Stations of the Resurrection: The Incredulity of St. Thomas
April 12th, 2012 Comments Off
The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Cynthia Brome
Jesus and Thomas — John 20:24-29
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
As much as I plan and pray and try every year, Lent can still get to be a drag after a while. Yes, there, I said it. What I look forward to most is the vespers before Triduum. It’s a beautiful service called The Office of Tenebrae and some of us make the pilgrimage up to St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue for theirs … it’s funny, when I first started going to St. Luke’s I would see other St. Luker’s there and think we were all doing something sneaky and slightly naughty, and that’s kind of hilarious to me in hindsight … as the last rays of the winter sun are setting, the service begins. The service feels very monastic and is treated with great reverence. As we walk in, we see a hearse in the chancel with seven candles glowing brightly. From St. Thomas’ website:
Tenebrae means “shadows” and refers to the gradual extinguishing of candles and lights as the service proceeds, until only one candle remains. This service anticipates the monastic offices for the last three days of Holy Week.
The choir and cantors progress through a series of antiphons and Psalms. At the end of each Psalm, a candle is extinguished and the lights high above the congregation are dimmed a bit more. … The Lord’s Prayer is said, and a series of three lessons and three responsories are sung. This is followed by the Lauds, another series of antiphons and Psalms during which three more candles are extinguished and now the nave of the church is very near dark.
Near the end of the canticle, acolytes emerge to extinguish the altar candles, leaving only the seventh candle lit.
During the repetition of the antiphon after the canticle, the Verger climbs a ladder, removes the candle, and as the choir sings the motet, she takes it toward the High Altar, through the Sanctuary gate, and then hides it in a small room hidden behind the door to the north side of the High Altar.
The congregation says the Lord’s Prayer and the choir sings the Miserere. The Officiant says a prayer and adds (whispering to himself under his breath): “…who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.”
A loud sound fills the church. Christ is dead. The organ is outraged; the choristers beat their books against their stalls.
Then, in complete silence, the candle emerges from its hiding place. It is returned to its place high above the chancel. By its light all leave in silence.
In my heart, I’m a simple farm gewrl and I’m not impressed by fancy city things but I gotta tell you, even after living in New York all these years, I can’t describe the awe I feel sitting in that landmark built in 1911. As you’re listening to the plainchant of the Psalms, you’re staring at the 60 figures of the magnificent reredos which is 80 feet high, with every Saint and Angel imaginable standing over you. As the lights begin to be extinguished, you marvel at the vaulted ceilings which disappear in to the heavens like the enchanted ceiling in the Hogwarts refectory, and you realize the building is stone on stone, without any steel reinforcing, and then all you can see is the blue-you’ve-never-imagined-in-the-sunset-blue stained glass windows in a darkened church. You’re lulled in to a meditative trance, shedding yourself of the Lenten discipline, preparing yourself for the upcoming services, pushing thoughts of the busy-ness of Holy Week out of your mind and then BAM ! someone LEANS on the organ, the choristers HAMMER their books against the stalls, drumming, drumming, you’re shocked in to a wall of noise and realize the Christ is DEAD ! We’re left ALONE in this world! and the rest is silence. Your ears are ringing from the clamour and you’re brought back stunned in to your body, in to the darkness. Alone. Then, praise the name of God, we see a dim flicker, a promise, a hope, very far away, and we realize the Light of the World is still among us. We realize God would never leave us in this world alone, to stumble about. We see the candle coming slowly toward us, bobbing in the darkness, growing larger and brighter and finally, FINALLY, being re-placed in the hearse to flicker among us again. There is hope that soon the skies will fill with full light and the dawn wil rise. There is hope that soon we will be rejoined to our Savior.
It’s impossible to convey to you on a page the impact this service has on me. There were tears in my eyes and chills down my spine in just typing it. One year I remember coming out of the service, during a particularly hard Lent, and yelling, “I buy it ! I get it ! I believe it all !” because I think many people think we’re crazy to dedicate our entire lives to a system of thinking based on stories of a virgin birth and a resurrected Saviour. This is why I think poor old “Doubting” Thomas gets a bum rap.
Firstly, it’s alarming and comforting that Thomas said something while Jesus was supposedly dead in the tomb and then when Jesus shows up he knows the doubts Thomas had uttered. Secondly, it’s always been completely trippy to me that Jesus has Thomas stick his hand in Jesus’ wounds.
