Vespers for Pentecost IV (2024)

O God, make speed to save us.O Lord, make haste to help us.Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: asit was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

If operating a power boat at full cry, when the power is cut suddenly, the vessel will come to a stop and then, just a moment later, be hit by its own wake and get shoved about in a rolling wave. It’s why one needs to take care when decelerating.

I think I have a metaphoric understanding of that sensation.

The whole business of moving from working parish priest to retiree has been similar. There are days when I feel as I’ve been hit by that following wake.

We’re still in the process of finding new doctors and dentists and dry cleaners and auto mechanics and the like; all of the things that you need to do when you move from one place to another.

Then there is the business of finding a church. While I had hoped to abide in some anonymity in about three or four area parishes as just another occasional pew-dweller, unengaged in anything other than worship and depositing a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the collection plate, my cover has now been blown in three out of the four.

I know why as I used to see it myself. An off-duty priest always stands out in a congregation. They use the books less as they know the prayers and hymns often by heart, they are comfortable with the liturgy and the milieu, they carry themselves differently, they cross themselves with an absence of deliberation.

Sometimes they inadvertently begin to lead the congregation in The Nicene Creed or Lord’s Prayer [oops!].

Also, in at least one case, the rector was a seminary classmate of my wife’s. Foiled again.

Even so, what I have come to cherish about this time is that I can pray in a quiet church without having to be the one in charge. I preside over nothing but my own intention in prayer. That has been a liberation. Also, I get to see scripture through another’s perspective, and that’s been a gift, as well.

The rediscovery of Sabbath has been perhaps the best part of this new reality. My wife and I attend the early liturgy [8am in one parish, 8:30 in another, 9 in a third], return home to cook an actual, and gloriously un-healthy, breakfast, read the newspaper [it’s the only day I buy a copy and it’s great], and check out the sportings on television.

My father, who was raised a Wesleyan Methodist, despite having two or three simultaneous jobs at any given time, was always careful about his Sundays. I remember them fondly as those were the days when I actually saw him, and not in snippets between his jobs. Like him, I can now be deliberate about it being a Sabbath, in the intended sense of the word.

So, when I come to the traditional monastic time of Vespers (5 or 5:30pm) or Evening Prayer, rather than either finally sitting down after a day’s labor, or getting ready for yet another meeting, I actually have an experience that matches the language of the service.

O gracious light,pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!Now as we come to the setting of the sun,and our eyes behold the vesper light,we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,O Son of God, O Giver of Life,and to be glorified through all the worlds.

I used to relish chanting the above, the Phos hilaron, in the monastery and seminary. Light, brightness, the wispy vespers of the ending day, happiness, and glory. A week concluded; another set to begin in the morning. God present in all of those moments; eternal purpose yet again ready to be realized, even when it’s in rest.

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in
Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.