August 9, 2024

On a road trip south to visit family a few weeks ago, Robert and I took a 30-minute detour off our planned route to visit the small town of Hayneville, Alabama. Hayneville is a small town of fewer than 1,000 people, about thirty minutes from both Montgomery and Selma, in either direction. Hayneville is the kind of place you have to make a point of visiting; there’s not much there. I was there to visit the former location of Varner’s Cash Store (see the photo to the left, taken on my visit), which was where Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Myrick Daniels was shot at point blank range in 1965 at age 26.

At the time, Daniels was a student at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Reared in New Hampshire, Daniels matriculated at Harvard University in 1961, and then in 1962, felt a call to ordination after attending an Easter service at the Church of the Advent, Boston. He enrolled at Episcopal Divinity School in 1963. In 1965, he learned of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call for students to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capitol to advocate for civil rights. During Evening Prayer at the seminary chapel, Daniels felt inspired by the words of Mary’s song, the Magnificat (one of the traditional Evening Prayer canticles), and he decided to go to Selma. In his words,

"I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary's glad song. ‘He hath showed strength with his arm.’ As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled “moment” that would, in retrospect, remind me of others--particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.” (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/228.html)

After responding to that call, and while in Selma, Daniels worked towards integration in the Episcopal church there, but he was met with much resistance by the congregation. On August 14, Jonathan and his companions (a white Roman Catholic priest and two black female activists) were jailed in Hayneville after picketing whites-only stores. They were later released on August 20. Immediately afterwards, they went to Varner’s Cash Store for soft drinks. As they approached the store, a white man, Tom Coleman, blocked the entrance holding a shotgun and cursing sixteen-year-old Ruby Sales, one of Daniels’s companions. As Coleman aimed his gun at Sales, Daniels pushed her out of the way, took the bullet himself, and was killed instantly. Coleman was later acquitted by an all-white jury and eventually served as an engineer for the state highway department, dying in 1997.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels is commemorated on the Episcopal church’s calendar of lesser feasts and fasts on August 14, the day of his arrest (Bernard of Clairvaux was already commemorated on August 20, the day of Daniels’s martyrdom). I have always been deeply moved by Daniels’s witness because his bravery in the face of the sin of racial injustice was enacted so quietly but with such great conviction. Although there’s a historical marker at the site of his martyrdom, you have to seek it out. There’s a poignancy to this understated site, nearly forgotten despite the powerful witness of a true Christian who shed his blood on that site. Few people know about this modern-day martyr who followed Jesus’s call to lose one’s life for his sake. And he was one of our own, a part of our own Episcopal Church within the lifetime of many of you reading this message.

It’s a beautiful gift of the liturgical calendar that Daniels’s feast day is celebrated just a day before Our Lady’s on August 15. It was, after all, Our Lady’s words, recounted in Luke’s Gospel, that first motivated Jonathan Myrick Daniels to leave the comfort of a New England seminary to wade into the minefield of civil rights activism in the South. The words of the Church’s liturgies have meaning, and there may be times, such as in the life of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, when a phrase from Scripture or an incisive prayer compels us to action. As Daniels himself said, he was praying in the “usual place” and saying the “usual” words of the Magnificat when an unusual call from God came to him. Nearly every day at Good Shepherd, we pray Mary’s words at Evening Prayer, and we’re reminded of the topsy-turvy justice of the Gospel, where the meek and lowly are lifted up and the proud are “scattered . . . in the imagination of their hearts,” where the mighty are “put down,” and the “humble and meek” are exalted. The hungry are “filled with good things,” and the rich are “sent empty away.” It’s not that God enacts revenge on the wealthy, mighty, and powerful, or that God’s “preferential option for the poor” excludes the rich. It’s just that, as God brings his justice to reign, those who have stomped on the powerless inevitably find themselves lowered and humbled. For justice to happen, that’s the way it must pan out. None of us can escape the power of God’s transforming love and formation without being humbled in some sense. Every failure or embarrassment of our lives is a small death. But some, like Jonathan Myrick Daniels, have paid the ultimate price by giving up even their physical lives for their neighbors and for the sake of their Christian beliefs. And in doing so, they have found eternal life. The witness of Jonathan Myrick Daniels challenges my own commitment to Christ. Could I have done what Daniels did? Would I have had that kind of courage? I certainly hope so, but it’s modern-day martyrs like Daniels who pose those questions of devotion to Christ most vividly to us.

