Pentecost 1 2014

The renewed stretch of Ordinary Time which marks the last portion of the Liturgical Year is no longer misperceived as ordinary in the sense of uninteresting, but ordinary in the sense of a regular motion of the weeks and months by which we measure our progress toward the goal and the Gift we have received.
- Dr. Jeff Mirus

When I was younger during the summer months, I remember the church bulletins each week noting that we were commemorating the Nth Sunday in “Ordinary Time.” This denotation always seemed to point to the fact that this extended period had neither the joy of the months before and after Christmas nor the penitence/celebration of the months before and after Easter. Now that I am an Episcopalian, and while I am thankful that we mark the time as successive weeks as “Sundays after Pentecost.” While not pushing the “ordinary” or “typical” feel to the weeks, there is a sense that this is not really a season at all, but rather a time of normality.

Dr. Mirus invites us to be sure not to miss the gift of normality we experience during our summer and autumn cycles. Our Sundays may not have the power distinctions which correspond to the major events in the Gospels, but they do have the very wonderful teachings and incidents in the life of Christ. We enjoy the intimate and inspiring parables and teachings on the Kingdom of Heaven, a kingdom that is especially near since Jesus’ incarnation. We have a special treat in Paul’s teachings from the Letter to the Romans. Depending on tracks used, we are reminded of stories from the Torah, or witnesses from the prophets.

There is nothing simple about ordinary time. In fact, in its separation from the Christmas and Easter cycles, our Sunday worship actually focuses not on narratives but on faith, on practice, on living the life of a disciplined Christian. How we believe is how we pray; how we pray guides what we believe. Sundays spent in thoughtful reflection of all of our religious texts and sharing of the Holy Communion in community are even more special during this ordinary time.

Many churches, including ours, see declining attendance during the warmer summer months, as we find ourselves vacationing, engaging in many more activities, or even just relaxing after a very busy and productive winter and spring. Hopefully, you will also find time to spend an hour with your faith family at St. Mary’s, sharing smiles, fellowship, and Good News, all of which remind us that this ordinary time after Pentecost is anything but ordinary!

Peace,

Fr. Shawn

Easter 2 - 2014

After the service was over, and the congregation went into Downey Hall for treats and desserts, I was asked the questions "How do you feel?" and "Do you feel any different?" by many people. I responded by telling them, "No, I don't feel physically different," and I followed that up, saying, "In the sense of being mentally and spiritually different, I can indubitably sense a change." After Confirmation, the Church views Confirmands as adults. After hearing that I was now seen as an adult through the eyes of the Church, I knew there was something new and different about me. I am a new person. I am someone who can be looked up to. I am partitioned from childhood. I am now an adult in the Episcopal Church. I am confirmed, not conformed.

-          Seamus Clerkin, Spring 2014

What difference does it make? Learning more about our faith, our traditions, our rites, our mission – in the course of several weeks, a group of four young people from several churches in Erie county came together to walk through an intense exploration in preparation for confirmation in the Episcopal church.

I tried to remember my own confirmation experience at Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church in Johnsonburg. It’s odd what stands out in my mind: the choice of Augustine for my confirmation name (because he was naughty in his younger years but still found a way to be canonized), singing “Come Holy Spirit” verses and drawing Bishop Murphy’s attention, my wonderful  spiritual mentor and friend, St. Angela Marie Servidio, who encouraged my growth in the Christian faith.

And I remember what Seamus described. A change – something about me had shifted at the moment of confirmation. I was no longer a child, and while I was still young in faith (what the Church used to call the stage of Mystagogy (post-Easter neophyte member in the ancient tradition), I was no longer naïve. I had knowledge, and I had a role in the mission of the work of Jesus Christ.

I can remember other moments of change heightened by the sacramental rites: becoming Almi’s husband in the rite of marriage, being made a priest in the rite of ordination. Each time, something inside and outside changed – ontologically changed. My very essence was different; the moment before I was not, then as a result of sacramental sign in words said, hands laid on, and oil applied, I became someone new.

Seamus’ words on what happened to him at confirmation are worth all of our reflection. How often do we consider just how much we changed when we became full members of our faith tradition? How often do we affirm our own participation in the Jesus work in the world? How often do we recognize that as a result of Christ’s love and invitation, we are not nor can ever be who we were before our transformation in the sacrament of confirmation?

