Heading back toward Public Worship - Rector's Rambling for June 28, 2020

This Sunday is harder than a 4th Sunday in Advent falling on December 23rd! 

We are so close to being able to have public worship once again at St. John’s Church!  Anticipation!

The bishops in Michigan are allowing us to offer public worship beginning on MONDAY, JUNE 29. This means that you can attend our 12:15 Masses on Monday through Wednesday and 10:30 on Thursday, or join us for Evening Prayer at 5 PM as well.  And on Sunday we can gather for worship as well.  More on Sunday in a minute.  All these services will continue to be livestreamed as well for those who cannot attend.

Things will not be ‘normal’ right away.  Masks are required, and for social distancing sake we will be roping off every other pew to keep people 6 feet apart.   There will be no coffee hour or using the space in the undercroft for anything other than the bathrooms.  And after some discussion and initial reticence by some leadership of our denomination, we will be celebrating The Holy Communion because it has proven to be safe with some reasonable precautions, including only distributing it in ‘one kind’, the Host.  The doctrine of Concomitance reaffirms that we receive all the Grace of the Sacrament in one kind or another.  There will be no sharing of the chalice in the beginning.

SUNDAY SCHEDULE - originally the dioceses were going to  limit attendance to a maximum of 50 people per service, but following the example of churches that have been open for 6 weeks, we are limited, for the time being, to 25% of occupancy.   The good news is that we have a HUGE church that seats 800+ people! So for the month of July here is the Sunday schedule.

7:30 Morning Prayer followed by

8:00 Holy Communion in the Chapel

(limit - 25 people)

10:00 Holy Communion in the Church

(limit - 200 people)

NOON - Holy Communion in Chapel

(limit 25 people)

5:00 - Evening Prayer in the Church

(limit 200 people)

The NOON service is a temporary addition, but the 5:00 Evening Prayer will stay on the schedule indefinitely.  Hymns will be sung at the 10 AM Service.

Back in the Church now, June 29 for everyone - Rector's Rambling for June 21, 2020

The picture here is a screenshot from our Tuesday Holy Communion Service on June 16.  What is notable about this photo is that it is the first Holy Communion Service celebrated inside St. John’s church or chapel in about three months.  Due to the Coronavirus restrictions, clergy who did not live in a rectory on church property were not allowed to celebrate Mass inside their church buildings because of the bishops’ observance of the stay-at-home order of the governor.

Some clergy stopped celebrating Holy Communion at all.  But being a traditional, Anglo-catholic priest in the Episcopal Church, and a member of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC), a part of the rule of life is to offer the Mass.  So, a temporary chapel was set up in my house, and Mass offered there five days a week, along with Evening Prayer and a daily Morning Meditation.  All this is livestreamed and posted on-line so the people of St. John’s and others can participate remotely.

I know it really isn’t the same.  I am acutely aware of the fact that I am “talking to a camera” (actually my iPhone).  And in my temporary chapel at home, I was also painfully aware that I was standing in the corner of my guest bedroom, and not a consecrated church building that has been set apart and sanctified by decades of the prayers of the faithful and the longtime presence of the Lord in tangible ways.

But we do believe that Christ is still really present in the Blessed Sacrament, no matter where the Mass is validly celebrated, and that God’s assurance of Grace in that Sacrament is still true, even if I have to contend with a delivery doorbell, the neighbor’s barking dog and lawn mower, and other distractions involved with trying to insert The Holy Mass into a household of people who are also under a stay-at-home order, and having to work from home under the same roof.

And now that I am back in the church to celebrate there is still something very important missing – YOU.  Keep praying that public worship will be allowed soon so we can celebrate and worship together

Adoremus in aeternum Sanctissimum Sacramentum - Rector's Rambling for June 14, 2020

Today the Church celebrates a feast day that is a copy of one that falls during Holy Week, and gets lost in the shuffle.

In all the busyness of Holy Week, with the concentration beginning on Palm Sunday about Jesus’ Crucifixion, on Thursday the Church has a special celebration of the institution of the Sacrament of the Holy Communion.

The night before Our Lord’s death, he met with his apostles to celebrate the Passover meal, as all the people of the Jews did.  Keeping the ancient practice of remembering the night when the angel of death passed over the first born of the people of the original covenant in order to convince Pharaoh to release them, Jesus takes the unleavened bread, and the cup of wine, and changes that “remembrance meal” into something even more meaningful and life-giving!

That last night Jesus gave himself under the species of bread and wine, which would become his own Body and Blood, an absolute assurance of Grace.  It is this that the Church continues to celebrate every time the priest stands at the altar to confect the Sacrament using our Lord’s own words, and the invocation of the Holy Spirit.

On the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, as well as the following Sunday, the Church celebrates with great solemnity this wonderful gift that gets lost in all the other activity of Holy Week.  On the Feast of Corpus Christi we can focus on the wonder of this remarkable gift to us of Himself.

In 1989, I attended a most memorable service of Corpus Christi, at St. Clement’s Church in Philadelphia.  Memorable not only because it was my first one, but primarily because of the absolute beauty and reverence shown to Jesus in the Sacrament!  Music, liturgy, and over the top ceremony made a lasting impression that carries on to this day.

Corona precautions prevent us from celebrating this grand occasion together today, but Jesus will still be worshipped and adored in the great gift of the Blessed Sacrament.  Adoremus in aeternum Sanctissimum Sacramentum [Let us adore forever the Most Holy Sacrament].

Masks with St. John's Logos

Friends -
Since we will have to be wearing masks for a period of time due to the CoronaVirus COVID19, including in church, we have ordered cloth masks with the St. John's Logo.  A good conversation starter while you are out and about.
They are available for sale in either Black or White with the St.John's Logo.  Price is $7.   Please email rector@stjohnsdetroit.org to place your order.  Supplies will be limited.