ROGARE> latin, "to ask" Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Sixth Sunday of Easter used to be known as Rogation Sunday. The fact that Rogation Sunday was once an annual observance marked by prayers asking for protection of herds and for a thriving crop explains why the day fell out of use in a culture of suburbanites and city dwellers.

In the early church (we're talking 400AD), the days in the week before Ascension Thursday were set aside as days of prayer and fasting as part of the rigor in focusing on the work of tending crops and shepherding herds. In the 5th Century, too, it seems that a certain volcano threatened an Italian diocese, so the Bishop ordered special prayers on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension. In later years (the 16th Century, and still in some districts today), rural Brits "beat the bounds" on Rogation Sunday, walking along the parish property lines in order to establish the boundaries in the communal memory of the people.

By parish property lines, we don't mean the block on which the church building is situated, nor even if we include a rectory where such church property still exists. We don't even really mean property in the ownership sense. Rather, the parish boundaries, or "bounds," is the extent of a geographical area that a particular church serves. Now, for Saint Luke's Church here in Forest Hills, walking the route of our parish boundary would be quite a path. We'd have to walk from Ridgewood, Queens to Rego Park to Forest Hills to as far east as Westbury in Nassau County. Ok, that's not the Far East, but you get my point: parish boundaries are fairly ambiguous since the automobile.

There's another way to beat/walk the bounds-- in prayer.

Though the observance of Rogation Sunday has pretty much evolved out of our calendar, there are still prayers in The Book of Common Prayer which can help us set our sites on what to ask for this coming Rogation Sunday.

There are three Rogation prayers:

* for the good use of land and sea (for healthy and just distribution of foodstuffs);

* for all people and their jobs (that all work is for the glory of God and our co-creative participation in God's plan);

* for our care taking of God's earth (so that neither our harvesting or extracting gets out of hand).

Seems like there are still relevant and contemporary reasons for Rogation Sunday!

Certainly, the prayer for all people and their work could include our concern for those presently unemployed, and our working to help those out of work.

The Day of Resurrection

How do you know when you are looking at The Risen Christ?

What does the Re-surrection Body look like?

What does your Resurrection body feel like?!

(Go to http://www.stlukesforesthills.org/ and click on "Sermons" to read my responses to the above questions.)

Why settle for an Easter Bonnet when you can live in the Resurrection Body !

Happy Easter.

Holy Saturday

Still, even though you might have taken the walk from Sunday of The Passion, to Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday, be still. Don't yet leap to Easter.

Jesus was laid in the tomb. A rock was rolled over the opening to seal it.

Visit the tomb. Pay respect to the dead. Remember those you love but see no longer. Feel the admixture of loving and missing. Faith does not take away the bitter and leave only the sweet. No, but by faith one can continue to live and love, though the bitter is a stronger taste at some times more than others.

What do you taste?

Ponder the limits, the boundaries and borders you experience in your body.
Yet while you live, what/where are the graves you obsess over?
Can your moaning be turned into song?
"All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: -------------"

What is that song; and how is the bitter taste cleansed so that we might form the notes that sing?

See the Book of Common Prayer p. 499 and 497.

Prepare to attend The Great Vigil of Easter

Good Friday - How Good?

I remember a conversation with my grandmother, when I was likely 9 or 10 years old. She was talking with me about the approaching Easter celebration at church. She had always wanted me involved in church as an acolyte, but I balked. However, when the new assistant priest held auditions for a children's choir, I finally gave in. We had been rehearsing for weeks before The Great Vigil, at which we were to sing a Gregorian Chant Mass and Panis Angelicus as the anthem. I was staying with my grandmother; she lived next to the church. It was Good Friday; there was no rehearsal, in keeping with what she said was the solemnity of the day. That night, she asked me a question: "What do you suppose it means that God's Son was crucified?" I very quickly responded that it showed how evil the world could be, that people would kill Jesus. She looked at me with a lot of love in her eyes and then said, "No, the cross is not about the evil of the world but about the goodness of God. God loves the world so much that he is willing to die for the people. God will do whatever it takes to help people love."

Today, The Passion of Jesus Christ is read from the Gospel according to John 18:1-19:42

Take the time to read it, if you cannot attend a liturgy where you can hear it.

Read or listen, asking yourself:
What is so Good about Good Friday; What does it mean that Jesus dies on the cross?

Maundy Thursday: The Last Gift - Peace

If you read the Gospel account from John 13:1-35, you will be able to ponder Christ's gift of peace, as given in his washing of the disciples' feet.

What is the heart of Jesus' action in washing their feet?
How is it a call to service on the Church's part, as the Body of Christ in the World?
How well does the Church embody this servanthood ministry?
How might you help the Church to serve?

Wednesday in Holy Week -- Who will you bring to church for Triduum?

The Epistle reading appointed for today is Hebrews 12:1-3.

Two phrases that catch my attention are the following:

-- we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses --

-- Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith --

Scripture is not the only text that touches upon us and informs our faith. Other bodies of text that are rich with the experience of God are those persons who have deeply touched our lives. They are among the great cloud of witnesses; they have been and are a Christ-presence in our lives.

Who are these people in your life who have been sacred text to you, who have encouraged you to be "pioneers" in setting out on the faith journey, who have helped teach you the faith-- in word and deed?

Specifically, as we approach Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Great Vigil), who are they who have been revelations of
--Christ's mandatum/commandment to express servant love?
--Christ's willingness to love thoroughly, totally, unconditionally?
--Christ's love rising again?

Carry these people with you in your heart throughout your participation in the coming Christian Passover which begins tomorrow. Let them be the cloud of witnesses with you. Celebrate their love of you and your deepened love of God as a result of their pioneering efforts with you.

Tuesday in Holy Week - Glory in the Cross of Christ

The prayer for the day admits that Jesus' love of God and fellow humanity transforms the cross from "an instrument of shameful death" into being "for us the means of life". As a result, we who follow Christ ask God for the grace to help us to "glory in the cross of Christ."

What does it mean to glory in the cross of Christ?

1Corinthians 1:18-31 is helpful.