Dear Friends,

During the season of Lent we are using the wooden processional cross that has long been a part of the worship life at St. John’s. While the procession each Sunday includes the choir and the worship leaders, it is really meant to be representative of the procession of all of God’s people as they gather to offer worship. So each of us, on a Sunday morning is a part of that procession, a procession which begins as we leave our individual homes and gather as a community.

But the procession is even larger than that. After church on Sunday, Marie Hubbard told me that for many years, the cross was used to lead the Sunday School procession coming into church. Each Sunday, we are also united in a procession with all those who have walked down that aisle before us, and indeed with every gathering of Christians across the ages.

As we watch the events unfolding in Rome surrounding the election of a new pope. we will no doubt see great processions moving across St. Peter’s Square and beneath the vast dome of the church. But those processions are no more holy or grand than the one each of us joins every Sunday, as we make our way to the parish church we love.

Faithfully,

Tom

PS: In Sunday’s bulletin, there were some historical notes about the processional cross, written for the 1927 Harvest Fair Journal by the Rev. Mr. Wolcott Cutler, rector of St. John’s from 1924 to 1959. Here they are for those who could not be there Sunday:

On November 7, 1926, Archdeacon Dennen, of Boston, preached a beautiful memorial sermon on the lay ministry of the late Ralph Nauffts, and we dedicated the memorial processional cross that has been carried in St. John’s Church ever since.

The design of this processional cross is one which is much used because of its symbolism. At the centre stands the figure of a lamb with a tiny cross suggestive of the resurrection. This is the resurrection lamb familiar to students of religious art from early times. Each arm of the cross and the foot bear a carven figure representing one of the four Evangelists who wrote the Gospel stories. Above is the lion for St. Mark, and below, the eagle for St. John. To the left is the winged human form for St. Matthew, and to the right, the winged ox for St. Luke.

This processional cross differs from the one used in the Cathedral in Boston in several respects. Its color was chosen to blend with the color scheme of St. John’s Church, and the carving of the cross itself was designed differently that the form of the cross might be stronger and more evident, at all times, than the beautifying of its parts. The cross of our Lord is never to be thought of as an ornament, as a sign of pomp, or as a symbol of authority. It is the symbol of triumphant sacrifice and love, and fails utterly of its purpose when it arouses in our hearts thoughts of anything but the Good Friday that quickly bore fruit in Easter Day.