First Blessings

As you are outwardly anointed with this holy oil, so may our heavenly Father grant you the inward anointing of the Holy Spirit.  Of his great mercy, may he forgive you your sins, release you from suffering, and restore you to wholeness and strength.  May he deliver you from all evil, preserve you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

A priest spends not a little time in health care facilities – hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living centers, the homes of parishioners – where he is granted the sacred privilege of being welcomed into moments of human weakness and vulnerability.  It is a holy trust, and one that is best approached prayerfully and with great humility.

It is not only the patient who feels weak and vulnerable at such times though; as a priest I have felt that way myself.  I stand in the intensive care unit surrounded by scores of machines whose price tags can only be imagined, as efficient doctors bustle around with their extensive knowledge and hard won expertise.  Nurses exhibit their compassionate skill in practical ways that leave me standing clumsily in the corner, out of their way.  Orderlies and nutritionists serve vital roles.  But what of a priest?  What do I offer?  What can I do?  I come “equipped” with a stock of oil and a prayer book, and on some occasions, with bread and wine.  I can anoint.  I can pray.  I can bless.  I can absolve.  I can consecrate.  I can be present.  What are these compared to the expertise and efficiency of highly trained medical personnel?  Though it is a false dichotomy I know, if the patient had the choice of either doctor or priest but not of both, do we wonder which he would choose?  Weakness.  Vulnerability.

And yet.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,³¹ so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:27-31, ESV throughout).

Priests believe in doctors; we are not dualists who denigrate the body and idolize the spirit.  Priests honor doctors – the wisdom of their learning and the strength of their expertise.  And yet, there is greater wisdom, greater strength in the Great Physician of souls and bodies.  While He has ordained healing through the hands of skilled men and women – physicians and surgeons and nurses with their medicine and scalpels and instruments and therapy – He has also ordained healing through the unworthy hands of weak and vulnerable priests with their oil and prayer books and bread and wine.  Whether doctor or priest, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord,” for all healing is from the Father of Mercies from whom comes every good and perfect gift.

The oil I carry is blessed by our bishop, though the Book of Common Prayer allows for a prayer of blessing by a priest:

O Lord, holy Father, giver of health and salvation:  Send your Holy Spirit to sanctify this oil; that, as your holy apostles anointed many that were sick and healed them, so may those who in faith and repentance receive this holy unction be made whole; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Thus blessed, the oil is sacramental, an outward and visible sign and channel of a hidden and inner grace through which the sick are made whole.  By God’s grace, doctors may affect cures.  By God’s grace, the Holy Spirit working through the priest’s oil-smeared thumb may affect wholeness.  Who would despise either – physical cure or wholeness?  God is the Great Physician of bodies and souls, after all.  It is not so much cure but wholeness that I carry.

The bread and wine I bear – the gifts of God for the people of God – are the flesh and blood of Christ when received by faith with thanksgiving.  About these Jesus, himself, said:

 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me” (John 6:53b-57).

Consecrated, the bread and wine are sacraments, the Gospel in sacred food and drink.  It is not just bread and wine; it is life that I bring.

As a priest among physicians, I have no particular skill, no great expertise.  It is true; I am as weak and vulnerable as any patient I have ever visited, and I will stay out of the way in a corner of the room while the experts are present.  But I have oil and I have a prayer book.  And if you ask me to, I will have bread and wine.  And these are neither weak nor vulnerable.  They are the very power and wisdom of God unto wholeness and salvation.  And so a priest spends not a little time in health care facilities – a sacred privilege, a holy trust.

Blessings.

Photo:  Public Domain

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for everyone else the proper pleasure of the rite (C. S. Lewis).

One of the greatest of the abundant joys of celebrating the Eucharistic Liturgy is the sure knowledge that few, if any, parishioners will congratulate me afterwards on a job well done.  Certainly, it does happen from time to time.  When it does, it is a gift graciously offered and graciously received, a gift that simply proves the quote by C. S. Lewis; I have forgotten myself in the rite and thus have not spoiled for everyone else the proper pleasure of the ritual.  For me as celebrant, that is a chief joy of the rite – the utter forgetfulness of self and the total immersion in the grace and mercy of God the Father in and through our Lord Jesus Christ.  In celebrating the Eucharist I almost understand Paul:

I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20, ESV).

