The Visitation

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary: May 31, 2016

I was prepared to write an Imaginary Sermon, having read the Lessons for the Eucharist as appointed in the Book of Common Prayer. But I saw that they have been changed for the Revised Common Lectionary. The Gospel remains the same, fortunately; so does Psalm 113. But the other lessons were better in the old version.

Old Version (BCP):
Zephaniah 3:14-18a
Psalm 113 or Canticle 9
Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 1:39-49

New Version (RCL):
I Samuel 2:1-10
Psalm 113
Romans 12:9-16b
Luke 1:39-49

Thus, I will content myself with one observation: On this most beautiful of feasts, “how can we keep from singing?” St. Paul tells us so in the lesson from Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

The Word dwelt within Our Lady and was immediately recognized by John the Baptist, who was as yet in his mother’s womb. And, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Word dwells within us, individually and as Holy Mother Church, manifesting itself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs: “How can we keep from singing?”

Ave Maria, gratia plena:
Dominus tecum.

As ever, the Song does not originate from us. It is He that sings over us, as we read in the lesson from Zephaniah:

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

Why do I consider this day to be so beautiful, so important?

From the beginning, there have been long stretches of time where the way is hard, a wilderness without food or water. Israel was in such a time when the events of the first chapter of Luke took place.

There are no signs for us to see;
there is no prophet left;
there is not one among us who knows how long (Psalm 74:8)

When least expected, the Word of the LORD breaks forth, and for a moment we see clearly. Jacob in his dream at Bethel, a stone for his pillow. Moses at the burning bush. The people at the Red Sea, when they crossed on dry ground. Elijah when the fire came from heaven and consumed the offering. Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died.

And here. Our Lady and Elizabeth.

“How can we keep from singing?” Mary could not: she spoke the Song that has become our song, the song of the Church every evening. “My soul doth magnify the Lord…” It is not without reason that the most beautiful chants of the plainsong repertoire are reserved for the Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Missa Marialis chants of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) among them.

The path would again be hard and narrow. It led Mary’s Son into the desert, and beyond that to the Cross, where even He would cry out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

But still, even now, there are moments when we see clearly.
How can we keep from singing?

A week with RVW

The Lord's Day: August 9

I hope to play the Vaughan Williams prelude on Bryn Calfaria next Sunday, since we are singing that tune (“Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor,” Hymn 307). With that, I have often played as postlude the setting of Hyfrydol from the same set of three preludes on Welsh tunes, but I did that not too many months ago, on a Sunday when we sang that tune. I check my handful of organ scores by RVW, and in “A Vaughan Williams Organ Album” (Oxford University Press) I light upon the “Toccata: St. David's Day.” I have wanted for many years to play it, but I had thought that I should save it for a Sunday close that Feast (March 1). But when that time comes every spring, I am unwilling to play the Toccata because it is too cheerful for Lent. I will not have many more opportunities, so now is the time. “Doesn't look too hard,” I muse. “But that metronome marking. It could be a problem.”

Since the choir room is occupied by a jazz drummer hammering away at patterns, I take the piece upstairs to the Steinway in the church and work out the fingering. That goes smoothly and is indeed not difficult at all; there is only one passage on the last page that is a head-scratcher. Next, I get out the metronome and set it at the printed marking, presumably from RVW himself: Allegro, half note equalling 112. I think through the piece at that speed; it is insane. Not only would I be unable to play it that fast, but I do not think that it would sound well. Everything would be too rushed.

So, I turn to YouTube, and find this recording by David Briggs: his tempo is half note at about 88, and is thoroughly convincing. That is good news; I am fairly confident that I can play it at that speed. But I wish I had more than one week to do it.

Tuesday: The Feast of St. Clare

I am determined to get some work done before staff meeting, and dig in on the First Workout, which I have described elsewhere. The danger with organ practice at this hour on Tuesdays is that I have to drag myself away from it for the meeting at 10 am, and sure enough, the hour finds me in the middle of things. “Just a few more minutes...” I mutter and work right up to the last moment.

I complete the first workout after the meeting. It is not going to be so easy as I had thought. No metronome work today, excepting the final playthrough at half tempo, quarter note equalling 88. I make many mistakes at what should be a tempo where I could play it cleanly after one workout.

Wednesday: The Feast of Florence Nightingale

One of my working principles is the “One Big Thing.” Each day after Matins and a second breakfast while I check email and the Net, I tackle the Big Thing, the one thing that is most important. Today it is most certainly the Toccata. I head upstairs and work at it until dinner, about three hours.

The second day's work is the time to use the metronome. I start with the half-page passage that will be the most difficult (about one page from the end), work through it with the modified rhythms. Some of this does not go well, so I work through the various rhythmic adjustments several times. Then at last, I try the half-page with the metronome: quarter note at about 120 (which would be half note at 60), then ratchet it up a click to 124, then 128. I continue playing the half-page until I reach a tempo where I cannot play it cleanly: quarter note at 152. I need 176, but it is not going to happen today. After what is always a mistake-filled playing (for, after all, I have pushed it to that point), I play it slowly to settle it in my mind: back to half tempo, quarter note at 88.

This half-page has taken a bit over one hour. I get off the bench, stretch, say a Little Office. Back to work: the next bit of music after that half page, and on to the end, working in the same manner. Each time after I have reached the stage of playing it with the metronome, I go back to that half page where I started and include it in the playthrough, adding each new section as I get to it. Once I have made it to the end, I work backwards, adding sections that come before the hard part – some of these are challenging, too. But all in all, it goes well enough for this stage in the week: I work almost all of it up to 168, just one marking short of my goal. To round off the day's work at the organ, I take my third break (with another Little Office. I love including these in my practice; why haven't I been doing this all these years?) and do the final playthrough at half tempo.

Friday: The Feast of Jonathan Daniels

He was a seminarian in the 1960's at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, attending the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Answering a call for helpers from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he went to Selma, Alabama. While entering a store with three companions, they were approached by an angry white man with a gun; it became clear that he was going to shoot one of them, a sixteen-year old black girl. Daniels pushed her to the side in the scuffle and took the blast of the twelve-gauge shotgun himself, which killed him. He was twenty-six years old.


Crunch time. I work another four hours today on the Toccata. Parts of it are still not going well, but I have learned a lesson: this week I have pushed the tempo so hard that my rhythmic variations have become spastic in places, which is precisely what I should avoid. The point of the fingering, slow practice, and rhythmic practice is to avoid that very thing. Calm, controlled playing, no matter what the tempo might be.

Four hours is enough; I must work on other music for Sunday. I start the prelude on Bryn Calfaria, which I have played many times. A first workout takes about thirty minutes. It is good that there is no more, because I am pushing my physical limits; one of my fingers is beginning to hurt and my wrists are very tired. Mental limits, too – I am frazzled.

But it is good to spend this time with Mr. Vaughan Williams. The Bryn Calfaria is going well, and parts of it are profoundly moving. Sweat and tears are pouring down my face by the time I am done.

I hardly know how to thank him for what his music has meant to me. There is the Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis, which has brought me healing many times, and the Hodie, and the symphonic music. I cannot forget his work on the English Hymnal, bringing folk tunes such as Forest Green and Kingsfold into our hymnody, to say nothing of his own tunes, Sine nomine and King's Weston and the gentle Down Ampney. And there is the anthem “Lord, thou hast been our refuge.” Working with our choristers on this has been one of the chief events of my life in music; I tried to describe it here: October 23, 2011.

These organ pieces are on a smaller scale, but they too partake of the same vision. It is akin somewhat to what I sense in J. R. R. Tolkien, for both of them were rooted in an England that is no more. With JRRT, we see it in the Shire of the Hobbits and in characters such as old Bilbo, and Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin; with RVW, we hear it in "The Lark Ascending," or indeed on almost every page of his music.

Saturday: The Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin

Mary, the Mother who cared for Jesus, now cares with maternal affection and pain for this wounded world. Just as her pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power. Completely transfigured, she now lives with Jesus, and all creatures sing of her fairness. She is the Woman, “clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1). Carried up into heaven, she is the Mother and Queen of all creation. In her glorified body, together with the Risen Christ, part of creation has reached the fullness of its beauty. She treasures the entire life of Jesus in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19,51), and now understands the meaning of all things. Hence, we can ask her to enable us to look at this world with eyes of wisdom. (Francis I: Encyclical Letter “Laudato si'”, paragraph 241)

Yesterday's work has borne fruit; the Toccata goes well this morning; ninety minutes and I am content to lay it aside for tomorrow. Bryn Calfaria is solid too, very secure after a second workout.

But there is much more: a middle service improvisation, songs and hymns. And not just any songs: tomorrow's Epistle includes the great mandate for music in the life of Holy Mother Church:

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:17-20)

For this, we are singing Fred Pratt Green's hymn “When in our music God is glorified” with the tune Engelberg by RVW's teacher, C. V. Stanford; George Herbert's poem “Let all the world in every corner sing,” with the tune Augustine by my teacher Erik Routley; and a hymn by Thomas Troeger and Carol Doran, “With glad exuberant carolings,” which in some ways is the best of all. It is this last that I plan to use as the heart of my improvisation, paired with the Psalter tune Rendez a Dieu (“Father, we thank thee who hast planted”). I work on these tunes for a couple of hours, downstairs on the brown upright piano outside my office door.

It has been a full week, and I have neglected much else for the sake of tomorrow's music. In the middle, struggling with the rhythmic variations and metronome on the Toccata, I lost sight of why I am doing this: today's work on the hymns made it clear, and showed me why I had ended up with the Toccata in the first place, by “what some would call chance.”

How often, making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!

So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
in faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
borne witness to the truth in every tongue,
Alleluia!

(Fred Pratt Green: copyright © 1972, Hope Publishing Co.)

Of Angles and Head Lice

One of our songs for tomorrow, sung most wonderfully in rehearsal today by the Senior Girls, is listed in the bulletin as “Hark, the Herald Angles Sing.” After one of the girls noticed it, we speculated whether that meant early Germanic immigrants to the British Isles, or something from geometry class.

In the spirit of Scholastic Philosophy:
Q. Do Angels get head lice?
(For what it is worth as Evidence, I suspect that the Angles of the Germanic kind most certainly had them.)

Today was Pageant Rehearsal.

It was spiced up by the news that several of the choir and church families have Head Lice in their households. Two of the girls arrived with their hair wet, having worn shower caps full of olive oil overnight; they are (I think) the third family in recent weeks. Add Pageant costumes, including choir vestments and halos, and it gets interesting.

Mo, one of our choir mothers (whose children are among the Recently Afflicted), on Sunday took all of our youth choir vestments in garbage bags and washed them, along with paraphernalia such as the RSCM ribbons, hangers, etc. Blessings be on her!

At the end of rehearsal today, Jen H., another of the church mothers, checked all of the choir children individually for lice. She found four more children with the little passengers. She even checked me, noting that she had never done it on grey hair.


The youth choir sounded fine, even without several of our choristers. As they sang the Wexford Carol, tears came to my eyes, for they clearly understood the elegance and beauty of this melody; those with ears to hear in the congregation will get it, too. And this was just the rehearsal; I may entirely fall apart tomorrow night if they sing it so well.

As we rehearsed, with donkeys and sheep and Wise Men and (yes) Angels (the Choristers, dressed in their vestments with halos on their heads – tomorrow, not today, so there is no Halo-Swapping) and Mary and Joseph and all the rest, it struck me most forcefully: This is part of the Kerygma.

It seems clear that there is a Judeo-Christian underlay to the Birth Narrative in the Gospel according to St. Luke. It is full of Semitic turns of phrase that are found nowhere else in Luke/Acts. Following Benedict XVI (his book “Jesus of Nazareth: the Birth Narratives”), I find it believable that this began as a family tradition within the Holy Family. Much of it would have been known to only one person, who treasured these things in her heart. Benedict (I think following other scholars) suggests that none of this travelled very far while Saint Mary still lived on this earth because of her reticence. Everything we know of her implies that she never wanted much to be made of her; she wanted us to listen to her Son and follow Him, not her. But within her family and close circle of fellow-disciples, these traditions and stories survived, by the gift and grace of the Holy Ghost. After her Assumption into heaven, the story spread more widely, for such an account, such a Gospel, could not be kept silent.

And it may be that the form in which it spread was in something not that distant from our Christmas Pageants, involving children acting out the parts of shepherds and sheep and oxen and angels and all the rest.

It delights me to think that there have probably been annual Pageant Rehearsals from the earliest days, before the Gospels were written down. And they were probably as chaotic then as now.


Part of my Duty is to cue the Angels at the appointed time in the Story to stand and say their line (“Glory to God in the highest...”). As they sat there, more or less watching for the cue and as I itched to give it, I thought of their great Originals in the sky that night. There must have been one of them with the Duty of getting it started: “Now. It is Now, the Fullness of Time.” And the sky was filled with light, and nothing has ever been the same.


My organ prelude for the Midnight Mass is the Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch by J. S. Bach. It is, in many respects, the Music of Angels; I will perhaps say more of this another day. After Sunday night's five-hour First Workout on the variations, my left leg hurt, mostly in the hip but also shooting pains down the leg. Monday morning it was just as bad, and as soon as I took the position to begin the First Variation, the pain returned with more intensity.

With the funeral, I had only one hour to work on the Bach, so I put up with it.

This morning on the bus, I thought of Tobias and his dog, and his friend Raphael the Angel, who gave him helpful advice in his Journey.

I got on the bench, praying for help; I did not see how I could get through these variations for today's essential practice, much less tomorrow's practice and the Holy Liturgy. And I knew immediately what to do. It was as if a Voice said “Uh... you don't HAVE to play the pedals here.” And sure enough, that did it: the problem is that for three of the variations, the chorale tune is in the pedals in long notes requiring an awkward shift to the high end of the pedalboard, and especially holding that position during the rests between chorale phrases without nudging the pedal notes and making them sound. With that Advice, I was able to do the rhythmic work in the manuals and add the pedals for the final playthrough of each phrase. It all fit together perfectly, and with a minimum of pain.

Whether it was an Angel helping me with the making of music, as I believe that they do, or the Spirit of God giving me a nudge partly because I had the humility to ask for help, I do not know. But I am convinced it was one or the other.

There is still no St. Anne Fugue. I have the recording of it in an mp4 file, but have not had the time to post it to YouTube. Nor do I have the time today. The journey continues...

A radiant Sign of Hope

The Twelve Days have been a hard slog so far. The weather has been snowy and cold, and everything that involves being outside (such as going to work) takes longer. I am always worn out by the afternoon of Christmas Day, and this year I was coming down with a cold. My wife was also worn out by a back injury in November and the insanity of big-chain-store retail in December. By the time I got home that afternoon, the two of us stared bleakly at each other for a while, ate a light supper, and went to bed. Neither of us had bothered to have a gift for the other; she received no gifts at all other than some cash from her parents.

It has been little better since then; I have worked my normal schedule, fighting a mild fever and hacking cough in the rush to prepare for Sunday – having Christmas on Wednesday made it like two very short weeks with two Sundays to cover, two sets of bulletins to produce. Twice as much work, no extra time to do it.

Seeing that the refrigerator was starting to be a little barren – the weather had been too frightful, and I too tired, for my normal grocering the previous Monday, and promised to be even worse this Monday (yesterday, Dec. 30) – I swung by the all-night supermarket on Sunday when I was done at church, dully making my way through the store for milk, yoghurt, beer – all of these for my wife, nothing for me. I had lost my appetite with the fever and was barely eating. Halfway through, I had to stop and go to the store's filthy restroom with a bout of diarrhea. I somehow managed to get home and lug the groceries and twelve-pack of Grain Belt to the door, the wind chill some thirty below by now. I got everything inside, put away, and fell into the bed, still in most of my clothes.

The next morning: not a word of thanks. “I am almost out of oatmeal. And you didn't bother to even look.”

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming
as seers of old have sung.
It came a blossom bright,
amid the cold of winter,
when half-spent was the night.

The week has been instructive. In my weakness, I clung to the Daily Office, and for the three Major Feasts, the Ante-Communion service with the Eucharistic lessons (for this is how I celebrate them, not being a priest). For Stephen's Day, which was a day off and the worst of my sickness, that was all I could manage – Matins, Ante-Communion, Evensong, sleep.

And a slim little book: the Infancy Narratives volume of Benedict XVI's “Jesus of Nazareth.” Having read the other two volumes, I was slightly disappointed when I purchased and read it early in 2013; it is 132 pages and hardly more than a two-hour read, where the other volumes had been substantial. And it cost the same: $20.00. Worse, the ending seemed like Benedict simply ran out of steam and quit. To some extent, that might have been true, for his powers were failing when he wrote this and it is a miracle that we have it at all.

But now – here I was in the Twelve Days, in most desperate need. It was medicine for the soul. Even the ending now makes sense; Benedict saw rightly that this book must lead directly into the one he wrote first, which takes up the story of Jesus of Nazareth at his Baptism. I can see that if one were to read the books in order (that is, the Infancy narrative first), the end of this book would flow almost seamlessly into the beginning of the next, and the very fine ending of "volume three" (the second to be written, covering the events from Palm Sunday through the Ascension) would be a fitting conclusion.

I do not have the time or energy for extensive quotes; I will simply recommend the book to anyone who wants a companion through the infancy narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke.

And one quote:

Is what we profess in the Creed true, then?--'I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God … [who] by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary?' The answer is an unequivocal yes.... These two moments [the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection] are a scandal to the modern spirit. God is 'allowed' to act in ideas and thoughts, in the spiritual domain—but not in the material. That is shocking. He does not belong there. But that is precisely the point: God is God and he does not operate merely on the level of ideas....