I grew up severely Roman Catholic where we celebrated a Tridentine Mass and there were crucifixes everywhere – some mild, some alarming, some dripping blood, some with the corpus looking at you, and, especially around Holy Week, some of the priests would get in to describing the scourging of Christ and his crucifixion in vivid detail, impressing upon us all how our sins had caused the necessity of his propitiation and every slight we committed was a hammer hitting a nail deeper in to Jesus’ flesh. Nice, right? We were, like, seven. So, anyway, I think whenever I heard the telling of this story of Thomas, I pushed this vivid details in to the back of my mind and didn’t truly contemplate what it actually looked like when Thomas stuck his fingers in Christ’s wounds.
This beautiful gift from Cindy at first shocked me and then brought me comfort. I would never have had the nerve to doubt Jesus openly. I would have, as is often said of our Blessed Virgin, “hid these things in my heart”. The fact that Thomas was bold enough to express his doubt I believe took a great deal of courage. But what is most striking to me about this incident brings to mind that old chestnut: “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.” Even with the witnesses I have at Tenebrae, each of us has a different experience, but in the telling I can’t explain how completely at peace you are and how jarring the hammering is and what it does to your spirit. I myself am moved beyond words and I come out of it all tingly and ready for Holy Week. Many people could report they had seen Jesus risen from the dead, but Jesus secured a host of witnesses while Thomas was probing his wounds so that ALL present could say, I was there … I SAW Thomas’ hand disappear in to the marks in His hands, I SAW Thomas’ hand disappear in to His side … so that through Thomas’ doubt, we were all given a special gift, a first-hand account, a witness. I also think this is why we’re called in to communion together … not to experience our faith on our own, but together with like minds and compassionate hearts.
We must humble ourselves enough to come to God with our doubts and fears. God is so faithful to offer us kindness and guidance and support in leading us through our doubts and in to the blessed assurance of knowledge and understanding. This is our resurrection journey … the pursuit of Wisdom through our faith. The gift is the true peace of complete knowing.
- dasch
Parish Interview: Tom Wharton
April 10th, 2012 § 1 Comment
St. Luke in the Fields Blog: What was your formation experience like in the process to be Confirmed?
Tom Wharton: It’s been just about six months since I first walked into a Monday evening Eucharist at St. Luke’s on an impulse that I now understand was the working of the Holy Spirit. It didn’t take long before I realized that I was caught up in a current that I couldn’t, and didn’t want to resist. When I looked
around at the people at St. Luke’s, the commitment, the passion, the community, and the joy, I knew that wanted to be part of the Formation Group, although frankly, I didn’t really understand what formation meant. Looking back over the experience now, I can see that in addition to having been joined to a body of people with whom I feel at home in a life in Christ, I’ve also come away
two additional gifts.
The first gift is that I think I finally have a sense of who I am, and in turn how to be myself. For many reasons, this has always has been difficult for me. I think the main reason is that I’ve always been the kind of person who lives in their head. For a whole lot of reasons, it seems as though I was trying to think my way through life, planning and controlling events and people as much as I could to ensure that things would go as I thought they should. I don’t think I entirely
trusted my heart—which to me meant out of control feelings, which needed to be watch and kept under control like beautiful, but poisonous flowers. And, let’s face it, when you live in your head, there isn’t really much room for mystery.
I discovered that the Truth of God is a body, mind, heart, and soul experience. Because the formation process forced me to engage and question everything about myself—what I think, feel and believe, I came to realize that the way to God was to relax into the truth of who I am, and that all of us are wonderful, unique expressions of the ultimate Truth—God’s love. When I sit with this
knowledge, how can I not be happy and at peace. Being myself has become much easier for me. When I love, I am myself, the most myself I can be.
The second gift was the path to humility. The realization of this came during a Eucharist when we were all bowing while confessing our sins. I realized how foreign, unpleasant and unnatural the idea of bowing—humbling myself—was
to me. Maybe it’s an American thing. We don’t bow to anyone… we’re self reliant… we’re masters of our fate… only the weak grovel. I’ve learned through formation that when something feels unusual, foreign, or I have just plain resistance to something, there may be an opportunity for growth.
So, I gave into it. I started bowing and meaning it, and it opened my heart to the gratitude I have for my life and the knowledge that everything—down to every breath I take—is a gift. And, when I have so many gifts, gifts that I did nothing to earn, how can I not praise and thank God. At the same time, when I have been given so much in spite of my sins, how can I not love and forgive others who are no better than I. I guess it all comes down to the fact that the gifts of humility are gratitude and forgiveness. I want my life to be about gratitude and forgiveness, and I see the path is through humility.
Coming up to the Easter Vigil and my confirmation, I began to regret that the process, which had been so consuming, was nearly over. But on Easter morning, I felt completely different. I woke up realizing that this was just the beginning, and more importantly, I had the feeling that I had found my home—the place where I belonged. Home is where you are always welcome, where people are
glad to see you, and where you can just be yourself. Home is where your family is.
