Corpus Christi 2014

To listen to Fr. Mullen's sermon, please click here

Just outside of Krakow, in the middle of the 14th century, a band of thieves broke into a church, pried open the tabernacle, and ran off, so the story goes, with the monstrance they found inside that happened still to contain the Blessed Sacrament of the Body of Christ.  In their flight from the scene of the crime, they discovered that the monstrance was not in fact made of gold or any other precious metal.  So they tossed it and its sacred contents into the muddy marshland as they made their escape.

On discovering the theft, the local clergy took up the chase, but as darkness fell it must have seemed that the monstrance and the Host it carried were lost to the bandits.  Until from somewhere in the marsh, a bright light began to shine through the gloomy night. 

The next morning, frightened, the priests and other locals informed the bishop of this strange light.  The bishop ordered three days of fasting and prayer.  After this period of preparation, the bishop led a procession to the marsh where eventually they located the monstrance and the Host entirely intact, from which emanated the light that enabled them to find it.  (Those were the days when bishops were bishops!)

About a hundred years later, in Dijon, a woman bought a monstrance from a second-hand dealer (as you do), both of them apparently unaware that the consecrated Bread of the Eucharist was still enclosed in the vessel.  When the woman got the monstrance home and discovered its condition, for reasons unclear to history she decided to pry the Host out with a knife.  On contact with the blade, a stream of blood began to flow from the sacred Host and dried immediately in the image of our Lord seated on a semi-circular throne, the instruments of his Passion at his side.

In Paris near the end of the 13th century, a man who “hated the Catholic faith and did not believe in the Real Presence” nefariously got himself in possession of a consecrated Host, placed it in a shallow bowl of some sort and started to stab it with a knife.  To his alarm, the Host began to bleed, filling the bowl with Blood.  “Panic-stricken, the man decided to throw the Blessed Sacrament into the fire, but the Host miraculously arose from the fire.  Desperate, he threw the Eucharist into boiling water, and the Host arose from the water, hovering in mid-air, and then taking the form of a crucifix.”  Eventually the man resorted to deliver the Host to a more pious neighbor, who sensibly brought it to her parish priest, who took custody of the Sacrament and restored equilibrium to the universe, (as we do).

Shall I go on?

Earlier in the 13th century a Saracen horde stormed the city of Assisi and the convent of San Damiano, making their way into the “very cloister of the virgins,” where the sisters “swooned in terror,” as the account goes, and called out for their mother superior, Saint Clare.  The saint emerged from her cell with a precious box containing the Blessed Sacrament.  The nuns led Saint Clare to the Saracen horde, where she dropped to the ground, prostrating herself before the Sacrament, and pleaded to the Lord in prayer to save her sisters and the entire city of Assisi.  In response to her prayer, a voice like that of a child was heard coming from the precious box: “I will always protect you,” it said.  The Saracens, no doubt impressed, turned on their heels and retreated over the very walls they had breached to storm the city.

I could go on. 

I could tell you of the woman in Zaragosa who secreted a Host away from a Mass, placed it in a little box and took it to a sorcerer for use in a love potion.  But when, on delivery to the sorcerer, the box was opened, it was shown to contain a tiny baby, shining with light.  The story only gets more fantastic from there.

Doubtful clergy are known to provoke miracles at the altar.   Like the German priest, incongruously named Peter of Prague, who, in 1263, stopped to say Mass while on his pilgrimage to Rome.  During the prayer of consecration the Host began to bleed, trickling onto his hands, and all over the altar and its linens, simultaneously dispelling his doubt and severely straining relations with the Altar Guild.[i]

I suppose these stories seem fanciful to us.  It’s no coincidence that they all spring from the medieval imagination, which tends to seem no more than quaint (at best) to us these days, and often looks much worse than that.

It is, in fact, difficult for us to imagine that the medieval imagination could be in any way superior to ours.  We know so much more than they did; we have grown so much wiser; we have let go of so much foolish superstition.  It is hard for us to find the value in these reported miracles of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because they seem so outrageous to us; they strain belief.  And, in fact, our modern minds can find little room for the possibility that God works in such ways.

But put a more positive slant on it.  Allow for the possibility that Jesus is not done with us.  Consider that amidst the gloom of the Dark Ages, God wished for the light of his Son to be seen as often and as brightly as possible.  Remain open to the possibility that there is nothing inferior about the imagination that can see the work of God in marvelous and unexpected ways.

