The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

April 22, 2012

Sesquicentennial-Central Moravian-Nativity in History

“We Welcome you, because your fathers joined hands with us around the Cross; because in principles and practice we have many things in common; because we both desire the same high and holy end.”

The Rev. Edmund deSchweinitz, Good Friday 1865

These words spoken by the Pastor of Central Moravian in a joint service held here in this space (smaller space then) on Good Friday were words of welcome as a fledgling congregation of Episcopalians were crossing the threshold of a holy dream of a new congregation into what would become a Cathedral of God’s imagination.  These words, spoken by Mr. deSchweinitz, were repeated to us, just an hour ago, by Pastor Carol Reifinger, of Central Moravian Church, and she standing on the shoulders of those who have come before, send us now with yet again a blessing, a blessing that bids us welcome to cross again and anew the threshold’s in our lives and emerge as a blessed people of faith who gather in this Cathedral of God’s imagination.

John O’Donahue in his book, “To Bless the Space Between us: A Book of Blessings”,  suggests  that the culture of business in which we live challenges our sense of community and connectedness. He says, “while our culture is all gloss and pace on the outside, within it is too often haunted and lost. The commercial edge of so called “progress” has cut away a huge region of human tissue and webbing that held us in communion with one another. We are at rise of falling out of belonging. Consequently, we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage, and guide us as we cross into the unknown.”

A blessing, he reminds us is that which evokes a sense of warmth and protection, a reminder that no life is lived alone; that each life is clothed in raiment of spirit that secretly links it to everything else. That through all things, there is an inner light of providence that can never be quenched because we are a blessed people connected to one another.

My dear friends: I invite you this day to cross again as our forbears did the thresholds of our lives into this Cathedral of Imagination. I invite you to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and have found the words, rituals, the poetry, the songs to connect them And to Be a people of Blessing!

This time is our time and it is a time of new beginnings. It is a time of new beginnings because we are a people of new beginnings. This is our story, its an Easter story. New beginnings at every turn. Let us go as Blessed into the Cathedral of God’s imagination.

In our of the way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety, And the gray promises of sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning; This is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit of adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in  a new rhythym,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.