Grace and Compassion

Dear friends,

The week of July 4th I had the privilege of leading the Wednesday healing service at St. Andrew’s and then celebrating Holy Eucharist on Thursday at The Chesapeake.  Both times I used lessons appointed for Independence Day from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, the liturgical resource that lays out the church calendar of holy days.  Lesser Feasts and Fasts also provides commentary for each holy day.  I find our church’s history with Independence Day very moving.
 
As you probably know, the Episcopal Church in the United States grew out of the Church of England.  When the fledgling colonies declared their independence in 1776, members of the Church of England in North America were in a sticky situation.  Because priests must be ordained by a bishop and there were no bishops in the colonies, all Anglican priests at the time had travelled to England to be ordained by an English bishop, and they’d sworn loyalty to the King as one of their ordination vows.  Yet some supported the American Revolution, while others remained loyal to the Crown.
 
After the United States successfully broke away from England, the first General Convention of the new Protestant Episcopal Church in the United State of America was held in 1785 and worked on creating its own prayer book, one that would remain faithful to the doctrines and worship of the Church of England but without paying homage to England’s royalty.
 
The proposed prayer book of 1786 included prayers and lessons for the celebration of Independence Day, but in 1789 the convention voted to remove Independence Day from the church calendar.  Why?  Because leading Independence Day worship would be difficult and embarrassing for the many clergy of the Episcopal Church who had been Loyalists.  It would put them in a very difficult position. 
 
The part of this story that I like the best is that the person who advocated most strongly for the exclusion of Independence Day in the church calendar was Bishop William White, a strong supporter of the American Revolution.  He could see that leading a worship service to celebrate Independence Day a mere 13 years after the war had ended would not be a kindness to his fellow clergymen, even though he disagreed with their stance about England.  Somehow he managed to convince the other members of the General Convention that the time was not yet right for Independence Day to be added to the church calendar.  It was not included as one of our “lesser feasts” until the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
 
What I love about this slice of our history is the grace and compassion shown by William White and, ultimately, by the other members of that 1789 General Convention.  Even those who had advocated for the American Revolution set aside their own personal desires, keeping their focus on what was best in the moment for the church as a whole.  I am inspired by their witness.
 
May I, and we, have the same kind of grace and compassion in our interactions with one another, even and especially when the topic at hand is one about which we feel very strongly.
 
Blessings and peace.  -Anne