World AIDS Day 2010

We have several large sections of the AIDS Quilt hanging in our worship space. When I arrived to celebrate two Sundays ago I was pleasantly surprised to see them (I knew they’d arrived, and was looking forward to seeing them). But I was not prepared for the emotional reaction I had that day as I went through the entire Mass, and especially as we processed out at the end. I was overwhelmed several times with the immensity of the emotions that I have experienced over three decades of this tragic pandemic.

I preached about it, a bit, in my sermon for the First Sunday in Advent. You can find that here: http://www.htrit.org/worship/sermons.html (look for “Expectations” 11-28-2010″).

But I also was taken back to the time on the National Mall in Washington, the last time the quilt was small enough to be opened at one time, when I was one of several chaplains supplied by the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition. The quilt was unfurled at sunrise, the sun barely creeping above the horizon on the mall. Everywhere I looked were the officials unrolling the panels, and the chaplains. They (we) looked like ghosts in the dim light and suddenly it came to me that all of us, all of us there, and all of those memorialized, we are the “white-robed army of martyrs” from the Te Deum. I preached about it at the time. I can’t find the sermon now, but I’ll keep looking for it.

Meantime, the army of martyrs from AIDS has grown dramatically since then.

Prayers please, for those who are ill, those who have died, and all of us who mourn them, and for relief from this scourge.