The Rev. Keri T. Aubert Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22
All Saints Episcopal Church, South Burlington, Vermont Psalm 124
September 27, 2009 James 5:13-20
Proper 21, Year B, RCL Mark 9:38-50
Sainte-Anne de Beaupré is a small town located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, about fifteen minutes east of Quebec City. Tradition names Anne and Joachim, who are not mentioned in the New Testament, as the parents of the Virgin Mary and therefore the grandparents of Jesus. Anne is the patron saint of Quebec. The town of Sainte-Anne de Beaupré is home to the Roman Catholic Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de- Beaupré. The huge and beautiful granite basilica on the grounds houses several relics of St. Anne. The Shrine is a noted site for healing and attracts almost one and a half million visitors a year from around the world. The basilica’s narthex is filled with discarded crutches.
I first visited the shrine at Beaupré about eight years ago. Shortly after returning, I mentioned it to my father. My parents live in Louisiana, where their families have been for generations. To my surprise, my father knew of the Shrine, because for years his mother had donated money to it, in thanksgiving for answered prayers. I prodded him for details, and he told me a story I’d never heard before. During the 1930s my father’s teenage sister Lorna contracted tuberculosis. Their mother prayed to St. Anne for Lorna’s healing. Lorna recovered. However, several years later, Lorna developed pneumonia. It turned out to be more than her tuberculosis-damaged lungs—or her mother’s prayers—could handle. Lorna died in 1944 at age 31, leaving behind a husband and small daughter. Subsequent events indicate that it was a death that my grandmother took hard. But she never lost faith.
My grandmother died when I was quite young, and I have no vivid memories of her. Hearing this story gave me, for the first time, a sense of her as a real, complex, living, loving, and sometimes grieving human being. It also gave me, for the first time, a sense of the steadiness of her faith. I have no idea what effect my grandmother’s prayer had on the outcome for her daughter. But I do know that, so many years later, through a path that could not have been predicted, that prayer led me to her, and so I am grateful.
Today’s reading from the Letter of James is a reminder for us to lift the entire breadth of our human experience to God through prayer. From suffering and sickness to joy and thanksgiving, God sanctifies that human experience and gives it back to us. It’s not always easy to recognize that this is happening. Sometimes we never know how or when it does. But we keep praying, and if we pay attention, sometimes we get glimpses into the mystery that binds us to one another and to God.
There are many ways to pray. We can pray alone or together. We can use words or silence. Maybe you’ve heard the old saying that one who sings prays twice. Even in my individual prayer, I sometimes pray by singing. One of the things I sing is a short section from a particular setting of the evening prayer service. I use it as a sort of antiphon to my prayers. It goes like this:
Let my prayer rise up like incense before you,
the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you.
Another liturgical prayer I often use is the beginning of Eucharistic Prayer D. That prayer is long, so we don’t use it very often. I sing it using an ancient chant setting, the setting that originally drew me to the prayer. I’m going to say it now, and maybe, in the context of a sermon, you’ll be able to hear it anew:
It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to give you thanks;
for you alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light
inaccessible from before time and for ever.
Fountain of life and source of all goodness, you made all
things and fill them with your blessing; you created them to
rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.
Countless throngs of angels stand before you to serve you
night and day; and, beholding the glory of your presence,
they offer you unceasing praise. Joining with them, and
giving voice to every creature under heaven, we acclaim you,
and glorify your Name as we sing. . . [BCP, 370]
I’m going to chant the first part for you now. Maybe you’ll hear it differently. [Chant first line]
I came to own and occupy this prayer in the process learning the chant—through the endless repetition of the words, along with the use of my body and breath. I sing it often, and, perhaps because it’s so embodied for me, it’s especially powerful for me during hikes with my dog. Fortunately for us, we know that God isn’t confined to any church, and that the act of prayer is not confined to any building. When I think about great places to pray, I’m likely to conjure up an image of my favorite spot on the rocks at Niquette Bay State Park.
We can pray by ourselves anywhere, but still we come to this church to pray together. The Catechism of the Book of Common lists the types of prayer as petition, intercession, thanksgiving, penitence, praise, adoration, and oblation. [BCP, 856] During the course of Sunday worship, we use them all. The collect of the day, the prayers of the people, the confession, the prayers at communion—our worship is infused with spoken prayer. With the hymns, our worship is bracketed and punctuated by sung prayer. Sometimes, Peggy and I even lay hands on you and pray for healing. Through all this prayer we praise God, and we offer ourselves to God. We share our joys and our burdens with God, and we take on one another’s burdens before God.
Also in Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer, prayer is defined as “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” [BCP, 856] Using this definition, one way to express the goal of Christian discipleship is as a life of continual prayer. That is, as Christians, we are to strive to ground all that we do in a life of “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” I think we can hear shades of this in today’s tough reading from the Gospel of Mark. Mark calls us to shed the thought and deeds that keep us or others from God. We are left with the thought and deeds that exist in response to God. Our thought and deeds are really our whole selves. As we offer our whole selves in response to God, we live a life continuously in prayer. I admit that I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it. It will probably be a lifelong project.
Though she died 65 years ago, my father still speaks glowingly of his sister Lorna. During my visit to Louisiana last fall, we visited Lorna’s gravesite, which is in the same cemetery as the gravesites of their parents and paternal grandparents. There were new, though admittedly plastic, roses in the vase for Lorna. I have no idea who left them. Maybe they are still praying for Lorna, and maybe somewhere Lorna is still praying for them.
