circle of prayer 5. the day: evening and morning: evening

there is a tribe, the kogi, in tropical south america, who say that when an infant begins life it knows three things: mother, night, and water.

the same simple but profound knowledge is reflected in the daily prayer of the church, who has not forgotten that the evening and the morning are the day, even if this wisdom shows up in popular culture only as christmas eve and hallowe'en.

water in the womb it is dark and we live surrounded by water, our own little sea, remembered in romance language congates such as mere and mar, mother and ocean, and celebrated in the first sacrament of the church, baptism, which in an ancient custom being more and more recovered, happens in its fullest on the eve of easter, when we are plunged into the waters of rebirth as we remember our lord's day in the womb of mother earth, sharing his death that we might share his resurrection. paul describes this image beautifully in the sixth chapter of his epistle to the romans: ". . . when we were baptized we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as christ was raised from the dead by the father's glory, we too might live a new life." (6:4)

night each evening, but especially saturday evening, beginning as it does the sunday, the little easter, the day of the resurrection, is an opportunity to reclaim the promises of baptism, not only those we made or which were made for us, but more importantly those the church made to us and which we as the body of christ made to one another. we confess our sins and forgive and are forgiven. we reenter the darkness of the womb of rebirth to start another, yet more glorious day.

mother and we sing the magnificat (see the appendex for this and other canticles), the great canticle of the mother of our lord. as we sing we not only to fulfill the prophetic line, "all generations will call me blessed," (luke 1:48) but also because we, too, if we say "let it be according to your word," (luke 1:38) may have the holy spirit come upon us that we, too, may become temples of the holy one in order as it says in the eucharistic liturgy, "that he may dwell in us and we in him." it is by making ourselves available to birth the kingdom of god that we are birthed into the kingdom of god.

perhaps the gospel of thomas has it right:

"if you give birth to that which is in you,
it will save you.
if you keep it within you,
it will be your death." (gospel of thomas 71, author's translation)