Thank you, James, Koby, Mauri, and Seamus, for your willingness to be confirmed in faith, and for confirming in us our call to share in Jesus’ mission of love and forgiveness in our broken world.

Peace,

Fr. Shawn

Easter 2014

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
- John 1:5

The Easter ham and lamb have been roasted, devoured, and the leftovers have been zip-locked and frozen. The chocolate bunnies and painted eggs have also been eaten, and the baskets put away in plastic bins to store safely. Networks have reverted back to regular serial programming, leaving behind epic tales which will not be broadcast until next spring.

Yet, if we take breathe in the reality of the moment, we must affirm that our story of salvation is one that we tell each and every time we gather in faith. Our weekly Sunday Holy Eucharist is a thanksgiving for the gift of life. Even our burial services are understood as Easter celebrations, as we remember the end of the power of Death and the assurance of our eternal life in Christ.

We must also recognize the power of this message – that in Christ all are made alive. This means that the power of salvation lies in Christ’s omnipotence. This means that the powers of this world are gelded by the eternal power of divine love. Whenever the powers of this present age try to diminish or replace Christ’s strength, they become scandals to that love.

Certainly secular temporal authorities are threatened by this Good News – if they cannot control the masses with threats physical well-being or with the attempt to negate things spiritual and eternal, then Christ wins. For non-believers, the threat is belief in things not seen, and the threat is real. Political structures from ancient Rome to the present time have discounted the power of hope, or abused faith by exacting payment, literal and figurative, from believers looking to a heavenly reward for earthly suffering. Regardless, the secular powers will discredit or abuse the faithful.

Institutional religion, however, can be just a threatened by Christ’s universal invitation. For two millennia various Christian groups have tried to be more than just evangelists of the Gospel; they have tried to mediate Christ’s judgment, essentially placing themselves between the faithful and the promise of eternal life. By doing so, religions have usurped the power of Christ and tried to demand a fealty for salvation. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, various individuals and denominations have discovered that power to stand between the faithful and the Cross has been taken away, forcing them to redefine their evangelistic work in the world.

So, the Easter message isn’t static or played out, nor is it impotent or unimportant. It is vibrant, dangerous, empowering, controversial, and as vital as it was when the empty tomb was first discovered. It does, indeed, bring all things into the light. To downplay the extra-ordinariness of Resurrection is to miss the meaning of the entire salvation story: in Christ, we are saved, saved from eternal death, and invited into eternal life.

Alleluia!

In Christ’s peace,
Fr. Shawn

When in Here....(thanks, Mike White!)

My wife and I recently returned from an inspiring trip to Rome. “The Eternal City” is for many, if not the cradle, then the nursery of Christianity. Throughout the city, religious and public art overwhelm with a sense of living in the midst of history.

While the churches are full of tourists, students, and the needy, they are not necessarily full of the faithful. After receiving ashes early in the morning at St. Sabina’s on the Aventine Hill, we were surprised the rest of the day to see no one else with a mark on their foreheads. We weren’t embarrassed to have ashes smudged on our skin – how could we be embarrassed when surrounded by shrines of early century martyrs who truly suffered. It did, however, remind us that faith, lived with immediacy and relevancy, can be a catalyst in the lives of others, especially when embraced publically and not privately.

Each major religion has seasonal times of self-examination. For Christians in the catholic traditions, Lent is our forty days of penitence, wisely placed at the end of winter and before the tilling of the spring, to reflect on where we have been, where we are, and where we hope to be in our relationship to God, but also to one another. In our external sign of the season of Lent, and in our internal life of prayerful reflection, we became tangible embodiment of current faith walking the ancient paths.

In THE HOUSE OF THE SOUL, modern mystic and spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill comments that our interior life, lived in the natural and supernatural sense, must be balanced with the external world around us, what she calls “the city.” For Lent calls us not just to self-examination, but to also scrutinize our relationships with our neighbors. Our moments of penitence might be more meaningful if we not let our interior examination prevent our outward gaze. Taking time for self is important, but the self is always in relationship to the other, our neighbors, and “the city” that helps us to live a life that is visibly celebrated in faith.

