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