As we continue to navigate one of the most polarized times in our nation’s history, we are daily confronted with the need to make our own moral decisions about how we will speak and how we will act and about whom we will follow. The witnes of Jonathan Myrick Daniels calls us to, first, believe in God’s unending justice, and second, to let our words and actions be true to the One we follow as Lord, the One who calls us to lay down our lives for our neighbors, to gain our lives by losing them, to become rich by becoming poor. This is the cost of discipleship. Many of the racial issues that Daniels faced in 1965 are still as salient in our own day, and we, too, are called to make brave decisions to give our own testimony to Mary’s Song. On the feast of St. Mary the Virgin, we celebrate our Lord’s salvific solution to the world’s sklerokardia (hardness of heart). God saves humankind by calling one of us to be the Mother of God. This is a topsy-turvy world indeed.

I hope to see you this Thursday at 7 p.m. for Solemn High Mass on the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin (commonly called the Assumption), when we’ll join with our friends from Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street. A potluck supper will follow. Come and celebrate the great inverting power of God’s justice, which sets us all free.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

August 2, 2024

In this week’s e-newsletter, you will notice a different format, which I hope will more effectively draw your attention to what is happening at Good Shepherd. A lot is happening! But the e-newsletter is also organized intentionally. Pay attention to the headings: worship, formation, music, outreach, and community and fellowship. These headings represent defining characteristics of our parish life, which visibly rose to the surface in a vestry conversation in late May. Worship is where it all starts, because worship is the most important thing we do. If worship is not the foundation of all that we do as Christians, then we will be misguided in everything else. Prayer is what enables us to maturely discern the shape of ministry to which God is calling us. It’s also what sends us outward from this parish to serve in love. In some sense, outreach/community and fellowship are reciprocally related. On the one hand, we need an identifiable sense of community and fellowship in order to be outward looking. On the other hand, our ability as a parish to engage in outreach is strengthened as community and fellowship grow.

At the end of August, I will have served as your rector for four years. It has taken nearly four years of being and serving together for the defining characteristics of our shared life to crystallize. The categories of worship, formation, music, outreach, and community/fellowship seem rather obvious. They are, in my mind, the marks of a healthy parish. And yet, four years ago, when we began our journey together, I would argue that worship and music were evident in the parish’s life, but other areas, which are now central to parish life, were lacking. So, in four years, we have grown through God’s grace and in working together. There is robust formation for children and adults, worship and music remain strong, community and fellowship have become more cohesive, and we have begun to establish thoughtful outreach.

Consequently, this point in our shared life together seems like the right time to go one step further. It’s one thing to establish an outreach ministry such as our retreat house—which is our primary outreach ministry at the moment—but it’s another to make an active, coordinated effort to invite the local and wider community onto our campus. Until now, our retreat house ministry has been principally directed to the wider Church (beyond the local community). And yet, if we call the retreat house the Rosemont Community Retreat House, we need to let the community know that we are here and what we have to offer. Additionally, our Parish House once again has available space for rental partnerships, and it can and should be an asset to the local community. As we begin August, a local therapist will begin renting out three rooms on the first floor of the Parish House to use for her work in the mental health profession, specializing in healing from trauma. Although her practice is not explicitly religious, the vestry and I believe that her work is consonant with the Christian call to healing. This is the aim of renting space in our Parish House. While it does provide the church with crucial rental income for our operating expenses, it also witnesses to an alignment of values between the Church and those outside the Church.

In last Sunday’s sermon, I noted that the world force feeds us fear by capitalizing on a scarcity mentality. But we in the Church are invited into an abundance mentality, vividly portrayed in Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000. Strangely enough, the Church too often operates with a scarcity mentality. Look around, and you will see desperate parishes impetuously selling their property just to hoard more bucks in the bank. You will see parishes slashing budgets, eviscerating music programs, and getting rid of staff members, all while expecting the remaining smaller staff to do more work for the same amount of pay. This, however, is not the case at Good Shepherd, and I’m grateful to our vestry and parish leadership for believing, time and again, in God’s abundance. We should not take for granted a marvelous opportunity before us: as God continues to rebuild this parish from the ground up, we can actively cooperate with God in letting a spirit of abundance and trust permeate all that we do.

