The first job I had was as groundskeeper for Chicago’s Augustana Hospital. I used some of my earnings to buy a prized possession, a page from an Antiphonale Missarum, a book of Gregorian chant written by hand in 1423. It’s inscribed on a sheet of vellum (either calf or sheep skin) about 15″ X 20″. The music is presented in black chant notation on a red four-line staff with the words in black, gothic script underneath. The first letter of the text is decorated in red and blue ink.

The text is from Psalm 112, Beatus vir qui timit Dominum, Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. The chant would have been sung before the Gospel (the same place we still sing alleluia verses) on days that memorialized a confessor who was not a bishop.

Looking at the page, I think about the monks in the scriptorium spending hours copying the manuscript. How long did the book take, a year? So they served God.

We all serve God in our own way, but none of us does it in isolation of others. We are part of a congregation, a denomination, the whole Universal Church. The people of the church have sought ways to serve God for almost two thousand years. The way of serving has varied from those monks copying manuscripts to a former president building Habitat houses to people collecting food for Interfaith to people singing in a choir, to people sitting with the dying. It’s all for the glory of God.

May God bless you in your service.

Read   1 Peter 4:10 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne