Too much to do. This time, however, it is different – well, really my attitude is different this time, alone with more responsibilities due to our field-placement duties. Field-placement is a saving grace! A funeral on Wednesday, Maundy Thursday service last night, Good Friday service today at noon and Easter Vigil tomorrow night. Then comes the big day itself: Easter.
This is the first time I have gone through this season in an intentional way. I was a passive participant/observer before. Growing up, there was only Easter Day – no thought about seasons of the Church or their effect on our spiritual formation and relationship with God. I am still more observant than participant, even though I am actively doing the stuff of the liturgy. One of these days, it will hit.
After nine years as an Episcopalian and one and a half years in seminary, I am recognizing the strength of the Anglican-Evangelical emphases, but I am truly drawn to Anglo-Catholic piety and worship. As a community event, High-Church worship brings together so many different elements as an act of worship. If there is not the interior spiritual life, the worship truly can be not much more than empty ritual. The communal worship must begin with the individual interior experience with God. Likewise, those who have the interior life and yet do not engage in the communal experience/worship that can only be accomplished in community are deficient in their entire Christian experience. Something like that, anyway…