I love to preach, though preparing a sermon is often a spiritual struggle of submission to the Word.  It is in the struggle to understand the Word and to stand under it that the Spirit moves and inspires a terribly frail and fallible human to declare, “Thus says the Lord.”  Often during sermon preparation, and often immediately before the sermon in the hearing of the people of God, I pray:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

And yet, acceptable though they by, Spirit-filled though they be, the words of the sermon remain my words and the meditation my meditation.  Try as I might to decrease that he might increase, there is always part of me remaining in the sermon, inseparable from it – thus the comments from the parishioners, sometime complimenting, sometimes challenging the sermon.  If I have listened well to the Spirit there is little of me in it; if I had no ears to hear, there is much of me.  Little or much, I am nevertheless self-conscious – literally conscious of self – and aware that I am preaching and that my words are being weighed in the balance.

But, in the Eucharist, the words are not my words, the meditations are not my meditations.  Even the manual acts – the gestures – are specified in the rubrics or learned from local practice.  Innovation is of little value; conformity is blessing.

Just before approaching the table the celebrant and deacon share an intimate moment of preparation in which the deacon ritually cleanses the hands of the priest.  It serves as the celebrant’s final moment of repentance, his final appeal for mercy before approaching the mysteries.  It is a manual prayer for clean hands and a pure heart.  And it is – or can be – a washing away of self.

The celebrant moves to the table and stands in the fire of God’s love and grace as the last remnants of self are burned away, stands unworthy to gather up the crumbs under the Table and yet stands invited to serve as host in Jesus’ name.  He speaks not his words, but ancient words, received words:  prayer and hymn, blessing and invocation, institution and distribution.  He consecrates bread and wine that he did not bring to the table and he shares it with those he did not redeem:  the gifts of God for the people of God.  When the people of God receive the body of Christ – the bread of heaven – some whisper, “Thank you.”  It is not really the celebrant to whom they speak.

It is another mystery of God that a man is never more truly himself than when self is forgotten – crucified with Christ – and God is all and in all.  For a priest – for this priest at least, for I dare not speak for others – such forgetfulness of self  is yet another of the abundant Eucharistic gifts of God for the people of God.

Blessings.

Photo:  Mary Kathleen Roop.  Used by permission.

Tomorrow, in new cassock and surplice and for the first time as priest, I will read the Gospel and lead the matrimonial prayers in The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage.  The couple is young and dear and in love (with Christ and with one another) and is, I feel confident, about as ready for marriage as is humanly possible, which is to say, not really ready at all.  Lord, have mercy upon them.  Shield the joyous.

In the Orthodox Church, marriage is considered a sacrament, though it is not called by that name.  Instead, the Orthodox speak of marriage — and each sacrament — as a mystery (mysterion).  And isn’t that a wonderful word to describe marriage?  Soon, my wife and I will celebrate our thirty-eighth wedding anniversary, and I still find our marriage — and, at times, my wife — to be as mysterious as ever, in the truest and most blessed sense of the word.  Marriage is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace and the sure means by which that grace is received — perhaps not a sacrament, but certainly sacramental, certainly a mystery.

This is why marriage is about far more than who and how we love, and it is precisely why the church is so protective of it.  From the beginning, even in Eden, the union of the man and the woman was about more than love; physical and spiritual complementarity, support in vocation, fruitfulness — these were and are integral to marriage.  To reduce marriage to modern concepts of love is to impoverish it and to delude those who enter into it.

Now, we are exiles from Eden, and certainly the fall has changed marriage, as indeed it has changed everything.  But, in the case of marriage — perhaps uniquely — the fall did not diminish the relationship, but enhanced its importance, its dignity, its purpose.  In addition to all it was before, marriage is now also about grace, redemption, and sanctification.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church (Eph 5:25-27, 32, ESV).

One day, sooner than I would like, a young man will likely ask to marry my daughter.  I imagine the ensuing conversation.

“And why do you want to marry my daughter?” I will ask pointedly in my best father-teacher-priest- you’d better get this right voice.

“I love her more than anything,” I can just hear him say.

