Rest a while

Whoever thought of celebrating Saints Peter and Paul together?

St Peter never left home, and St Paul never stayed home!

St Peter said yes, and then he said no!

St Paul said no, and then he said yes.

The occasion they did meet, they argued!

The Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), created a painting titled “Woman Holding a Balance “(1662-63). Johannes Vermeer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

In the painting, Vermeer has depicted what discreetly appears to be a young pregnant woman holding an empty balance before a table on which stands an open jewellery box, the pearls and gold within spilling over. A blue cloth rests in the left foreground, beneath a mirror, and a window to the left — unseen save its golden curtain — provides light. Behind the woman is a painting of the Last Judgment featuring Christ with raised, outstretched hands.

Might our celebrating of St. Peter and St. Paul be an invitation to us “to hold in balance” the seemingly opposite parts that reside within me and within my Church.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author wrote a novel titled “Death Comes For The Archbishop”. The book was initially published in 1927.

In that book, there is a quote that might be for the Saints Peter and Paul feast day: “They had not room in their minds for two ideas.”

Have you noticed how we use the word Amen like a liturgical full stop?

Many of our prayers, both liturgical and others, end with the words, “through Christ our Lord, AMEN”

Quite frequently there is a physical shift and relocation – for example in our Eucharistic celebration the community sits, and activity relocates to the ambo (that is a flash term for the lectern!)

We conclude our Prayers of the Faithful with a concluding AMEN and activity relocates to the Altar.

Frequently a liturgical doxology will conclude with the word, “Through Him, and with Him. AMEN”

During the Rite of Communion persons approach the minister of Bread and/or Cup and the following interaction takes place:

“Body of Christ. AMEN”
“Blood of Christ. AMEN”

Technically the word AMEN has the meaning of “So be it”
(Beyoncé has a track on her album ‘Cowboy Carter’ with the title AMEN)

Amen has become a liturgical full stop.

I was once in ministry in a parish where for one old lady the full stop had been done away with – at least during the Rite of Communion.

This woman was a Māori kuia, that is an elderly woman of standing.

At the Rite of Communion this woman of age would approach the Minister of Communion and to the invocation “Body of Christ” the kuia would respond, “Nau mai”.

At the invocation, “Blood of Christ”, she would respond in a like manner, “Nau mai.”

Nau mai, in the Māori culture, is a form of greeting and of welcome – as far distant from a full stop as you could possibly get!

Does the Body of Christ we know as Church resemble a full stop, or a welcome.

Body of Christ Nau mai

You may have seen reproductions of the famous Andrei Rublev icon of the Trinity.

Written for the abbot of the Trinity Monastery in Russia, the icon’s original title was ‘The Hospitality of Abraham’.

The icon depicts the three mysterious strangers who visited Abraham (Genesis 18:1 -15)

In the Genesis account the Lord visits Abraham in the form of three men who are apparently angels representing God.

Abraham offers them the hospitality of foot washing, rest under a shade tree, and a meal and they offered him the announcement that God was going to give he and his wife Sarah a son, though Sarah was far past the age of childbearing.

The three persons are seated around a table in an attitude of harmony and peace; the very lines of the icon create a circle within which the unity of the persons, the manner of their presence to one another, is visible. At the focal point of the icon there is a cup between them on the table. It is a wonderful use of symbol and suggestion.

The Trinity hints at hospitality. It is as if the divine persons were saying: be one with one another as we are one. (See John 17:21) To make the invitation even clearer, there is an empty place at the table.

We are being invited and drawn into the inner life of the Trinity, to sit at that empty place at God’s table.

I suggest this feast day of the Trinity is a feast day of hospitality.