Today high winds have swept the earth clean, and winter’s luminous light glances off leaves of burnished red and glistening gold.
Another year has passed, I thought, as I gazed at the purple hangings on the altar at St. Peter’s Anglican Church. We are in Advent, and today is the New Year’s Day of the Church. The year is swept clean like the earth, and we consider what we have done with the time given to us. Have we been good stewards? How can we be better caretakers of the days and hours God has granted us?
Advent is a penitential season, a time to consider these things – death, judgment, Heaven, Hell. We look into our hearts and sweep them clean too, as best we can. We take an accounting.
For Advent is a time of preparation, a time of getting ready for His coming, the advent of His birth, the fantastic and nearly unbelievable intersection of the immortal and the mortal, the infinite and the finite, when God became man, became incarnate, in the flesh, one of us in our world of matter. Emmanuel, God with us. Christmas.
We wait upon the Lord. An impatient people, greedy, seeking to devour our gift of time, we find it hard to wait upon the Lord, indeed, to wait for anything. Technology speeds our days and our vision, multiplying the choices, so that surely we shall go mad with such an array of possibility, a panoply of things we cannot possibly have or do, or consume. Frenzy.
We stand back and pause for a moment, breathe in, and slow down.
We go to church. We focus.
We look to Bethlehem, to the simple manger. To Mary who said yes to God. To Joseph who patiently cared, waiting. To the shepherds who obeyed the call of the angels in the dead of night. To the Wise Men, those travelers who followed, wondering, waiting.
And as we wait for His coming, we know we wait with the Church throughout time – time past, present, to come. We wait with the Communion of Saints, all those who have waited and watched, and those who will wait and watch tomorrow. We wait now through December for the great festival of Christmas. As we clean out our hearts, we prepare too for the Second Coming when Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead. In Advent we recall we must wait and watch for that Coming as well.
This morning I looked up the red-carpeted aisle to the violet tented tabernacle. I knew that soon I would partake of Christ’s coming today, His coming to me, as I received His body and blood, as His Real Presence became part of me. There was no frenzy here in this sanctuary, only sanity, only truth, only love. My heart and mind would be healed of the world’s craziness for another week.
I will make my Advent wreath this afternoon, arrange the greens in a circle, light my first purple candle, say my prayers. I will move into the season slowly, focusing on Bethlehem, and looking forward to the next Mass, the next Advent of Our Lord right here in Oakland. I will prepare for Christmas.
St. Peter’s Church, 6113 Lawton, Oakland, CA; Sunday Mass and Church School, 10 a.m.; http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/
The day is cold and wintry, the skies heavy with dark cloud, the moisture in the air hinting of rain. We bundled up and headed for Saint Peter’s Oakland this morning, to once again be part of the great Eucharistic sacrifice offered. Coming in from the cold, the smiling faces of the friendly folk in the narthex greeted us warmly, and we entered the great sanctuary, the ark in which we travel through time on this earth, the Church.
We call today “Stir up” Sunday because of the opening prayer, the Collect, prayed today, this Sunday Next before Advent:
“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…”
And we do indeed need some stirring up, for I often think we sleep through much of our lives.
The words are a warning, before we begin the season of Advent, the preparation for the great coming of God-made-man, Emanuel, in the manger outside Bethlehem. Be ready! the prophet cries. Christ is coming.
The Incarnation, the coming of God to earth, that we celebrate at Christmas is, of course, not the Second Coming, but an advent that prepares us for that Judgment Day, redeems us to face that accounting, gives us an Advocate, Christ himself, to defend us in the bright light of perfection. Christmas reminds us time is passing. Christmas reminds us time means something, counts.
Stir up the wills of thy faithful people…! In-spire us, breath into us thy life. I gazed upon the tabernacle holding the Real Presence of Christ. I sang with the congregation our hymns of supplication, thanksgiving, praise. And I knew that Christ would stir us up, in his own time, each of us and all of us together, for we are his Body. We await to see what he will do among us this Advent, as we await his coming, our hearts and souls open wide to his will, to his love.
Receiving the Eucharist, I was fed, inspired, breathed into. With his grace, my will will be awakened to his.
St. Peter’s Church, 6113 Lawton, Oakland, CA; Sunday Mass, 10 a.m.; http://www.saintpetersoakland.com
I love church bazaars! Shopping with the added benefit of giving to outreach programs and seeing old friends.
St. Peter’s Oakland had their Harvest Festival yesterday. The church hall was laid out with tables covered in red cloths forming a long rectangle, and the sellers stood inside the space while the shoppers cruised around the outside. We all paid as we left, having filled our baskets with goodies. I liked the system, not having to pay individual vendors.
This bazaar was a real bargain for those who enjoy country crafts, but aren’t too crafty themselves (me). I fell in love right away with the aprons and their handy pockets, the baked potato gloves to use in the microwave (do they really work?), the homemade jams. Ah, yes, then there were the packets of “Outrageous Brownies,” incredible indeed, packed with chocolate chips and walnuts. Oh my. Then I found the wreathes. The ladies of the church had made wonderful holiday wreathes from wine corks and I added one to my home collection as well as a most unique wreathe (”We’re trying this out for the first time.”) made from – you won’t believe this – men’s ties. Into the basket immediately.
Next headed for the sale table and picked up Christmas ornaments – two quilted conical trees (Styrofoam peaked out beneath), two wine-cork hot pads. One more round about the rectangle and saw wisteria ornaments made from the twisted pods which have a natural velvet when they dry (who’d guess?) and turn a sage green. There were also lovely beaded organza bookmarks that jumped into my basket.
