Monthly Archives: July 2010

I love going to Mass, for it is a time to reflect on the last week and consider the week to come.   It is a time to repent and be forgiven.  It is a time to receive God’s life giving power.

This last week was a week of saints, ending with Saint James the Apostle today.

And as a week of saints, it was a week of lovely moments piercing the ordinary day.  I was looking forward to Thursday’s Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, for I had recently visited the Provencal region where she is said to have spent her last days.  I reflected on the four days we were given in the Var – Bouches-du-Rhone region of France, collecting experiences, sights and sounds, tastes and scents, in this lovely wine country east of Marseilles, north of Toulon, for my novel-in-progress, The Magdalene Mystery.

I recalled the crystal crisp blue-sky morning after a week of rain and the drive through the vineyards to the base of the broad limestone massif, the hike up the wide pilgrimage path to Mary’s grotto and chapel.  The trail was luminescent with sun refracting off broad leaves and I can hear even now the birds singing as we passed through their land, the slight breeze rustling the ancient forest foliage.  The 11:00 Mass began on time in the damp, dripping cave, and the young white-robed Dominican preached an enthusiastic sermon in French.  It was an experience of transcendence in the cool dark as candles flamed and a few faithful sang the responses.

This last Thursday, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, I imagined the cave with its crowd of pilgrims that had processed up the mountain to honor the saint on her day.  I hope it was joyous at the Grotto of La Sainte-Baume and later as the pilgrims gathered in the valley in St. Maximin’s Cathedral, dressed in traditional Provencal costumes.  Mary’s relics rest in the dark crypt below, sanctifying the church, part of the amazing mystery of this saint, for who she was and who she was not has become part of my present search.

I was sorry to miss the pageantry and devotion of those faithful in southern France, but was cheered with an email from my friend, Sister Emanuela of the Sisters of Divine Revelation in Rome, an order that runs the small gift shop in St. John Lateran and have an active teaching ministry.  I had asked Sr Emanuela if she would take a few photos of the cloister at the basilica there, where, I had read, there had once been a shrine to Mary Magdalene.  And there, on Thursday, Mary’s day, the photos appeared on my screen:  photos of the cloister and the altar pieces remaining from the thirteenth century shrine.  Many thanks, Sister Emanuela!  So I proceeded to write my scene set in the Lateran cloisters, my little part in the honoring of Mary Magdalene.

Today in Saint Peter’s Church, Oakland, I thought of these things and then turned my attention to Saint James the Apostle.  Since James was martyred (early, 42-43 AD, the first Apostle to be martyred) the vestments and tabernacle drapes were blood red and the church flamed crimson in glorious homage to this devoted fisherman. The Gospel told of Christ’s question to James and John, “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?”  Indeed, I thought, the Apostles did drink of His cup, and just so, our preacher exhorted, we are called to do the same, for while we may not be called to give up our lives (although many do this today in our world), we are called to sacrificial self-giving in the observance of His law, way, and cross.

The first century folded into the twenty-first and we sang I sing a song of the Saints of God…, the charming children’s hymn, and as I drank from Christ’s Eucharistic cup, I prayed I too could offer myself as the saints had done and still do, as Mary Magdalene did in Southern Provence, as James, son of Zebedee, brother of John, had done, until the day that Herod Antipas killed him with the sword.

I left Saint Peter’s with joy, knowing if I listened I would hear God’s voice, that He held me close to Him.  He would guide me through the week to come, another big saints week: Anne, Martha, Ignatius of Loyola.

http://http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/ ; http://www.divinarivelazione.org/

Father Pomroy preached on sloth today, one of the seven deadly sins.

Sloth, he explained, is not the same as laziness.  Sloth is being lukewarm about God.  A slothful person is ambivalent and unenthusiastic, and he will will, one day, be rejected by God (the actual phrase from Revelation is more graphic: He will “spew” the lukewarm from His mouth).  Sloth enervates, drugs, and in the end, destroys the soul.

It is easy, I thought, to slide through life with little thought about God.  It often takes a grave illness or crisis in one’s life to wake up.  In the meantime, duty has called many to Sunday worship, to regular examination of conscience, to love of one’s family and neighbor, indeed to repentance.  But duty has largely been abandoned in today’s culture.

So we become slothful, and encouraged to be so.  We look out for ourselves and attend church when we have nothing better to do, when we feel like it.  One day, we shall be spewed out from God’s presence.

In the Anglican Church, as in many others, we have disciplines and “days of obligation” (attendance at Mass.)  These form a framework for our lives; they encourage us in our spiritual growth, even when we do not “feel” like it.  And, I have found, that when I follow these disciplines, I do grow and I do become enthusiastic and, both slowly and suddenly, I am filled with boundless joy.

I begin with my feet plodding the earth, dragging myself to Sunday Mass.  I leave, having tasted Heaven, angel wings lifting me along the path.  Such a transformation.

