Epiphany at Christ Church Cathedral

Sunday
Late afternoon, we drove downtown to attend a service at Christ Church Cathedral, the Episcopal cathedral. The service was entitled an Epiphany procession,  “a service of Scripture, prayer, music, and pageantry that reflects on the three Epiphany mysteries: the revelation of the Christ child to the Magi, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, and the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana.”
Chiefly, we think of Epiphany as being about the visitation of the Magi, but in Eastern Orthodox churches, for example, they focus heavily on Jesus’ baptism, with priests in places such as Russia, Bulgaria, Greece or Macedonia, where our daughter Laura did her Peace Corps service, tossing crucifixes or crosses into the water, which devotees then dive for. Epiphany Sunday also opens the church’s “season of Epiphany,” a time when sermons and lessons focus on the miracles of Jesus, hence the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the first of Jesus’ miracles. We got there early, as there was a half hour organ recital beforehand. As you can see, the lighting was beautiful, and I was really taken by the art installation overhead. The installation is entitled Murmuration, the phenomenon whereby birds in huge flocks fly in an ever-changing formation. It was created by the artist Anna Patterson. “Over 1,000 individual, hand strung birds of steel, copper and brass mesh gather inside the doors of the cathedral and sweep a length of 90 feet into the nave, forming a large flock that flies down the length of the church and disperses throughout the cathedral offices and into the chapel.” We had visited the cathedral before, but many years ago, and this was installed recently for the church’s bicentennial.
One year ago: Frosted leaves