Monthly Archives: December 2010

We gathered around the sliced turkey, cranberries, gravy, sausage stuffing, spinach salad, green peas, brown-sugared yams, mashed potatoes, cornbread and yeast rolls.  We held hands, forming a circle around the kitchen island, we seventeen individuals from five families, forming one this Christmas Day, age nine to eighty.  We said Grace, thanking God for this bounty and for the great gift of his son in Bethlehem.

The rain had lifted slightly as dusk turned to dark, but most of our guests had arrived cold and wet from the storm.  Our cat Lady Jane, a black and white longhair we brought home from a shelter several years ago, waited in the entry as each person arrived, then rolled onto her back so that her tummy would be available to be scratched.  She loves parties.

Being in the warm indoors, surrounded by family and sharing our Christmas meal, the carols playing, my mind returned occasionally to the crèche in St. Peter’s, where now, I knew, the baby Jesus had been placed in his green manger bed, and beyond the altar would be adorned with red poinsettias.  We had waited through Advent for the empty crib to be filled, waited with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the star that rose over the Bethlehem shelter.  We waited with the animals, the other created beings on this good earth.  We all waited for our Creator to come to us.  God with us, Emmanuel.

Soon, around the dining table and sheltered from the rain, we exchanged stories of our lives, and toasted family and Christmas.  We noticed that a granddaughter was looking more and more like a certain ancestor, that a niece had grown up overnight, that a son had put on a few pounds.  We could see a little strain here, perhaps from overwork or over-worry, a little aging there, but renewed hope, for these few hours at least, everywhere.

Christmas, the waiting and the coming, has always carried a certain expectancy, a promise fulfilled.  The gentle Advent disciplines, the tiny twinkly lights strung on rooftops and trees, the harmonies of carolers, the gift-giving, even the frenzied shoppers, all add to this rising crescendo of expectation.  As children we waited for Santa, counting the days with great impatience.  We waited and we wondered if Santa received the list, and if so, what would he bring…?  As adults we continue to wait and wonder, caught up in the swirling activity of the approach of glory.

Some of us attend Christmas Eve services in the dark of night and, in candlelight and hushed quiet we sing carols, praying through the last hours of waiting.  When my son was young and I was a single parent, I sat with him in the first pew of Saint Peter’s before the crèche, hoping he could see the robed priests and the sacred movements about the altar and possibly stay awake, but by 10:30 he usually had slipped down onto the smooth wooden pew, his head in my lap, his five-year-old body stretched out, sound asleep.  As the liturgy ended, I hoisted him over my shoulder and into the car and we drove home through the starry night.  He would usually be awake now, and as one o’clock neared, we wondered if we could see Santa riding his sleigh through the deep blue night above.

Santa of course is a wonderful reflection of God the Father, demanding, loving, giver of great gifts.  In reality he was Saint Nicolas, fourth-century bishop, who not only gave gifts but took part in the Council of Nicaea, which helped to refine the Nicene Creed, the definitive statement of Christian belief. Santa Claus became a derivative of Sant’ Niklaus over the years, and his legend, while seized by retailers and pop singers, reflects in many ways the true meaning of Christmas.

For Christmas is indeed about giving, about giving to one another in love and sacrifice.  It is about God giving us his son, and about our response to that great gift.  Do we give ourselves back?  Christmas is Christ-Mass, the gift given to us in every Eucharist, every Mass, every Sunday.

As we gathered around the table for our Christmas feast, I thought of my Advent memory work, the first fourteen verses of John’s Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  Yes, I did indeed sort of memorize it, and the phrasing will stay with me forever, a delightful gift.  It is one of the Gospels appointed for Christmas Day and, as we toasted family and Christmas, the last phrase rang in my ears, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, that of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Yes, I thought, as I looked at the faces around my table, full of grace and truth, full of giving, full of Christmas.

The rain descended in torrents as we drove to church this dark morning, the Sunday before Christmas, a wonderful Sunday for it was the day of the annual Christmas Pageant.  Saint Peter’s welcomed us like an ark in stormy seas, and we headed toward the front door held open by Father Hauge, standing like a white-robed angel, greeting us.  We collapsed our umbrellas, grateful for the dry refuge of the narthex.

I headed to the Sunday School, following the sounds of the children’s high excited voices as they fitted into their costumes, and joined the joyful confusion of pins and ties and wings and head veils, adjusting here, shortening there.  Soon, soon, these young actors would process up the red carpet and take their places in the chancel.  Soon, they would tell the story of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.