Feeling lightheaded from such exertion, I headed for the tea-and-sandwich counter and for $3.50 was handed a plate of sandwiches and cup of tea, but somehow I got there too late for the soup on offer as well. Those who got there in time said it was amazing – next year I shall keep track of the time, or maybe they will make more.
Then I got to chat with friends, catch up on grandchildren, and listen for the raffle numbers being called every hour. No luck there.
At 3:30 the grand prizes were drawn. We all gathered around our hostess. I won! A lovely baby basket beautifully lined, containing a hand-knit receiving blanket, a picture frame, and a large pink and white quilt. I’m still debating who’s going to be the recipient of these treasures… there are many possibilities.
Those were just the goodies I left with. Many other items I painfully resisted – soup mixes, breads, kitchen handcrafts, and more… but I’m pleased that my home this Christmas will have a few additions, for very little expenditure, and for a good cause.
Oh, and did I mention I had a table too? Yep, selling my trilogy of novels, Pilgrimage, Offerings, and Inheritance (with proceeds to the church’s outreach programs), signing as I sold, and thanking God for the fellowship of friendly church folk on a crisp sunny Saturday.
We visited St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Oakland today.
Today is a sunny Sunday, here in the Bay Area, but this time of year the night slowly absorbs the day. We rise in the dark and dine in the dark as winter moves in, robbing the light. The air carries a crisp chill and the trees turn russet in the valley below our house. The brown hills of summer are greening and all is golds and reds under a dome of blue.
As Anglo-Catholics, we follow the Church Year, the celebrations of our belief through the seasons. We are between All Saints and Thanksgiving, pausing before Advent and the Feast of the Incarnation, Christmas. We are finishing up the long season of Trinitytide, a time of learning and growth, a liturgical green season linking Easter and Christmas.
And the Scripture lessons in church today reflected this pause; the hymns were sober, quiet hymns, feeding the mood. We rest in our journey through time, through the mystery of the year given to us, and listen to the Epistle where Saint Paul writes to his friends in Philippi:
“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent.” (Philippians 1:9-10, Book of Common Prayer, 220-1)
We listen to the Gospel lesson which tells of Christ’s command to Peter to forgive “seventy times seven,” in other words, to forgive forever.
As our good Father Pomroy preached on these words, I thought how closely these things were linked: love, knowledge, judgment, excellence, and forgiveness. That to love as we should we must learn to discern the good from the bad, to strive for excellence. When we fail, we forgive one another, but we always strive to become what God wants us to become, that his will be done.
Such a desire – to know what to approve and what not to approve. To judge correctly in today’s complicated world.
So I go to Mass with its own excellence, its beauty expressed through two thousand years of liturgy. I absorb the words of our priest as he leans towards us earnestly from the pulpit. I say my prayers. I partake of Christ in the Eucharist. Day by day, through quiet hours and busy weeks, I pray that I see what is excellent and what is not. I pray that I have enough love to forgive so that I too may be forgiven. God, in time, will layer his grace upon my soul through his presence here on earth in Church, Scripture, and Sacrament. One day, all will be excellent.
Today we celebrated the Feast of All Saints, thanking God for those who said “yes” to his love – in the past, present, and future, the Communion of Saints, the sanctos, those set apart, those chosen, Christ’s own. The thurifer stepped soberly down the red-carpeted aisle, swinging his thurible full of incense, the clouds rising over our heads sweetly. He prepared the way for the torchbearers with their flaming candles and the crucifer with raised crucifix. Finally, lastly, came the celebrant, our good Father Pomroy, his white and gold chasuble flowing royally.
We sang “For all the saints…” and later “I sing a song to the saints of God . . .” and finally “Ye holy angels bright . . .”, all happy and glorious, a great celebration. The first was a hymn I sang in my high school chorus back in the days when it was permitted to sing Christian songs in a public school. It is a thunderous song, a marching song, a great hymn to victory.
The second hymn tugged at my memory with color and poignancy, for “I sing a song of the saints of God, faithful and brave and true …” was a song we taught to the children in Sunday School, with hand movements and twirling, a true dance-of-a song, but today at least, although it was difficult, I kept my feet planted firmly on the floor.
The third hymn soars with lyrics that wing high, looping around bright stars, riding on angels wings, with the last two verses settling nicely on the theme of All Saints, saying it all:
Ye saints, who toil below,
Adore your heav’nly King
And onward as ye go
Some joyful anthem sing;
Take what he gives
And praise him still,
Through good or ill,
Who ever lives!
And then, refocusing on my own tiny heart:
My soul, bear thou thy part,
Triumph in God above:
And with a well-tuned heart
Sing thou the songs of love!
Let all thy days
Till life shall end,
Whate’er he send
Be filled with praise.(No. 600, Richard Baxter, 1672, and John Hampden Gurney, 1838)
I like the idea of a “well-tuned” heart. Tuned by coming to Mass and singing praises with my fellow believers, “saints in training.” Tuned by the words of the Gospel, Epistle, prayers, sermon, indeed the liturgy itself. Tuned by the reception of Christ in the Eucharist. Well-tuned, we left St. Peter’s, the anthems filling our ears for hours to come, prepared for the week ahead, for each day given to us.
St. Peter’s Church, 6113 Lawton, Oakland, CA; Sunday Mass, 10 a.m.; http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/