Meet Jennifer Drummond

Jennifer is the Assistant to Canon Susan, working closely with her in the Holy Conversation program. Having trained as a spiritual director through the program herself, Jennifer enjoys teaching, guiding and mentoring others through the two-year training. Prior to joining Canon Susan, Jennifer worked for 10 years at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, MA. Besides her ministry as a spiritual director for individuals and groups, Jennifer also offers retreats both online and in person. More recently, at Trinity Northshore Anglican Church, she teaches and leads conversations about the contemplative life. Jennifer lives in Hamilton, MA, with her family and enjoys reading, photographing nature, and blogging. She is a featured writer in the devotional "The Courage to Write," released Spring 2022.

Spiritual Enlightenment--Having our eyes opened to see Jesus

Have you ever had an argument with someone when you absolutely knew you were right and they absolutely would not believe you and insisted that they were right? Most of the time, I suppose, we would say that of course we were right and the other person was wrong, but sometimes we may find out that in fact we are wrong. How easy is it then to say, “I was wrong, I made a mistake”? I suppose it depends on whether we’ve made some rash statements like, “I bet you a million dollars I’m right!” In cases like that we might want to continue to argue our case, even when the evidence is stacking up against us.

Palm Sunday--Walking with Jesus

Jesus walked many miles during his lifetime. He probably seldom, if ever rode a donkey until his final entrance into Jerusalem seated on a donkey. It’s about 120 miles between Galilee and Jerusalem, which we know he walked up and back for the Jewish festivals when all the Jews would pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So when Jesus went up to Jerusalem, he was going up with his disciples, along with many other people, for these special feast days. Jesus may have walked as much as 20,000 miles during his three-year ministry. Today we read about Jesus’s final walk to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover, his entrance into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, his walk to the Upper Room where he shared the Passover meal with his disciples, his walk to Gethsemane where he prayed "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." And then his arrest, a mock trial, and the final walk to Golgotha, carrying his cross.

Christmas Eve--"Welcome, all wonders in one sight!"

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!


Eternity shut in a span;


Summer in winter; day in night;


Heaven in earth, and God in man.


Great little one, whose all-embracing birth


Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heav'n to earth.

Richard Crashaw, an English poet of the 17^th century, wrote those words. They are a stanza from his poem “In the Holy Nativity of our Lord.” His words beautifully express, as only poetry can do, the wonder of this holy night, when the eternal God comes to us as a newborn baby. When eternity is enclosed in a tiny human form, when in the depths of winter we experience the new life of summer, when in the darkness of night we experience the full sun of day. All things are possible this night. 

Christ is all, and is in all (Col. 3:1-15)

The last few weeks the lectionary has taken readings from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. We’ve been focusing on what he has to say about the Body of Christ. The theme the first week was “Christ in you (that is, the church), the hope of glory.” Last week the theme was “you have been given fullness in Christ,” The church has been given the fullness of who Christ is, and we saw that in the way fours aspects of the church or four spiritual streams, reveal to us the fullness of Christ. This final week, in chapter 3, Paul gets down to specifics of how we are to live together as Christ’s body. Our theme today is “Christ is all, and is in all.”

You have been given fullness in Christ (Col. 2:6-19)

The past couple of weeks we have been looking at Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Last week we were in chapter 1 and our theme was “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We talked about how as a church we need to have on our spiritual 3D glasses. They correct our vision so that we can see Christ all around us—in the creation that he made in love and sustains in love, and in one another. With our spiritual glasses we see the world with God’s gaze of love.

 Our theme today is, “You have been given fullness in Christ.” Paul opens this passage with an exhortation to the Colossians. He says, “just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving.” Paul is concerned because it seems that the Colossians, in verse 8, have been struggling with some false teaching in their midst, based on human philosophies and ideas that are not the true gospel of Christ. This false teaching diminishes who Christ is. So Paul affirms strongly in verse 9, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” God dwells in completeness in Jesus.  Then Paul adds in verse 10, “and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” This means that the church, the Body of Christ, has completeness or wholeness in him. If the church has completeness in Christ, what more can these false teachers add to that? The question we want to answer then is “what does it mean that the church has fullness in Christ?”

Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:15-28)

As I was preparing to come home from a few weeks in Italy and take up the role of Interim Rector, I was excited to see that the lectionary epistle readings take us through Paul’s letter to the Colossians. I’m excited because this letter wonderfully teaches us about who Christ is, from all eternity, and what it means that our identity as a church is the Body of Christ. That is who we are. The theme for my sermon today is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Next week the message will be “You have been given fullness in Christ.” And the third week is, “Christ is all in all.”

 Our passage begins at verse 15, “He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Notice how many times Paul says “all things.”