Second Week of Easter: Looking backward, looking forward


I was struck with a paradigm shift on Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is usually a high attendance day at St. Mary’s. It’s the one Sunday when most of our regular attenders all show up on the same day. When I’ve looked at all those beloved folk gathered on the first day of Holy Week, I feel like I have a glimpse into what the possibility is for more ordinary Sundays.

But not this year. Palm Sunday was a pretty average day, attendance wise. There were quite a few regulars off at the MS 150, volleyball tournaments, and other outside activities. It was at that moment that I realized that the lures of the world had even reached into the Bible belt.
For some time, I’ve known that it takes about a month’s time to see all of our faithful members. This was reinforced on a podcast I listened to last week that said that the trend is for active members to make it to Sunday worship once or twice a month on average.
I don’t see this as necessarily a bad thing. Sure, I’m at church every Sunday minus four for vacation and another two for continuing education, but it means that folks in the parish are out in the real mission field. How can we in the parish help them be the presence of Christ when their activities in the world trump worship? How can we in the parish make sure they have opportunities to be spiritually nourished enough to be that presence of Christ? Of course this is not a new thing, but I think that we in the Church have to find better ways to connect church and places where we are being Church.

I was at book group, one of my favorite non-St. Mary’s activities, several years back when we joined with another book group and met at a local book store to discuss the same book. I was definitely not there as a priest or a rector but as a woman who loves to read. However, in the midst of the conversation, somehow I was outed as the rector of the church on the corner. There was a lovely young mom there with nursing baby in tow, and she remarked that she had driven past St. Mary’s a number of times and thought about trying it out. She wanted to get her children involved in regular church worship and was curious about St. Mary’s. Another member of the group, a member of St. Mary’s, but frankly, one that doesn’t make it every Sunday, launched poetic into what a wonderful, welcoming place St. Mary’s was and what a wonderful priest I was.
That family of six, several years later, is one of our most active families. They have brought so much wonderful stuff to St. Mary’s by their participation–and I often think if I hadn’t gone to book group that night that they might not be at St. Mary’s. If I hadn’t had a life outside St. Mary’s, they might not have ever come. If that member of St. Mary’s hadn’t been there, too, to talk about her experience, they might not have ever given us a try.
Don’t get me wrong. I want everyone who calls St. Mary’s home to join us for worship every Sunday, but of course they won’t. It is one reason that we have Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer six days a week–so if they can’t come Sunday, they can connect with us at a more convenient time. But I pray about how we can empower them on those Sundays where they are off in the mission field–first by helping them be aware that they are in the mission field whenever they aren’t at St. Mary’s. That distraught dad standing next to them on the lacrosse field may need a praying, loving parish to help him have a little more of that peace that passes understanding. A kind word may be all that it takes for him to give us a try. No, we aren’t the parish for everyone, but I’m pretty certain that we are the parish for an awful lot of folk that haven’t had the courage to come and check us out. Our smile or invitation may be an answer to a prayer they don’t even know they are praying.

Easter Wednesday

St. Mary’s Stations of the Resurrection: Station Five

O God,
whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread:
Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may behold him in all his redeeming work;
who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.


From Luke 24:13-35

Now on that same day, the first day of the week, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him…………..
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.


Easter Tuesday

O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
destroyed death and brought lif
may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be dominion and praise for ever and ever.
Amen.


Every Holy Saturday, the Stations of the Cross that are on the wall of the nave of the church where I serve are taken down and replaced by the Stations of the Resurrection. These Stations celebrating the events in the life of the risen Lord remain until Holy Cross Day in September. Though the Stations of the Cross have been prayed by the faithful since the fourth century, the Stations of the Resurrection, or Stations of Light as the Roman Catholics call them, are a late twentieth century practice.

St. Mary’s Stations of the Cross and Stations of the Resurrection are both collages created by our talented Music Director, Celeste Booker. The third station, Jesus meets Mary Magdalene, is the Gospel reading appointed in the lectionary for Tuesday in Holy Week.

Christ is in the Midst of us!

He is, and ever shall be!

John 20:11-18
Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.