“Who cares?!” will be my response.  “That’s not nearly good enough.  Will you give up your life for her as Christ gave up his life for the church?  Will you devote yourself not to loving yourself through my daughter but rather to her sanctification?  Will you do everything within your power to present her to Christ in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, so that she might be holy?  Will you lay aside all that has gone before and hold fast to her until you no longer know where you leave off and where she begins  Will you?”  God help him if he says no.  God help him if he says yes.

This is marriage this side of the fall.  Love is nice, but it’s not the basis of Christian marriage unless that love partakes of and mirrors the love with which Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.  It is a high standard and humanly impossible.  So, following the vows that commit the man and woman to do more than they can possibly do, we pray:

O gracious and everliving God, you have created us male and female in your image:  Look mercifully upon this man and this woman who come to you seeking your blessing, and assist them with your grace, that with true fidelity and steadfast love they may honor and keep the promises and vows they make; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

And so, to the dear couple who will, in the name of Christ, commit themselves to each other tomorrow:  Blessings.

Photo:  John A. Roop.  Used by permission.

So now, Father, we ask you to bless and sanctify, with your Word and Holy Spirit, these gifts of bread and wine, that we may partake of his most blessed Body and Blood.

What happens to the bread and wine in and through this prayer of epiclesis, when the priest invokes the Word and Holy Spirit and signs the elements with the cross?  What happens to the bread and wine in and through the following Words of Institution?

The Anglican formularies are explicit; the elements are consecrated — set apart for sacred purpose, for holy use:  nothing more, but nothing less.  Bread remains bread; wine remains wine.

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions (Article XVIII.  Of the Lord’s Supper).

What then of the real presence of Christ?  What then of his Body and Blood?

The gifts of God for the people of God.  Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.

The real presence of Christ is manifest in the act of Communion in which the people of God receive the consecrated bread and wine by faith with thanksgiving.  If consecrated bread is eaten in this manner, it is the Body of Christ; if not, it is bread.  So, too, with the wine.

Insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.  And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith (Article XXVIII).

The communicant receives the consecrated bread and wine by faith with thanksgiving and thus partakes of the most blessed Body and Blood of the Lord.

Why this excursus on the finer points of Anglican sacramental theology in the midst of a reflection on the priesthood?

Receive the Holy Spirit for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to you by the imposition of our Hands.  If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven.  If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.  Be a faithful minister of God’s holy Word and Sacraments; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

What happens to the priest ordinand — What happened to me? — in this prayer of epiclesis, when the Bishop prays and the assembled presbyters lay hands on his head?  By the power and grace of the Holy Spirit he is consecrated — set apart for sacred ministry:  nothing more, but nothing less.  Flesh and blood remain flesh and blood.  He rises from his knees empowered and authorized for ministry, but not for magic.

I speak words of absolution, but if they are not received by faith with repentance, the burden of guilt remains:  ministry, not magic.  I bless, but if the blessing is not received by faith with thanksgiving, it is squandered:  ministry, not magic.  I consecrate bread and wine, but if they are not taken by faith with thanksgiving, they remain merely bread and wine:  ministry, not magic.

In this sense, the priesthood is truly sacramental.  A priest is an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace and the certain means by which we receive that grace” (BCP 1979, p. 857), provided his sacramental ministry is received by faith with thanksgiving.  The priest is given the grace of the Holy Spirit for ministry, but not for magic.  In the absence of faith, even Jesus could do no mighty works.

A priest is a living sacrament through which the Holy Spirit acts to bestow grace on the faithful people of God, and he is a tangible witness to the real presence of Christ in the midst of a fallen world:  nothing more, but nothing less.  It is ministry, not magic.

Blessings.

Photo:  Mary Kathleen Roop.  Used by permission.

Last evening my family stopped by Walgreen’s for soft drinks, chips and candy.  Another family — dear friends — visited Dollar Tree to purchase a variety of inexpensive gifts.  A few minutes later we met at Peaceful Haven, a local nursing home, one that provides services for those at the lower end of the economic spectrum.  The facility is dated, the rooms are shared and opportunities for excursions beyond its walls are limited.  But the staff is professional and gracious and helpful, and the residents seem well cared for.  We are there for bingo.

For a decade or so, our two families have meet there once each month to play bingo with the residents.  I call the game — B51 is my favorite number because it reminds me of the Psalm — while others help the residents play, distribute prizes to the winners, prepare snacks and simply visit and talk.  The residents do not know that I am a priest or that our families represent different factions of the Anglican Communion.  They simply know that we are there and that we have been there faithfully for the last ten years and that, God willing, they can count on us to be there again next month.  Bingo and coloring books and Cheetos and Diet Coke and conversation:  that’s what the Kingdom of God looks like one Friday evening each month.