Hence the conception and birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary is a fundamental element of our faith and a radiant sign of hope. (p. 56-57)

Today, I am better. It was still a struggle to get to the church in the snow and I was ten minutes late in starting Matins, out in the church in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and the final public liturgy of the year. But I was able to sing the Psalms and Canticles without coughing for the first time since Christmas Eve. And I was able to put in a solid day of work, much of it on a First Workout of “Les Mages” from the Messiaen Nativity suite. It will be the prelude for Sunday.

My wife and I both have this Thursday as a day off. Perhaps we can mend some bridges then. It will help that I swung by the store for some oatmeal on the way home today.

O Star of Hope, O Mother of God,
pray for us sinners.
May we treasure His words in our hearts,
as you have ever done.
May they bear fruit in our lives
for the Kingdom which began
with your obedience.
May we love the poor among us
and be their servants.
May we, with you, behold his face
forever, world without end.

The Nativity of St. John Baptist: a Movie and a Hymn

In 2006, there appeared a worthwhile cinematic telling of "The Nativity Story." I loved it: I watched it at the cinema about a half-dozen times that December, and donated a copy of the DVD to the public library.

One of my favorite scenes is the portrayal of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth:
Part 3 of 10
The clip begins with the Annunciation. The part about the Visitation begins at 6:30 in the clip. If I remember rightly, the actress who plays Elizabeth, Shohreh Aghdashloo, is herself a Palestinian Christian. She well portrays this great and holy woman.

The story continues in the next clip, part 4 of 10, which recounts the Birth of St. John Baptist and his Circumcision.

Here is the whole movie.


------------
The office hymn for this Feast is number 271 in the Hymnal 1982, Ut queant laxis (The great forerunner of the morn).

It from this hymn that the master teacher and Benedictine monk Guido of Arezzo (born 991 or 992, died after 1033) derived what we now know as solfege, and as a corollary invented the modern system of musical notation. Both innovations were aimed at making it easier for choristers to learn the plainsong chants of the Church.

Guido noticed that the six scale steps are clearly outlined as the first note of the first six phrases of this tune, and he assigned the text syllables from these points to the scale degrees: Ut - Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La. Here is a little YouTube clip that perfectly illustrates what is happening: it shows the plainchant with the appropriate syllables outlined in boxes.

To appreciate Guido's leap of imagination, one must recall that the song was not written down for him to look at, not in a form like this. What he had was a text with squiggly lines above it, which very roughly indicated the shape of the tune, and the tune which he had learned by ear. All of the tunes, the enormous mass of Chant for the liturgical year, had to be transmitted by ear from generation to generation.

Guido realized that if one extracted these six pitches and named them, the pitches would have the same name in any chant, any musical composition, and they could then be written down in a clearly indicative manner, including the relationships of half steps and whole steps (the half step is always between Mi and Fa). Further, the entire corpus of chant could be notated with these syllables (and the use of Hexachords, which are multiple overlapping sets of these six pitches).

This changed the world.
(Well, at least the world of music.)

"Ut" was changed to "Doh" some five centuries later because the vowel was thought to sound better in the voice, and "Si" was added about that same time for reasons that are too complex to here recount; in part, it allows one to dispense with the system of overlapping hexachords. In English-speaking countries, "Si" was changed to "Ti" in the nineteenth century so that each syllable would begin with a different letter.

Joseph and his Lady

a short story for the Feast of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I wrote this in 2008 for my old LiveJournal page. In that year, with an early Easter, both today's Feast and that of the Annunciation were moved until after the Octave of Easter, and the two feasts were back to back. This will not happen again until 2035.

Today is, however, during Lent, as is usual for this Feast. We said the Stations of the Cross a little while ago, as we do on the Tuesdays of Lent. Joseph did not live to see that darkest of days, or what ensued. But perhaps he knew, from the Angel's words, that something like this would come. "And thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins" (St. Matthew 1:21). Not "be the Messiah and kick out the Romans," not "Sit on the throne of his father David," though he will do that in due time, as the Angel had told Mary; No: Joseph's message was that this child would "save his people from their sins." And "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22; cf Leviticus 17:11). Joseph knew this.

------------------------------------
Joseph and his Lady

"Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife....”

“It must be after midnight,” thought Joseph, wide awake on the sleeping mat. “And I used to sleep like a rock. Not any more.” Worry and fear . . . anger, too, at first, when Mary arrived back from her cousin's. Then, the dreams . . . “Fear not,” the angel had said. “Easy for him to say,” Joseph thought.

Tomorrow they had to start for Bethlehem. “Too many soldiers,” he thought. “They will be everywhere, with the taxes and all. And she is almost due. How will she make it there and back?” Baby or not, there was no choice. They had enough time to take the journey as gently as could be done, which was not saying much; it was a hard and long road. Joseph was worried. Why had God trusted him with something this important?

Mary jerked in her sleep. “Probably the baby kicking,” Joseph thought. He lay his hand on her belly; still sleeping, she put her hand on his. If he understood rightly, all the promises of God were wrapped up in this little child, not yet born. One suspicious soldier, one stroke of the sword, and it would all be over. Wasn't God taking too much of a chance by doing it this way, making this child, this Jesus of his, so vulnerable, and entrusting him to a teenaged girl and a carpenter?

Joseph had no doubt that Mary was up to the task. She had been in his home as his wife for about six weeks now. Every day, he saw what a marvel she was. He loved her: the way she smiled at him over breakfast, the way she sang to herself as she worked, the way she made jokes about having to go draw water by herself at noon to avoid the other women. For anyone with eyes to see, she was filled with grace; there was no other way to describe it. “But me? Plain old Joseph? How do I fit in to what's going on?”

“It is well that no one knows about this,” he thought. Joachim and Anna? Mary had tried to explain it to them, and Joseph had told them of his dream in hopes of backing her story. They were relieved that Joseph remained willing to take Mary as wife, but it was obvious that they did not believe. From what Mary said, her cousin Elizabeth and Zachariah knew, and had reasons of their own to believe that God was at work. But that was all. So far as the rest of the world was concerned, Joseph and Mary were no more than a scandal, with the child's murky parentage a juicy bit of gossip.

He snuggled closer to his wife. Her hair smelled of olives and sunshine. “Let it remain a secret,” he thought. “God is doing a mighty thing, right in front of everyone, and no one realizes it. That may be enough to get us through this in one piece.”

God with us

At Christmas, we hear the incomparable account of the Nativity according to St. Luke, or (in the third set of Eucharistic lessons, and on the First Sunday after Christmas) the prologue to the Gospel according to St. John. But we do not hear St. Matthew's account. Yes, we get chapter two at the Feast of the Epiphany. But what about chapter one? We get it in the Daily Office for the Sunday after Christmas in Year One, and the Feast of the Holy Name in Year Two; if it appears anywhere in the Eucharistic Lectionary, I cannot recall it or find it at present [Edited later: it does appear in the Sunday Lectionary on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A]. It is not even the Gospel for the Feast of St. Joseph (Luke 2:41-52, the twelve-year old Jesus, who “must be about [his] Father's business.”).

What is St. Matthew's point with this important passage?

The first sentence of the Gospel according to St. Matthew is this: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” St. Matthew wants his readers to understand that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and that in him are fulfilled all the promises made to Abraham (cf Genesis 22:15-18, “... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”) and David (cf II Samuel 7, and the questioning of this promise in Psalm 89: “Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?" [v.49]).

It echoes also the similar “books of the generations” in the First Book of Moses: the “book of the generations of Adam” (5:1); the “generations of the sons of Noah” (10:1); “the generations of Shem” (11:10); “the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son” (25:19) and lastly “the generations of Jacob” (37:2). It places Jesus in the context of the Patriarchs; it further implies that he is not only the culmination of this long genealogy, but the beginning of something new, like unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There would be many ways to trace the descent of a Jewish person from Abraham; all of them were his descendents, as were many others (e.g, the descendants of Ishmael). There would doubtless be many lines leading even from David to Jesus – St. Luke gives one which differs entirely from that of St. Matthew. But Matthew tracks the line through the kings of Judah. This is to show that Jesus is the legitimate Heir of David, “he that is born King of the Jews” (St. Matthew 2:2). But there is more: St. Matthew is reminding us of the Story. All of these people, from Abraham to Jechonias and his brethren at the time of the Exile, are known to us from the Old Testament. St. Matthew is making it crystal clear that Jesus is part of this Story and the culmination of it. In Jesus, the “author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2) has himself entered the Story. Nothing can ever again be the same.

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (1:22-23)

One final thought: This passage is one of the few glimpses we get of St. Joseph, “a just man” (v. 19). The Church begins with Our Lady St. Mary, who believed the words that had been spoken to her (St. Luke 1:45) and was the God-bearer, the Theotokos. But she was not alone: there were Elisabeth and Zecharias – and there was, after his vision in a dream, Joseph. He was at her side on that holy Night in Bethlehem; Joseph was with her, and with Him, as long as he lived; their shared belief in what had been shown them, and what was before their eyes every day, strengthened them through what was often a difficult and uncertain path. So it is today: we believe, and in our shared belief we strengthen one another.