Home…
You take home with you in your heart wherever you go, and wherever my life journey takes me, I will have St. Luke’s in my heart. Through the formation process, I was lucky to have Robert McVey as my sponsor. The very first
time we met, he suggested that I write a prayer. I’ve revised it a few times as I’ve moved through the weeks and months. I don’t actually say it as a prayer—in some ways, who needs anything else buy what Jesus gave us in The Lord’s Prayer. But, the act of writing it and refining it has become a prayer for me, taking me back again and again to trying to express my deepest feelings about God.
LORD,
Father,
Open my eyes.
Let me see your face
In all of your creation.
In beginnings,
And endings.
Teach me to pray.
Open my mind
To the language
Of your mystery.
My heart,
To the music
Of your
WORD.
Give me the courage to love.
Thank you.
For this day,
For my life,
For my people,
For my gifts,
Unearned,
Freely given.
Show me my work.
Send me into the world,
One, whole, shining reflection,
Of your union,
Your compassion,
And GRACE.
Deliver me.
Created,
Accepted,
And forgiven.
With,
And in
CHRIST,
I reach for you,
And freely return
My life to you,
In love.
When my time comes,
Take me home.
Icon: The Resurrection—The Descent into Hell (The Anastasis)
April 9th, 2012 Comments Off
The Resurrection—The Descent into Hell (The Anastasis), Basilica Cattedrale Patriachale di San Marco, Venezia, Italy. 11th Century.
Passion Hymn: The Reproaches — John Sanders
April 6th, 2012 § 2 Comments
Sung by the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir, London, directed by John Scott.
Maundy Thursday
April 5th, 2012 Comments Off
For those of you wondering what it is, and for those of you who know what it is and are just amused by how Wikipedia describes it:
Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great and Holy Thursday, Sheer Thursday and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Maundy and Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Canonical gospels.[1] It is the fifth day of Holy Week, and is preceded by Spy Wednesday and followed by Good Friday.[2]
The date is always between 19 March and 22 April inclusive, but these dates fall on different days depending on whether the Gregorian or Julian calendar is used liturgically. Eastern churches generally use the Julian calendar, and so celebrate this feast throughout the 21st century between 1 April and 5 May in the more commonly used Gregorian calendar. The liturgy held on the evening of Maundy Thursday initiates the Easter Triduum, the period which commemorates the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ; this period includes Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and ends on the evening of Easter.[3][1] The mass or service of worship is normally celebrated in the evening, when Friday begins according to Jewish tradition, as the Last Supper was held on feast of Passover.[4]
Derivation of the name “Maundy”
Most scholars agree that the English word Maundy in that name for the day is derived through Middle English and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John 13:34 by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet. The phrase is used as the antiphon sung during the “Mandatum” ceremony of the washing of the feet, which may be held during Mass or at another time as a separate event, during which a priest or bishop (representing Christ) ceremonially washes the feet of others, typically 12 persons chosen as a cross-section of the community.
Others theorize that the English name “Maundy Thursday” arose from “maundsor baskets” or “maundy purses” of alms which the king of England distributed to certain poor at Whitehall before attending Mass on that day. Thus, “maund” is connected to the Latin mendicare, and French mendier, to beg.[37][38] A source from the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod likewise states that, if the name was derived from the Latin mandatum, we would call the day Mandy Thursday, or Mandate Thursday, or even Mandatum Thursday; and that the term “Maundy” comes in fact from the Latin mendicare, Old French mendier, and English maund, which as a verb means to beg and as a noun refers to a small basket held out by maunders as they maunded.[39]
The Eighth Station: Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb
April 5th, 2012 Comments Off
This is will be a hard read.
“Jesus being laid in the tomb” is the one time everything becomes still in the Gospels. So ominously, in fact, that it has implications for each of us and the churches where we worship. God has lost His Son for the sake of love to this grave and the bewilderment we experience in serious meditation upon this fact brings everything to a precipice. Indeed, the silence of the sepulcher confronts us with a spirituality which is the scourge of a domesticated Christianity. In philosophical terms, the tomb brings us to the edge of a desert experience and all the coarse, rough-and-ready comments about our lifestyle that goes with it.
But how can laying Jesus to rest send us and our ecclesial trappings into the wilderness and out of our comfort zone? The answer is found in the atmosphere invoked by Our Lord’s abrupt end and our intention to take seriously what has happened. All bets are off.