Whose problem is it, after all, that the expectation of our medieval ancestors to encounter the true and living God, the actual, tangible, immediate, and real Presence of Jesus in Bread and Wine of the Mass, is unmatched by our own meager expectations of this sacred rite and its simple elements?

They expected to find Jesus in all kinds of outlandish ways; but we hardly expect to find him at all – maybe not even in the Mass.  Who has the problem here?  Whose expectations are to be the more pitied?

 Here, this morning, we join with a relatively few Episcopalians in allowing ourselves to try on the medieval imagination for just a little while, and in the nicest possible way, and to see what it feels like.  We try to shed our modern inhibitions, which tell us that it is both silly and unseemly to project such wild expectations onto a disc of wheat, over which particular prayers have been mumbled by someone who, quite plainly, is not so different from you.  And let’s be clear that I’d be among the first to agree that the important work being done here is not being done by me; it’s not being done by the priest.

But I do find that the medieval costume fits, and it has a way of helping my imagination to open itself up to that now outmoded way of seeing things, and to the possibility that God is at work here, doing something powerful with the simple objects of a wafer of bread and a cup of sub-par wine.

And when I open myself up to these possibilities, I find that what I do not need – have never really needed – is for Jesus to bleed all over my hands and the altar linens.  (No, I definitely do not need that!)  But I do need to adjust my expectations.  I do need to find Jesus at work in the world: changing things, transforming things, healing things, fixing things, forgiving things, reconciling things, restoring things, reviving things.  I prefer, in fact, to live in a world of such expectations.

And if we can’t expect Jesus to display himself to us in the quite simple forms of Bread and Wine, how can we realistically expect to find him displayed in the much more complicated forms of one another – where he is also to be found, I have no doubt?

The objections to the veracity of bleeding, flying, illuminated Hosts are not without their foundations, so perhaps we need not discard those objections altogether.  But I suspect that we more urgently need a dose of medieval imagination in order to adjust our expectations, since we have come to expect so little of Jesus.

And the objections to the ritual and the feast we keep today stem from the fear that we are abusing the gift of the Sacrament and abusing one another by pretending that the Bread of the Mass is something that it is not.

Well, if it isn’t the Body of Christ then what use is it to us?  And if Christ’s promise to be with us when we “do this,” remembering him in this living way, can’t be trusted, then what is the point?

And if it is the living Lord Jesus, making himself known to us day in and day out, as if to reassure our little minds of his constancy, then what is wrong with letting our imaginations run away just a little bit today?

In 1227, in the town of Rimini, St. Anthony of Padua came across a certain man who did not believe that Christ could be truly present in the Bread and Wine of the Mass.  The man challenged Anthony to a test, saying that he would not feed his mule for three days.  Then he proposed for the two men to stand before the mule: its owner with food held out for it to eat, and the saint with the consecrated Host of the Eucharist.  “‘If the beast, leaving aside its food, hurries to adore its God, I will share the faith of your church,’” the man told Anthony.

So the mule was starved for three days.  Both men entered the piazza of the town.  Its owner held in his hands a bundle of fresh and fragrant hay.  Anthony clutched a monstrance containing the consecrated Host.  The saint called for silence as the two men stood before the animal.  And St. Anthony thus addressed the mule:

“’In virtue and in the name of your Creator, who I, unworthy as I am, hold in my hands, I tell and order you: Come forward immediately and render homage to the Lord with all due respect….’  And immediately the animal, refusing the food offered by its master; docilely approached the priest.  It bent its front legs before the Host and paused there reverently.”

And this final story of medieval imagination brings us to a good way of imagining ourselves on this Feast of Corpus Christi.  For most of us may be neither skeptic nor saint, and so we are not entirely sure who or what we are to be in the Presence of the living Lord. 

But this story makes it easy to decide: just be the mule.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] Accounts of miracles and quoted material are from the website of the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association: www.therealpresence.org.  The miracle involving Peter of Prague in Bolsena was the event that prompted Pope Urban IV to establish the Feast of Corpus Christi by issuing a papal bull in August of 1264.

Manifesto

You may listen to Mother Johnson's sermon here.

