Eric Law, in his Kaleidoscope project, says that the offering of time and place is one of six currencies that are essential to develop for our vitality as Church. The others are wellness, leadership, truth, money, and relationships. Members of Grace Church, St Helena and St Mary’s, Napa, have been gathering on the second Saturday of the month to learn how to pay attention to the generating of each of these sources of communal energy. We began in January and we will conclude in June, right before the Day of Pentecost when we celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit who in fact empowers all these currencies in us.
There is a tradition within the Church Catholic as Pentecost approaches to offer prayers for those places that we associate with God’s abundance and our work. For us, in Napa Valley, that includes the vineyards around us, and for agricultural communities more generally their fields and the growing of the harvest. With its timing in the Spring, around April 25, it is “bookend praying” to go with thanksgiving for the harvest. In the Episcopal we mark the Sunday right before the Ascension of Jesus, as Rogation Sunday, or a time for such prayers.
We want to mark this tradition at Grace this coming Sunday, May 18, at the end of the 10am Eucharist. (Some of you will note that we are a week early from the Sunday before the Ascension, but we are avoiding Memorial Day weekend!) So, this Sunday, we will extend the recession out of the Church and bless with prayer and song our communal places. We will process into Bourne Hall, head upstairs to the balcony area and the Atrium, go down to the Undercroft or basement, and then head around the labyrinth to the Grace Garden at the Oak Avenue corner of the Church. We will stop for prayers and a reading, and sing as we go, sprinkling holy water for God’s blessing. With the significance of feasting, hosting and the offer of hospitality that our campus embraces, we depend upon God’s blessing of the harvest and our work. This is also the place where God feeds our spiritual lives and develops the values and life perspective of each of us and our children.
You can find Rogation Day prayers on pages 258 -259 of the Book of Common Prayer. Helpfully, the rubric says “for use on the traditional days, or at other times”. The prayers cover “for fruitful seasons”, “for commerce and industry”, and “for stewardship of creation”. In preparation, I bring forward the Collect for that Sixth Sunday of Easter:
“ O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen”
Bishop Alan
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