December 20
O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.
O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens: come, and lead forth the captive who sits in the shadows from his prison.
Keys open and lock doors.
I remember the day the doors of Historic St. Peter Church of Cleveland were locked, by order of the bishop of the diocese. I was standing outside along with my many fellow parishioners as our pastor followed orders. It was the closing of a tomb that had once been a stable. That day haunts me.
I have never understood--and I'm sure I never will understood--the bullying of that bishop.
Last night, while singing carols with the St. Brigid's Community of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, I came across my very favorite Christmas hymn, written by Richard Wilbur. I asked if anyone knew it, and no one did.
It turns out that the version printed in the Hymnal 1982 is not the same version that I learned at St. Peter as a member of the choir early last decade. My usual search tricks failed in the effort to find a recording of it. The CD recorded by the choir (while I was studying in Berlin in 2002) is no longer for sale, either. Though the building is still there, and though the bishop was ordered by the Vatican to reopen its doors, the community that once worshiped there, the people who refused to be scattered, took roots elsewhere in the city, and there they remain, for the most part.
This is a beautiful recording, but it is not the one I learned in the midst of that beautiful community, and I can't help feeling tremendous loss as I listen to it.
I remember the day the doors of Historic St. Peter Church of Cleveland were locked, by order of the bishop of the diocese. I was standing outside along with my many fellow parishioners as our pastor followed orders. It was the closing of a tomb that had once been a stable. That day haunts me.
I have never understood--and I'm sure I never will understood--the bullying of that bishop.
Last night, while singing carols with the St. Brigid's Community of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, I came across my very favorite Christmas hymn, written by Richard Wilbur. I asked if anyone knew it, and no one did.
It turns out that the version printed in the Hymnal 1982 is not the same version that I learned at St. Peter as a member of the choir early last decade. My usual search tricks failed in the effort to find a recording of it. The CD recorded by the choir (while I was studying in Berlin in 2002) is no longer for sale, either. Though the building is still there, and though the bishop was ordered by the Vatican to reopen its doors, the community that once worshiped there, the people who refused to be scattered, took roots elsewhere in the city, and there they remain, for the most part.
This is a beautiful recording, but it is not the one I learned in the midst of that beautiful community, and I can't help feeling tremendous loss as I listen to it.
Love burns in my heart for the community of St. Peter, that breathtaking icon of God. But even in my anger, my hope refuses to be extinguished.
A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.
This child through David's city
shall ride in triumph by;
the palm shall strew its branches,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
though heavy, dull and dumb,
and lie within the roadway
to pave his kingdom come.
Yet he shall be forsaken,
and yielded up to die;
the sky shall groan and darken,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
for gifts of love abused;
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's blood again refused.
But now, as at the ending,
the low is lifted high;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
in praises of the child
by whose descent among us
the worlds are reconciled.
A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.
This child through David's city
shall ride in triumph by;
the palm shall strew its branches,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
though heavy, dull and dumb,
and lie within the roadway
to pave his kingdom come.
Yet he shall be forsaken,
and yielded up to die;
the sky shall groan and darken,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
for gifts of love abused;
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's blood again refused.
But now, as at the ending,
the low is lifted high;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
in praises of the child
by whose descent among us
the worlds are reconciled.
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