Some time ago, when our little dog Tipper was just a puppy, I got it in my head that she had special powers.  Or maybe it’s more honest to say that I thought I had special powers.  Here’s what happened: my friend’s son Thomas was about seven years old, and he was going through a phase in which he was afraid of dogs.  I thought I knew just what to do.  I thought I knew that my charming puppy Tipper could cure him. 

So one day I marched over to my friend’s office while Thomas was there, and I brought my charming puppy with me.  Tipper had just learned a bunch of new tricks, so I knew we could put on a great show.  And I must say: Tipper and I were in terrific form.  I offered liver treats, and I put the dog through her paces.  She sat.  She shook hands.  She rolled over.  She barked.  She jumped.  This will show him, I thought.  He’ll see how cute and smart she is, and he will get over that irrational fear.  I will cure him. 

Why do adults think they can talk children out of being afraid?

Midway through our little show—ok, my little show—I became aware that something wasn’t working the way I had planned.  It wasn’t the dog.  Tipper was still doing all her tricks eagerly.  Sit.  Stand.  Speak.  Jump.  I thought she was brilliant.  But Thomas wasn’t responding the way I thought he would.  It wasn’t that he seemed particularly fearful.  It was some other emotion I saw on his face.  Almost as though he pitied me.

Finally, as gently as he could, young Thomas leaned in in a kind of tactful way, and he said to me, “You know, my cat can do all those things without even being asked.”

Now this was kind of deflating.  I mean, sure, cats are magnificent in their independence.  They do seem to be able to do almost anything, in a state of serene indifference.  Cats are wonderful.  But wasn’t Thomas missing the point?  It wasn’t the sitting or the shaking hands or the jumping that mattered.  It was the excitement.  The communication with another species.  My dog Tipper was thrilled to be doing tricks with me.  And it wasn’t just about the liver treats.  I know this dog: treats are ok with her but what she really loves is the game itself.  She is keen and eager and joyful.  And when she really gets into the game, it’s something wonderful to see.

From time to time over the last few years, I’ve been mulling this story over, and because I’m one of those shameful preachers who are always looking for sermon illustrations, I’ve filed the story of Thomas and Tipper away in the back of my mind.  I always thought I would use this story in a sermon about the law, about obedience to God’s will.  God loves joyful obedience.  You know: God wants us to be more like puppies and a little less like cats who do what we want when we want.

But now I think I see it differently.  Now I think the story might really be about the Holy Trinity. 

Because the whole force of the encounter between Thomas and Tipper, I had hoped, was to be about the joy of connection.  About reaching across some kind of gulf to communicate with something we are not.  It may not have worked very well with Thomas—my mistake there, for sure—but if you know and love a dog you know that joy and connection I’m talking about.  There is something real there. The dog loves to be in the game.  It isn’t only the prospect of being fed that leads her to quiver with excitement, anticipating every command, eyes wide, ears perked up, her whole being alert with expectation.

This Trinity Sunday, let’s not get too wrapped up in worrying about the exact details.  Why three?  How is it that we call the Holy Spirit a “person” of the Trinity?  How many heresies are there that have to do with misunderstanding what the doctrine of the Trinity is trying to tell us?  All matter deeply but to my mind they don’t help us a lot if we can’t pause to take in that fundamental reality: that at the heart of everything that exists—in our own hearts—the bottom line is God’s tireless energy for being with us, for being in the game with us, if you will.  For reaching out across what seems like an impossible gulf, to be profoundly connected to what we are not.  Alert with expectation.

It’s that tireless, electrifying energy that makes it natural for God to create everything we know and everything we don’t know. It’s that tireless, electrifying energy that leads God to be one with suffering humanity in the person of Jesus.  It’s that tireless, electrifying joy of responding that leads the Holy Spirit to seek us out wherever we are trying to hide, to reach into us and through us and bring us along, and send us out to reach others.

In church circles we like to talk about something we call the doctrine of the Trinity, but we should probably be talking about the Trinity as a manifesto.  Today, Trinity Sunday, is not a day for commemorating a concept.  It’s a day for being swept away by a force.  Getting wrapped up in a presence. Being overtaken with anticipation about what the living, breathing, heart of God will do next.  This is a day for pining, trembling, to connect heaven and earth.  Because that quivering anticipation comes from the one who created us and redeemed us and sustains us.  And our deepest joy comes from being spellbound.