Early tomorrow morning, I will take bread and wine to the small chapel in our church, our prayer room.  I will place them on the wooden table that serves as altar and, in the presence of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, I will begin the Great Thanksgiving.  With unfailing use — a phrase overflowing with meaning — of the Words of Institution, I will consecrate that bread and wine that it may be the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As promised, our Father will bless and sanctify, with His word and Holy Spirit, those gifts of God for the people of God.

A few minutes later, bearing these precious gifts, I will meet the rest of my family and several dear members of my church family at Garden Manor, an assisted living facility that provides service for those with good insurance or healthy savings accounts, those at the other end of the economic spectrum.  The facilities are modern, activities are abundant, and the care is exceptional.  We are there for Eucharist.

For several years our church has provided the service of Holy Eucharist once each month for these residents.  First as deacon and now as priest, I have taken my place in the rotation of those who serve.  My wife plays piano as we sing and others bring Dunkin Donuts, visit with the residents, and worship together.  The residents know that I am a priest — or at least some form of minister — and that our group is from Apostles Anglican Church.  More importantly, they know that we are there and have been there faithfully for years and, God willing, will be there next month.  Bread and wine and donut holes and hymns and conversation:  that’s what the Kingdom of God looks like one Sunday morning each month.

In which nursing home am I most priestly, I wonder.  In the former, I exercise the baptismal priesthood common to all those in Christ Jesus — a Matthew 25 ministry.  In the latter, I exercise the sacramental ministry given to me in and through ordination.  In each setting I am a priest, which is to say a representative and servant of God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ in the unity and power of the Holy Spirit.  In each setting, through the shared ministry of the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God comes on earth as it is in heaven, for those few moments to those few people.

Can we imagine Jesus speaking such parables?

The Kingdom of God is like a man playing bingo.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man bringing Dunkin Donuts.

Perhaps one day I can serve Eucharist at Peaceful Haven and play bingo at Garden Manor.  Bread and Wine and donut holes and coffee and Cheetos and Coke and cheap prizes:  such is the Kingdom of Heaven.  Such is the priesthood.

Blessings.

(The names of both facilities were changed for this reflection.)

Photo:  Chalmers Butterfield.  Used by permission.

In the beginning was the Word.

The preachers’ dilemma:  words used to communicate the deep mysteries of God are like mallets used for brain surgery — blunt and clumsy instruments, ill-suited for the task.  Yet, they are what we have in that brief liturgical window allotted the sermon each Sunday.  So, we struggle to make them work, to make the true, and just perhaps, in rare and glimmering moments, to make them shine with God’s reflected glory.  If words are used well, that is, if the Holy Spirit inspires those words, they become verbal icons — windows opening onto the vista of God.  Except for those who sell them or wash them, no one looks at windows; we look through them.  Perhaps the best sermons function the same; we do not so much hear them as we hear God speaking through them.  The good sermon instructs.  The better sermon instructs and inspires.  The best sermon enlightens; it disappears entirely as it gives way to the glorious presence of the Word who was in the beginning, who was with God, who was and is God.  I have never preached such a sermon.

The liturgy is awash with words, beautifully crafted and full of truth.  It may well and profitably be studied for a lifetime as an expression of orthodoxy:  right glory — true faith and true worship.  And yet, its words are never ends, but means.  They lift us as does a rising wave, building in force and momentum and carrying us with them until they break upon the altar and deposit us there on our knees in the presence of the one who loves us and gave himself for us.  When words do this, they have fulfilled their true purpose.

All words spoken in the name of Christ are powerful and dynamic.  They do not leave the hearer unaffected.  They help or hinder, heal or wound, loose or bind.  Silence is often the prudent path, but it is not always the path God bids us walk.  So we tread very carefully the way of words.  We struggle to use them well:  to bless, to forgive, to encourage, to exhort.  And we pray, when we ineptly use them as mallets for brain surgery, that our lives speak more clearly still, more truly than our clumsy words.

Lord, open our lips, and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Blessings.

