October/November 2009

Night feeds are well behind us, just four months that seemed like they would go on forever, and yet strangely I miss them a little. Sitting in the silent darkness, one tiny hand holding my little finger, no sound except for the bottle’s stream of bubbles and the occasional contented coo, this was a holy and peaceful time.

I was always mindful of others who shared this quiet hour, that ‘blessed company’ of other parents, feeding or comforting or soothing babies, of nurses, and travelers, and shift workers, of people lying awake from pain or grief or worry. There was a sense of belonging to a vast community – silent, invisible, yet palpable – and that beautiful collect from Evening Prayer always came to mind:

Keep watch, dear Lord,
with those who work, or watch, or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ;
give rest to the weary, bless the dying,
soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous;
and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

John Ellerton’s great hymn, “The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended” is not often sung in most parishes, yet it assures us that while earth ‘rolls onward into light’, the Church remains unsleeping, keeping watch throughout the night, that ‘the voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies the strain of praise away’.

And so even though I no longer have to rise at three or four a.m. to feed a baby, someone else does, and someone is praying for me and for you. A vast company scattered all over the globe is praying for us in our pain and sadness, in our sickness and weakness, in our worries and losses, so that there is no time when we are not being held in the hearts and minds of our brothers and sisters, when our needs and hopes are not being lifted up to God.

This is what it means – in part at least – to belong to that community of saints we honor each year. But even if it were possible that the entire church slept, and we imagined ourselves alone and unloved and unsupported, our Christ would still be at our side, he who once trod the path of frailty and failure, and made it holy for us all.

To pray the hours and to live the liturgical year, from Advent to Christ the King, is to know that there is no intensity of suffering, no depth of ignominy, no extreme of obscurity, where Christ has not been, and where he may still be found. He inhabits every place and all times, waiting to greet us, encourage us and accompany us home.

TPG+

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