Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia
November 6, 2007
It was a bright, cool, breezy day in Philadelphia that Tuesday, and I remembered that one of the churches bordering Rittenhouse Square offered a daily service at noon – so I hopped on a bus during my lunch hour to see if I could find it.
Hurrah – a sign outside the huge stone building tells me that there will be a service of Holy Eucharist at 12:15: “Twenty minutes with God.”
The carillon is playing as I walk toward the entrance. (Am I the only person who always thinks that church bells sound out of tune? They don’t sound bad, but they sure seem to have a different kind of tuning system than most instruments.) I enter the sanctuary a few minutes after noon.
Wow. Just. Wow.
This is a stunningly beautiful sanctuary. In fact, it may be the best one I’ve seen yet in my nearly seven months of visiting churches. I have been feeling very unimpressed with stained glass lately, but now I am definitely impressed. In fact, I’m impressed with everything in this place – the high curved dome over the altar space, beautifully painted and illuminated with a stained-glass skylight, the double rows of stained glass windows on both sides of the sanctuary, the huge raised pulpit to the right, the statue of an angel holding a lectern stand to the left, the painted triptych on the wall behind the altar, the words “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost” painted in large gold letters above the triptych, the ornate altar cloth, the candles, everything. Wow.
The sanctuary, including balconies, would probably seat at least 1,000 people, I’m guessing.
And I seem to be the only person in the building. Wait. That can’t be right.
A few minutes later a black woman enters and sits in the pews up near the altar, pews that might be for the choir. Maybe she is the priest? Someone begins playing the organ. Again – wow. What an organ.
A minute later a man wearing a white alb and a gold and black robe enters, bows toward the altar, and begins the service. The organist joins the woman in the pews up front. The bulletin, which I have barely glanced at because I’ve been staring at the building in awe, is extremely easy to read and follow.
Wait – did the priest just invite me to step up to those pews near the altar, where the other two people are sitting? He said something like, “Please join us,” but he said it so quickly and moved on so smoothly to the next part of the service, that I’m not absolutely certain what he meant. Perhaps he just means, “Let’s begin.”
Using the prayers in the bulletin, we repent thoroughly: “We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” The priest prays for the bishop and for the diocese. The Philadelphia diocese has been in a great deal of turmoil in recent years, and especially within the last few days. I remember reading something about the bishop being charged with something or other – I’ll have to look this up later. The priest prays for an end to violence in the city, which seems like a good idea in a city which is currently holds the top spot in the US for its murder rate.
The gospel text is the story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus because he was “short in stature.” Jesus sees him in the tree and invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ home. The priest says that we should note that God does the inviting, not Zacchaeus. Instead of asking Jesus into our hearts, we might be better off just being still and waiting for Him to invite Himself in. A nice twist on a religious cliché.
After the homily we pass the peace, and I walk toward the front to shake hands with everyone. This is a service where it is exceptionally easy to greet every single participant! The woman invites me to join her in the pews in the altar area, so I do.
Hey – these pews are great! There’s a wooden ledge where you can set out your bulletin, Bible, and hymnal for easy access and hands-free reading.
Before he begins Communion, the priest goes behind a short ornamental screen in front of the altar table and closes and locks the gate. At least, I think that’s what I see him doing. This reminds me of the much more elaborate doorways and gates and screens used in the service I attended in a Greek Orthodox church.
One slightly discombobulating thing happens next. While the priest is saying the communion prayers, the woman sitting next to me is overcome with giggles. She is trying very hard to suppress them, but everyone knows how impossible that is. It has happened to us all. She is doing a pretty good job – no snorting, gasping, or tears running down her face – all sins which I have committed in church services – but the smile behind her hand and the shaking shoulders give her away. I can’t help but wonder if I am causing this. I may have looked pretty funny sitting alone in this huge sanctuary. Or I might look funny up here near the altar. Or it could be some private thing that she suddenly remembered at an inconvenient time.
Oh well. No use speculating. This is one of the great advantages of growing older. When I was young I would have been mortified just imagining that someone might be laughing at me. Now it seems that, although I can’t help but entertain the idea that I might be causing someone to laugh, it’s probably pretty self-centered to think that I’m the cause of anything at all. But if I am the cause of laughter – good. We could all use more of it.
We three kneel for communion. We use a common cup for the wine – and I realize with some surprise this is the first time during my year of visiting churches that I have used a common cup.
We sit down again, and there is a blessing and dismissal. The organist snuffs out the candles. I walk to the door, shake hands with the priest, and leave. It did take only twenty minutes!
Epilogue
Later, I check the church website and learn a number of interesting things. The first is that it seems to be impossible to really capture how gorgeous the sanctuary is in photos. I looked online to see if I could find any photos that do this space justice, but I can't. Also:
1. “After four years of planning and building, the Church held its first service on March 27, 1859. Scottish-born architect John Knotman designed and built the church in the Norman style. This style expressed the low-church tradition favored by the founders, avoiding Gothic influences”
This is low-church tradition? This incredibly beautiful, ornate building? Apparently I have completely misunderstood the meaning of low-church and high-church tradition.
2. “The parish’s second rector, the Rev. Philips Brooks, was a noted preacher of the 19th century. . . . [t]hese years saw the writing by Brooks of what has become one of the best-loved Christmas carols, the first written in English by a native-born American, O Little Town of Bethlehem.
3. The church carillon is the oldest manually operated carillon on the continent.
4. “The beautiful stained glass from English, French, and American studios include five by Tiffany and one by Luc Olivier Merson. Brochures allow visitors to conduct a self-guided tour of our splendid works.”
Finally, I look up the controversy about Bishop Bennison. I was correct in thinking that he had been in the news recently. Just a few days before my visit he had been charged (by a judicial committee of the Episcopal church) with failing to respond properly to allegations of sexual misconduct regarding his brother in the 1970s. (His brother was a youth minister at a California church where Bennison was rector.) He was also charged with suppressing information related to his brother's alleged misconduct.
In 2008 Bennison was deposed from holy orders. He appealed, and In 2010 he was reinstated, although the House of Bishops urged him to resign voluntarily. As far as I can tell, he has not done so.
Many people believe that groups within the diocese wanted to get Bennison out for other reasons, but finally were only able to use the allegations from the California church to push their case forward. It’s a long, convoluted story involving almost every aspect of contemporary religious hot issues – money, sex, the ordination of women, the conservative/liberal divide, and power struggles between individual congregations and church authorities. A microcosm of some of the battles taking place in the Episcopal church worldwide and in the religious landscape worldwide.
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And Peace to men on earth.
We would be pretty lucky just to have peace among men in the church.
No comments:
Post a Comment