Alleluia, Christ is Risen

The Great Vigil of Easter 2015

Finally! There is the faintest glimmer of hope. We gather in the chill of the night and warm ourselves around the fire. We remember what he tried to tell us time and again but we would not listen. We simply could not understand it. So, counting hope against hope we light a candle and process into our gathering place and instead of cursing the evil in the darkness, we light all our candles. At least we’ve learned that much. We gather around this marvelous flame. We sing the ancient song of our Passover. 

Then we read of our deliverance at the Red Sea, the valley of dry bones, and of our calling to be God’s people. 

We remember how he raised Lazarus from the dead and his many miracles and his healings which were all daily occurrences for him; those with mental and physical ailments. How we wish we could heal those who are sick now and suffer so. For when we had our hopes up the faintest bit, we must now admit just how real suffering and death are even on this side of the resurrection.

Still, we set the Table as he taught us to do. We remember him but not as if he lived and died a long time ago. But we remember him now as the one who died and then rose again. Well, lets face it there are those who are not quite convinced on that point. That’s why we have Thomas the Doubter who famously said: “Not until I see it with my own eyes, touch it with my own hands, not until then will I believe.”

The Surprise of Faith, let me tell you, you are in for a wondrous and mighty surprise not just if you doubt, but even for those of you who believe! Such a Surprise that will fill your hearts with indescribable joy! A joy that will change your life! Right here, right now!

This is because Jesus brought us into eternal life beginning with our Baptism. All he asks of us is to die to sin and to rise to newness of eternal life both in this life and in the life to come. So lets not wait ‘till we’re dead. Lets get at it right now. For the time to do eternal life is here in our midst

This is the essential Teaching or Didache of the Church. The first document we have after the New Testament writings is a brief “catechism” if you will of teachings used for new converts to the faith including and especially directed to our young people. This document is called the Didache, a word which shares the same word as “didactic” or “teaching”.

All this is because in those days the world these kids grew up in was an especially dangerous one. Therefore all converts and members of the church were required to be mindful, to understand, and to master the essential teachings of the Didache; The Teachings of the Church.

Those essential teachings begin with this extraordinary statement;

There are only two ways to live; the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death. 

You can see that choice all around you if you but open your eyes to what is going on around you.

There is the way of violence, hatred, warfare, oppression and bigotry. Good heavens there is abundant dosage of that all around us. And much of it supposedly in the “name of God”. But we know such things lead to the destruction and death of God’s creatures. We are called to renounce them.

Instead we are called to peace with justice, love, compassion and an open heart that leads to life.

There is the way of fear, anxiety, and depression. That sure sounds like current events to me. But such a life leads to darkness and despair. That approach doesn’t make much sense to me and besides it will shorten you life, will it not?

But there is also courage, joy, good humor, gracious affection and good cheer. Such an internal reorientation leads to much, much more life, a life that leads to an eternal life like Jesus lived.

There is, of course self centeredness. One the other hand there is a life that we can live in concern and care for others. The former will destroy the latter builds up.

Need we point out the difference between greed and its antithesis generosity? Seldom have we seen such a stark reminder of the difference than we see in our own present historic context.

There is the matter of self indulgence and self discipline. Life will teach you that lesson sooner or later. Let’s keep one another in eternal life. 

All we have to do is read the papers or watch the news to see what destroys human life near and far away. Sin, by the way, is the only doctrine in our catechism we have abundant proof for. Everything else we believe in we have to take on faith. Ah but not sin…look around you. Its everywhere! It is no wonder so many take to the way of sin.

But still ultimately, it only leads to death and God is pretty consistent on this point; “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” ~Ezekiel 33:11

Back now to the “remembrance of  him”. Back to that surprise and that joy! That Greek word “anamnesis” means to remember not as if we were recalling some ancient sadness or tragedy; the word means to remember as if we were bringing that ancient moment into the living present, as if we were invoking the presence of Christ as this very Table, which is exactly what we do in the Eucharist.

This remembrance is as real and as joyous as today right here among your friends and your family.  We have this joy, this now, this eternity right here for all of us to see. 

For Christ is alive in this glad Easter tide. We have seen him with our own eyes.

Alleluia. Christ is Risen

The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

And now may the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen.

