Amen

My mom died three years ago, the summer that I was elected primate of our beloved church. I had always hoped for just a few things from our family home. One was a very old print of a choir boy in a beautifully carved frame. For years it had hung above the sideboard in my grandmother’s dining room.Vested in cassock and surplice, he is holding his hymn book. He has the face of an angel. Don’t all young choristers? His eyes are lifted heavenward. As if the hymn has ended, the print is entitled “Amen.” I always loved this print and I am happy to have it.But it was only when we moved to Toronto and I was about to hang the print in my study at home that I noticed the very fine black print in the top left corner that reads, “Supplement to The Christmas Globe, 1899.” I realized in that moment that this print had actually belonged to my great-grandmother, whom I never knew.”Amen” sang the choir boy. Before the mystery of the word made flesh and dwelling among us, the apostles, saints and martyrs of the church sang, “Amen.” To that great truth, that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, all our forbears in the faith have sung, “Amen.” To those wondrous words of St. John the Evangelist, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…not to condemn the world, but so the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17), the people of all ages sing, “Amen.””Amen” we sing to his naming as “Mighty God, Wonderful Counsellor, The Prince of Peace.” “Amen” we sing to the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. “Amen” we sing to the increase of his reign of peace among the nations.Indeed, with people of every language, race and nation, we hail his birth and with one voice sing a resounding “Amen” to every loving purpose of God, in and through his Blessed Son, whom we know as Saviour and Lord of all. May you know the blessings of his love this Christmastide. ΩArchbishop Fred Hiltz is primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.