Praying for the Philippines

Prayers for those affected by Super Typhoon Haiyan

Lord, you who calmed the storm at sea, quiet the fears, ease the pain, tend the grief, and light the darkness of your children affected by Haiyan. In stunned silence, be their voice. In rages against the night, be their balm. In bewilderment, be their hope. Lead rescuers to the lost, shelter the waiting. Sustain those who work to make life's necessities spring forth in this desert of gloom. Blanket the weary with your tender touch. Shake us from our comforts to share out sisters and brothers' sorrow and burden and assist and pray them into new life. We ask this in the name of your Son, Jesus, who suffered and was raised to new life. Amen.

Prayers for an Election

Many communities have municipal elections on Tuesday.

For an Election (from the BCP)
Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States and of this Town of Monroe in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Saints of God

At the parish I grew up at (St. James, Birmingham, MI), their children's chapel had beautiful stained glass windows of this hymn by Lesbia Scott and first published in 1929 (the windows as I remember them in parenthesis):

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, (Albert Schweitzer)
and one was a queen, (Queen Elizabeth)
And one was a shepherdess on the green; (Joan of Arc)
They were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.


They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right for Jesus' sake
The whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier,  (George Washington)
and one was a priest, (?)
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast; (Dietrich Bonehoeffer)
And there's not any reason, no, not the least,
Why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too.

A hymn to remind us that we are called to be saints too!

("Teach by works more than by words. We must all try to be preachers through our deeds." ~ St. Teresa of Avila.)

All Saints' Sermon

Eternal God, you have always taken men and women of every nation, age and race and made them saints; and like them, transformed, baptized in Jesus' name, take us to share your glory. Amen.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed…
And so begins the famous All Saints hymn, remembering those whose labor is done, who have professed their faith with their lives. As one person put it:

“We are part of a wider communion of saints that unites us to those who have borne witness down through the centuries to the truth of Jesus Christ. Our belief in a communion of saints asserts that the boundaries between the present and the eternal, between this world and the next, are an illusion.” (Br. Robert L’Esperance, Society of Saint John the Evangelist)

On this All Saints Sunday we are reminded that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints, those who are with us in Spirit, and are always with us. They are right here with us, right now…

One day a visitor asked the parish priest on a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea, “How many people usually worship here on Sunday?” The priest’s answer was, “Oh, about ten to twelve thousand, I would suppose.” The visitor was somewhat bewildered. “This is a tiny island,” she said, “and the church is small. Where do all these people come from and how can they possibly fit into so small a church building?”

The priest smiled and then said to the visitor, “All the people who ever lived on this island since it received the gospel message are still here. Just think of what we say in the sacred liturgy: ‘Therefore with all the angels and the saints and the whole company of the faithful we praise your glory forever.’

“Don’t you realize,” he added, “that when we sing we are joining with all the holy ones who have ever worshiped in this church?”

St. Peter’s Church is over 200 years old… consider all those who found this their spiritual home these past two centuries, they continue to be with us now. And we too are called to be like them, saints in our own day, living out our baptismal faith. But what does this mean?

“In the New Testament, the word “saints” is used to describe the entire membership of the Christian community, and in the Collect for All Saints’ Day the word “elect” is used in a similar sense. From very early times, however, the word “saint” came to be applied primarily to persons of heroic sanctity, whose deeds were recalled with gratitude by later generations.” (Lesser Feasts & Fasts, 2000)

When we think of saints, too often we think of saints as sinless, perfectly pious and moral, who got everything right.

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints,” wrote CS Lewis.

How different are the saints:

Francis gave up the family wealth, the ready made job, glory in war & life of the upper class, and chose instead to heed the voice of God and rebuild God’s church and care for all creation.

Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, gave away her great wealth to the poor of her land, setting up hospitals and caring for those in need, even as the elite in the court did not like her extravagant almsgiving.

Martin Luther King Jr., preached a prophetic call of racial and economic equality, even as so many fought against what he and so many others were doing to right the wrongs in our country.

What’s true of the saints is that they found joy and hope by doing what God called them to do.

In the words of William Stringfellow, “In truth, all human beings are called to be saints, but that just means called to be fully human, to be perfect—that is, whole, mature, fulfilled. The saints are simply those men and women who relish the event of life as a gift and who realize that the only way to honor such a gift is to give it away.”