What shall we do, that we might work the work of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. (St. John 6:28-29)

RSCM Report, Part Four: Holy Ground

Friday, July 27

Our rehearsal at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis came late, as they were closing the building for the day. After we completed the SATB music, the ATBs were dismissed while Dr. Adelmann rehearsed the Mass setting (Christchurch Mass, by Malcolm Archer) with the trebles. By this time they had turned off the lights in the Nave, but sunlight streamed through the western windows.

David wrote of entrance into the Holy Place, the Sanctuary:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh fainteth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary (Hebrew “Qodesh,” or “Holy”). Because thy lovingkindness (“Chesed”) is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. (Psalm 63:1-3)

The Qodesh, the holy place, is not limited to the Temple. It is, as the Sages wrote, a state of mind and spirit. Were a person sufficiently advanced, he would dwell in that place day and night, as did Joshua the son of Nun (Exodus 33:11). Most of us need help to perceive the Qodesh. Even Moses needed admonition from the LORD at the burning bush (Exodus 3:5). Sacred Music is one point of entry; the holy Icons are another, as is the acoustic of a place such as the Basilica, where the Song lingers in the air. The Book of Nature, with the hours of prayer at the rising and the setting of the sun, has been especially important as an entry into the Qodesh from the earliest times (cf. Exodus 29:38-43).

So it was this day. I wandered about the space, the mosaics high in the dome glittering in the late afternoon sun, the trebles and organ giving voice to the moment:

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

I prayed for a while before the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel to the left of the High Altar, and was joined in this by one of the young tenors. I soon found that the side aisle gave a direct line of sight from the Tabernacle to an icon of the Theotokos, the Mother of God. In near-darkness, Our Lady and her Son were two black figures in silhouette, the sacred Ground behind them golden in the dimness:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem.

Friday evening at the Course traditionally brings a dinner party for the adults, a dress-up night out at a local restaurant for the proctors, pizza and a movie for the choristers. It fell to Eric and me to assist Miz Deb with supervision of the latter. At first, the young people settled in on the floor with pillows for the movie. Most of the younger ones stayed; they were tired. But many of the teenagers and a few energetic children soon began to wander outside to the parking lot. I went with them. By now, the hot day had given way to a fine cloudless summer night. One group of four teens tossed a frisbee – my heart was with them, for I have seen their friendship develop over their years at the Course and they have become close to one another. Another larger group of teens and younger folk played a game of keep-away with a dodge ball. A third group, all girls, had a bit of a pillow fight and eventually settled down, sitting on their pillows in the parking lot, giggling and talking. Three of the girls learned that one of the young tenors was ticklish, and they entertained themselves by chasing him. By 9:30, all had settled down in their groups (excepting the tenor and his pursuers), engaging in the primordial teenage activity of “hanging out.”

It is of this that RSCM Courses are made, every bit as much as the singing. In the three faiths descended from Abraham, prayer rises from the community more than the individual. From working together – rehearsing together, singing together – a bond develops which is like no other. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, ultimately mediated through the Holy Eucharist and the essential core of our vocation:

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:1-6, the Epistle at Sunday's Eucharist)

RSCM Report, Part Three: My soul doth magnify the Lord

Thursday, July 26: Joachim and Anne, the Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel... (I Kings 19:18)

We know nothing, really, of the parents of St. Mary, not even their names. But all that one need know of them can be seen in the character of their daughter.

It is well to remember this family, who, in a time darker than ours, with a few others such as Zechariah and Elisabeth, Simeon and Anna, and their future son-in-law Joseph, “looked for redemption” (St. Luke 2:38). At that time, as at many times, people considered such things as old-fashioned superstition, or at best something that could not happen in their time and place. It was only a handful that believed the promise of the forefathers, and taught their children of these things (cf. St. Luke 1:54-55 and 1:72-75).

But it was through this little flock, this remnant, that the truth of God endured from generation to generation. It is not without reason that St. Matthew began his account with a genealogy, and St. Luke got around to it by the end of the third chapter.

It was noted in one of the adult discussions that the children of privilege rarely sing in our church choirs; they have too many other options. This is nothing new: throughout the seventeen-plus centuries of organized choral music in the Church, treble choristers have usually come from humble origins. The purposes of God seldom bear fruit among the “one percent” of this or any generation. But God continues to “regard the lowliness of his handmaiden[s].” No one would have expected the faith of a little girl in Nazareth to change the world. Who can tell what these little ones at the Course will do to continue the work of redemption in their generation? “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD” (Genesis 14:13).

Today is our last full day of rehearsal at the camp; tomorrow we board bus and cars to go rehearse at the churches. We have come far in these few days. The singing has become strong, confident, expressive, and intelligent. Our little tenor section, most of them with newly-changed voices, is splendid. They are singing at a level well beyond their years. May this week be the impetus for a lifetime of song.

For three nights we have sung Evensong in the little Chapel of St. Cecilia where we rehearse. A few of our past directors have seemed to consider these services little more than dress rehearsals for the one that matters on Sunday evening at the conclusion of the Course. With his training under Dr. Guest, Dr. Adelmann knows that every Evensong is important. We must pour all of ourselves into them without regard for the presence or absence of a congregation.

Each year, these Evensongs at Todd Hall are among my favorite aspects of the Course. On this night, the finest music was in the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis of Harold Friedell, and the anthem (linked in Part Two: “Let all the world” by Kenneth Leighton). I was quite overcome with emotion by the end of the service.

Such emotion is at times a negative in my conducting, organ playing, and singing; it interferes with my duty to play or sing the right notes and to lead the choirs entrusted to my care. Yet, without feeling there is no genuine music. The motto by my office door (from St. Augustine) is this: Cantare amantis est, which more or less means “Singing is generated by Love.” Somehow, there must be a balance. One of the old Italian singing-masters said “The heart must burn with fire, but the head must be as cool and clear as ice.” Or as we find in St. Paul:

Psallam spiritu et mente (I Corinthians 14:15)

The Creed, and the Virgin Birth

I followed a link a few weeks ago to the blog of Ben Myers.
What led me there was his essay on the Psalms, quoted by Tim Chesterton (who also has a terrific blog).

Today is another fine essay: “On the Virgin Birth: or why it is better to say the creed than to criticise it”

And so we can start to get our heads around the truth of the virgin birth only by confessing it. It's not an explanation or a conclusion that you could arrive at from other premises, historical or philosophical or whatever. It's a truth grasped in the humility of faith....

It's a good thing to be a Christian – I'm sorry to be so banal, but that's what really strikes me. It's a good thing to believe something that you didn't invent for yourself. It's a good thing to have a certain framework, a story that tells you what kind of place the world really is, so that there are some basic questions that are already settled, that you don't have to go on wringing your hands and wondering about. It's a privilege, a real privilege, to be able to join your voice to the church's confession: "... and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate" – and all the rest.

In a time and place where many scorn the historic creeds of the church, it is good to hear someone standing up for them. Thank you, Ben.

In the beginning...

An imaginary Sermon: Matins for the Sunday of the Resurrection

Psalms 148, 149, 150
Exodus 12:1-14
St. John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

In the Divine Liturgy, we are accustomed to hearing this on the First Sunday after Christmas Day. In that context, it is the Incarnation as considered from a distance of many years. The angels singing Gloria in excelsis Deo, the shepherds coming “with haste, and [finding] Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger” (St. Luke 2:16) – all this has come and gone, and St. John, now an old man, seeks to find words to write about the Word, the Logos. He knew the stories of the Incarnation from the most direct of sources: St. Mary the Virgin, who had treasured all these things in her heart and whom her Son had entrusted to him as a Mother. But now St. John knew that he must say more; he must find a way to tell us what it meant, and still means. By the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he tells us that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

That Incarnation, that being “made flesh and [dwelling] among us,” led by a straight path to the Cross. And this is why we hear the Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John on the morning of Easter Day. It is upon the Cross that we “beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” St. John here declares the theme that permeates his Gospel: this Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man, shows us who God is, and the message is most fully writ as he hangs upon the Cross:

... in the grace that rescued man
his brightest form of glory shines;
here, on the cross, 'tis fairest drawn
in precious blood and crimson lines.
(“Nature with open volume stands,” Hymn 434)

Thus it is that the corn of wheat falls to the ground, in order that it bear much fruit (12:24).

... as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (3:14)

The corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies. But a new thing springs forth, for this “love is strong as death” (Song of Solomon 8:6). “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Not in any sense of the word: the powers of darkness had no comprehension of what, or Who, was before them. Nor could all the powers of Death encompass or overcome this Light:

... it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption (Acts 2:24-27).