Fr Paul

The Courage of Christmas

The Church is Beautiful

How beautiful the church is on Christmas Eve. You’ve outdone yourselves. I remember at Easter thinking how much I’d love to see this place at Christmas, but of course we all gave a dismissive chuckle to that notion. Who knew! 

But here we are gathered in this sacred and holy place once again to hear the message of the angels. “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to ALL”. What a wonderful and timely message. Timely and timeless at the very same time!

On my first journey to the United Kingdom, I found myself at a Bed and Breakfast in the Lake District in a town called Kendal. The local parish church was a lovely Norman structure over 1000 years old. My traveling companion and I were treated to an evening beverage and we discovered that the proprietor of the B&B was a member of the vestry. He and I got into it. He was interested in the American church’s liberal views on the ordination of women, a matter that perplexed our English cousins. Then, out of the blue, he asked me this question; 

“Father, you’ll never guess what time of year our church comes alive with decoration and music. It is a time that really touches every heart in the town. You’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“Christmas!”, I said imagining what the old stone church would look like decorated in greens, poinsettias, a creche, and lit by candlelight. 

“How in the world did you know?” said he.

“Every Anglican church the world over is precious this night. In fact, so are Lutheran, Methodist, and Roman Catholic Churches.”

It is the night of the Incarnation of God. Emmanuel. God with us. And the whole Christian world, bows to this holy night with awe, reverence, and a profound and affectionate love.

Many there are who travel the world around in search of the holy. In one of the better movies I’ve seen this year, “The Way” with Martin Sheen, there is the story of a man, who, after the untimely death of his son, goes to Spain to walk the “Camino de Santiago”. It is a fine movie. After much soul searching this rather secular businessman and golfer discovers that there really is something holy within him. His heart learns of the healing touch that comes from a close encounter with his traveling companions and with the living God whom he discovers in their midst.

More recently, Cindy and I saw “The Life of Pi”; another pilgrimage of a sort in which a young Indian boy and a ferocious tiger share a life boat after a shipwreck and the boy discovers God in ever deepening discoveries of the life within himself and his encounter with the tiger. 

I’ve been to the Holy Land twice and walked in the footsteps of Jesus, Moses, and so many others written about in holy scripture. I took a bus load of high school students. What we learned together! What goodness I’ve experienced in these pilgrimages.

There is something about all these journeys filled with their own spiritual intentionality that has the potential to bring us into a close encounter with the Living God, or that sense that within us something very holy resides.

Your journeys to Kanuga, the Cathedral, to the annual “Shackathon” or to “Crop Walk” are all of a piece. They are instances where we might discover God walking with us. 

But whether your quest for God takes you far away to distant lands and different cultures, or whether that journey takes you deep within your own heart, what we always come to discover is that God has been with us all the way. This is especially true when we come to do battle with doubt, despair, danger and evil. We didn’t have to travel far away to find it. It has been here all the while. 

That fact becomes clear to us on Christmas Eve, I think, in a way no other time of year can do, no other festival quite celebrates. Christmas brings with it a a joy and a wonder that brings both a smile and a tear to the same countenance.  The radiant light that comes from a child in a manger evokes profound responses when we think of the journeys we’ve been taking throughout our lives. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight”, Phillips Brooks, that great Boston preacher wrote one night when he was on pilgrimage in Bethlehem. All my joys and all my sorrows are reflected in the face of the Baby.

This year, of course, we are reminded of the Holy Innocents. Herod in a pique of paranoia ordered the killing of the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem when the Wise Men refused to tell him where to find this Baby King. More children, in recent weeks have been taken from us at the hands of yet another deranged mind. Every day in America inner city neighborhoods we must undergo similar heartaches. 

And the Holy Child requires me to remember that right now. It will take courage to speak up for the children who now have no voice. Our own children are vulnerable in a dangerous world. I do hope and pray that you and I will speak up for them. There will be plenty of time for that in the New Year.

For now, the Baby also wants my heart to sing with the music of Christmas. Not only is our church beautiful, it is also filled with such lovely music. The music brings to my soul a tearful smile when I greet Christmas, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is why I love Christmas so. 

What more precious gift can there be but to see the sleeping Jesus in his cradle? Or the smiles and laughter of our own children, or the beaming faces of their proud parents, grandparents and friends? How refreshingly joyful it is to see our annual Christmas pageant. How precious are these children!