And they did.  Each child, solemnly in turn, stepped up the long aisle, small figures in a large high-pitched nave, moving steadily with folded hands (pointing toward heaven, our director explained), toward the steps leading to the chancel and the purple-tented tabernacle.  There, before the altar, the children told the story of Mary and Joseph, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth of the Savior of mankind.  One of the young adults sang solo, her haunting soprano dancing into the sacred space, coloring it.  The choir sang from the loft at the western end of the nave, beneath the fiery glass of the Pentecost window, festooning the organ’s rich notes with their voices, weaving a tapestry of story and song.

We told the story Jesus’ birth.  We told of Adam’s disobedience, of Isaiah’s prophecies, of Archangel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, the maid of Nazareth.  We told how Mary said yes, let it be unto me according to thy word, of her journey with Joseph to Bethlehem.  We told about the stable, and the shepherds keeping watch and the heavenly host appearing in the night sky, and how they came to Bethlehem to see this great thing which had come to pass.  We told the story, a miraculous, stupendous story that still, after two thousand years, is sung throughout the world, in every continent, nation, town.  It is a story that is danced and prayed and celebrated.  We tell the story in hushed voices at bedtime to our children with pictures in large books with shiny pages.  The story is told in a jumble of ringing steeple bells, in concert halls with trumpets and choirs and orchestras.  We tell the story as we gather around a twinkling tree and give one another gifts, parts of ourselves, recalling God’s gift to us, his own Son, born in a manger.

We are a people who journey through the rainy world in our warm and dry ark of the Church.  We gather and tell our story of God’s great love.  Soon, soon, we will tell the second half of that story, why he came in such great humility, why Jesus came among us, his great sacrifice.  We will leave this warm place in front of the burning hearth and the starry tree to learn love’s truth, true love, as we journey through Lent to Easter.

Today at St. Peter’s we moved easily from the glory of Bethlehem into the liturgy of the Eucharist, and, as the Body of Christ, we prayed this great prayer of the Church.  We offered the story to God, and ourselves in that story, and he offered himself back to us. We left a richer, fuller, more glorious people, ready to return to the rainy world.

But before heading outside, we gathered together in the parish hall for champagne and cider, sandwiches and an amazing cupcake cake, thankful for this time of celebration, this time of glorious telling, this time of Christmas.

Today is Gaudete Sunday.  Today, at home and at church, we light the rose candle in addition to our two purple candles as we wait for Christmas, and the coming of Christ into our world.  Gaudete comes from the Latin “rejoice” and it is taken from the Introit for this Sunday, Gaudete in Domino semper, in turn taken from Philippians 4:4-5, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  It is a Sunday carrying a lighter tone in this season of quiet penitence and preparation.  Of the four themes of Advent – Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell – today we consider Heaven.

And for those of us who were present at the ordination yesterday, we were still floating in Heaven.

Yesterday we gathered to witness one of our members take his vows before our Archbishop Provence to become a deacon.  It was a day of great rejoicing, for Peter has been serving the parish faithfully for many years, and his sacrificial sanctity has grown visible in time.  These occasions are also ones of heartwarming unity, as clergy and out-of-town guests join us in the warm red nave and chancel before the tabernacle.  In some ways it is like a great re-union of fellow faithful from other parts of the diocese and I was thankful to see them once again.

We sang the bracing and embracing hymn, St. Patrick’s Breastplate, “I bind unto myself this day the strong name of the Trinity…” as the clergy, acolytes and our ordinand, robed in white, processed up the wide red carpet, parting the sea of pews, and took places in the chancel to the left and right of the altar.  Attributed to fifth-century St. Patrick, this song to the Trinity was a true warrior’s battle hymn, binding us to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and to one another as Christ’s Body.

As Anglo-Catholics, we act out our belief through liturgical drama.  As we moved through the service, the acolytes and deacons and priests assisting the archbishop in the sanctuary, we arrived at the moment for the singing of the Litany, a time of deep commitment.  Peter prostrated himself before the altar, his arms outstretched, his body forming its own cross on the red sanctuary carpet.  He lay before his Lord as the litanist chanted and we responded, “Lord have mercy…”  We prayed for Peter, who would soon receive the apostolic laying on of hands, and we prayed for ourselves, all connected to Peter in this moment of time, in this ark, the Church.

Soon a chair was placed at the head of the central aisle and Archbishop Provence took his seat, wearing his miter and holding his shepherd’s staff.  Peter would soon be one of his flock in a special way, for deacons belong to their bishops historically and so it is today.