Christ is the first-fruits of this new thing, the Blessing promised to Abraham, a Seed in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed (Genesis 22:18). We spoke of this in the Pascha nostrum (BCP p. 46) a few moments ago, quoting from St. Paul:

Christ is risen from the dead,
and become the first fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Alleluia.

“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me is love,” says Solomon (Song of Solomon 2:4). As soon as this Office of Matins is completed, the Holy Eucharist, the marriage supper of the Lamb, is at hand: “Come and dine,” he tells us (St. John 21:12). For “this month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year unto you.” (Exodus 12:2) “This day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it as an ordinance for ever.” (v. 14)

Praise him with the timbrel and dance:
praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals:
praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.
Praise ye the LORD.
(Psalm 150:4-6)

The Feast of the Holy Name

All Sundays of the year are feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to the dated days above [the seven Principal Feasts, such as Christmas Day], only the following feasts, appointed on fixed days, take precedence of a Sunday:
The Holy Name
The Presentation
The Transfiguration
(from “The Calendar of the Church Year,” BCP p. 16)

At coffee hour, I overheard a conversation between a young man and R., our priest: “I am looking not at what a priest does, but what he is.”

Next Sunday, at the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father does not say what Jesus does or will do, but what he is: “This is my beloved Son.”

As I mentioned in a comment on the blog of Trees of the Field, there are close connections between the Holy Name of Jesus and the LORD, the holiest of Names, made known to Moses at the burning bush: “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14). “The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob... this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations” (v. 15). The Name is so holy that it is not to be pronounced.

In that Name, God entered into history to redeem his people “with a mighty hand, and a stretched out arm.” The name “LORD” says nothing about what God does, but what he is – he IS, without any conditions or dependencies, uncreated and eternal.

The name Jesus says that he is Salvation, “for he shall save his people from their sins” (St. Matthew 1:21). And that Salvation is not so much what he does, but what he is. The Gospel according to St. John can be read around this theme: “I am the bread of life...” “I am the good Shepherd...” “I am the Resurrection and the Life...” In all of these ways and more, he is our Salvation. And in him, the Name of God is marked upon us, we people of every language, tongue, people and nation, as the LORD's name was upon Israel (cf. Numbers 6:22-27, the Aaronic blessing which was the First Lesson at the Eucharist today: “And they [the priests] shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”)

N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ's own for ever. (BCP p. 308)

Through this Name, “our life is hid with Christ in God.” Through him, it is no longer what we do that matters – for we are saved by grace, not by the works of the law – but what we are: the children of God.

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)

“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (St. Luke 2:19). Doubtless she pondered the Name of Jesus in mystic contemplation as the child grew, adoring it with the love of her heart. We join her, for “at the Name of Jesus every knee [shall] bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).


It seemed good to us on the church staff to combine our normal three Sunday morning Eucharistic services into one, both last Sunday and today. But a number of people did not get the message; several people expecting the normal 8:45 contemporary Eucharist arrived and found themselves in the one service (9:00 am), a Rite One liturgy unfamiliar to many of them. Several others arrived during the subsequent coffee hour, expecting the 11:00 service. It became clear that we should do something, for the number swelled to about a dozen people. Our priest, R., had already departed, but another priest not on duty today, C., was still seated in the church, praying. After some hurried consultation, it was determined that I would lead Ante-Communion (as well as serving as Organist, for we sang all of the appointed hymns), following the order already printed in the church bulletins (which we fished out of the recycling bin, appointing a person to be Usher and distribute them, explaining to people what was going on). Two other people read the Lessons, C. read the Gospel, and the aforementioned young man served as chalice bearer. C. then distributed communion from the Reserved Sacrament, using the form at BCP p. 398-9. It was a good service.

The name “Lord God of hosts,” or “Lord God of Sabaoth,” is uncomfortable for the liberals. They go to considerable lengths to expunge it from the Sanctus, where it has been for centuries (following Isaiah 6), using expedients in some places (not here, thankfully) such as “God of grace and love.” “Master of Armies” would be a possible translation, and points to their discomfort; it is a thoroughly warlike phrase, not compatible with their ideas about God. (An aside: the second lesson in today's Daily Offices, Revelation 19:11-16, connects with this train of thought.)


Unlike any earthly “master of armies,” the Master whom we serve unerringly fits the person to the task and the task to the person, so that it encourages growth in the person and simultaneously gets the work of the Kingdom done in the best possible way, though at the time it may not always seem so to us. Exemplary priest that she is, R. would have stayed and done the service had she known, but the LORD of Sabaoth had something else in mind. Not only did C. and I hopefully serve the dozen people who had come for church, but we ourselves were served; it was unusually clear to both of us that we were instruments, servants doing the Master's bidding. “This is the LORD's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).

Revelation 12:1-10

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars....

We read this at Mattins this morning. Stories known by heart (like this passage) remain inexhaustible treasuries of grace, with new details coming to the foreground each time they are read.

These two ideas struck me today:

-- The “crown of twelve stars” can be taken as representation of the twelve tribes of Israel. St. Mary and her son are the consummation of the history of Israel, the crowning glory of her people. It is through her that the latter part of Isaiah (chapters 40 and onward) finds fulfillment, with the grace of God extending through Israel into all the world.

-- The “war in heaven” (v. 7-9): I see now that this cosmic battle is related to St. Mary and the Incarnation. In one sense, “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon” (v. 7) ages ago, before the foundation of the earth. But Biblical time is slippery. The Hebrew language gets that part right; the verbs do not represent past, present, and future in the clear-cut manner of Indo-European languages. My point: the juxaposition of these two stories indicates that the victory of St. Michael and his angels over “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole earth” (v. 9) is possible only through Christ, and not simply Christ as the heavenly Second Person of the Trinity, but in his person as Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man, incarnate of the Virgin Mary. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15, the first lesson at Mattins). St. Mary is inextricably bound up into these things, into this story. Nova, nova: Ave fit ex Eva. It is indeed a new thing that has come to pass.

We held our Advent service of Nine Lessons and Carols this evening. We began with Genesis 3:1-15 as we had done at Mattins, and concluded with St. Matthew's account of the Incarnation (ch. 1, verses 18-25, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise...”). This follows the genealogy, the “book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (v. 1-16). The eternal purposes of God here become focused through all these generations into one time, one place, one child. And through this child, “that old serpent” is finally overcome, as promised to Eve at the beginning:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

A quick prayer, with further thoughts: Benedict XVI, and St. Mary

I read this morning a news account claiming that the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, is looking “tired" and "weak,” much declined in energy over the last few months. He has been in excellent health, but he is 84 years old. The news account (which I am not going to link) speculated at length as to whether he might retire, obviously hoping that he might. Not likely: the last Pope to retire did so in 1415.

Benedict has spoken on this subject, in 2010: "If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign." But he went on to say that “One can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it."

This is hardly a peaceful moment for the Church or the world that he loves so dearly. He is not going to walk away from his duty; instead, he has trips scheduled to Mexico and Cuba next spring.

But before that, there is Christmas, which is grueling for any priest, religious, or church musician. With all my heart, I wish him well. And that is why I offer this quick prayer, before attending to my own duties for the Fourth Sunday of Advent:

LORD God of hosts, look with favor upon thy servant Benedict, Bishop of Rome. Uphold him in his service to thee through this coming week. Grant him a sense of thy presence and every spiritual blessing, for the benefit of thy holy Church throughout the world: through him who is the Great Shepherd of the Church, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

-------
[Further thoughts, later in the day]
Christmas is more than a grueling ordeal; it is a joy, more so the more one enters into it through the Church's liturgy and song. And I doubt not that it is one of the chief joys of the Holy Father, whose love for Our Lady shines through all of his writings. I hope that this is a good week for him.

One of my favorite passages from his writings comes at the end of the encyclical letter Spe salvi, where he turns to Mary, the "Star of Hope" (Ave maris stella):

With a hymn composed in the eighth or ninth century, thus for over a thousand years, the Church has greeted Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the Sea”: Ave maris stella. Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn 1:14)....

Through you [Mary], through your “yes”, the hope of the ages became reality, entering this world and its history. You bowed low before the greatness of this task and gave your consent: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).... But alongside the joy which, with your Magnificat, you proclaimed in word and song for all the centuries to hear, you also knew the dark sayings of the prophets about the suffering of the servant of God in this world.... Notwithstanding the great joy that marked the beginning of Jesus's ministry, in the synagogue of Nazareth you must already have experienced the truth of the saying about the “sign of contradiction” (cf. Lk 4:28ff). In this way you saw the growing power of hostility and rejection which built up around Jesus until the hour of the Cross, when you had to look upon the Saviour of the world, the heir of David, the Son of God dying like a failure, exposed to mockery, between criminals. Then you received the word of Jesus: “Woman, behold, your Son!” (Jn 19:26). From the Cross you received a new mission. From the Cross you became a mother in a new way: the mother of all those who believe in your Son Jesus and wish to follow him. The sword of sorrow pierced your heart. Did hope die? Did the world remain definitively without light, and life without purpose? At that moment, deep down, you probably listened again to the word spoken by the angel in answer to your fear at the time of the Annunciation: “Do not be afraid, Mary!” (Lk 1:30).... In that hour at Nazareth the angel had also said to you: “Of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:33). Could it have ended before it began? No, at the foot of the Cross, on the strength of Jesus's own word, you became the mother of believers. In this faith, which even in the darkness of Holy Saturday bore the certitude of hope, you made your way towards Easter morning. The joy of the Resurrection touched your heart and united you in a new way to the disciples, destined to become the family of Jesus through faith. In this way ... you remain in the midst of the disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way!

