FROM THE RECTOR – April 3, 2020

“And so it continues both day and night…”

Yes it does, and all of us, in our own ways, are trying to come to grips with how we can live in this time in ways that sustain and nourish us. The old familiar and comforting customs and practices of life are gone for a while; sitting around a restaurant table with friends, sitting at your desk in a busy office, students and teachers filling their day with activity, working out at the fitness center, entering Saint Paul’s greeting friends and experiencing the nurturing warmth of all that surrounds you, the taste of bread and wine.

In a letter to the Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry begins, “We find ourselves in a strange position of fasting from physical gathering for worship of almighty God..in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, for whom the primacy of love for God and neighbor is the way of life.” We are indeed called into this new way of being the Church and in the midst of this we echo the psalmist word “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.” (Psalm 137).

As the people of Israel found ways to continue their relationship with the God who was with them in all their journeys and trials, we too in the midst of our present trials can deepen our relationship with him. Again to quote Bishop Curry, “It is my conviction that the Anglican way of following Jesus has deep within it a way and habit of worship and liturgy that is of significant help to us in this moment. It may well be that the breadth and depth of the Anglian way of common prayer can come to our aid now, when for the sake of others, we abstain from physical, public gathering to hear God’s Word and to receive the Sacrament.”

I believe Bishop Curry is right on target. To quote Glenda the Good Witch of the North, of The Wizard of Oz fame, when speaking to Dorothy about going home, “You’ve always had the power…she just had to learn it herself.” Now is the time to realize that we have always had the power to participate in our common prayers even when physically separated from each other.

Bishop Curry continues, “…it is good and right that our custom has changed dramatically, that the Holy Eucharist has again become the principal act of worship on Sunday across our church. Few would suggest that the experience of Morning Prayer ( as the principal Sunday service) somehow limited God’s presence and love to generations of Anglican Christians. There are members of our church today who do not enjoy a regular sustained celebration of the Eucharist for a variety of reasons other than this Pandemic — they are no less members of Christ’s Body because of it.

Our theology is generous in its assurance of Christ’s presence in all our times of need. In a rubric in the service for Ministration to the Sick (p. 457), The Book of Common Prayer clearly expresses the conviction that even if a person is prevented from physically receiving the Sacrament for reasons of extreme illness or disability, the desire for Christ’s presence alone is enough for all the benefits of the Sacrament to be received.”

He continues, “Richard Hooker described the corporate prayer of Christians as having a spiritual significance far greater than the sum of the individual prayers of the individual members of the body. Through corporate prayer, he said, Christians participate in communion with Christ himself, “joined … to that visible, mystical body which is his Church.”

“…under our present circumstances, in making greater use of the Office there may be an opportunity to recover aspects of our tradition that point to the sacramentality of the scriptures, the efficacy of prayer itself, the holiness of the household as the “domestic church”, and the reassurance that the baptized are already and forever marked as Christ’s own. We are living limbs and members of the Body of Christ, wherever and however we gather.”

I believe we are all learning what it means to be the Church. I urge you individually or as a family to continue in daily prayer. Access the daily readings from scripture , connect with Forward Day by Day digitally ( also available in the app store) and live into the cycle of the Daily Offices of Morning or Evening Prayer. I am assured that by doing so we will in new and powerful ways experience the sacramental presence of Christ with us.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you are truly present in the Sacrament of your Body and Blood. I love you above all things, and long for your presence in my life. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come spiritually into my heart. As though you have already come, I embrace you and unite myself entirely to you; and as you are not separated from me now, never permit me to be separated from you. Amen.