At Good Shepherd, we see our buildings and property as magnificent gifts from God to be used for his kingdom and for the flourishing of our local community. Here, we are expanding financial support of music because music supports our worship (the most important thing we do), draws people into our common life, transforms lives, and will now be a source of formation for children. Here, we are investing more in our staff so that they are justly compensated and also valued as essential partners in ministry.

As we continue to trust in God’s abundance, our vestry has engaged Partners for Sacred Places to lead us in more effectively connecting with our local community as we seek to maximize use of our buildings and property. In their own words, Partners for Sacred Places “brings people together to find creative ways to maintain and make the most of America’s older and historic houses of worship.” Partners has a proven track record of guiding congregations in everything from space assessment to capital campaigns. For our purposes at Good Shepherd, Partners has already conducted a space assessment of all our buildings (the Parish House, the church, the rectory, the education building, which is rented out to Play & Learn, and the retreat house). Partners has presented us with physical dimensions on all those spaces, as well as recommendations for potential use in the future.

Partners is now helping the vestry plan for a Community Conversation to be held in early October. This conversation is intended to invite selected members of the local community into our buildings for a tour and brief presentation so that we can “show off” what we have to offer. We pray that a natural fruit of this conversation will be a greater awareness among our neighbors of who we are at Good Shepherd, what we do, and what we hope to do in the future.

While the Community Conversation is intended to be a focused, relatively small event led by a handful of parishioners, we welcome your input in connecting with people in the local community who are involved in the musical, dramatic, and visual arts as well as mental health and wellness work, all of which are consonant with the importance of the arts in our worship and with the healing ministry already happening in our retreat house. If you have suggestions for individuals that we might invite to the October Community Conversation, please let me know.

As planning for this conversation proceeds and in its aftermath, I will keep you posted on insights and future plans. Please pray for our work in the coming months, and as we do each day in our public prayer, pray for those, yet unknown to us, whom God will draw to this parish to be fed and to be a part of the feeding that happens so abundantly here.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of July 7, 2024

The pictures included in this message emblemize something of the spirit of Good Shepherd, Rosemont. They were taken at a recent coffee hour following Mass. Notice how “at home” everyone seems. Notice the joy on people’s faces. Note how people seem to be so comfortable conversing with one another. Pay attention to the variety of ages represented.

Parish fellowship, lived out most acutely at Sunday coffee hours, is a natural outgrowth of what we share each week at Mass. We gather weekly, not for coffee hour, but for Mass. And yet, having gone through the drama and transformation of the Mass, it seems fitting to spend additional time together as a community of believers. In the Mass, we share in the “breaking of bread and the prayers,” as well as in “the apostles’ teaching.” After Mass, we share in their “fellowship.”

My weekly messages over the past two weeks reflected on how we find our identity as Christians in community in the Mass and how our shared fellowship together in this particular parish is representative of a Benedictine commitment to stability in community. As we look ahead to the 2024-2025 program year (and yes, it’s that time!), we will be focusing, as a parish, on our common life together. What does it mean to say that we are a part of this specific parish? What does being a member mean? What responsibilities do we have to God and each other by being at Good Shepherd? How is ministry here truly shared, and how can we share that ministry more? How do we experience the demands of being a committed Christian by being a part of life at Good Shepherd? These are only some of the questions we can ask.

You can now find the 2024-2025 parish events calendar published on our website. Intentionality in community together means that we plan ahead of time to ensure that everyone can prioritize significant events in our shared life together. As we would do in our lives outside the Church, consider reviewing the parish events calendar now and marking key events in your own personal calendars. What would it mean to give precedence to some of these events (especially holy days, special Masses, and other notable occasions) so as to let the rhythm of God’s sacred time break into our quotidian time?

I would like to highlight just a few items of particular note.

1) Please join us for a festive parish picnic on Sunday, September 8, following Sung Mass as we kick off the new program year. More details will follow, but we expect to have games for children, lots of fantastic food, and fun for all ages.

2) If you’re new to Good Shepherd in recent months, consider attending the newcomers class after Sung Mass on September 15. This is an opportunity to learn more about official membership, as well as about Good Shepherd, the Episcopal Church, and Anglicanism.

3) Note that our 2025 pledge campaign will ramp up on September 22, with a presentation by our parish Advancement Committee. Please plan to attend and learn how you can make a difference in supporting God’s ministry at Good Shepherd.

4) You will note the Sundays on which our new choristers will be singing throughout the program year. What an exciting new phase this will be in the life of the parish!

5) As in the past, the Choir will lead us Choral Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament throughout the year. On these Sundays, plan to hang around after coffee hour, have brunch with fellow parishioners, and come back for worship in the beauty of holiness.

6) You will see that most evening feast day Masses are followed by potluck suppers in the retreat house. I hope you will try to attend some or all of these!

7) Sunday adult formation is intentionally structured around the theme of our common life together, beginning with a theology of worship and moving into outreach and service in the world. All Sunday adult formation discussions will occur on the first Sunday of the month. Please recall that Sunday adult formation is not the only formation happening in the parish. Stay tuned for more information on registering for Pilgrims in Christ, an intensive adult formation class scheduled to begin in the early fall.

8) Main Line Early Music concerts are now usually on the last Sunday of each month, with occasional exceptions.

As we look towards next program year, I encourage you to find ways to put our parish life at the center of your life as you make God the center. If you’re looking for ways to become more involved at Good Shepherd, I hope you will reach out to me. If you’re just wanting to dip your toe into the water of parish life a bit more, consider this year as an opportunity to do so, and I hope you’ll avail yourself of a rich series of parish events and formation classes.

I will be away on vacation until July 13, and then I return for Mass on July 14, leaving again the next day for further vacation until the end of the month. I will miss all of you. Should you have any pastoral concerns or emergencies, please call the parish office (610-525-7070), and you will be directed to someone who can help. I’ll look forward to seeing you upon my return!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 30, 2024

Last week, I made my annual retreat to Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York. Holy Cross Monastery is an Anglican Benedictine community of men who have taken vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty. Each year, my annual retreat is a moment to press restart on my spiritual life. As I drove up through the densely-packed metropolitan area surrounding New York City, with wild drivers racing past me, I was reminded of what I was leaving behind in order to be on retreat. By the time I entered the winding driveway down the hill to the monastery, which sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, I was ready for a freer schedule and a great deal of silence.

When I go on retreat, I usually do nothing more than structure my days around the brothers’ rhythm of prayer and engage in prayerful reading and contemplative prayer, with daily naps and moments spent on the porch, gazing at the gently flowing Hudson River. At Holy Cross, the daily rhythm of prayer includes Matins at 7 a.m., Eucharist at 9 a.m., Diurnum at Noon, Vespers at 5 p.m., and Compline at 7:30 p.m. I attend all the services, and indeed, in my time there, I find myself longing for those definite markers of public prayer. Within a few hours of arriving at the monastery, I found my mind, heart, and body slowing down from ninety miles an hour to about five. The monks at Holy Cross recite and sing the liturgies and the words of the psalms much more slowly than we would at Morning or Evening Prayer at Good Shepherd, and I quite like it. One must move at a different tempo than ordinary life. Silence is savored. The point is for everyone to listen to one another and speak at the same pace. The very practice of praying reenforces the brothers’ sense of fellowship and community. No one is intended to stand out or dominate; all keep pace together.

Holy Cross Monastery is one of many monasteries across the world rooted in the Benedictine tradition, following in the pattern of hospitality, communal living, and prayer modeled by St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547). Benedict’s famous “Rule,” by which monks abide, holds balance as its operating principle. Nothing is either too harsh or too lenient. It’s a beautiful way of shaping one’s life. As I mentioned to our parish vestry in my rector’s report this week, on my recent visit to Holy Cross, I was struck by the way in which ministry is shared among the brothers. I would usually arrive early to each service to sit in silent prayer, and I’d notice that one brother would be responsible for arriving early, too, in order to set out the readings and turn lights on. Another brother would be responsible for tolling the warning bell ten minutes before each service, and then he would ring the bell as we prayed the Angelus. Yet another brother would brew coffee each morning at 6 a.m. and set up for breakfast. Brothers would rotate through dish duty after meals. Everything was shared. Indeed, every brother was essential to the life of that community.

I was struck by the shared ministry of the Holy Cross brothers because I have been actively pondering shared ministry in the parish. Life is more balanced, from a Benedictine perspective, when duties are collectively owned. This is no different in the parish than in the monastery. But it’s more than just a practical aspect of communal life; it’s theological. When we’re baptized, we belong to each other in a different way. When one is sad, we all are sad. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. When one of us is away from Sunday Mass, we miss that person. One can technically be a Christian on one’s own, but one can’t be a very good one!