Peter knelt before the archbishop and answered with a clear voice.  The archbishop instructed him in his duties as deacon: to assist in the Divine Liturgy, to distribute the Eucharist, to read Holy Scripture and homilies, to instruct the youth, to baptize in the absence of the priest, to preach with the bishop’s permission, to care for the sick, poor, and helpless of the community.  The archbishop then laid his hands on Peter’s head and gave him authority to do these things, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our new Deacon Towle donned his deacon’s red sash, worn angled from left shoulder to right side, then took his place in the chancel.  The liturgy of the Mass continued, our greatest prayer of thanksgiving, in which we offer ourselves to God and God offers himself to us, and we received this eucharistic incarnation given to us by Christ.

As the clergy recessed, the torches burning, the crucifix raised high, Archbishop Provence made the Sign of the Cross over our heads in blessing.  We sang “The Church’s one foundation /Is Jesus Christ her Lord; she is the new creation by water and the word: from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride; With his own blood he bought her, And for her life he died.”  Fighting words, I thought, words of strength to conclude the service which bound this soldier, this new Deacon Towle, to the Trinity, gave him the power to teach and to serve the Body of Christ the Church.

We gathered in the parish hall downstairs to share a meal, to congratulate our new deacon, and to give thanks for God’s many blessings to us, especially the gift of Deacon Peter Brown Towle.

Today was a true Gaudete Sunday, for we continued to rejoice in yesterday’s celebration, this moment of Heaven, as we witnessed the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a kind of incarnation in the Body of Christ.  And we continue to ponder Christ’s coming at Christmas, the historic incarnation of God among us.

The fog had drenched the garden, leaving puddles on the patio, cocooning the house.  We bundled into the car to go to church this morning, watching the skies part to reveal patches of blue.

It has been a week of excitement and of waiting and of prophecies, apocalypse, and Christ’s early ministry in Mark’s Gospel, reading the lessons of Morning and Evening Prayer.

The excitement in our house has been the release of my fourth novel, Hana-lani, a story which, as OakTara’s press release says, is compelling literary fiction, “A poignant journey that unravels T.S. Eliot’s permanent questions, what is goodness, truth and love?”  This short novel set in Hana, Maui, about the definition of love, was a joy to write, and to see it in print, holding it in my palm, was nearly like seeing a child born, certainly a child born of my heart.  On December 3 it appeared online on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and will be available in other venues soon.

Surrounding this birthing-joy is the waiting of Advent, this time of prayer and penitence, this time of reflection as the great festival of the Incarnation nears.  I have found that reading the Morning and Evening Offices in our Book of Common Prayer, while difficult at first (there is always something else to do), has renewed me as though I have gone on a restful retreat.  Setting the time aside (a mere 15-20 minutes) to move in the worlds of Isaiah’s fierce warnings and John’s apocalyptic answers has pulled me, in some way, outside of time, for this short time.  It is as though I have paused in my temporal life journey to inhabit another world, a world softly enshrouding and nourishing me.  I emerge from the cocoon of words and prayers, to see the blue sky.

It is like the Collect for Advent: give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life…, a prayer I am trying to memorize.

And it is like the first chapter of John’s Gospel, which I am attempting as well, after my meager success last Lent: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Darkness and light.  Advent is a dim time of partial darkness, the fog swirling about us, obscuring our vision, but we grope, we pray, we see Christ face-to-face in the Mass.  St. Peter’s today was like an ark, carrying us through this fog and dark, safe on the seas of this strange temporal world we live in.  The nave was warm with its oak pews and red carpet, the sanctuary welcoming with its purple altar hangings, the Advent wreath with two of the four candles burning brightly to the left, the Gospel side.  We sing together in this great ship of the Church, as the Body of Christ, O come o come Emmanuel… ransom captive Israel.  And as we journey through these few weeks before Christmas, we re-enact the great story of mankind, man’s own captivity, his own need for saving.  His own need for light, life, love.  We journey together, bound together by the love of God in his Church.

After Mass I watched the children rehearse the Christmas Pageant, their clear voices ringing through the nave, their small hands holding black binders with great intent.  The organ played and I knew this quiet gathering was only a rehearsal for the glory to come.

That first chapter of John’s Gospel, I had forgotten, is the assigned Gospel for Christmas Day.  An appropriate passage for Advent, I thought, as the fog cleared and a blue patch of sky showed me a bit of the heavens, as the light shone in the darkness…

Deo Gratias.