Well, the horrendous snow kept most people away from church this morning. I think we were lucky to get the 31 brave souls who did manage the trip. Such a small crowd produced a very intimate feeling liturgy, but I was disappointed by my sermon.
It's weird. I prepared well. I read the scriptures and then the commentaries and even five or six sermons written by others. Then I ruminated on those ideas for several days and came up with some decent nuggets. This morning I rounded all that work out with a long (at least an hour) meditation in the shower. I felt like I had a decent sermon by the time I walked down the hill to COTM. And yet somehow in the delivery I failed to find the sweet spot where my gospel-passion meets the pastoral relationship. Bummer. I blame myself. I think it's a symptom of my own failure to live on my spiritual edge. That is, I'm not really pushing myself to the places where my most vital spiritual growth will happen. It's very hard to preach my style of sermon when you're not living a spiritually adventurous lifestyle, if that makes sense.
I know what I need to do. I need to make time to go up to the Convent for Offices. I need to pray with the nuns. I need to let the rhythm of the Daily Offices take over for a while. Sr. Anitra, after hearing me pour my heart out about my need to find that spiritual edge again, said simply, "Come to the Convent for the Offices. Expect nothing." It was that second part--"Expect nothing"--that really rang the bell. As soon as the words escaped her mouth I knew them to be true.
I regularly thank the Holy Spirit for giving us these kinds of encounters....
2 comments:
I hope you were in rose like a good little Catholic.
Am I the only one who loves Convent food? People make snide remarks about it, but I think it beats Priory food (even though Br Leonard *is* quite talented in the kitchen). I'm going up for St John's Day on the 27th: I'll go for the Mass; I'll stay for the dinner!
Haven't experienced the Office there, though. I mean to check out Evensong one Sunday.
Unfortunately, we don't have a set of rose vestments. I feel lucky that we have a whole set of the common liturgical colors. but I must admit that I miss some of those great SMM vestments!
I plead the fifth on Convent food, except to say that the absolute best monastic food is at West Park. Hands down!
-t
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