Beating the Bounds

Monday, May 18 was the anniversary of the founding of St. Paul’s as a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas. In our diocese, as in most other dioceses in the Episcopal Church, to be a “parish” indicates a certain level of stability, the primary criterion of which has historically been the ability to financially support a full-time priest (titled the Rector). In our ancestor church, the Church of England, though, the parish also has a geographic sense: it is the area over which a particular priest has spiritual authority.

One of the many things I love about our Anglican tradition is our maintenance of the older sense of the term “parish.” Yes, St. Paul’s is a wonderful church, and inside our buildings we host beautiful worship, deep formation, and meaningful service. It is commitment to the place that is central to our identity that we have just committed over $3 million in our capital campaign. But St. Paul’s Parish is not only our buildings, neither is it only the people who inhabit them: our parish is the entire wider community of Fayetteville.

We have a lot of opportunities to witness to this broader understanding of our identity as a parish. We care for our unhoused neighbors who are residents of the parish even if they aren’t members of the church. We engage in outreach ministry, in the name of Christ and on behalf of our St. Paul’s community. And, once a year, we bear witness in an unusual but very traditional way: the Rogation Procession.

“Rogation” simply means prayer, but the Rogation procession evolved in England to be synonymous with parish identity. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Day (the Thursday 40 days after Easter) priest and people would go in procession to different corners of the parish—the geographical area under their spiritual jurisdiction. “Beating the bounds,” as it became to be called, served both a spiritual and a judicial practice by reminding those present of the physical boundaries of the parish as well as offering prayer for both residents and the natural resources of the place.

We did something not altogether different a few weekends ago. Beginning on the front steps of the church, we took incense, cross, torches, and ourselves for a two-plus-mile procession around the historic boundary of Fayetteville. Along the way, we stopped at about a dozen places to read Scripture and to pray for and bless them, among them Greenwood Cemetery, the library, and the county courthouse. It was my first time leading a Rogation procession, and I was aware of the confidence it takes not only to bring our parish identity out in such a public way, but also to assert our spiritual jurisdiction by praying in public for the businesses, places, and people that make up our parish—even and perhaps especially those who are not members of our congregation. Our procession gave us opportunity to interact with some of our neighbors, and to pray for all of them, and for this place that we all call home.

Rogationtide is linked to Ascension Day for reasons that might be primarily agricultural, but for us the Feast of the Ascension on May 14 provided yet another opportunity to gather as a parish. On this day, we remember Jesus bidding a final farewell to the disciples as his resurrected body took its leave of Earth and returned to Heaven. As he returns to the place from whence he came, he brings with him his human nature, completing the work of making it possible for us to join him there. As one of the hymns we sang proclaims,

Thou hast raised our human nature on the clouds to God’s right hand:
there we sit in heavenly places, there with thee in glory stand.
Jesus reigns, adored by angels; Man with God is on the throne;
mighty Lord, in thine ascension, we by faith behold our own. (Christopher Wordsworth)

Ascension Day is one of the seven Principal Feasts of our calendar (along with Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, Trinity, and All Saints’ Day) but unlike most of those other days, is never observed on a Sunday or treated with the same cultural cache as Christmas. No matter, though, because our small gathering observed Ascension Day not exclusively for personal edification, but on behalf of the entire parish. We celebrated the best way we know how: with a festive celebration of the Eucharist, praying the Great Thanksgiving for all that Christ has accomplished.

Both the Rogation Procession and the Ascension Day Eucharist made space for what priest and poet George Herbert called, in his writings about the benefits of the Rogation Procession, “neighbourly accompanying one another.” These acts of fellowship—that feature of life in community that includes simply spending time together—are at the heart of what it means to be a parish, one where we engage in serious, prayerful work but also leave room for joy and companionship. I hope when these events roll around next year, you’ll put them on your calendar and join us in these moments of celebration and neighborly accompaniment, for they represent the core of our identity as a parish.

I’m grateful for everyone who is part of the St. Paul’s parish family, and I pray that you will always be drawn closer to the center, which is Jesus Christ our Lord.

Faithfully,

Charles

Almighty and everliving God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. Strengthen the faithful, arouse the careless, and restore the penitent. Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, 817)