Easter Sunday Blessings on our Daily Kos Community! This diary was a huge challenge, because Pastor Dan was so good at balancing the sacred and the secular and that's not an easy task. But today is Easter Sunday, so I hope that you will indulge my trip down memory lane and allow me to share a faith story and some prayers of hope for the world.
How Can I keep from Singing, by Robert Wadsworth Lowery - 1860
My life flows on in endless song,
above earth's lamentation.
I hear the distant melody
that hails a new creation.
Refrain:
No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?
(Refrain)
What though my joys and comforts die?
I know my Savior liveth.
What though the darkness gather round?
Songs in the night he giveth.
(Refrain)
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
a fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his!
How can I keep from singing?
(Refrain)
I’ve been singing my whole life. I started out singing hymns in Catholic School back in the early 60s. We learned them all... from the classics like Old Hundredth (Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow) to the then contemporary Let There Be Peace On Earth. When I was in grade school, that song became an anthem for the Vietnam War, even though it was written in the mid 1950s, it didn’t really get a regular place in the Catholic Hymn Books until the late sixties.
My mom used to sing in the choir and as a little girl I used to strain my ears to listen for her very voice in the large choir at St. Stanislaus Church. Even at age 3 or 4, I was so touched by sacred music that it made me cry to listen to it. And it still does.
Around the time I turned 19, I left the Church, and stayed away for many years. I wandered through the valley of agnosticism, I explored other religions and non-religions and didn’t really practice any kind of faith for a long time. But life gives everyone a wake up call once in a while, and I had reached a very low point in mine around the Spring of 1988. It was so bad that I said to myself quite suddenly one day that I wanted to go to confession (the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation for those who are not familiar with the more commonly used term "confession") – so I looked in the phone book for a nearby Catholic church. It was on a Saturday afternoon about 2:00 p.m. that I walked back into a Church for the first time in ages. It turned out that that very day was Holy Saturday. I walked into the Confessional and spilled my soul and my tears to the poor Priest on duty on the other side of the window. He was gentle, and loving and he told me that if I wanted to talk together afterwards, he would be happy to do so. I left the room, kneeled down in a back pew, said my penance of a few prayers and felt amazingly like a new person after going so far down a very horrible road.
I went to Mass again the next day, Easter Sunday, and I basically cried my eyes out the whole time because I was so happy to be connecting with my core faith again. And then I made a promise to God that I would attend Mass every day to make up for all of the Sundays that I missed in the previous 10 years. And I kept that promise, attending daily Mass for 520 days in a row (with the exception of one time I had to spend the night in a hospital). Those days were the start of a rebirth in my life and I ultimately found a tremendous peace in my own faith. I joined the choir at St. Monica’s Church in Santa Monica, I found friends, made sense of who I was and realized that I was okay as a person.
I have since moved on from California to the coast of Maine. The years have brought some hard times on the Catholic Church through priest scandals, shortages, doctrinal skirmishes, etc. But there is, to me, nothing to compare with the singing of the Alleluia on Easter Morning, and all of the sorrows, frustrations and fears of life can be put off to another day. Each one of us finds faith in his or her own way. This is mine.
Tonight, Brothers and Sisters, we offer prayers for those who are broken in heart, mind, body or soul, and for those who are homeless, hungry, afflicted by illness or pain. We pray for those who are in harm’s way, whether through domestic or street violence, or war. We pray for our world leaders to make some sort of peace for us and for our children. We pray for those who have lost hope. We pray for our planet and all of the creatures dwelling here. We offer prayers for those who don’t know how to pray. And we offer a great prayer of Thanksgiving for this community and for our own communities of families and friends, where ever they may be.
For me, no Easter can be complete without listening to my all time favorite song: John Rutter’s For The Beauty of The Earth. Here for your enjoyment is the St. Paul’s Cathedral Boys Choir. This version was sung at the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and it’s very lovely. Lyrics to the song below the video.
For The Beauty of The Earth by Folliott S. Pierpoint, 1864
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our joyful hymn of praise.
For the wonder of each hour,
Of the day and of the night;
Hill and vale and tree and flow'r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our joyful hymn of praise.
For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight;
For the mystic harmony,
Linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our joyful hymn of praise.
For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on Earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our joyful hymn of praise.
For Thyself, best Gift Divine,
To the world so freely given,
For that great, great love of Thine,
Peace on earth and joy in heaven.
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our joyful hymn of praise.
Amen.
Blessings, Brothers and Sisters of Daily Kos. Joy and peace to you on this lovely Easter Sunday. Thank you for reading.