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Tonight is the eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which Anglicans usually refer to as the Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin. It is a high and holy day.

The old office hymns for the Blessed Virgin Mary are the most beautiful of the entire Gregorian repertoire. It is, I think, because these old saints loved her so much. Here are some of my favorites:

Ave, maris Stella
Salve, Regina
Quem terra, pontus, aethera
Ave, Regina coelorum
Regina coeli
and most of all, Ave Maria

The BCP service of Compline omits the Marian hymn that ought to follow the Nunc Dimittis and its antiphon. I find it proper to end the day with thoughts of Our Lady, who looks upon her children around the world with the love of a mother, so I add it back in. I do not know the seasonal hymns by heart and I usually do Compline from memory, so I most often do the Ave Maria instead. And that suffices.

May the blessings and prayers of the Mother of God be with us all this night, and always.

St. John, Apostle and Evangelist

This is from the archives of my old LiveJournal, drawn (and slightly adapted) from two postings in December 2008 that mostly dealt with other matters:

The Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John is appointed for the third set of Eucharistic lessons for Christmas, and for the First Sunday after Christmas Day. It is how Christmas appears after long reflection – not the surprise of hearing the song of Angels, or running to the manger, or the darker tales soon to be heard from St. Matthew, but an attempt, long after the fact, to put into words what it all means.

I can imagine St. John, now far advanced in years, struggling to catch in words what the Spirit has shown him as the proper way to begin his account, so unlike the other Gospels that he surely knew: words about the Word, the Logos, the “brightness of (God's) glory, and the express image of his person” as the writer of Hebrews says (1:3), and the manifestation of God's love, as in the Matins lesson for Christmas Day from First John (4:7-16). “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. . . . full of grace and truth.”

It is too good to be true. But it is, nonetheless, true. It, or rather He, is Himself the Truth, come among us.

Since today is his feast day, here is my uneducated layman's theory about the origins of the Gospel according to St. John. I presume that the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles (and, less certainly, the Apocalypse) are by John, son of Zebedee, the “beloved disciple,” and that the Gospel faithfully recounts the historical deeds, “signs,” and teachings of Jesus, as do the synoptic Gospels. Differences in detail between John and the Synoptics do not strike me as problematic; I think the differences are the point of the whole enterprise. I do not see any reason to suppose a different author of the Fourth Gospel, other than the perversity of the modern liberal Biblical scholars (nineteenth century and onwards) who must find a way to deconstruct everything.

St. John was, by tradition, young during the ministry of Jesus. Again by tradition, he lived to a very old age, perhaps in Ephesus. By his last years, the synoptic Gospels were in circulation. I can imagine him reading them, and thinking “Yes. This is all well and good. But what about. . . .” What about the miracle at Cana? The discussion with Nicodemus? That day by the well in Samaria? The raising of Lazarus? Or the Last Supper – they recorded the bare facts, but what about all the things that Jesus said that night? How could they leave that out? And Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning? And that morning when he was on the shore, and said to Peter “Feed my sheep?”

I can imagine all of this nagging at John, year after year, in the way that the Spirit often does with us when we resist doing something that we should. “Maybe I ought to write some of this down,” he thinks. And so, finally, he does. He sees little need to cover the ground that the Synoptics covered, and when he does, he goes out of his way to give it the way he remembers it, especially when it differs from the way they wrote it; he assumes that readers of his account will have theirs at hand, and will gain a fuller understanding of what happened, and what it meant, from the differences in the accounts. He is presenting only enough to help people believe (20:30-31). He is not attempting to tell the complete story; it cannot be done. For, as he says, “there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” (21:25)

An aside: I take the absence of a Johannine account of the Nativity as a support for Luke's account. According to tradition, John shared his household with the one person who knew more about these events than any other, one who had "kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart"(Luke 2:19). If John had reason to think that Luke (or for that matter Matthew) were wrong, he would have probably given his own version, or rather, a version that was more concerned with detail than John 1:1-18. As it stands, his silence on this implies agreement. [If St. John the Divine is the same as the Apostle and Evangelist, one might take Revelation 12 as an account of the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt, as well as a comment on the woman whom he had taken into his household as his mother: "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Verse 4 can easily be compared with Matthew 2:13-18]

As to how all of this results in divinely inspired Holy Scripture, and (apart from its other virtues) a masterpiece of the world's literature from the hand of an uneducated fisher-of-men, I do not know, understand, or dare to conjecture, beyond noting Acts 4:13:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.


I cannot imagine life without the Gospel according to St. John. I can easier imagine life without sun or moon.

Remind me why we are doing this

After describing his insanely busy schedule for Christmas Eve and the following two days, one of my musical colleagues wrote: “Remind me why we are doing this.”

Most years, I start to sense the answer to that question during our annual Advent Lessons and Carols service. It is the choir's only big event of the year, and a service I greatly enjoy from the first planning stages to the execution of it. The choir sang very well, and I played tolerably well. But not even the singing of “Joy to the world” as the final hymn could do it for me this year.

If not then, perhaps it would be when the Daily Office lessons get around to the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, after the Fourth Sunday of Advent. This is always a high point in the liturgical year for me; we have by then traversed much of Advent, heard much about our need for a Savior, and at last the Story comes to it: “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth....”

I can deal with Advent. It is a time that requires discipline, more in its way than Lent. And this has been a good Advent; necessity has improved some of my work habits (though at the expense of some other things, such as writing in this Music Box). It has resulted in better organ playing in the services, and fewer important tasks left undone. I have been “purify[ing] my conscience” of much that is slovenly “that when [he] cometh he may find in [me] a mansion prepared for himself” more so this year than in any year that I can recall.

But in my efforts to lead a disciplined life, I often become too busy for Christmas, at least in any form that most people would recognize. December 25 is just another work day, and a hard one, for it comes on the heels of too many late nights, too little sleep, and is followed this year by another long day, a Sunday. I love the Daily Office lessons, and the return of the Te Deum at Matins, and I sing the Gloria in Excelsis for myself, since we do not get to do it in the Eucharist. And perhaps this is enough. But I find myself battling that deadly foe, Envy. Other people take time off, even members of the church staff; I can't, not if I am to play the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch" for Evensong on January 2 and be ready for choir rehearsals on January 5. Other people have family and friends. Other people have wonderful, perfect Christmases full of love and happiness.

So, “remind me why we are doing this.”

-- After reading this morning of the Annunciation, followed by St. Mary rising with haste to go into the hill country of Judea, a passage that continues with the Magnificat, I did a workout at the organ of the Magnificat from Stanford in A, for tonight's choir rehearsal. The sheer infectious joy of this setting, combined with memories of the morning's reading, was enough to undo even a Scrooge like me. The first Christmas was neither leisurely nor pleasant for Our Lady, yet she sings Magnificat and the undoing of the old world of sin and death. Can I not fulfill my office as Organist to participate in her song, and enable others as well?

-- In the midst of this, two little children of the parish and their mother came in. The children presented me with a pint jar of cranberry-orange relish, which, they told me, they had made. The little girl, whom I expect to join choir when she is old enough, gave me a thorough listing of ingredients.

-- After Stanford, I started on “Hark, the herald angels sing,” in the arrangement by Willcocks found in Carols for Choirs, complete with the big optional fanfare at the beginning and the descant setting for the final stanza. That did it; I was so overcome that I could hardly play to the end.

Hail, the heav'n-born prince of peace!
Hail, the Sun of righteousness!
Ris'n with healing in his wings,
Light and life to all he brings!

Even to me.

"In the midst of life..."

In the midst of life we are in death;
of whom then may we seek for succor,
but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Savior,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;
shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer;
but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty,
O holy and merciful Savior,
thou most worthy Judge eternal.
Suffer us not at our last hour,
through any pains of death, to fall from thee.
(BCP p. 484)

Sunday and Monday: October 10 and 11

“You'd better come right away,” my sister said. “I don't think she'll last more than another day or two.” Kathy, my sister, had been trying for several hours to contact me. I was at the church, Sunday services complete, tying up loose ends. Our mother had suffered a stroke several days previous, and I had already planned to leave for home Monday morning, to arrive midday Tuesday. Mother had been stable as late as Saturday, but her condition deteriorated overnight, leading to my sister's anxious efforts to contact me. Now I would have to leave immediately. But I had not packed, and our apartment was a quarter-hour's drive in the wrong direction. By the time I got home, my wife had done most of my packing. She loaded the Honda as I ate some lentils and rice. It was 4:30 before I was rolling.

