Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Thoughts from London 3

The Compass Rose meeting which I am attending is kind enough not to start until 9am. This means that I have had time to visit one of my favorite Churches, All Saints Margaret Street. I managed to get to Evensong and Benediction on Sunday and to Morning Prayer and Mass for the past couple of days.

All Saints is very firmly a child of the Tractarian Movement – that nineteenth century wave or high church worship and radical social action which swept Victorian England. In London, as in US cities, churches were often planted in area of great need. Slum living was a reality in every major city. There was little hope and disease was rife.

Today at All Saints morning mass is accompanied by the snoring of a couple of folks who are sleeping in the back of the church because they have nowhere else to sleep.

Benediction is a service which has fallen out of favor in many places. It is ridiculously formal and centers on what is called The Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Basically consecrated bread is placed in a holder called a monstrance and eventually, during the service, attendees receive a blessing with the sacrament.

Intellectually I find the whole thing bizarre but attending the service nearly always moves me deeply. There is something about simple adoration which we do not get to do very much. We are all busy and our worship runs to a schedule. Adoration and wonder is a slower project.

We talk a lot about telling stories and when we take time for adoration we are telling a consistent story. Whether it is through a formalized service or an informal act and time in adoration we are putting ourselves in right perspective with God. If we can allow God’s beauty and splendour to literally take our breath away we might begin to understand our place in God’s kingdom.

We are those who are invited in to a place which by any other measure we have no place to claim a right to. We are those who are invited in, not just as guests but as beloved children. I think I like Benediction because it gives me nothing else to do but consider this, to revel in this, to wonder in this.

If we are to tell our story we have to allow our story to be true for us. Adoration is a fundamental part of our humanity but it is not rational or, really, controllable. In our logical and carefully controlled lives adoration is not something we find easy, it makes us vulnerable and out of our own control. Through it though, we find a voice which is not seeking simple sense, but is infused with holiness. This is our story and our song.

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