Like a rifle shot Jesus goes to Jerusalem and orchestrates a grand and symbolic entrance into the city. Of course he goes to the temple; confrontation is in the air. To be Jesus there is a certain inevitability to all this. Tension builds…his death is a terrible public spectacle. Then, thud, he’s dead…just like the rest of us one day. Jesus is tenderly placed in a borrowed tomb—imagine laying out a dead child and closing the door. Invoking similar thoughts of a deceased loved one are helpful but such recollections—even memories of Jesus alive and well–separate us from the “now” of what is occurring.
Sitting alongside Jesus’ cold, dead corpse is troubling yet if we can do so with courage deep forces are stirred. When keeping a vigil with a body there is a feeling that the room is emptier than before. We feel troubled thinking, other than honoring the dead, “There really is nothing here.” In meditative terms that discomfort is a cue that a boundary has been approached. That restless emptiness, a panic maybe, can bring us to an open, featureless land. In this case it is brought on by thoughts of death yet it’s also an invitation from all spiritual paths to enter many sorts of deserts and places we fear. (1)
The desert is any uncharted terrain beyond the edges of structure, a world of order we cannot imagine ever ending. Yet it does. At that point where the world begins to crack, where disorientation suddenly overtakes us, there we step into wide, silent plains of a desert we had never known. We cross sands, stripped of influence and reputation, the desert caring nothing for (our) worries and self-importance. In the desert everything is lost. (2)
If we enter this uncharted territory by matching the desert’s indifference and with our own prayerful attentiveness to what’s really important a new level of clarity comes into view. Pretense, suffocating niceness, and too-cozy support of the status quo are items tossed off the caravan trail by a church now focused on lean and honest survival.
And what of our footsteps…can we allow God to direct our desert walk as He will? Can we linger in those impromptu meetings we so often avoid? If so, we find companions like ourselves, broken, fumbling in courage, on this journey of discovery who live fiercely, strive honestly and love uncompromisingly. We are bewildered by their offer of affection and loyalty with no strings attached. We know that’s so because our worth is summed up only by our person; it’s all we’ve got. “The deepest mystery of love is never realized apart from the experience of having nothing to offer in return. Only there does love reveal itself in unaccountable wonder.” (3)
- The Rt. Rev. George Packard, Retired Episcopal Bishop to the Armed Services and Federal Ministry
(1 ,2,3) The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, Belden C. Lane, Oxford Univ. Press, 1998, (Desert Father Evagrius, among others, commended this “desert habitus of contemplative prayer”), pp 11, 249, 252, 195, note,271.
James Middleton painted the Stations of the Cross for the Church of St. Luke in the Fields. Learn more about this series in his artist’s statement.
Lenten Reflection: Faithfulness in the Midst of Wilderness
April 4th, 2012 Comments Off
I often describe Lent to my parishioners as a time set aside each year to practice faithfulness in the midst of wilderness. When Lent comes around, we may, or may not, be in the midst of actual, in-the-moment spiritual wilderness, but sooner or later – in the season of Lent or in some other season of our lives – at least a bit of wilderness will inevitably fall. So in this season of the church year, we learn how to be faithful even in the midst of those more difficult times. And we learn through continued practice, again and again. The work is never really done. We always have more to learn and we always can grow ever deeper in our spiritual maturity.
The same is true in our commitment to justice. Despite the amazing strides we, as a church and as a society, have made in recent generations, the truth is, the struggle for justice for all of God’s people is ongoing. In the past few weeks, I’ve seen a few theater pieces that have reminded me of this anew. As a part of my own spiritual disciplines of self-care and nurturing my creative tendencies, I regularly go to the theater and reflect on what I’ve seen. Recently I’ve seen two shows that have reminded me that the work of striving for justice for all is not yet finished.
One (perhaps unlikely) source for this reminder was found in the current off-Broadway revival of Carrie – a musical adaptation of the 1976 horror film of the same name. You can read my full review here (http://www.jonmrichardson.com/2012/03/fcs-carrie.html), but the
take-away for me was a firm reminder that – despite incredible progress – we still live in society where misogyny and bullying are very real, and that those realities continue to have tragic consequences.
Also, earlier this week, I saw the current Broadway revival of the Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. (Full review at http://www.jonmrichardson.com/2012/03/fcs-porgy-and-bess.html) Though we in the United States have been consistently struggling with racial inequality for many generations, our work there is nowhere near ended, either.
As Vice President for National Affairs of IntegrityUSA, people often ask me, “Haven’t we already won?” It’s true that openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clergy are the norm in many of our dioceses. It’s true that openly LGBT parishioners are welcomed and fully assimilated into many more of our congregations. It’s true that we now even have bishops who are openly gay and lesbian. But if we can learn anything from our sisters and brothers in other justice movements, it’s that the struggle for equal access to God’s justice in human institutions continues long after the initial signs of progress are won.