In the luminous night a star shines down from heaven, and our hearts and the whole world over are filled with this amazing music. Shepherds quake to see this sight. Kings and Wise Men go to the manger and discover there by the cradle, where the cattle are lowing, even as the world stands dark and cold; this Child radiates a profoundly bright warmth. 

The Love of God made flesh and blood in that Holy Child comes down to dwell among and within us at Christmas. Jesus is God-with-us; our “Emmanuel”. Not only is God with us in the flesh and blood of Jesus, but in the flesh and blood of all those who love the Child. Those of you with the courage and the imagination to enfold him in your hearts may also begin to radiate his warmth. 

This is the challenge of Christmas. Do you have the courage to create like God creates? Can you join Jesus in saving a fallen world? Can you discover the inner Way to make holy everything your life touches?

Christmas is a season of hope. We end one difficult year and soon we begin another. Living into Christmas and living into a New Year will take courage, creativity, and eagerness to bless and defend our children. 

We are here tonight in this very beautiful, sacred and holy place, as millions are doing around the world hour by hour. I extend to you my prayers for all the blessings of Christmas. How wonderful that we can share this moment together. In the immortal words of one who knew what is means to discover God in the here and now; “God bless us every one”.

Merry Christmas!

Fr Paul

The Church Steps into the Abyss of Irrelevancy! Again!

Thank you Fr. Roy

So then, the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church take yet another giant step into the abyss of irrelevancy! The former denies women access to the Episcopacy and the latter denies the priesthood to an activist priest who speaks out for gender equality, peace and justice. This is NOT Catholicism. This is not the church. 

Jesus loves all without regard to gender, race, orientation, class and ethnicity. For this obedience to Christ's mandate, nuns and priests are being treated very shabbily especially Fr. Roy.

Here is Fr. Roy's statement.

November 20, 2012

STATEMENT BY FATHER ROY BOURGEOIS ABOUT HIS DISMISSAL FROM MARYKNOLLI have been a Catholic priest in the Maryknoll community for 40 years. As a young man I joined Maryknoll because of its work for justice and equality in the world. To be expelled from Maryknoll and the priesthood for believing that women are also called to be priests is very difficult and painful.

The Vatican and Maryknoll can dismiss me, but they cannot dismiss the issue of gender equality in the Catholic Church. The demand for gender equality is rooted in justice and dignity and will not go away.

As Catholics, we profess that God created men and women of equal worth and dignity. As priests, we profess that the call to the priesthood comes from God, only God. Who are we, as men, to say that our call from God is authentic, but God's call to women is not? The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, our Church and our loving God who calls both men and women to be priests. 

When there is an injustice, silence is the voice of complicity. My conscience compelled me to break my silence and address the sin of sexism in my Church. My only regret is that it took me so long to confront the issue of male power and domination in the Catholic Church.

I have explained my position on the ordination of women, and how I came to it, in my booklet, My Journey from Silence to Solidarity. Please go to: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2fqyZ/3UGxlnRPIIMmz0/2V2zuXxjltO. 

In Solidarity,
 

When it comes to a death

The Holiest Moment

There is a dear friend who asked me for a prayer at a time when a loved one is fading fast. In my line of work, I spend a significant amount of time with those who must keep that vigil. I must say, it is an awesome moment, in the very purest sense of that word. And to keep that vigil with a loved one, as excruciatingly painful as it must, by its nature be, is also a moment of exquisite grace.

So here are several suggestions

I have not one prayer but many.

Beginning with the 23rd Psalm

The 42nd and 43rd Psalm

The 121st Psalm

The 46th Psalm

And many, many others. Please comment your suggestions below.

Note, sometimes just sitting very quietly and collectedly as if God were sitting down with you in the Presence of the Most Holy Moment there is in life (which of course is the case at all times and at all places)

I like to sing, favorite hymns, but curiously childhood hymns seem so appropriate, like "Jesus Loves Me".

"Love Divine", "Come thou Fount of Every Blessing"...singing very quietly with a broken voice, off tune or in tune, it doesn't matter at all, just that the audible sound of your voice is there to comfort you and your loved one, and perhaps with the your hand in the hand of your loved one. 

Lots of silence with reassurance of how much in the I-Thou relationship of two persons is itself an image of the relationship of each to God.  And that between every single relationship, God lives in the mystery of that I-Thou. There is in this a great teaching; one that helps us treasure more, the loves and lives God gives us.

