Kneel Here, Please

Ordination of Fr.Michael Galbraith October 23rd, 2015

Laying-on of Hands by the Priests of the Diocese

Photo by Brian Wallace

As a kid I grew up around the theatre.  My dad taught drama and stagecraft for a living as a high school and then a college teacher.  He did summer theatre too, and when I was old enough, I got to help out with putting together stage platforms, painting flats and hauling lights up and down ladders.  The aspects of theatre that appealed to me most had to do with all aspects of painting -- mixing colors, applying paint, texturing, working really big.  I tried acting in a few plays (such as the older of the murdered princes in Richard III) which was always problematic, combining acute anxiety (stage-fright) with a lack of coordination and an alarming but predictable tendency to step off the stage due to extreme nearsightedness (the little princes didn't wear glasses, it turns out.)

But really I admired and appreciated too all of the men and women working behind the scenes - the folks operating the sound and light boards, the costumers, the prop masters and most of all, the stage managers, whose role is to somehow to hold the whole everything together at rehearsal and especially during the performance.

I cherish the time I spent with my dad helping out in the summers but I never felt called to a life in the theatre (unlike my sister, Margaret, who became a circus clown and a tap dancer- she's really good, too!)  Which is why, I suppose that I could never imagine that as a deacon I'd find myself serving as a master of ceremonies (a stage manager of sorts) at the liturgy.

The sacred liturgy isn't theatre, of course, but in Catholic ritual, everyone has a particular part (ministry) assigned to them that they perform in the liturgy.  The MC's job is to make sure that the liturgy, especially a complex liturgy like an ordination, seemlessly unfolds according to the rite, with everyone involved standing, kneeling, moving, processing, praying at the appointed time.

Ideally, if the MC is doing his job properly, two things occur: 1. the assembly and ministers don't have to worry about what comes next, which allow them to enter more profoundly and prayerfully into the ritual action and 2. regardless of what might go ary, the MC remains calm,reassuring and encouraging.  And just as with iconpainters, an MC ideally disappears so that the icon of Christ (in this case, the Body of Christ at worship) takes, as it were, center stage.

Last Friday, I had the privilege of serving as MC for Deacon Mike Galbraith's ordination as a priest for the Diocese of Juneau.  Fr. Mike, who will be serving as an associate pastor at Holy Name Parish in Ketchikan, will be a great addition to the presbyterate of our diocese and has all the signs of being a wise and compassionate pastor of souls.  Ad multos annos, brother!

Seeing and Hearing



Pope Francis

I wonder if the most significant and memorable event of the Year of Faith (which draws to a close on November 24^th ), might have been the day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria and the Middle East this past Saturday.  With only a week’s notice, Pope Francis directed the entire Church (all 1.2 billion of us), to pray for peaceful and non-violent resolution of the civil war in Syria, which has already claimed 100,000 lives and forced an estimated 2 million refugees to flee the country. 

In calling for this day of prayer and fasting, Pope Francis condemned the use of chemical weapons and their possession, cautioned against any escalation of the violence or widening of the war and called for a ceasefire and urged all parties to seek a political and not a military solution to the crisis. 
 
None of which is unexpected coming from the Vatican.  The Holy See (and by extension, the Catholic Church) can be relied upon to always recommend  peaceful rather than a violent solutions to international conflicts and disputes.    
But in his call to prayer and fasting, Pope Francis spoke of the moral duty of every person of good will to pursue peace.  In his announcement, he wrote:

“All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursing peace.  I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian or other confessions, as well as to the followers of every religion and to those brothers and sisters who do not believe: peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs to all of humanity.”

He went onto say: “ I repeat forcefully: it is neither a culture of confrontation nor a culture of conflict that builds harmony within and between peoples, but rather a culture of encounter and a culture of dialogue; this is the only way to peace.  May the plea for peace rise up and touch the heart of everyone so they may lay down their weapons and let themselves be led by the desire for peace.”

But then, building on the foundation of a shared humanity and our ability using reason to arrive at natural truth (in this case, that we bound as human beings to pursue peace in every situation, he became a powerful evangelist.

 

Into the despair and hopelessness of the present war in Syria, at a time when the threat of wider, even more violent and intractable war threatens, the Holy Father proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer.  Why?  Because, as he wrotes, “ Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace.” 

 

He wanted us as a Church, as disciples and witnesses of Jesus, the Prince of Peace and the Light of the world, and praying for the intercession of his Mother, the Queen of Peace, to gather publicly in prayer and in a spirit of penance to invoke “God’s great gift of peace upon the beloved nation of Syria and upon each situation of conflict and violence around the world.” 

 

September 7^th was a powerful act of witness to Jesus Christ and to the way of life that he calls us to live as his disciples.  On our knees we asked God to convert and to change our hearts and the hearts of all those who have taken up arms and we appealed in prayer for all those in need and for an increase in our own love and care for the poor and the dispossessed of Syria and the Middle East.

 At the same time, by gathering to pray, we were, despite our own frailty and sinfulness, witnesses to the transforming and incandescent love of God, revealed most fully and perfectly in the Person of Jesus, which illumines the darkness of sin, suffering and death.  His light, his truth, his peace and his love, embodied and incarnated in the earthen vessels of Christians and all those who seek dialogue, reconciliation and peace, are a shining beacon of hope for those who are hopeless and cynical and in despair.

 Let us entrust ourselves and each other to our loving God, for whom nothing is impossible, and may the peaceful witness of our lives invite all men and women to faith in Christ, our Savior and our Hope.

 

 

Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for Syria, pray for us.

 (The detail of the face of Christ is from an icon by the 20th century Russian iconographer, Leonid Ouspenski.  The icon of Mary is the Syrian icon of Our Lady of Saidnaya.)