And so it was today, this Seventh Sunday after Trinity, an ordinary summer Sunday in July when folks were camping and hiking and swimming and enjoying the outdoors.  I entered the large dim nave, and knelt to say my prayers, praying for my family and friends, a list that seemed very long this morning.  So many were hurting, so many lost, so many despairing.  Then I turned to the Psalms for the day in the Book of Common Prayer, and “prayed” the Psalms.  These ancient prayers are filled with every emotion and I find myself grateful to have these poetic words to hold onto.  Then, as I looked up at the green tented tabernacle on the altar, I heard the organ play the opening chords for the processional hymn.

The hymn is one of my favorites:

Ye holy angels bright,
Who wait at God’s right hand,
Or through the realms of light
Fly at your Lord’s command,
Assist our song,
For else the theme
Too high doth seem
For mortal tongue.
(Richard Baxter, 1672, and John Haptden Gurney, 1838)

The tune is called Darwall (John Darwall, 1779) and is as bright and uplifting and delightful as the words.  Already I was soaring and the service was only beginning.  I waited expectant, knowing now that each minute would be filled with God.

We heard the Scripture lessons and Father rose to preach.  As I listened to him I smiled at the different ways in which he expressed the same truth: dancing Christians versus creeping Christians, seeking and finding and being “caught” by God, bound by love to God.  I was astounded at the simple truth of it, for I had moved from sloth to adoration within one hour.  The contrast was immense and I feared for those who were still in the land of sleep.  Would they wake up?  Would they know what I had known?

The sacred liturgy continued, and as we received Christ into our souls and bodies, our individual joys became one, and the Body of Christ breathed as a single living organism.

I left Saint Peter’s today changed as always, having partaken of Heaven itself, and I prayed that I would never ever ever be lukewarm about God, that I would always dance to the lilting melodies of His angels.  The experience was too beautiful and exquisite to miss one single second, but I knew that duty and discipline would tide me over when I fell once again into sloth.

http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/, Sunday Eucharist, Sermon and Church School at 10:00.

Home again and thankful for my birthday this last week, thankful for another year on this good earth, and thankful for another opportunity to worship God in the beauty of holiness at Saint Peter’s Anglican Church.

Over the last month, as I traveled to the sites of Mary Magdalene in Provence and journeyed to that first century I sensed time encapsulating.  For her Lord is mine, the same then as today.  Her presence was everywhere I visited – the dripping cave in the massif of limestone, the Gothic basilica that honored her relics in the luminous crypt, even the ancient Abbey of Saint Victor in Marseilles.  I began to notice other country churches that had been founded by monks from fifth-century Saint Victor’s, so that soon I could see Cassianite churches dotting old Provence, their place-names remaining to remind.  And then, the Benedictines of the Abbey of Saint Mary Magdalene in Barroux at the foot of Mount Ventoux, brought me full circle to the present as I gazed upon these young ascetic faces, their black robes dusting the stone floors of the Romanesque nave, singing Latin praises.  God is good, I thought.  He remains active in our world, weaving an exquisitely beautiful tapestry of the faithful, each person unique, each love different, each talent adding to the drama of redemption.

From that first century, when Mary Magdalene and the many others preached to the decadent Roman world, to the present day, as faithful witnesses proclaim God’s immense love to our straying culture, the years seem but a blink of an eye, yet each second contains life and death, holds eternity within it.

A mystery.  And this morning as I gazed upon the thirteenth-century crucifix rising over the green tented tabernacle at Saint Peter’s, I watched and waited for the mysterious miracle, the coming of Christ into our midst in the bread and the wine.

It was a morning of miracles it seemed, for we were blessed with a baptism.  The crucifer and torchbearers processed with our priest down the central aisle to the font near the entrance, and we turned, bowing, as the crucifix passed.  Soon we were looking back to the choir loft over the doors and above that the massive red stained glass window portraying the fire of the Holy Spirit.  The glass is brilliant in its crimsons and oranges and pinks, a happy rain of color upon us below, and today the prisms shimmered with light as we gathered around the stone baptismal font.

I listened to the familiar words of the ancient rite, somehow new each time, and glanced at the fiery windows, thinking of the descent of the Holy Ghost:  “None can enter into the kingdom of God, except he be regenerate and born anew of Water and of the Holy Ghost… received into Christ’s holy Church and be made a living member of the same… an heir of everlasting salvation… to give him the kingdom of heaven, and everlasting life.”  Our priest poured the sanctified water over the young man’s head and with this action, baptized him “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”  With this pouring, sin dies in Christ’s own death, and the newly baptized rises from the waters a new creature, part of Christ.

I love the words used to present the newly baptized to us, his new family-in-God:  “We receive this person into the congregation of Christ’s flock; and do sign him with the sign of the Cross in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end.”