Pax,

Fr. Shawn

Epiphany 6 2014

So I hope that you will tell this tale tomorrow

It will help your heart remember and relive
It will help you feel the anger and the sorrow

And forgive

- "Why We Tell the Story" from ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens

In our Holy Eucharist we find a delicate and powerful balance between the two parts to the service - the Word of God and the Holy Communion. In both parts of the service, there are a series of calls and responses from the ministers and the congregation, phrases repeated week after week, and gestures and postures assumed as we participate in the celebration, our principle Sunday worship.

For those who do not come from a liturgical background, our standing, kneeling, repeating and gesturing can be confusing. In reality it can even be confusing to us. Why do some of us bow our heads at the mention of the Trinity, or even when the directions in the worship allow us to stand for the Eucharistic prayer, why do some of us always kneel through that portion of the service? And the readings from the Holy Scriptures; why do we cycle through them ever three years, repeating the same patterns, hearing the same readings read and explained/unpacked in the homilies and sermons offered by the preachers?

This month, the Erie Playhouse is producing the Lynne Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty musical, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, based on Rosa Guy's 1985 novel MY LOVE, MY LOVE. In the context of the stage production, a small community is confronted by a terrible and awesome storm which frightens one of the young people. In order to allay her fears, the community come together to tell and act out a story of love, beautiful and painful, heartrending and life affirming. The story not only distracts the young girl from her fear, but also instills community values of love and forgiveness, acceptance and hope.

Anyone who sees the musical cannot help but make a connection to our own community, often gathered together in times of struggle or question. And just as the virtual stage community tells its stories to bind the members together and to reassure them of their future, our faith community gathers together, hearing stories and songs from our thousands of years of salvation history. We note the challenges to faith, and the moments of desolation and sadness, but also the moments of glory and celebration.

These stories are shared in the service of the Word, and they are re-called and re-membered in our Holy Communion, when Christ's own words of reassurance and promise are shared with us, making something that happened two thousand years ago very real and very present. It is an action at once pure and simple, and at the same time immensely complex. And still, we share the scriptures, we pray together, we approach the altar, and we share a meal.

We tell the stories, in word and gesture, in prayer and silence, and we, too, rely on our Sunday worship to help us relive and forgive.

Peace in Christ,

Fr. Shawn

Epiphany 2014

The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

-          Isaiah 60:3

The Season of Epiphany is a season of recognizing how the Light of Christ shines in the lives to whom he was revealed. In our scripture readings for this extended season this year (primarily from the Gospel of Matthew), we hear time after time of how God’s salvation was being made in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. From his baptism through his purification through his ministry, those with whom he came into contact were shown the light of salvation and recognized Jesus as the Messiah.

Our final few Sundays are linked to Matthew’s sharing of Jesus penultimate teaching, the Sermon on the Mount. In these extended discourses (which may or may not have been from a single communicative moment, but which encapsulate the essence of Jesus’ message) Jesus shares with his disciples, followers and curious onlookers the endless desire of God to reach God’s people, to break down barriers of doubt, and to empower the listeners to share the Good News in confidence.

This message is one of challenge, though, as it requires the listener to eschew habitual responses and “repent” in the essential meaning of the word: turn it around. If you mourn, turn it around: you shall be comforted; if you save your light, turn it around: be a light to the world. If you do what the law says, turn it around: rather, do what God intends. If you harbor anger, turn it around: be reconciled with those who confront you. If you seek vengeance, turn it around: keep nothing from those who want. If you hate your enemies, turn it around: love those who hate you.

When we see conversions in the lives of the sinful, we doubt the sincerity, and certainly we can question the veracity of instant changes in behaviors, attitudes and values. Yet we must also affirm that conversion and change from what we would normally do is exactly what Christ is calling us to do. We are challenged, even confronted, to abandon the habitual, expected response and turn it around.

In fact, it is in the Sermon on the Mount that we find a wonderful guide for Christian living – a life of loving, reconciling, giving, praying, worshiping, serving, and relaxing into a life of service and grace. If we can live into the teachings of Jesus, maybe we can also bring about epiphanies in others, shine a light in their darkness, and inspire them as he has inspired us to live life anew and turn it around.

Peace in Christ,

Fr. Shawn