Keeping the Cradle

“With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant.”  Ecclesiasticus 44:11

For the last two weeks, our life at the beautifully renovated Saint Francis rectory has been pretty well hemmed in by cardboard boxes, packing tape and picture hangers.  We’re delighted to be here, but not really settled yet.  Moving is a chore of many agonies, as most of you will know well. 

But it has the advantage of forcing us to take stock, to declutter, to start again with a little less baggage than we were carrying before.  We pulled out some clothes that are too small for Peter, our five-year-old.  We figured out which Tupperware pieces really didn’t have lids and which socks were never to be matched again.

But we kept the cradle.  Even though it gets underfoot in the guest bedroom. Even though we don’t necessarily expect a third. Even though I’m mildly nervous I might come home one day to find our poor dog bundled in blankets inside it.

It was a gift from a kind, shy old man, Bud Miner, a member of Saint Paul’s Church in Sharpsburg, Maryland, the country parish where I first served as a rector.  Bud made it out of walnut in the little shed behind his house, polished it until it shone brightly and carved an M on the outside of the footboard.  It was presented to us at the end of the shower given for us by the good ladies of the ECW a few weeks before Philip was born.  Bud died years ago, not long after we sent him a picture of Peter being rocked in it, as his brother had been before. 

The cradle is beautiful on its own, and it’s beautiful as a sign of the love extended to us by the people at Saint Paul’s.  It may not be practical, and I expect the organizing gurus would tell us to snap a picture on the smartphone and move on.  But we keep it as a reminder of the good things of the past and our hopes for the future.  

I believe in the Holy Church

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

I Peter 2:9

The French author Georges  Bernanos published a few decades ago one of the more interesting sermons I have ever read.  What made it so interesting is that he wrote it from the perspective of an agnostic, an outsider to the Church.  If we let a unbeliever into one of our pulpits for twenty minutes on a Sunday morning, what exactly would he or she have to tell us about ourselves and the faith we claim to profess?  I will read you just a small portion of that sermon:

Need I remind you that God came in Person to the Jewish people.  They saw Him.  They heard Him.  Their hands touched Him.  They asked for signs; he gave them those signs.  He healed the sick and raised the dead.  Then he ascended once again to the Heavens.  When we seek Him now, in this world, it is you we find, and only you.  Oh, I respect the Church—but the history of the Church herself, after all, does not surrender its secret to the first-comer…It is you, Christians, who participate in divinity, as your liturgy proclaims; it is you ‘divine men’ who ever since His Ascension have been His representatives on earth.  Well, you must admit that one would hardly know it at first glance.[1] 

Life Around the Table-A Sermon for Corpus Christi

“And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."  Revelation 19:9

 In the home where I grew up back in Maryland, one of the most important days of the year was the first day of deer season, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  And in our house, it always began with a feast.  My grandmother began it before I can remember, hot breakfast around the kitchen table at 5:30 in the morning: eggs and pancakes, fried potatoes and bacon and sausage.  My mother has continued it, with the rather less enthusiastic assistance of her daughters-in-law.  Fifteen or twenty men usually crowd around the table, extended with all the leaves that can be found, and a card table or two besides. 

The theory is that if you want to stay warm on a bitter November day, you need something good in your belly.  Of course, the theory doesn’t give so much help with the other big challenge of deer hunting, which is staying awake on a bitter November day, and all those cups of coffee tend to create their own problems.

For Meditation: For the benefit of all

From my morning reading, Hughson's With Christ in God:

Whether in the Church Militant, in the Church Expectant, or in the Church Triumphant, we all partake of the life of the divine Head, and we all share it with one another.  Each soul participates in the life of every other soul in the Body of Christ, and whatever gifts, graces, or glory one receive, all receive, each in his appointed measure.  "If one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it," because the gifts of life and love, of grace and glory, made to one, flood every soul who abides in the same Mystical Body.  Every increment of glory in which the saints in heaven rejoice is the increase of the God-life to every soul in Christ.  On earth, every prayer and aspiration addressed to God, every good Communion made, every holy action performed, releases the further power and love of God for the benefit of all.  A little child half-way round the world offers a simple act of praise or prayer and each of us, even the saints in heaven, has an integral part in that act, and is stronger in the Lord, and in the power of His might, because of it.  Far away some soul, beset by temptation, tottering on the brink of the abyss of sin, is, by every exercise of the divine life in the humblest member of Christ, strengthened to stand the more stiffly against the assaults of the adversary, and to win a victory for the honour of God and the kingdom (378).

What's in a Name?

“Into the company of the blessed” is a phrase I’ve come to know and love from old collects and devotional prayers.  A prayer from Flowers of Piety (1840), for example, asks God that “I may believe in Thee, put my whole trust in Thee, love Thee above all things, and through the merits of Thy death and passion, be admitted into the company of the blessed, where I may praise Thee forever.”

In this prayer, the phrase clearly refers to the saints and angels who praise the Lamb forever.  This is the goal of the Christian life, to be with Christ and His saints in our true and lasting home.  To see Him and know His love completely is the greatest blessing of all, the promised rest at the end of this life’s struggles.  The hope of everlasting life and the communion of saints are among the strongest strains in my own spiritual life, themes toward which my meditations and writings often turn.