Life is a gift and the saints found by listening to God, they would find fulfillment and happiness in what they did. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Jesus said. Life as gift and joy begins ritually in our rite of baptism, remembering the past, connecting with our life now and hoping for the future.

Today, Paige & Macy will join the household of God. And through the witness of parents, Godparents, family and friends, and this parish, they will be baptized and will grow up and learn about the gift of life, a gift to be lived and enjoyed and given away.

This joy and hope is grounded in our lives. How we follow Christ, living our lives as witnesses to this faith… and how we live in faith is the Gospel message for today, the Lucan Beatitudes were given to the disciples, where Jesus taught…

Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and are hated for Jesus sake, for God will correct this. But woe to us that fail to live into this, for we will have received our reward. Instead, we are to love, to do good, to bless and to give. These are the marks of one who lives the Beatitudes and one who is baptized and lives into following Jesus on the way, just as the saints have done.

In a society that lives on wealth and prestige, on aggressiveness and displays of power, the Beatitudes are a very different way of living our lives. They challenge us to see that the saints and the faithful departed were committed to their faith, their community and their God. They lived these Beatitudes in their lives. We account them faithful and numbered in heaven.

Let us commit ourselves to the faith of Christ, and let us in hope, remember the saints, our faithful departed, knowing that one day we will join them. Our challenge on this All Saints Sunday and always, is to remember the saints and listen to God like they did, for God calls each one of us, to do unto others, by giving of ourselves (time, talent & treasure) and find that indeed our life is a gift, it is joy, and it is meant to be given away. Amen.

Who are the heroes?

As I think about the saints and the heroic works of faith they accomplished, I came across this article and it got me to thinking about heroism today (hat tip Episcopal Cafe):

How Professional Athletes Can Transform Into Heroes By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Excerpt:

Kids need heroes. Heroes provide models of exemplary behavior to emulate. Heroes inspire kids to achieve more than they thought they were capable of, to find strength when they thought they didn’t have any more, to follow a code of moral conduct when it would be easier and maybe more popular not to.  But when it comes to sports figures, Americans seem a little confused about what defines a hero. [...]

In general, professional athletes aren’t any better. Yet, why do we persist in turning athletes into heroes? One reason is that they embody an important aspect of the American Dream. Many professional athletes come from economically depressed backgrounds. Yet, through enormous discipline and dedication, they have made themselves into successes. They now have lots of fame, friends, finances, and fans. Every child’s dream.

While we should applaud them for their achievements, we shouldn’t yet elevate them to the status of heroes. Being a hero depends on what they do next...

I would say that is true of the saints we remember, they had faith, they were just like you and me, but what they did next helped define them for generations...

Read the article.  It is well worth your time.

All Souls Day

“All Saints' Day is the centerpiece of an autumn triduum. In the carnival celebrations of All Hallows' Eve our ancestors used the most powerful weapon in the human arsenal, the power of humor and ridicule, to confront the power of death. The following day, in the commemoration of All Saints, we gave witness to the victory of incarnate goodness embodied in the remarkable deeds and doers triumphing over the misanthropy of darkness and devils. And in the commemoration of All Souls we proclaim the hope of common mortality expressed in our aspirations and expectation of a shared eternity.” – The Rev. Sam Portaro from “Brightest and Best”

The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed:

O God, the Maker and Redeemer of all believers: Grant to the faithful departed the unsearchable benefits of the passion of your Son; that on the day of his appearing they may be manifested as your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

- Posted using BlogPress from my mystical iPad!

All Saints' Day

“All Saints' Day is the centerpiece of an autumn triduum. In the carnival celebrations of All Hallows' Eve our ancestors used the most powerful weapon in the human arsenal, the power of humor and ridicule, to confront the power of death. The following day, in the commemoration of All Saints, we gave witness to the victory of incarnate goodness embodied in the remarkable deeds and doers triumphing over the misanthropy of darkness and devils.” – The Rev. Sam Portaro from “Brightest and Best”

Prayer:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.





A Hymn for All Saints'

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the apostles' glorious company,
who bearing forth the cross o'er land and sea,
shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
is fair and fruitful, be thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
and seeing, grasped it, thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
and win, with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
the saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
and singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!