On the second day of Christmas

St Stephen depicted by Carlo Crivelli on the Demidoff
Altarpiece, 1476 (source Wikipedia Commons)

As if we didn't have enough challenges with relatives getting drunk at Christmas, today the deacon gets stoned. Life is never simple.

When Stephen, young and doomed to die,
fell crushed beneath the stones,
he had no no curse nor vengeful cry
for those who broke his bones;
but only in his heart a flame
and on his lips a prayer
that God, in sweet forgiveness' name,
should understand and spare.

--Hymn # 243, The Hymnal 1982
words by Jan Struther (1901-1953), alt.

Ormonde Plater has a nice post up on Stephen, as does Grandmère Mimi at Wounded Bird. I shan't try to add a third, I just wanted to get in that terrible pun.

I would like to say, on this feast of the first martyr, how grateful I am for deacons and the restoration of the diaconate in our time. I have seen deacons ministering faithfully in the world and in the church, bridging the two, diligent heralds of the Gospel. On Christmas Eve I got to be the "servant of the servant," holding the Gospel Book for Deacon Karly as she sang the Christmas Gospel.

This puts me in mind of Christmas Eve 1989. I was a freshly-minted transitional deacon (don't get me started on that, I do NOT view the diaconate as a stepping-stone to priesthood and support both per saltem ordination for presbyters and the full independence and integrity of the sacred order of deacons), and thus had the chance to chant the Christmas Gospel at St Mark's, Berkeley. I had donated a brass-bound Gospel Book to St Mark's in memory of my mother. This meant I would be holding that particular Gospel Book as I chanted. That might have been challenge enough. But the last time I had seen my mother (barely) conscious was on Christmas Eve a few years earlier, just before her death, and in the hospital room I read to her the Christmas Story from Luke.

So, as I practiced the Gospel tone in the week leading up to Christmas I kept breaking into tears. I wondered how I would make it through at the Midnight Mass.

God, in her mercy, gave me something else to think about when the time came. I was, blessedly, rather thoroughly cried out by the time Christmas arrived. The more immediate challenge now was being in decent voice late at night with incense swirling in the air. As we concluded the sequence hymn I unthinkingly began the chant on the concluding note of the hymn. This was right near the very top of my range, so as the words "The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke" came out of my mouth for the congregation to hear and respond to, my mind was uttering "holy shit I'm never going to get through this." Well, I did, though the strain on my mind and vocal cords was considerable. And several musically savvy folks in the choir, recognizing what had happened (these are the folks who pay attention to pitch, after all) were having the same silent thoughts I was. We were all relieved when I made it to the end.

If your true love happened to give you a partridge in a pear tree yesterday, I confess I have no idea what to do with a partridge. As to pears, however, I can recommend the Tarte aux Poires à la Bourdaloue found on page 642 of Volume One: Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louiette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. I haven't made it in years but I can guarantee you will impress and delight your friends.

There are of course, plenty of recipes for dove meat, though I simply prefer to listen to them coo and have always considered doves a happy sign of spring. They are randy critters, however, and I was given the repeated spectacle of their amorous pursuits on my deck rail in California. Also incredibly stupid when it came to nesting. Some of them would try to lay eggs on the tinest of ledges without lip, dooming the eggs to rolling off and falling to their doom. Tsk, tsk. In their defense, however, I also got to see them encouraging and modeling the art of flight to their fledgling when it came time to kick the little buggers out of the nest and get on with life. Very patient and persistent. I've also watched a mother dove act as a decoy to lure attention away from her chicks by doing the injured bird act.

UPDATE:
Well, Maddy's sent folks off to meet new bloggers (poor sods) and, holy Mother Mary, I think I've gone and fallen in love. She's taken, but the lovely Charlotte, whom Maddy calls babelicious (how does he get away with this?) has yet another wonderful idea for pears! Check out her Pear Tarte. (Control yourself, folks, it is not a euphemism.)
--the BB