God-Bearer

Exactly ten years ago I was on sabbatical. I was away from parish duties for a full eleven weeks—from Independence Day to Labor Day. My goal for the sabbatical was three-fold: 1. catch up with family; 2. travel and study abroad; 3. make fitness a priority by utilizing new habits of physical activity. I will cover briefly one and three but will go into more detail on the travel and study part.

I visited parents and siblings in Tucson, a brother in the Bay Area in northern California, nephews in Portland and Olympia, and a brother-in-law in the Seattle area. My children accompanied me on most of those excursions. All of this was meaningful and valuable to me, and all the more for the fact that my father died one year later in the summer of 2013. The fitness piece of my sabbatical goals launched a hobby of running. In the next 20 months, I filled a drawer with token tee shirts from dozens of 5K, 10K, and longer races. In the spring of 2014, I ran the Woodlands Marathon. I swam and cycled too, enjoying half a dozen Olympic-length triathlons. That sabbatical really got me moving. My little tracker on my phone informs me that my training and events in the last nine years have mounted up 5,512 miles. Less than serious runners, but for this 66-year-old, who started late, I’m grateful for every mile.

I have more to say today concerning my travel and study during that sabbatical of 2012. I spent a week at St. Edmund Hall, at Oxford University, hearing lectures and engaging the faculty and participants. It was magical to be in the medieval setting—O the gothic architecture! Splendid too to be listening to things theological, drinking in Choral Evensong and Shakespeare company performances. Imagine Midsummer Night’s Dream in the garden of a gorgeous Oxford college. Given the totality of the summer, I have never been the same since.

On this evening, ten years ago I was at St. David’s Cathedral on the Pembrokeshire coast in southwestern Wales. It was the evening of The Feast of St. Mary; the small congregation for the Eucharist fit in the quire—what we would call the chancel—of the grand cathedral. The music was as heavenly as ours at St. Francis, Welsh choirs are marvelous. One of the little slogans of St. David’s applied perfectly to me. People come as tourists but soon become pilgrims. I had it on my list of things to see, because my last name, Price, is a Welsh name, meaning son of Rhys. Saint David, a sixth-century Celtic monk, and a missionary is the Patron Saint of Wales. I came as a tourist but left feeling I had made a significant spiritual pilgrimage.

I hope you know of a special title for St. Mary, Mother of our Lord. She bore Jesus into the world, so Mary is often called, Theotokos, the God-bearer. It was she who gave of herself, and gave Christ his complete human nature. The Holy Spirit gave Christ his complete divine nature. For nine months, her womb was home to the developing Savior of the world. We must not leave the subject without considering, that you too are, in a sense, a God-bearer, for in baptism, the Holy Spirit came to dwell in you. You represent Christ everywhere you go, and as you do, the Word continues to be made flesh, as you allow Christ to shine through you.