Haste or not, I stopped for Evensong, singing it at a deserted roadside park in northern Missouri. The sun was behind thickening clouds, but the thin crescent of the new moon peeked through the clouds during the Magnificat. I munched on a chunk of bread and an apple as I drove on, traversing St. Louis and the Mississippi crossing well into the night and rolling on into Illinois. I slept for a few hours at a rest area and pressed on, stopping for Matins and fuel, eating the rest of my bread and cheese as Indiana and Kentucky rolled by.

Hardly twenty miles from home, the traffic slowed to a crawl, then a full stop. There was a truck accident ahead, blocking the highway. Eventually they got one lane open, and we all crawled forward in stop-and-go fashion. At last I was home, in twenty-five hours' time, a record time for a trip I have made many times. My sister was waiting, impatient for my arrival. But there was, after all, no need for haste; Mother's condition had stabilized. We headed out for the hospital.

Monday evening and Tuesday: October 11 and 12

“Mother, I'm here. It's me.” She opened her eyes and perhaps was aware of me. Or perhaps not.

On Wednesday, I had again been unavailable when Kathy wanted me; my wife tracked me down in adult choir rehearsal by calling J.'s cell phone. My sister, who had the medical rights,was being pressed to have a feeding tube installed to see if Mother might improve. In accordance with the promises Mother had extracted from both of us, Kathy at first refused, the doctor responding with “How can you do this, and watch your mother starve to death?” At this, Kathy started trying to reach me for my opinion. The idea was to install the tube “just for a few days” in hopes that she would improve enough to go to a nursing home and, my sister thought, perhaps begin rehabilitation and regain the ability to swallow. I agreed with Kathy's decision to go ahead with the feeding tube; we both regretted it later, and we bear the guilt of betraying our Mother.

Perhaps because of the food and the IV fluids, Mother was now in a stable condition, her vital signs strong and steady – though paralyzed and unconscious, living in her worst nightmare. And it was clear that she could survive indefinitely in this state. The physician had gotten his way.

Through the entire process, we rarely encountered any physicians. One of them stuck his head in Mother's room once while I was there and spoke with me for a total of five seconds. Kathy interacted with him hardly any more than that except for the time when he was laying guilt on her about the feeding tube, long enough to pressure her into agreement. Despite his lack of interest in the patient and her family, I have no doubt that he will collect the lion's share of payments from Medicare and private insurance.

Physicians roam the hospital corridors like demigods, demanding complete subservience from the nurses and other staff. Despite appearances, I believe that many of them mean well. I think that they would like to have more time to interact with patients and families, or at least evaluate and treat patients without Medicare and the insurance companies watching over their shoulder and the specter of malpractice suits always in the background. To be fair to our specific physician, he was of Indian descent, living in a prejudiced small town -- one of the "foreign doctors" about whom Mother frequently complained. It must be a difficult existence, and he can be forgiven for his haughty demeanor; I suspect that he despises the community and all of the unwashed and ignorant hicks who are his patients as thoroughly as they despise him.

Thank heavens for Nurses, and their assistants. They were the ones who cared for Mother, and they were unfailingly excellent, except for the Hospice personnel.

Much of Tuesday was devoted to waiting for them. The Hospice case manager made an appointment with us for 11:00; she appeared about noon. The nurse who performed the admittance evaluation said she'd show up about 2:00; it was 5:30 when she arrived. Neither of these ladies had the courtesy to call Kathy's cell phone to tell her that they were running late.

In my innocence, I thought that Hospice was a work of mercy, involving volunteers and supported by donations. Not so; they are simply another corporate vulture gnawing at the carcass of the American medical system, having found a niche by living on the 100% Medicare reimbursements for Hospice care. When I finally returned to the Midwest, my wife said that her parents wanted to make a memorial donation to Hospice. I said “Not Hospice. They can give a donation anywhere else, but not to them.”

But for all my griping, I am grateful to these gatekeepers of death for admitting our Mother to Hospice, which stopped the feedings and IV's and provided morphine for pain. That was well worth the day of waiting. [Edited to add: After reading this, M.W., whose mother died not long ago, told me that Hospice was wonderful in caring for her. I am glad that my family's experience with Hospice was not the way it is everywhere.]

Wednesday through Saturday: October 13 through 16

They moved her to a nursing home on Thursday. At the hospital, I had read poetry to her for hours, and quietly sung Evensong in her room, on the chance that she might hear it. At the nursing home, she was in a double room and I did not wish to disturb her roommate. In any event, Mother grew increasingly more distant and was probably beyond hearing anything I said.

My father died suddenly. For various reasons, I was far away and absent when my other relatives of that generation died. This was my first experience of sitting with someone, day after day, as they shed all earthly bonds. The nursing home room was cramped, so my sister and I took turns, an hour or so at a time through the day, leaving her alone for hours at a stretch as we ate meals at home and worked at the task of clearing the house of sixty years of Mother's life therein.

Aside from the Psalter, the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was less helpful than I expected, at least in any obvious way. There are prayers for the sick, but they presume a recovery. There is a “Ministration at the Time of Death,” but it is in cheesy Rite Two language, mostly dumbed down from the Great Litany. This latter in its proper form (page 147) was better. Several of the Additional Prayers at the end of the Rite One burial service (page 487) are excellent, as is the Anthem “In the midst of life we are in death”(page 484, quoted at the beginning of this post). Silence, with only my breath-prayer (“Deo gratias”) was good. Best of all was the Ave Maria; I wished for a Rosary.

Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

I thought much about the intercessions of Our Lady for her children at the hour of their death, beginning with her own Son. On that day when the universe hung in the balance, it may be that her prayers were heard by the Father, as well as the Son.

part five: a resurrection appearance, and an afterword

They walked together in the cool of the spring evening. It was the first opportunity they had found to be together, just the two of them. For a long time, neither of them said anything. They walked slowly, sometimes looking at one another and smiling. Mary thought, "I could do this forever. Just being with him... this is all I have ever wanted. All that I will ever want." Finally, Jesus said, "It was hard to see you suffer." Mary bowed her head. He continued, "But this is how it had to be. This was the only way that I could break the power of the enemy, of death and hell."

Mary stopped him. "Ever since you were little, I couldn't keep up with you. I have no place in such big things; I am just your plain old mother."

"No. You have every place in this. Without you, none of this could have happened."

"Do you know how I first started to understand who I am?" he said. "It was you. The way you believed in me, even when I was little, telling me the stories, the ones from the Prophets and the ones about how I was born, too. And your song. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord.' More than anyone, you do it. You 'magnify the Lord.'" He smiled. "I can remember you holding me as a little child in your arms and singing that."

"But I failed you. I thought that somehow I had gotten it wrong. You were -- are -- not the Messiah I thought you would be."
"You still believed. Always."
"No. I... I don't understand."

"Believing is not always like the sea on a calm day," he said. "Often as not, it is like a storm, when you think the boat is going to be swamped. But you go on, the best you can. That is what you did."

They walked on in silence. After a bit, Mary asked "Will I see you again?"

"Soon, I will return to my Father and you will not see me, not in this life. But I will be with you always, to the end of the world." With a smile, he added: "And you will be with me at my marriage."

Mary had no idea what he meant. She decided not to ask.

---------------
AFTERWORD

This story has been working in my head for three or four years; I posted a fragment of it on another site a few years ago. The impetus was twofold, reflected in the quotation of Matt. 12:47-50 and John 7:5 at the beginning. How did James, the "brother of the Lord," go from not believing to leadership in the Church and martyrdom? And Mary -- she was with the disciples at Cana of Galilee, and John's Gospel does not rule out her staying with them right on through, though she is not mentioned that I can find between Cana and John 19. Unlike St. John, the Synoptic evangelists do not indicate her presence at the Crucifixion. But who is "Mary the mother of James and Joses" in Matt. 27:56 (see also Luke 24:10), after James and Joses have been named elsewhere as brethren of Jesus (Mark 6:3)? If this is the Mother of our Lord, why doesn't Matthew say so? And St. Luke lists the Mother of our Lord among those present after the Ascension, along with "his brethren" (Acts 1:14). In short, where does she belong in this part of the story?

The four Gospels differ in detail concerning these events. Mostly, my fictional account is based on St. Luke and St. John. The coordination of even these two accounts is fraught with difficulties, many of which I have simply ignored and others which I have probably not handled adequately. One issue that preoccupied me for a while was an attempt at naming the women present at the Cross. St. John lists them at "his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene" (19:25). Is he saying that his mother's sister is Mary the wife of Cleophas, or are they two different people? I looked at the commentaries on this, and I am not the only one who cannot figure this out; it appears that the Greek is as unclear as the English. Some commentators surmise that they are two people because it would be strange to name two sisters "Mary."

