explain this by combining three images:
The first is a story, a tragic one: Some years ago, some family friends of mine lost a daughter to suicide. She was in her early twenties and away from home when she made her first attempt to kill herself. The family rushed to her, flew to her home, surrounded her with loving solicitude, took her to doctors of every kind, and generally tried every possible way to love and coax her out of her deadly depression. In the end, they failed. She killed herself, despite their efforts. All the loving effort and professional resources they could muster could not break through and bring her out of the private hell into which she had descended. Strong as human love can be, sometimes it stands helpless, exhausted, before a door it can’t open.
My second image is taken from John’s Gospel: After Jesus rises from the dead, he appears to the disciples who, as John describes, are huddled together in a room, in fear, with the doors locked. Jesus comes right through the locked doors, stands inside the middle of their fear, and breathes out peace. A week later, he does it again.
A third image: When I was a young boy, my mother gave me a holy card, an adaptation of a famous painting by Holman Hunt (“The Christ Who Knocks”) In the version my mother gave me, we see, behind a locked door, a man huddled and paralyzed by a fear and darkness of some kind. Outside the door stands Jesus, with a lantern, knocking, ready to relieve the man of his burden. But there’s a hitch, the door only has a knob on the inside. Jesus cannot enter, unless the man first unlocks the door. There’s the implication that God cannot help unless we first let God in. Fair enough? Not exactly.
What the cross of Christ reveals is that when we are so paralyzed by fear and overcome by darkness that we can no longer help ourselves, when we have reached the stage where we can no longer open the door to let light and life in, God can still come through our locked doors, stand inside our fear and paralysis, and breathe out peace. The love that is revealed in Jesus’ suffering and death, a love that is so other-centered that it can fully forgive and embrace its executioners, can precisely pass through locked doors, melt frozen hearts, penetrate the walls of fear, and descend into our private hells and, there, breathe out peace.
In the case of the young woman who committed suicide, she had reached a point where she was frozen inside of a private hell, behind doors that her family’s love and professional doctors could no longer open. They stood outside of her locked doors, like Jesus in Holman Hunt’s painting, knocking, begging for a response that she could no longer give. I have no doubt though that when she awoke on the other side, she found Christ standing inside her fear and darkness, breathing out peace.
The doctrine of the “descent into hell” is singularly the most consoling of all doctrines, in any religion. As that ancient homily on Holy Saturday so wonderfully puts it, the love that Christ reveals in the cross is so strong that it can descend into any hell we can create, thaw out our frozen souls, and lead us into the light and peace of paradise, despite our fears and weaknesses. The cross of Christ does not stand helpless before a locked door.
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We look forward to seeing you tonight for Lenten Soup & Bread and for our Lenten Book Club!
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Love,
Fr. Dale & Pastor Mark
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Keep up with all your PWC friends on Facebook
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Please do not reply to this email;
the sending address is not monitored.
Please reply to: [email protected]
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Chris Pfund PhD, MBA, BSN, RN
President Homestead Health
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phone: (602) 755-4508
fax: (602) 691-0283
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Homestead Health is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to helping adults live safely and independently at home. We offer a range of in-home and virtual medical services, including concierge medicine, palliative care, transitional care, and geriatric care management. We believe everyone deserves access to compassionate and affordable healthcare.
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