I love this prayer;

"Come Lord Jesus, and be my companion along the way, kindly our hearts and awaken hope, that I may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and in the Breaking of Bread."

Nice to have a priest bring communion at some point.

The material in the Book of Common Prayer at the time of sickness is also very helpful. BCP 453 and following.

There is this prayer...it has come to me in various forms over the years.

But its general structure is this.

A Prayer

By Fr Paul

Jesus son of God, have Mercy upon me. 3X

Jesus, (pause long enough to collect yourself and KNOW the Presence of Jesus. And if there are tears, at any time in all of this, let them flow freely) 

Look upon us in your love and compassion. 

This is a time of sadness and sorrow.

We lie here in weakness 

Wondering...

Wondering where we are

Where we are going

This is why we come to You

And throw our cares upon you.

There is weakness and there is fear

There is agitation of spirit

But this I know

In you there is strength for those who suffer.

With you there is courage for those whose tears 

Are tears as of the Blessed Mother keeping her watch with You.

With you there is that Peace that Passes all understanding.

And there is this,

I am doing the best I can do,

And sometimes it doesn't seem quite enough or quite right

But because I am so weak now

I must cast my care on you

And listen for the sacred word

Here Jesus speaks with your voice

And particularly where there is an especially difficult moment of agitation

"You are doing fine"

"There, there, that is exactly the right thing to do"

"I am here, I love you"

"All is forgiven"

"All is love"

"All is reconciled"

"Come to me"

(Stop here, and rest a while)

"Come to me"

In whatever state of agitation or weakness

You calmly wipe my brow and cool my tongue with your 

Sweet words of calm assurance and love.

Come, Lord Jesus, and walk with me along the Way that leads to You.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you.

Amen.

Wait and watch.

Repeat as necessary.

The Litany at the time of Death is especially appropriate as the end nears and is upon us.

The family gathers. 

Say the ancient prayers.

Read the ancient words.

A Prayer for a Person near Death
 Almighty God, look on this your servant, lying in great
weakness, and comfort him with the promise of life
everlasting, given in the resurrection of your Son Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.


Litany at the Time of Death from the Book of Common Prayer, p. 462
When possible, it is desirable that members of the family and friends
come together to join in the Litany.
 God the Father,
Have mercy on your servant.
God the Son,
Have mercy on your servant.
God the Holy Spirit,
Have mercy on your servant.

Holy Trinity, one God,
Have mercy on your servant.
From all evil, from all sin, from all tribulation,
Good Lord, deliver him.
By your holy Incarnation, by your Cross and Passion, by
your precious Death and Burial,
Good Lord, deliver him.
By your glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the
Coming of the Holy Spirit,
Good Lord, deliver him.
We sinners beseech you to hear us, Lord Christ: That it may
please you to deliver the soul of your servant from the power
of evil, and from eternal death,
We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.
That it may please you mercifully to pardon all his sins,
We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.
That it may please you to grant him a place of refreshment
and everlasting blessedness,
We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.
That it may please you to give him joy and gladness in your
kingdom, with your saints in light,
We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.
Jesus, Lamb of God:
Have mercy on him.
Jesus, bearer of our sins:
Have mercy on him.

Jesus, redeemer of the world:
Give him your peace.
 

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.Lord, have mercy.
 Officiant and People 
 

Our Father, who art in heaven,     hallowed be thy Name,     thy kingdom come,     thy will be done,         on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our tresspasses,     as we forgive those         who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation,     but deliver us from evil.

Our Father in heaven,     hallowed be your Name,     your kingdom come,     your will be done,         on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins     as we forgive those         who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial,     and deliver us from evil.

The Officiant says this Collect
 Let us pray.

Deliver your servant, N., O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all
evil, and set him free from every bond; that he may rest with
all your saints in the eternal habitations; where with the
Father and the Holy Spirit your live and reign, one God, for
ever and ever. Amen.


A Commendation at the Time of Death
Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world;
In the Name of God the Father Almighty who created you;
In the Name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you;
In the Name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you.
May your rest be this day in peace,
    and your dwelling place in the Paradise of God.

A Commendatory Prayer
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your
servant N. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of
your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your
own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy,
into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the
glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the
mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.