Photo:  Mary Kathleen Roop.  Used by permission.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  God spoke and called worlds into being:  “Let there be,” God said, and there was, and it was good — creation by speech act.  A speech act consists of words, and sometimes gestures, which not only express but create that which is expressed.

Speech acts are so common, so “ordinary” in our world that we risk overlooking their beauty and power and mystery.  “I forgive you,” a victim says, not only expressing forgiveness but also creating a state of reconciliation.  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the officiant says, expressing his will, the will of the totally unprepared couple standing before him,and the will of the usually older and wiser assembly, and the two become one flesh.  “I promise,” not only expresses intent but creates a solemn commitment.  Speech acts abound, and every one, in some sense, derives it power from God’s original speech act:  “Let there be.”

I have many friends from non-liturgical churches; they are familiar with ministers and pastors, but not so much with priests.  “So, what does a priest do?” they ask in one form or another, trying to place me somewhere in their existing understanding of Christian leadership.  And even those who are new to liturgical worship sometimes ask, “What can you do now as a priest that you couldn’t do as a deacon?”  I answer as well and as briefly as I can to satisfy genuine curiosity without lapsing into a theology lesson.  But what I really want to say is that, in addition to preaching, teaching, and pastoral care, a priest performs distinctive, sacramental speech acts:  absolution, consecration, and blessing.  It is all there in the ordinal.

As the gathered presbyters lay hands on the priest ordinand, the bishop prays:

Receive the Holy Spirit for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to you by the Imposition of our Hands. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld. Be a faithful minister of God’s holy Word and Sacraments; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Through a speech act the bishop invokes the Holy Spirit to empower the new priest to speak words of absolution that truly convey God’s forgiveness.  “I absolve you,” spoken by the priest to the one who sincerely repents and with true faith turns to God creates absolution and reconciliation because Christ has decreed it to be so and because the Holy Spirit is present in and acting through the words:  a sacramental speech act.

A bit later in the service of ordination, the bishop anoints the palms of the priest ordinand and prays:

Grant, O Lord, to consecrate and sanctify these hands by this unction, and by our blessing; that whatsoever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate may be consecrated and sanctified; in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

And from that moment, when the new priest prays, “And now, Father, we ask you to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine,” or when he pronounces, “The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always,” it is so, not because the priest is especially holy or worthy, but because, by the speech act of the bishop and the grace of God, the ordinand has received the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a priest.

Because speech acts are filled with mystery and power, Jesus warns us all — not just priests — that “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt 12:36-37, ESV throughout).  Our Lord’s brother, James, also cautions us, especially teachers, about the darker, destructive side of speech acts.  The tongue, James writes,

is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers, these things ought not to be so (James 3:8b-10).

These are sobering words and a serious burden placed on a priest — a burden not one of us can bear without the grace and mercy of God.

So, what do priests do?  Priests create a new reality by speech acts, bringing into being forgiveness, holiness, and blessing — not by virtue of their own power, but as ministers of Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, to the honor and glory of God.

Some are priests by vocation and ordination, and engage in sacramental speech acts as an integral part of pastoral ministry.  But all who are in Christ are priests by baptism; all are called to holy speech acts.  Go into the world:  forgive, bless, make the world holy, all in Jesus’ name; this is the priesthood of all believers.  Let there be, and there is, and it is good.

Blessings.

Photo:  Mary Kathleen Roop.  Used by permission.

I am a husband and father, a high school math teacher, a lover of books and music and coffee, a sinner by fallen nature and a saint by the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  And now, as of 17 May 2015 — exactly fifty years and two weeks after my baptism — I am an Anglican priest in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Everything is the same as before.  Nothing is the same as before.

Many of my educational colleagues were present at my ordination, and that was a gracious gift.  They look at me differently now, though.  As much as I’ve tried to assure them that I am still the same person, we all know it isn’t so.  I do all the same things:  prepare lessons, teach classes, grade papers, attend meetings.  Yes, these are the same things, but it is not the same person doing them.  Though they might not articulate it, in some way, I believe my colleagues and friends do not want me to be the same as before.  People long to know the holy is present among them, even if they wrongly attribute special holiness to priests.  On my best day, I simply represent the Holy in a particular way, and that may be enough for all of us.