Today, this Trinity Sunday, can we imagine being spellbound by the love of God and the sheer electricity of everything around us?  Eyes wide open, straining every nerve to catch what happens next?  Keen?  Eager?

I’ll admit that it’s a challenge to contemplate.  This present moment in the world as we know it is more than a little daunting.  Most of us, if we are honest, will find that we fear what might come next.  We may fear to know where history is taking us.  We may be afraid of what we are becoming, individually and collectively.  The temptation these days is to become feline rather than canine.  Majestic in our isolation from what disturbs us.  Apparently unperturbed by the realities we choose to ignore. Who doesn’t want to smooth over the turbulence of the world?  Who doesn’t wish that it were possible to glide by, catlike, while the world calls to us? Ready to respond, perhaps, but only as we choose to respond, in our own sweet time.  Ready to do things that are important, but unenthusiastic about being asked.

But these times are God’s times.  Our days are in God’s hands.  And our deepest joy is in jumping in, as God did and God does, to be connected.

Could we be electrified by the present moment, drawn so deeply across the gulf of everything that terrifies us that we long, like God, to jump into human history and respond?  Could we be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and bound like the Son to human sin and suffering even while we rejoice in the love of the Father?  Compelled to go forward to the ends of the world to make disciples of all nations?

Whether we choose to know it or not, God has given us our manifesto.  God is our manifesto.  God’s very life is our joy and our command.

Go.  Baptize.  Stand.  Speak.  Jump.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

Trinity Sunday, 2014

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Up All Night

You may listen to Mother Takacs's sermon here.

When was the last time you were up all night? Knowing this congregation, I would say that it was either an overnight international flight, an all-night study session for your medical boards or the bar, or a particularly long post-Christmas Eve Midnight Mass celebration. But here’s another question: when was the last time you were up all night because you were excited? When was the last time you couldn’t fall asleep because you simply couldn’t wait for what the next day would bring? Maybe it was the night before a long-awaited vacation. Or maybe the night before a commencement or the first day of an exciting new job. Maybe it was the night before your wedding, or for some of us, the night before William and Kate’s wedding. Or maybe, to think of the last time when you were up all night, giddy with excitement, you’ll have to go all the way back to Christmas Eves when you were a kid.

In my house, Christmas Eve always meant visiting family, which always meant that my brother and I had to share a room. With both of us trying to sleep in the same room, we would usually end up getting pretty wound up. We’d start out whispering to each other and trying to predict what presents each of us might get the next morning – an EZ Bake Oven, the new set of Hot Wheels, Atari!. But then inevitably one of us would get so excited we’d start laughing, and then we’d start shushing each other, which made the whole thing even more hilarious, and then more giggling and giggling and giggling. One year I think we even ended up singing Fleetwood Mac to each other, you know, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here.” The Clintons have nothing on the Takacses. And so with all of this singing and general silliness, we were often up for hours, seemingly up all night, because we knew that there would be joy in the morning, great gifts just waiting to be unwrapped.

Did you know that Pentecost is a stay up all night kind of festival? It’s true; it is. It comes from the ancient Jewish Festival of Weeks, also called Shavuot, when the People of God recalled the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai 50 days after they were freed from Egypt. And one of the traditions of Shavuot is to stay up, all night long, studying Torah. The story goes that on that first Pentecost, some of the Israelites overslept and missed the actual moment when Moses gave the Torah, the Law, to God’s people. So now, some faithful Jews will stay up all night, bubbling with excitement, digging deeply into the Torah, studying with zeal and maybe even with whispers and giggling. Because they know that there is joy in the morning, that great gift of God’s promise of faithfulness and his instructions about holy living, given to them, just waiting to be unwrapped.

And it’s hard to imagine that that disciples weren’t having some sleepless, giddy nights in the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. Jesus had just flickered up into the heavens, leaving behind his blessing and his promise that he would send the Holy Spirit down upon them to sanctify them, to prepare them to be sent out into the world as Holy Apostles. So they’ve been waiting, holed up together in a room in Jerusalem, whispering to each other about this great gift that is coming soon. What will it feel like when the Spirit comes, do you think? Will we see it? Will it happen all at once, or will Peter go first and Matthias last? And as they’ve been sitting there imagining, the anticipation has been building and building, more butterflies in the stomach, more foot-tapping and finger-drumming, more flashes of smiles, and maybe even a few smothered giggles. Because they feel in their very bones that joy will come in the morning, ushered in by a mighty wind and wrapped in fire and light.

