[Propertalk] All Sanits Day 2009

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's what I put together on Monday. This week we're having Walkabouts of the three nominees for the next Bishop of Oregob, then on Thursday - Saturday we have our annual clergy conference - so I needed to put something together early.

There could be edits, of course, but this is a beginning.

Bob


THE EPISCOPAL PARISH OF ST. JAMES, LINCOLN CITY             ALL SAINTS DAY
WISDOM OF SOLOMON 3:1-9            		    1st NOVEMBER, 2009
REVELATION 21:1-6a	                                               PSALM 24
JOHN 11:32-44				

	Prologue

	“Who are these all robed in white, and where do they come from?”
	“My lord, it is you who know.” 1

	Chapter One

	Dr. Paul “Farmer was on service at the Brigham on Christmas. He spent part of the day visiting patients outside the hospital. He brought them all presents, including Joe – who got a six-pack of beer, disguised in wrapping paper.
	“Joe seemed glad to see him, as well as the present. As Farmer was leaving the shelter, he heard Joe say to another resident, just loudly enough to make Farmer wonder if Joe meant for him to overhear, ‘That guy’s a (bleepin’) saint.’
	“It wasn’t the first time Farmer had heard himself called that. When I asked him his reaction, he said that he felt like the thief in Hawthorne’s novel The Marble Faun, who steals something from a Catholic Church and, before making his escape, dips his hand in holy water. ‘I don’t care how often people say, “You’re a saint.” It’s not that I mind it. It’s that it’s inaccurate.’
	“This was seemly, I thought, resisting beatification. But then he told me, ‘People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be.’
	“I felt a small inner disturbance. It wasn’t that the words seemed immodest. I felt I was in the presence of a different person from the one I’d been chatting with a moment ago, someone whose ambitions I hadn’t yet begun to fathom.” 2

	Chapter Two

	Let’s hear it for Fr. Ed Hines. Maybe if I were in a different setting I might even say, “Let’s put our hands together for Fr. Ed Hines.” Why not?
	“It was not long after the death of my daughter. I thought I was doing okay. The grieving process was progressing on course. ‘Thank you, I’m fine,’ I heard myself saying, over and over again, to kind, caring people who asked 
how I was doing. 
 	“And then, one morning, I woke up and found that I couldn’t move my feet from the bed and put them on the floor. Neither could I take a full breath. 
 	“My first coherent thought was, ‘I’ve got to get to Mass.’
 	“The only place I could think of that was close by was St. Pat’s. There was an 8 AM daily mass there. 
 	“I got up and got dressed. I knew I wouldn’t be able to receive the sacrament in a RC Church but I was okay with that. 
 	“All I really needed at the time was to be in a small community of people who believed in the Resurrection. Who not only believed in but cherished the idea of Life Eternal. Who willingly and gladly entered into the paradox of 
understanding the Mysterium Grandum of God's sacramental grace. 
 	“I pulled on my favorite old jeans and a hooded sweat shirt, put on my hat, coat and mittens and walked the block up to St. Pat’s and took a seat in the back. There were 8 or 10 people already in the church. 
 	“When it came time for communion, I sat in my pew, praying quietly to God, my head bowed, my knees bent, my hands and heart open. 
 	“Suddenly, I felt something being pressed into my hand. I opened my eyes and saw Fr. Ed standing before me, pressing the broken wafer into my hand, as I heard him say, ‘The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.’
 	“I took the broken wafer into my hand, gobbling it like a hungry beggar who hadn't eaten in weeks. I hadn’t known how hungry I had been. 
 	“Right there in front of God and the people of God, I was fed and nourished. 
 	“I had received a foretaste of the heavenly banquet which my daughter now enjoyed. I was one with her and she with me and I experienced a wholeness and a healing that surpassed sublime. 
 	“What really broke my heart open was the risk this man took for Incarnate Love. For the Gospel. Right there, in the Roman Catholic Church, in front of God and the assembled faithful, he broke a rule, and fed a hungry, broken woman a broken piece of bread which filled me with wholeness and holiness of Life. 
 	“Ed Hines found a place deep in my heart in that moment that became all his own. It is that place, tonight, which cries out in the pain of his loss.”  3

