St. George-North Park offers a liturgical celebration for St. Valentine's Day.

My dear editor:

You will remember (if only because you keep back copies and can look it up) that The Rev. Dr. J. Paddyngton Bayer, of St. George-North Park Presbyterian, has recently discovered the wonderful world of liturgy. The suspicious among my presbytery colleagues were inclined to the opinion that his belated interest had more to do with aborted attempts to create and heed a call to nomination for Moderator of the General Assembly and with a desire, proceeding from the rather subdued groundswell of support, to update and burnish his "image" than with a fascination for forms of worship.

Setting aside the natural scepticism of presbyters, I must confess that J.P.'s "image" has not, for some time, been much more au courant than an engraving of The Vicar Rides to the Hounds from a 1911 London Illustrated Weekly.

Notwithstanding all of the above, J.P. (as I learned from "sources close to") proceeded to propose, plan and develop a special service to be held on Sunday evening, February 15th, in honour of St. Valentine, Christian martyr(s) -- see below -- whose feast day on the 14th had, in our era of renewed interest in the spiritual, enjoyed a new lease on life to the accompaniment of hundreds of thousands of purchases of boxes of chocolates and risque feminine nightwear.

"Love is central to the Christian message, so why not?" was J.P.'s rejoinder to the reluctant on his worship and music committee. J.P. did his research, with the help of a hagiography (a collection of mini-"biographies" of the saints) he borrowed from Father Stemkowski of St. Dolarosa and All Miseries. But it wasn't as helpful as he had hoped.

There were two possible St. Valentines or Valentinuses -- both beheaded (not a festive touch) -- and definite tieins to pagan fertility rites of spring. A modern context was necessary.

He had heard that, in the '90s, dating is a dodgy thing. Why there is so much whining about it today he couldn't imagine. Back in the '50s, it certainly hadn't been easy for him either. He thanked God for the undemanding Mrs. Bayer and Ewart College, in that order, and then worked up the courage to ask his decidedly feminine and still single associate, The Rev. Millicent MacPherson (or MilliMac, as he wished she wasn't more generally known) if this were true.

He wished he hadn't. What he heard provoked a shutting of his venetian blinds and a lie-down with Songs of Faith by the Norman Luboff Choir on his personal entertainment centre. When she volunteered "to help," he was in a weakened state and readily agreed.

Leslie and his partner, Lance, were immediately co-opted into providing the "professional input" needed to bring off such an evening "worship event." He had known Leslie and Lance as partners in a catering business and, more important, as regular worship attenders -- "young entrepreneurs with their heads screwed on right," he had thought them -- and readily agreed to their offer of help.

They fulfilled all expectations ... well, maybe all, except J.P.'s. A husband and wife team was booked. They performed a liturgical dance to a text from the Song of Solomon and much to J.P.'s surprised horror. He was taking notes from a back pew and, to his astonishment, no one walked out. A few shifted uncomfortably in their pews; a few (besides J.P.) looked thunderstruck, but no one walked out!

A jazz trio -- saxophone, bass and piano -- played an improvisation based on the prologue to John's Gospel, "And the Word Was Made Flesh," which seemed, either minimally or completely, inoffensive to the congregants.

Millicent preached. J.P. wasn't at all happy with her scriptural references which included -- he had, in his youth, looked up each one of them -- every "naughty" and AA (Adult Accompaniment) text he wished had never made it into the canon: Ezekiel 23:11-21 being the foremost, but Leviticus 12, Isaiah 36:12, the opening verses to I Kings (thankfully including the fourth) and others. It was a blessing, he thought, most were from the Old Testament (wherein the writers are expected to give offence now and then) and that she generally referred to them only by chapter and verse, without quoting. It was enough that her sermon was based on a decidedly non-allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs and that she actually used the word he had avoided in 40 years of preaching -- "S_X." Her point seemed to be that "We need to take the flesh seriously, and it need not be `carnal.' "

He had just about got over the spate of telephone calls taking offence at some of MilliMac's scriptural references. (There had been an unprecedented demand for copies of her sermon.) His rejoinder "If you knew they were naughty, why did you look them up?" worked most of the time.

Then, someone told him Leslie and Lance were partners in more than a business sense.

Yours in the flesh (too much of it),