Each ordinand tries to be fully present for the rite of ordination, but details often prove distracting:  process in this order (Who am I behind, again?); stand here (Where?); kneel or lie prostrate (Will I look pretentious laid flat-out?); say this prayer (But not that one, right?).  The canon and archbishop try to make everything simple — and the steps of the dance really are — but the ceremony is still overwhelming, as it should be.  Still, there are moments which emerge clearly from the fog of emotions:  music, which on more than one occasion brought me to tears carefully concealed; a Spirit-filled sermon and challenge from a Godly priest and mentor.

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!”

And then there were the eyes:  the eyes of the archbishop as he examined me and awaited each response — eyes filled with challenge and consolation; the eyes of my rector and my spiritual director clouded now and again with tears; the eyes of my wife of 37 years who saw this moment coming long before I did and who has steadfastly loved me throughout the journey; the eyes of my daughter holding just a glint of pride; the eyes of my brothers and sisters who now look to me to help lead them into the presence of God; and the unseen eyes of the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, portrayed so wondrously by our artist in residence.

The archbishop signed my forehead with oil, then my hands.  Tracing the cross on each palm, he then firmly folded my hands in a gesture of prayer and pressed the palms together forcefully as if to say, “Pray for these people.  Pray for yourself.  Pray for the world.  Your only hope lies in prayer.”  As indeed it does.  I’ve lived with these hands for fifty-seven years.  How little I know them now; they were transformed before me in an instant, with a little oil, a few words, and the coming of the Spirit.

The archbishop had asked me earlier in the day, “Are you prepared to celebrate the Eucharist at the ordination?”  I replied, “I am ready at your pleasure.”  I should have responded more appropriately, “Who is?”  But, God has called me to it, the archbishop has ordained me for it, and the people have consented.  So, yes, I am ready, God being my helper.  I had memorized the service and practiced it several times in private in the still of our church.  When I stood at the table that evening, I could not even recall my name.  Like Isaiah in the text read earlier, I was undone, for I knew that I was in the presence of God, high and holy and lifted up, with his train filling our sanctuary, and with the strains of Holy!  Holy!  Holy!  filling our ears as angels and archangels and all the company of heaven continued their eternal hymn.  “Are you ready?”  Who is?

And now, Father, we ask you to bless and sanctify, with your Word and Holy Spirit, these gifts of bread and wine, that we may partake of his most blessed body and blood.  And wondrously, the Creator of heaven and earth honored the prayer of this new priest and spread a feast of remembrance and victory for his people.  Once again, the Lord condescended to act in and through the weakest of vessels to flood the world with grace and love.

They filed forward to receive the body of Christ, the bread of heaven, and the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, my wife and daughter first in line.  “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life,” I said to each of them — and meant it and prayed it to be so from the deepest place in my heart.  The chair of my discernment committee came next.  Thank you, I told him silently, and What have you gotten me into?  And still they came, one after another to receive Christ from my oil-signed hands:  friends and family and colleagues — brothers and sisters all, sharing the common meal which our Lord gave us and commanded us to continue until he comes again.  And on their faces I saw joy and wonderment and worship and gratitude and grace:  on my face too, I think.

Too soon, the line ended and the table was cleared.  The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus…I started the Paschal blessing, speaking not on my own behalf (though I long to bless and to be a blessing) but on God’s behalf.  That is a reminder, of course, that every good and perfect gift, every blessing, comes from God.

The last “official” act of the day was first blessings.  It is pious tradition in some faith communions, and dogma in others, that the first blessings of a new priest convey an extra measure of grace.  Perhaps it’s all just honorary.  In the glow and quiet of our prayer chapel, my dearest friend, my rector, and my spiritual director — and a bit later a dear monk and his wife — sought and received first blessings.  I could barely pronounce the words.  Whether they received special grace I leave between each of them and God.  But I did and do with every remembrance of that moment.  I can say no more of it.

So, you now know the origin of this blog title:  First Blessing.  It is also traditional that first blessings are too special to be restricted to one day; the new priest gives first blessing for an entire year.  So, I have set my heart and hand to writing these public reflections of the life of a new priest for that same one year period.  Whether I will faithfully keep the discipline, God only knows.  I know that writing, when I do, will be a blessing to me.  May it also be, by the grace of God, to those who read.

Blessings.

Photo:  Mary Kathleen Roop.  Used by permission.