Sunday, January 03, 2010

"Alleluia! Christ is Risen!"

Today at the 10:15 service, I committed a liturgical faux pas. At Trinity during Christmastide, they start the services with the presider saying “Alleluia! Christ is Born!” to which the people respond “Come let us adore him! Alleluia!” Because the opening acclamation is so close to the Easter acclamation (“Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”), I was worried that I might mess up. So during the opening hymn, I kept reading and re-reading the opening acclamation so I wouldn’t mess up. But sure enough, I said the Easter acclamation instead, to which the people dutifully responded “The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!” (the proper response to the Easter acclamation - they are so well trained) and then started laughing. I immediately realized what had happened. When the laughter died down, I said “okay, let’s try it again” and managed to get the right acclamation out. The people gave the correct response and then chuckled a little more and we went on with the service.

As I told David after it was all over, "Theologically, it works. After all, you can't have one without the other" (you can't have Easter without Christmas and without Easter, there would be no need for Christmas).

Then during the Peace, one of my favorite little old ladies said to me, “One of the things I love about you is that you are so human.” I told her I thought that was one of the best compliments I have ever received.

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2 comments:

Peter Davidson said...

Hello Michael, You have a very nice blog here! You may also appreciate the many testimonies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at http://wetestifyofchrist.blogspot.co,. God bless.

Joyce said...

Bless us all in our priestly foibles. loye ya.
Dr J