Beating the Bounds

Rogation days are the four days set apart for solemn processions to invoke God's mercy: April 25 is known as the Major Rogation and the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding Ascension Day (which this year falls on May 13) are called the Minor Rogations. The Latin word rogare means "to ask," and is a reference to John 16:24: "Ask and ye shall receive. " These days may have originated in France after a series of natural disasters had caused much suffering, and the Archbishop led a procession of people around their fields to pray for God's protection and blessings on the crops that were just beginning to sprout. The idea took hold and the custom spread around Europe and became especially popular in Great Britain. A common feature of Rogation days in Victorian England was the “beating of the bounds” – a procession led by the minister around the boundary of the parish, asking for God’s protection in the year ahead.

We don't "beat the bounds" at St. Francis but I sometimes like to imagine what it would mean for us to take this custom quite literally. For me it is a reminder first of all that even when we use the words synonymously, a congregation is not the same as a parish. A parish is more like a county, as in Louisiana. John Wesley said "the world is my parish." If we were to "beat the bounds" at St. Francis this week what would we see? We have parishioners who drive more than a half hour to be in church: we'd have to walk from the streets of Worcester and around the five Wachusett towns of Holden, Princeton, Paxton, Rutland and Sterling to places further afield like North Brookfield and Hubbardston and Barre. What would we see happening in the world around us? Where would we see God--and the need for God's healing and redeeming love--in the homes and schools and businesses we would walk by? How would our sense of mission and even our own identity be changed by such a procession beyond the walls of our congregation?

In New England we are getting close to the time when people can begin to plant seeds, although the surprising cold of the past two nights is a reminder of why it is wise to wait until Memorial Day to do that. We would pass struggling family farms. My reading of those first chapters of Genesis and the whole of the Christian tradition, including our patron from Assisi, is that stewardship of this good earth and support of sustainable agriculture are inseparable from living the Christian faith and life. How would our awareness of this vocation change if we talked along the way with the farmers who are trying to be faithful to the land and to the generations that will follow us? Maybe next year I need to be more on top of this and not simply do a "virtual" walk but a real one!