The Rev. Dale Grandfield
Trinity, Easton and St. Paul’s, Cleveland Heights, OH
Thou, who at Thy First Eucharist
The Hymnal 1982, #315
“Draw us the nearer each to each, we plead, by drawing all to thee, O Prince of Peace” says the hymn, a prayer that our pilgrimage be not one of separation but gathering. I’m not sure we think of pilgrimage in that way often enough – pilgrimage to come together, not to take our leave. “Draw us the nearer” it says, because this pilgrim journey we make as Christians is not a trip out away on our own, but is rather headed always further together, the nearer, one. We are on our way back from diaspora, back from Babylon, back, back home, back… together.
“One” the third stanza reiterates. One with the church, one with the saints, in peace, in love, one with the Trinity in Unity. Imagine that: one with the Trinity in Unity. United with God, united the nearer, eternally, together. That is our journey, our hope, that is our now, even if Sacramentally, around the Font, around the Table.
Draw us, yes, draw us, O Prince of Peace, draw us to that eternal dance of joy around, inside God’s hidden, open, internal life.
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