The Church, also, recognizes the up-all-night nature of today’s feast. How do we know this? Because there is a liturgy for it. It’s called the Vigil of Pentecost, and yes, it is a real thing, a genuine liturgy with readings and rubrics and everything, right there in the prayer book. Buried a little bit, perhaps, but there. (The first person who can tell me after the service where the Vigil of Pentecost is found in the prayer book will get a cookie. Please don’t start looking for it right now.)*

So…how many of you were up last night, turning in your beds, tummies clenched with excitement, giggling and giddy because of the joy that comes this morning, the great gift of this day? Anyone? Anyone keep vigil last night? Anyone find themselves humming Fleetwood Mac and desperate for the dawn? True confession: I didn’t. I didn’t do any of those things. I fell into bed, got a good night sleep, and awoke with the alarm this morning. I wasn’t up all night, contemplating the wonders of the gift that I was going to receive today. I wasn’t up all night studying the scriptures for insights into the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t giddy. I wasn’t giggling. It was a completely ordinary, un-anticipatory evening. And looking out at your bright, well-rested faces, I’m guessing that the same is true for you.

Why is this, do you think? Why is it that we take this gift of the Holy Spirit so much for granted? Why is it that when Pentecost morning dawns, the most attention we might give it is to wonder what red shirt we should wear and if the organist will play the Duruflé Veni Creator? Here are two suggestions. The first trap is that we get tangled up in the definition of Pentecost as the day when the Holy Spirit was given to the Church. Now Pentecost is the Feast when we recall the moment when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples, when they found a power of language they had never had before, when Peter stood before the people of Jerusalem and proclaimed a glorious new day and when thousands heard his words and said yes. But Pentecost is not just about something that happened to those people, over there, all those many years ago. Because if Pentecost is about the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church, guess what? Who is the Church? The Church is you and me, the Church is us in this time and in this place. Today we remember that that Holy Spirit is this Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit is the same one we call down upon the gifts of bread and wine today, the same one we pray in and with and through today, the same one we invoke in absolution and in blessing today. That Holy Spirit is the same one poured out upon us in our baptisms, rekindled in our confirmations, fortified every time we come to this altar. That Holy Spirit was not a one-time offering a thousand years ago lit a fire under the Church, but an on-going gift, a gift given every second of every day to every Christian that has ever lived, a gift given every second of every day to you and to me, a gift without which we would not be simply bereft, but would simply not be.

The other Pentecost trap is that we sometimes think of the Holy Spirit as a kind of lava lamp of a gift. It’s beautiful and interesting to look at, but mostly we just set up on a shelf and watch it do its thing. But the Holy Spirit is not a lava lamp; the Holy Spirit is more like an erector set. The Holy Spirit is more like a set of tinker toys, like Lincoln logs. The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we will go do something with it. This is a gift with batteries included and with some assembly required. The Holy Spirit, once unwrapped, is not something to be set upon a shelf. She cries out to be put to use. She, and I say She for the Holy Spirit is surely not an It, draws out words of truth-telling and Gospel-sharing from the depths of our souls. She compels us to dream dreams of a world without divisions, to see visions of a community where all are free, to paint pictures of that great and glorious day when everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. The Holy Spirit is a hands-on gift, a gift with purpose, with a plan.  

Okay. So we’ve already missed our chance to be up-all-night this Pentecost Eve. But hey, guess what? Guess what I heard? There is a present here this morning with your name on it. That’s right. I heard that there’s a gift here for every single person in this room. Yup, here it is: To: You, From: The Holy Spirit. Go ahead – unwrap it and see what you got. Don’t forget, everyone’s gift is different, and you may need to look for the instructions to know what your gift is, to see if it’s the build-a-prophet kit, or the textbooks of a teacher, or the cooling balms of a healer. “All these are activated by one and the same Spirit,” Paul tells us. All of these are given just for us. Your gift is made just for you, wrapped just for you, given just for you. It is a gift worth getting excited about, a gift waiting up all night for. I hope that you like it, and I hope you’ll enjoy figuring out what to do with it. And I wish you a merry Pentecost.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

8 June 2014 - The Feast of Pentecost

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

*The Vigil of Pentecost is described on page 175 or 227 in the Book of Common Prayer.