I finished Scot McKnight’s book, “Praying with the Church,” yesterday and it was a good read. I recommend it if you are at all curious about keeping the hours of prayer, praying through prayer books – as I’ve mentioned here, or if you’re just a person who enjoys reading about prayer. One of the things McKnight writes about is something that I’ve found true during this time of fasting. It is possible to have your day and faith reordered according to prayer. Here’s what I mean: on the days I am not eating I move from breakfast time – morning prayer, to lunch or midday prayer, then vespers and finally compline (the prayer time) before bed. When you do this a few days, the rhythm of your day is affected. I go from prayer time to prayer time. But there is more. There are feast days in the church when we remember faithful Christians who have gone on before. I’ve written about this before. So this coming Wednesday is the day we remember St. Patrick, a visionary missionary to the people of Ireland. We remember his faithfulness and courage. We celebrate that God used him to bring so many people to know Christ. This year St. Patrick’s Day occurs on the 29th day of the Lenten Season (or 26th day if you do not count Sundays). One could, if one chooses, date a journal or a letter written on that day as being on the Feast Day of St. Patrick, on the 29th day of Lent in the year of our Lord 2010.
Maybe that seems weird, I don’t know. But for me it is a mental shift. When I think about these things, or when I date my prayer journal in this way (which I’ve done several times lately), then I am marking my days differently. I am noting where I am within the life of the Christian Church. I am locating myself within God’s story. On this day we remember how God raised up Patrick. In this season we remember the wilderness journey of Jesus Christ. I am celebrating, or taking part in a grand narrative about God and God’s people. I find something very comforting in that. For those of you who mark your Christian time from Sunday to Sunday and have trouble keeping track of yourself in between – I’ve been there and I understand. I wonder though, what steps may God be leading you towards to see your time differently? This has been a journey for me, and a tremendous one. I’ll leave with a hymn that was in today’s vespers reading by Charles Wesley.
Come, let us join our friends above, who have obtained the prize,
And on eagle wings of love to joys celestial rise.
Let saints on earth unite to sing with those to glory gone,
For all the servants of our King in earth and heaven are one.One family we dwell in him, one church above, beneath,
Though divided by the stream, the narrow stream of death;
One army of the living God, to his command we bow;
Part of his host have crossed the flood, and part are crossing now.Ten thousand to their endless home this solemn moment fly,
And we are to the margin come, and we expect to die.
Even so by faith we join our hands with those that went before,
And greet the blood besprinkled bands on that eternal shore.