pray until your heart's on fire
disjointed sermons, disjointed substacks
There are days when my homilies at daily Mass are quite good. Something surprises me about the text, or I discover something magnificent and unexpected in the life of saint. The Holy Spirit wanders with me from Point A to Point B with elegance, and I almost sigh at the conclusion of the benediction - “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” - yes, yes. I love this work.
But there are some days when my meditations are disjointed. There is something to say, but I try to say too much of it for the five or so minutes I’m standing upon the pavement. It could be that I’m tired or distracted (I try not to be distracted, but you know how these things go sometimes). Or it could be that I’m something else: angry, lonely, heartbroken. When Mass is every day, it encounters the full constellation of our daily experience – and certainly the full constellation of our personalities.
I have preached on the day after a shooting now more times than I can count or remember. Some of these homilies were more elegant than others. All of them were more elegant than whatever it was I managed to whisper out this afternoon. Jesus tells his disciples in the appointed Gospel from St. Matthew today,
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I can’t adequately describe to you what I was feeling as I concluded the Gospel reading and prepared to preach. I closed the Bible. I looked out at the handful of familiar faces standing in that precious, anticipatory silence of the Lady Chapel. I looked closely at them, and I loved them so much my heart felt like it might fall out of my human body. In all of their constellations of experiences and personalities, I loved them. I felt like a mother, desperate and eager to protect them, to give them joy and life, to remind them that they were made by God and deserve every grace of the perfection of His creation. It is difficult to begin a sermon when words seem like shadows in the presence of true love (Christ’s, and - by his grace - mine).
There is nothing unique about today save the fact that last night’s shooting in Alabama took place in a church within my own Episcopal communion. I returned from dinner last night to a litany of text messages, three phone calls, two voicemails. It was impossible that they would contain good news. Sure enough, in a church like mine, far away and not so far away, someone (who? why?) entered a parish potluck and murdered two people. In our little church world, everyone knows one another somehow. This is St. Stephens in Alabama, and this is all of us.
Ask any clergy person at all and they will tell you that we think about this all the time. When will it be our turn? Where could we hide? How would we protect our elders and our children? My husband worries about me every day. My parents worry about me. I am always wearing shoes I can run in. I am always looking for the exits, casing the sanctuary, calculating distances between doors and evaluating which structures would make for secure hiding places. I think about this every day, multiple times, and often at night, awake in bed. I know teachers are in the same position, along with countless others.
As priests, we shepherd places that are meant to be havens of peace and solidity. We welcome the stranger, and we cultivate silence, reconciliation, prayer, and thanksgiving in the midst of a world hell-bent on terror. We do our best to eliminate any barrier between an individual and this particular place where we encounter God. This is how is should be. This is the love of Jesus Christ. This is the love of the nine beautiful souls who welcomed a stranger into their Bible study on this very day in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 only to be mercilessly gunned down in an act of heinous violence and racism.
I know the usual congregations at Morning and Evening Prayer. I know the people who come to daily Mass. When a stranger arrives, my first instinct is panic. I - the priest who took vows of service to Jesus Christ who welcomes the stranger and the outcast - I am wary and often afraid. It wasn’t always like this. Perhaps I spent a number of years moving along this earth in relative naïveté, and I cannot tell you when this shifted, but there was a time in my own ministry when I did not think like this. I was a priest whose first instinct was to welcome the stranger, and I am left today wondering what happened to her.
But I will not surrender my last reserves of charity. I will never stop praying and preaching and loving. I will pray until my heart is on fire. I will bind myself to the heart of Christ with everything I have and am and will be. We are communities of open doors and open hearts. This is how we will live, and - if it comes to it - this is how we will die. We will take precautions and do our utmost to preclude unnecessary risk, but we will be here, every day, and - God help us - we will open the door.
When the violence and impossibility of so much of life can feel unstoppable, my husband and I have been praying with this idea of making good bricks. We may not be able to build a cathedral on our own or even between the two of us. Thinking of caulking a tower or gathering materials for an entire transept is annihilating, but we can begin the work of making good bricks.
A good brick is a small, well-made, cared-for thing that you can create for yourself, your community, and the world. It is a thoughtful testament to Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, rendered by your own good heart and your own two hands.
A gentle conversation is a good brick. A reflective sermon is a good brick. Making a home into a place of hospitality and peace is a good brick. Planting a garden is a good brick. This is the work of our lives writ small and holy. When the tasks are overwhelming, let the clay that’s already between your hands be the first thing offered in love.
Even during these days of violence and fear, God is nearer to us than our own breath and blood. If something has been nudging you lately to pay fresh attention to this nearness, it is the Holy Spirit. My prayer for you - whoever you are or wherever you may be - is that today you will let God love you. It is astounding what can happen when we begin to recognize this Love – even a little, even briefly, even here.