The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
In the year 1885 a meeting was called by Mrs. M. J. Franklin, a member of the Church of the Resurrection in New York City. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss with other women who the felt need to grow deeper in faith and prayer, and to ask God’s guidance. The spring of 1885 would bear fruit in the form of a bible class entitled “Daughters of the King.” This bible class at the Church of the Resurrection would grow into a communal experience for women built on the following premises: (1) To do God’s work, one must pray to God for the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and (2) Members of this communal experience would be devoted to prayer so that God’s Kingdom might be furthered. In other words, be devoted to prayer and service. These were the humble beginnings of what has grown today to be the “Order of the Daughters of the King,” an order of women throughout the Episcopal Church and beyond, dedicated to living in community with one another and with God, devoted to a discipline of prayer and service, a community of women devoted to prayer so that God’s Kingdom might be furthered. It is with gratitude that we institute a chapter of the Daughters of the King here in this Cathedral, this day.
How appropriate, too, it is that in today’s Gospel reading we find Jesus in the midst of a prayer of proclamation and thanksgiving at the conclusion of what we know as his “farewell address” to his disciples. In his prayer to his Father in heaven he makes the case for what he knows will be necessary for his disciples to “live in the world,” as the embodied presence of the Kingdom he proclaims. Above all things, if they are to further God’s Kingdom, this community must be united with one another and with Jesus and, therefore, with God. Prayer and service! Jesus in his prayer says, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” Jesus’ hope for the community of faith He leaves behind is complete joy. Whether living in community as a “daughter” committed to prayer and service, or living as the broader community of faith living our baptismal covenant, we seek joy made complete so that we may be the community of the Kingdom that Jesus prays for us to be. We are a people of faith whose life attitude is to expect joy, but what is this joy Jesus speaks of in his “farewell address” and in his prayer just before his disciples would witness his greatest agony?
Joy, it seems to me, as Jesus speaks of it, is not to be confused with happiness or even delight, but joy is an experience of complete unity with God, an integration of sorts. Joy is the “magic,” if you will, of knowing your connection to God and to one another in a way that brings your heart to a full awareness that each breath you take in life is a holy one. Joy is like taking a path covered with thistle and brush that gives way to the most beautiful view of God’s grandiose creation. Joy is like being in the thicket of relationship with a loved one and coming to an awareness that you are so blessed by what is in your life you feel paralyzed by the weight of it, and so thrilled you could fly. Joy is like being in the deepest, darkest forest and knowing that you are not lost, but on the brink of discovering something thrilling. Joy is like stepping on water expecting to skip to another shore. The “magic” of Christian community is that we expect joy. The alternative just may give us a sinking feeling.
A community of faith expecting joy, it seems, is worth our joining Jesus in prayer. A community of women forming to ask God’s direction in their lives to help further the Kingdom, it seems, is worth our joining them in prayer.
I leave you with this prayer, the Daughter’s motto:
For His Sake, I am but one,
I cannot do everything, but I can do something,
What I can do, I ought to do
What I ought to do, by the Grace of God I will do,
Lord Christ, what will you have me do?
Amen.