Mary Magdalene was not ashamed.  She carried the Sign of the Cross on her heart as she fought under Christ’s banner, against sin, the world, and the devil, a faithful servant.  Today is no different, I reflected.  Courage is needed to make one’s way in the dripping dark with the light of a candle.  Courage is needed to be not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified to an unbelieving world.  But He gives us that courage, he rains it upon us.

We received God this morning in the bread and in the wine, as body and blood entered our bodies and souls.  We were washed clean.  We received the crucified one so that we could rise with Him.

Even now, the stained glass rains upon my senses, the brilliant reds, the shimmering prisms.  The Holy Ghost showering upon us, world without end.

http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/.
All quotes from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer

“O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord,in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life,whose service is perfect freedom…” The Order for Daily Morning Prayer, Collect for Peace, 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer

I often think of this remarkable phrase, whose service is perfect freedom. 

While it is customary in American culture to celebrate before the holi-day and rarely, if ever, afterwards, I enjoy octaves, the traditional eight days of celebration after the feast.  With this excuse I continue to celebrate Saint Peter (June 29) and Independence Day (July 4), neighbors in our American calendar.

I think of Peter the Apostle as a robust saint, full of passion and life, who pulled himself up when he fell, soon to kneel at his Lord’s feet.  He, like Mary Magdalene, is one of us.  He is fully human in this sense, full of self, pulled by sin.  Scriptures speak of his threefold denial of Christ when fear vanquished love.  “Do you love me?” Christ asked him three times, and three times Peter insisted he loved him.  “Feed my sheep,” Christ commanded.  And Peter did, even to the point of failure again as he tried to escape the persecutions in Rome, fleeing the city on the Appian Way.  Christ meets him there, and once again brings him back to himself.  “Quo vadis?”  (”Where do you go?”)  Peter turns around and faces his death, and his new life.

Peter was free to choose, and just so, we enjoy that freedom as creatures and as citizens in the West.  He was free to listen and to decide.  And it is this freedom we celebrate on July 4th, our American Independence Day.  In the Western democracies freedom of belief is still protected for the most part, but we must not take such a revolutionary idea for granted.  Much of the world does not honor religious freedom, but seeks to impose a set of beliefs on all.

So we desire and celebrate freedom, but not the freedom to take freedom away, not the freedom to take life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  When I enter a church, my first prayer is thanksgiving for the people, the clergy, and the freedom to worship, the last a continual reminder of this great gift.

This is perfect freedom.  It is a freedom found in the Judaic-Christian God, the God who demands perfection but offers loving mercy.  He is a Father God who guides, protects, and loves us, leading us into our full humanity.  He is a God whose service is, indeed, perfect freedom.

We drove down from Crillon-le-Brave into the countryside through the farmlands past Carpentras and the melon festival signs, heading for a picturesque village at the source of the River Sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse.  Here the waters rush from the mountains, once transformed into power by waterwheels, and today channeled into the valleys below.

We parked outside the village, and followed the road over the bridge, crossing the roiling waters to the main square where tall trees shaded a monument commemorating the time Petrarch (1304-1374) resided here.  The Italian poet, known for his many letters and sonnets, is particularly known here for his unrequited love of Laura, a married gentlewoman he met in an Avignon church.  It was a romantic but platonic love from afar, and he recorded his romance in his sonnets, with echoes of the Courts of Love of an earlier time.

We lunched on an uneven terrace overlooking the rushing Sorgue and peered up the canyons to glimpse waterfalls at the true sources higher up, then strolled up the main street to the 11th century stone church.  The sanctuary was musty and dim, but the Blessed Sacrament was reserved on the altar  and an bay alcove honored Our Lady with not only a bank of flaming votives at the foot of her sculpted image, but a carved image of Saint Anne as well.  In reading about L’Eglise de Saint Veran, I learned it was founded in the 6th century by monks from Saint Victor’s in Marseilles.  I smiled for it was another Cassianite witness (see St. Victor’s post), and gave me more pieces to the wonderful puzzle of history.

We returned slowly to our car, under the heavy heat of the day, and drove into the valley of vines with their lush greenery striping the gentle green hills, watching the narrow road carefully for speeders and steep roadside ditches.

We would not be visiting Avignon this time, but I recalled that watershed fourteenth century when the Pope resided there, and the resulting turmoil caused in Western Christendom.  When the papacy did return to Rome, the city was falling to ruin, and it would take many years to restore.  Then again, it seemed to me that the presence of the papacy in France must have supported the new basilica at St. Maximin to the south of Avignon which honored the rediscovered relics of Mary Magdalen (see earlier post).  Many royal pilgrimages were made to her grave and Avignon played a substantial part in the development of the shrine, I am sure.

We returned to our hilltop village at the base of Mount Ventoux, and as I gazed at the mountain, I thought again about Petrarch, who climbed it because he wanted to (he is considered to be the first tourist) and about his romance with Laura.  It had been a colorful and fascinating day, full of image and sound, and best of all, of story.