Friday in Easter Week
I can't remember the first time I used the word "Peace" as a sign-off line in an e-mail. I probably opted for that word as opposed to things like "yours truly" and "sincerely" because those sorts of endings sounded like things that required a real signature on real letterhead. Besides, "Peace" was a word that was "religious enough" without being overtly pious. Calculated? Maybe. Unreflective? Absolutely.
With all of the thinking and praying I've been doing this week concerning the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I've changed my signature line in e-mails to read, "In the hope of peace". Somewhere, St. Paul says that "hope does not disappoint", so I do not believe that my hope for peace is a pipedream.
I remember a particularly moving moment in the sermon I heard on Christmas Eve, 1990 (my first liturgy in an Episcopal Church). The priest said, "Christmas is the time of year when the Church proclaims 'Peace on earth!' and there is not peace on earth, or peace in our country, or peace in our town, or peace in our hearts. And I don't know why. But the hope of Christmas and Easter, embodied both in the Babe in Bethlehem and the Resurrected Lord, is that God's Peace will come."
When I pray, "thy kingdom come" every Sunday at the Eucharist, I am reminded that God's kingdom is a peaceable one. I am reminded that at some level, the community of faith is to embody that peaceableness as it gathers to receive the Body and Blood. I am reminded that the exchange of "the Peace" in the liturgy isn't an opportunity for meeting and greeting -- it is the enactment of a hope -- a hope that one day humankind will cease relearning the horrific, death-dealing lessons of war.
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 815)
I can't remember the first time I used the word "Peace" as a sign-off line in an e-mail. I probably opted for that word as opposed to things like "yours truly" and "sincerely" because those sorts of endings sounded like things that required a real signature on real letterhead. Besides, "Peace" was a word that was "religious enough" without being overtly pious. Calculated? Maybe. Unreflective? Absolutely.
With all of the thinking and praying I've been doing this week concerning the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I've changed my signature line in e-mails to read, "In the hope of peace". Somewhere, St. Paul says that "hope does not disappoint", so I do not believe that my hope for peace is a pipedream.
I remember a particularly moving moment in the sermon I heard on Christmas Eve, 1990 (my first liturgy in an Episcopal Church). The priest said, "Christmas is the time of year when the Church proclaims 'Peace on earth!' and there is not peace on earth, or peace in our country, or peace in our town, or peace in our hearts. And I don't know why. But the hope of Christmas and Easter, embodied both in the Babe in Bethlehem and the Resurrected Lord, is that God's Peace will come."
When I pray, "thy kingdom come" every Sunday at the Eucharist, I am reminded that God's kingdom is a peaceable one. I am reminded that at some level, the community of faith is to embody that peaceableness as it gathers to receive the Body and Blood. I am reminded that the exchange of "the Peace" in the liturgy isn't an opportunity for meeting and greeting -- it is the enactment of a hope -- a hope that one day humankind will cease relearning the horrific, death-dealing lessons of war.
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 815)
posted by FrGaryB | 1:29 PM
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