	Chapter Three

	“I shall never forget the day the tea arrived. Cases and cases of tea, shipped to us by the Bishop of Ceylon. More tea than I have ever seen at one time donated to us in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. 
 	“I remember my amazement when at ‘Community Congress 1’ the realization came upon me that many of the volunteers working there were from  London and came as part of the efforts to help of the Church of England. 
 	“How strengthened I was when Bishop Josiah Fearon of the Diocese of Kaduna in the Church of Nigeria phoned to say that the entire Diocese  was praying for us and he and a group were trying to find a way to  come to us. Eventually, Bishop Fearon came and he came to see about me. 
 	“The amount of the check may have been small, but how grateful we were for the ordinand in the Church of England who asked that the loose offering at his ordination be sent to us. That check with tens of thousands of others has made a difference. 
 	“‘Like a deer caught in the headlights’ was how someone described me after the levees failed. Then a call came (I wonder how he got through) from Rob Radtke at Episcopal Relief and Development asking what we needed. How the heck did I know? I told Rob we needed him. Though brand spanking new to the job, he managed to get on a plane and come. He brought with him Courtney Cowart and Peter Gudaitis. 
 	“It was humbling to be asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury during the Lambeth Conference of 2008 to search out the Bishops from Burma so affected by tsunami and pray with them. Of course, they had been praying for us. 
 	“When evil stands before me, I stand not alone, but this fractious, schismatic, heretical, wonderful, faithful, sacrificing, Christ-like Communion stands beside me, before me, behind me, and above me. As lonely as the past four years have been, even in dark nights of depression and doubt, I have not been alone. The last phone message I had before the system went down was from the Rev’d Susan Russell. 
 	“The tabernacle would not open in St. Luke’s Church, New Orleans, when Frank and Phoebe Griswold and I moved aside trees to get into the church. We had Holy Communion there in the muck, mold, and mud thanks to Senior Warden Elvia James who managed to get the door open to the tabernacle. That Holy Communion pointed me towards our Communion. 
 	“Communion is not only about right believing and right acting. When our lives were in the ditch by the Jericho Road, when we had been robbed of life’s dignity and much of the material of life, our Samaritan was the Anglican Communion. Rich and poor, orthodox or whatever, conservative and liberal, they came to us. They gave us of what they had and all prayed for us.”  4

	Epilogue

	Dr. John Paul Farmer, M.D. Harvard Medical School, Ph.D. Harvard University, Professor of Medicine and Medical Anthropology, Harvard Medical School, Attending Specialist, Brigham’s senior staff, is also physician to the peasants in Haiti.
	Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton, is the Parish priest at The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, 200 Main Street, Chatham, New Jersey, and an Adjunct Faculty member, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.
	The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Jenkins is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana.
	Just three of the countless numbers whom the Spirit of the Living God is “keeping in eternal life”. 5
	This wonderful feast which we celebrate today is all about relationships – relationships across space and across time. There’s absolutely nothing that separates us from the Love of God. Usually we remember that. But there’s absolutely nothing that separates us from the Love and Joy of all the Saints, in and through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
	“Therefore we praise (God), joining our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven (– where the faithful are) who forever sing this hymn: ‘Holy Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might …Blessed is (the one) who comes in the name of the Lord.’” 6
	Dr. Paul Farmer is constantly butting heads with authorities – whether in Boston or in Haiti, but he continues, in our name and the Name of Jesus, on his quest to cure the world.
	Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton seeks your prayers for the frightened souls of Chatham, New Jersey, especially the congregation of St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church. Elizabeth arrived home from preaching in Atlanta at 1:30 am to discover that Fr. Ed Hines had been murdered in his rectory hours before.
	Elizabeth, summing up everything we believe, despite the incredible pain she’s feeling, wrote, “Here’s the truth of my reality tonight: I am not afraid. 
 	“I suppose I’m not afraid tonight because my perception of reality is very different than most people who live here. 
 	“I see beyond here. I believe in the Resurrection. I truly believe in Eternal Life.”
	In the midst of pain, and disease, and political corruption, and economic depression, and violence, and ignorance, when everything that is mean, and dark, and dirty, and evil seems to be triumphing, “Who are these all robed in white, and where do they come from?” God’s Love trumps EVERYTHING.  And God’s Saints are EVERYWHERE.
	Amen.

NOTES:

1 	Revelation 7:13b-14 Revised English Bible. Used as a versicle and response several times throughout the Liturgy on All Saints Day, 2009
2	“Mountains beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder. 2004 Random House Trade Paperback Edition © 2003 by John Tracy Kidder. Page 16.
3	(the Rev'd Dr.) Elizabeth Kaeton, motherkaeton at gmail.com The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, 200 Main Street, Chatham, NJ 07928, 973 464 8018 (cell)  Saturday, October 24, 2009 Posted on her blog at http://telling-secrets.blogspot.com/2009/10/broken-yet-behold-we-are-being-made.html  by Elizabeth Kaeton at 12:08 AM ,  Saturday, 24th October, 2009. 
4	The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Jenkins From “Churchwork”, Fall 2009, the official publication of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. 
 http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2009/10/reflections-on-communion-bishop-charles.html  
5	Absolution, Rite II BCP 360, etc
6	Eucharistic Prayer, B.C.P. page 362, etc



--
Robert P. Morrison
The Episcopal Parish of St James,
PO Box 789
Lincoln City, Oregon, 97367

541-994-2426 (Church)