And that raises a narrative difficulty: there are too many "Marys" in this story. How does one differentiate them without being awkward? I took the liberty of referring to the wife of Cleophas as "Mary Cleophas," and made her a fairly major character. My identifying of Cleophas and his wife as the couple who were married at Cana of Galilee is pure fiction. But I am not alone in guessing that the unnamed companion of "Cleopas" on the road to Emmaus (St. Luke 24:13-35) was his wife. Needing a sister for Mary, I chose Salome, who is listed among the women at the tomb in St. Luke 24:10.

The dream sequences for Mary seemed to make sense for a woman who treasured things in her heart and had strong affinity to spiritual things. One of them is based on Revelation 12:1-5; the others are from obvious sources in St. Luke.

In meditating on the Scriptural accounts of these matters, I found unexpected peace with one issue: the familial relationship of Jesus and his "brethren and sisters." Are they the biological children of Joseph and Mary? Are they, as Roman Catholic doctrine teaches, "cousins" or other near kin, perhaps orphans taken in by their aunt and uncle? Are they children of Joseph by a previous wife? Elsewhere I have written about this, expressing my thought that it would be fitting for Mary and Joseph to have many children after Jesus was born, as a sign of God's blessing upon them akin to the children given Hannah after she "lent" her son to the Lord (I Sam. 1:27-28 and 2:21). I have come to realize that it genuinely does not matter. Whatever their biological relation, James and Joses, Judah and Simon, and their sisters lived in the household with Jesus, with Mary and Joseph the effectual parents of this large family. None of this is incompatible with the perpetual virginity of Our Lady, nor does it require it. However they came to be there, their practical relation as children of the Holy Family completely fulfills the blessing of children for Joseph and Mary.

In a sense, this story is "fan fiction," or "historical fiction." In another sense, it has been "lectio divina" for me, a way of living with these passages. There is, however, a danger: I must not do these persons offense by misrepresenting them, or projecting my thoughts and fantasies onto them. I must, rather, continue to live in communion with them.

part four: the end of the Sabbath

James made the trip from Nazareth with all haste, toward the end stumbling ahead through the unnatural darkness. By the time he got to Jerusalem it was after sunset -- the beginning of Passover. No one was out of doors; no one but the Roman patrols.

What was he to do? Knock at random doors, where people were eating the Pesach? Accost a passing squad? "Pardon me; I am looking for the mother of Jesus, and his disciples." He would end up on a cross himself. "That might be the best way out," he thought. "My own brother, and I didn't stand by him alive. I could at least follow him in death." His old dreams of military glory, the two of them striding across the pages of history, mocked him. How could God let Jesus die? He wanted to grab a sword, charge into Herod's palace, and see how far he got. It would be better than this. He was reduced to wandering the deserted streets.

The night drug on: the Passover, the night of the Destroyer. This night, Death and Chaos walked the world. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." That had been the bulwark against the darkness for thousands of years. Now it was gone. All the old forms, the rituals he loved, Passover and all the rest -- with Jesus dead, they were swept away, meaningless. James muttered "It is all coming to an end. Here. Now." He looked at the moon, still hours from its setting. This was the end of the world, and they had brought it on themselves. "We have killed him. It wasn't just the priests, or Herod, or the Romans. We all are part of it." The Messiah, the Lord's Anointed, was dead. Hell would swallow them all.

But what if Jesus was right? "Behold my Servant. . . ." What if he was indeed the Servant, and somehow good would come of this? "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. . . he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Healing, out of this?

James knew this part of Isaiah well; as teenagers, he and Jesus had recited chapter after chapter to each other until they both had them memorized. As the hours crept toward dawn, he turned it over and over, muttering verses to himself. But he could not make sense of it; something was missing.

---------------
Mary sat on the floor in the furthest corner of the room, her arms wrapped around her knees. She had been there all of Friday night, not moving, not responding to anyone. For some reason, John had tried to take care of her. He had brought a blanket over and awkwardly wrapped it around her. Salome had slept on the floor beside her, or tried to; no one was able to sleep. There were about thirty of them, all crowded into an upstairs room somewhere in the city; Mary did not remember how they had come to be there. The men were nervous, whispering to one another about whether to try and make a run for it before the soldiers came. Every sound in the street, every creak of the walls made them cower in fear.

As the Sabbath wore on through midday and into the afternoon, Mary realized, dimly, that James was there, even though she thought he was back in Nazareth. He, Peter, and the sons of Zebedee huddled by the door for a long time; it looked as if James was trying to convince them to let him stay. Eventually, he came over to her and knelt down beside her. He muttered something about being sorry, and patted her shoulder. She ignored him. But he stayed, settling himself against the wall beside Salome. John brought her a cup of water, and food. She shook her head and buried her face against her knees. The room darkened again into night.

Much later, Mary Magdalene knelt before Mary, and brushed the hair from her face. "Mary," she said. With bleak eyes, she looked up. "It will be light soon. A few of us are going out. . . . out there. To the tomb. We should take some more spices, and check on things." After a moment, "You want to come?"

Mary roused herself enough to answer. "No." Then: "I should. . . . No. I can't do it. Not yet." Mary Magdalene smiled, sadly. She touched Mary's face with her fingertips. "We'll be back in a while." She, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James slipped out, each carrying a bundle of spices.

Outside the window, the sky grew light. A little grey sparrow landed in the windowsill, chirping and singing. Mary looked up at it, smiling in spite of herself. The bird looked at her and sang, as if just for her. It was going to be a glorious morning; the sky was clear, and a soft breeze brought its message of springtime. She shook her head, sadly; a thousand springtimes would not undo what had happened.

Mary Magdalene and the other women were doing what women always did in the face of ruin; they had taken a deep breath, and gotten on with life. Mary had done it herself after Joseph died, but this time was different. There was no life to go on with. Soon enough they would realize it; without Jesus, there was nothing.

Mary Cleopas interrupted her thoughts; "We have to get going today," she said, kneeling beside her. "Now that James is here, he and Salome can bring you back to Nazareth when you are ready. Cleopas thinks that we should get out of town; it is too dangerous here. If we leave soon, we can make it to Emmaus by evening."

There was a commotion at the door; the two Marys looked up. It was Joanna and the mother of James. They were out of breath as if they had been running, talking to the men, gesticulating, insisting on whatever it was that they were saying. The men shook their heads at them, obviously thinking "They're just women. What do they know." Mary could not tell what was going on. She saw John tug Peter's sleeve and gesture toward the door; the two of them slipped out while the others argued.

Some of the others looked at the two Marys, as if wondering what to do. Joanna pushed Thomas and Matthew aside and strode across the room toward them. She was still breathing hard, flushed from running, and from what seemed to be . . . excitement? joy? What was going on?

"He's gone," she said. "Jesus. The stone... it was moved aside, and the tomb was empty. We looked." Mary's heart fluttered for a moment, but sank again. Surely it was grave robbers, or the Romans. They had taken his body. Joanna knelt before Mary and took her hands. "And we saw angels. Real angels, two of them. Their clothing shone like the sun. Mary, they told us that he is alive! 'Why seek ye the living among the dead,' they said. 'He is not here, but is risen.'"

Philip and Andrew came over. "Joanna, what do you think you are doing? Upsetting his mother over some bit of nonsense. Now stop it." Joanna drew herself up to her full height and put her hands on her hips. "I will not stop it. I will never be silent, not about this." The men threw up their hands as if to say "What's the use," and turned away. Joanna pulled Mary to her feet and hugged her fiercely, laughing and crying. Kissing Mary on the cheek, she twirled away across the room like a child, dancing for joy.

Mary could hardly breathe. He was dead; she had held his cold body in her arms before they buried it. If Joanna was right... it would be a miracle. More than a miracle; it would be all the promises of God, all come true.

Another commotion at the door; it was Peter, breathless from running. "The tomb really is empty." John tumbled in, behind Peter.

The others shouted questions: "Did you see him?" "Did you see angels?" John and Peter told their story, interrupting each other in their excitement. In the midst of the hubbub, Cleopas came over to the two Marys and whispered in his wife's ear. He turned away, gathering their things to go. "We really have to go now," Mary Cleopas said. She hugged Mary and said "I don't know what to think of all this. And I really, really don't want to go now, not knowing for sure. But it can't be helped." The two Marys hugged again. Cleopas and Mary took their satchels and slipped out the door, unnoticed by the others. The men were arguing now; some of them had decided it was all some kind of vision, some of the others (and all of the women who had gone to the tomb) insisting it was true.

Salome had come over to Mary and stood by her at the edge of the room, arm around her waist. "Mary, you know more about these things than any of those," she said, gesturing at the men. "What do you think? Can it be true?" Mary could find no words.

Yet another commotion: Mary Magdalene burst into the room, her face like that of an angel. Everyone looked at her, a sudden silence in the room. Breathless, she said: "I have seen the Lord!"