The Wasps
"Maiden name?"I enquired of my eighty-two year old baptismal candidate. "Heap", she replied in her broad Lancashire accent, adding helpfully "like Uriah". The baptismal register of the tiny Nova Scotia country church dated from 1883 and was still only half full: the Church of St. Peter-St. John, Baddeck, had long clung to life in a sea of Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. I looked back at the register and hesitated: "Father's occupation?" "Mule Spinner" she replied without explanation. I presumed it had something to do with Victorian cotton mills. Hilda Harmer (nee Heap) should have been baptized in 1906 but her rector's wife died a few days before the scheduled Sunday, and her baptism got postponed.
Small was certainly beautiful in this congregation, and Mrs. Harmer, who personally represented a seven percent increase in attendance, was a welcome and valued addition.
The parish had had a resident priest for a brief span in the last century but it had long been appended to various neighboring parishes. Nevertheless, the determination of the congregation to continue in the Anglican tradition has ensured its survival.
One spring Sunday I was celebrating communion facing the small altar with a twelve year old server kneeling beside me. Perhaps inspired by the Comfortable Words, "Come unto me all that labour and are heavy laden" a nest of wasps which had evidently taken up residence during the past week under the altar, began to crawl by the dozen up the frontal. My pious server was frozen in his place, eyes bulging, as the vespine legions crawled ever upward, inches from his nose. I saw what was happening in my peripheral vision but decided to keep going rather than disturbing the prayers of the oblivious congregation. I gingerly turned the page of the wasp-covered altar book, wincing in anticipation of a thorough stinging. But these wasps were sluggish, and were more interested in gaining territory than in engaging in battle. None took to flight.
At the end of the Prayer of Consecration a second phalanx began marching from under the altar to the communion rail. As I was administering the sacrament, I could see that they were making for the exposed and unsuspecting knees of the female communicants. "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee" I said, deftly administering the bread while, under my cassock, tap dancing on the insect vanguard. I felt vaguely sacrilegious but comforted myself with the thought that Jesus approved of hauling donkeys out of wells on the sabbath. That couldn't have been a pretty sight, either.
Nobody was stung, and after the service, as I shook hands at the door, it was plain that the yellow peril had passed unnoticed. Except by Andrew Hanem, the perpetual warden, a rod-upright farmer of few words and sterling Christian character. "I see you had some company up there" he smiled.
When I went back the following week the wasps, dead and alive, were no more.
Anthony Burton
Bishop of Saskatchewan
Administrator
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