Justice is not so much a goal as it is a discipline. That’s why the work of IntegrityUSA is still important, even in the shadow of the incredible progress we’ve made in recent years. That’s why we still need to keep showing up to General Convention, and why we still need to keep educating and empowering people at every level of the church.
Just as we have to keep practicing Lent, we have to keep practicing Justice. The reign of God is still too much a dream. Wilderness is still too near.
- The Rev. Jon M. Richardson, Priest-in-Charge, St. Paul’s Church in Bergen
Parish Interview: Andrew Goldhor
April 3rd, 2012 Comments Off
St. Luke in the Fields Blog: Lent actually originated in the early Church as a period of six weeks intended to instruct and train those new converts desiring to be baptized into the faith. What advice would you give to the newly baptized/confirmed/received coming into our church?
Andrew Goldhor: Lent is a season of preparation and examination, a time to get ready to baptize and confirm new and rededicated members of the body of Christ, and an opportunity for all of us to stand back and look at our lives as followers of Christ and people made in God’s likeness, and to imagine new possibilities.
The language of the baptismal covenant reminds us that even as we move through a time of considering our sins and omissions, we do it as a people marked as Christ’s own forever.
Maybe by this point in Lent you have started to test those disciplines. Perhaps you have held fast to the denial of some treasured treat. Chocolate? Television? Alcohol?
Or there are those of us who have added a new spiritual practice for Lent. We may have taken on yoga, meditation, or a more regular reading of scripture.
These are all wonderful possibilities for reflection and prayer, but it is important to remember that our disciplines do not secure our relationship to God. God’s grace is given to us, not because of anything we do, but because God loves us.
A dear friend of mind tells of her time working as a foster care case worker here in New York. Her supervisor was a beautiful and very kind woman, particularly to the scared and clueless new caseworker.
And she had a big personality. She had a booming voice that you could hear from anywhere in the office. But the thing that was the most striking was that she called everyone, caseworkers and clients, “Beloved.”
She did it when you came in in the morning– “Hi, Beloved.” Or when she was telling someone what to do—“Get your case notes up to date, Beloved.”
But the most compelling moments came when she did it in the midst of yelling at someone, “Listen, Beloved, you need to show up in court tomorrow.” And she really meant it. She believed deeply in God’s love for everyone, and reminded them, herself, and everyone else of this love, even when it was most difficult.
My friend has always recalled this expression, and spoke of her thanks for the message of that belovedness, which can be so hard to accept or to really believe for ourselves.
And so it is at that intersection of God’s freely bestowed grace, and our reflections that we can begin to glimpse what God has created us for. Frederick Buechner, a favorite theologian of mine, articulates the message as this:
It is our business, as we journey, to keep our hearts open to that, to the bright-winged presence of the Holy Ghost within us and the Kingdom of God among us, until, little by little, compassionate love begins to change from a moral exercise, from a matter of gritting our teeth and doing our good deed for the day, into a joyous, spontaneous, self-forgetting response to the most real aspect of all reality, which is that the world is holy because God made it and so is every one of us as well.
As we walk towards Jerusalem with Christ, we know that are to die with him. And yet, through God’s abundant grace we know too that we shall be raised in new life with Jesus. This is the promise of the Easter morning ahead.
In that day, we realize that we do not do good to become closer to God, but rather that are we God’s and so we have been made good, and it is our very nature to share this love with one another.
Icon: Crucifixion
April 2nd, 2012 Comments Off
Artist’s Narrative:
The angel’s fiery sword will no longer guard the gate of Paradise, for the Cross of the Lord has put it out wondrously. The power of death has been broken, the victory of Hades wiped out, and You, my Savior, have stood up and called out to all those bound in hell: “Come now, and enter into heaven!”
(Byzantine Lenten Hymn)
Crucifixion Icon by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM
(To view more icons from this artist, please visit Trinity Stores at https://www.trinitystores.com/)
Lenten Hymn: What Wondrous Love Is This?
March 30th, 2012 § 1 Comment
Originating from from Appalachia in the early 1800s, William Walker added this hymn to his musical composition book, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion – 1835. Starting from a plaintive question, the hymn ends with a resounding conviction in the love of God, a love that stronger than death and one that lives on past the grave. May we all, sing on, sing on.
What Wondrous Love Is This?
Music: From The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, by William Walker (New York: Hastings House, 1835)
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.
When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb Who is the great “I Am”;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.