The main ministry of the Holy Cross brothers is hospitality. St. Benedict’s Rule famously says that “[a]ll guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ” (ch. 53). I believe that one of the charisms of Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is hospitality. Our retreat house ministry has become a visible manifestation of this charism. Countless people who’ve stayed in our retreat house have commented on the warmth of the building, as well as the warmth of the welcome. In a fairly inhospitable age (and sometimes inhospitable Church), our charism of hospitality is a great gift to the world.

There is a final attribute of Benedictine living that I find inspiring. On the website of Holy Cross Monastery, the monks note that “Benedictines take a vow that includes stability, which has traditionally been understood as stability of place. We seek to be rooted and through that rootedness to grow deeply in this home God has given us.” This is similar to our understanding of a parish. While we have parishioners who travel from three different states to worship at Good Shepherd, the point is that our own parish church is intended to be a place of stability for its members. There is something quite valuable in not flitting from parish church to parish church but in finding one’s own home in a particular parish. Yes, sometimes things might seem stale or boring, but the point is that in taking root in one location as a place of prayer, we are molded and shaped by the community found there. Ultimately, we’re shaped by God. Our identity as members of Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is not tied to the whim of the moment or our feelings; it’s tied to a sense of rootedness in this place, which is rooted in the larger Episcopal Church, which is rooted in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which is rooted in the worldwide Church catholic. Such an understanding of rootedness and stability is a gift in an age of restlessness and consumerism, where people are constantly seeking greater fulfillment or changing jobs or trying out the latest fad.

My experience at Holy Cross Monastery made me grateful for the monastic witness in the Church. It also made me profoundly grateful to be at Good Shepherd, where there is much stability, given chiefly in our constant pattern of prayer. If you can, find time in your own busy lives to go on retreat. Or if you can’t go away, spend some time at our own retreat house. I hope that you will find times of intentional quiet and prayer to root you ever more deeply in the love of God, which is never changing and which sustains and nourishes us eternally.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 23, 2024

Of all the things my parents taught me for which I’m grateful, I may be most grateful for their teaching me to go to church. We went every Sunday, unless we were sick. Admittedly, my feelings about going to church have developed and deepened since I was twelve years old. I enjoy church much more now than I did then, but this demonstrates the point I’m trying to make. I’m thankful that my parents taught me to go to church even when I didn’t want to go or “get something out of it.”

This summer, I’m leading a book study between Sunday Masses, from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m., and we’re reading Why Go to Church?: The Drama of the Eucharist by Timothy Radcliffe. Fr. Radcliffe is a Roman Catholic Dominican brother who lives in England. The book we’re reading was selected by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams as a 2009 Lent Book. I admit that there is direct intentionality in reading this particular book during the summer. The summer is when attendance at church drops rapidly. Some of that is understandable, as people travel more during the summer months. But it seems that there’s a growing sense in our culture that summer is a time for “breaks,” including breaks from church. Summer is rightly a time for breaks from work and the busyness of life that typically drags us down and that often is not lifegiving. Summer, however, is not a time for breaks from church! In reading Fr. Radcliffe’s book this summer, during what can seem the most desultory ecclesial months, I want to explore the reason why going to church is so important.

This past Sunday, we held our first meeting of the book study. But don’t worry, it’s not too late to join! You can sign up here or simply show up. Even if you can’t attend all meetings due to travel, please come when you can. During last Sunday’s meeting, participants shared why attending church is so important to them. We agreed that going to church is an obligation in the best sense of the word, rather than in a mere perfunctory, legalistic sense. Going to church is an obligation to God so that we can experience, in a salutary, salvific way, the joy of God’s love, mercy, and compassion, and so we can be fed by God. It’s also an obligation, in the best sense of the word, to one another as member’s of Christ’s Body. We’re accountable to one another. We need one another. By being before God in person in worship, we hold each other in love and prayer and we’re visibly reminded of St. Paul’s theology of the Body of Christ: all of us matter, all of our gifts matter, we are needed in the Church, and we need God and one another.

We also touched on another profound reason for going to church, something that Fr. Radcliffe highlights effectively in his book. Going to church, even when and especially when we don’t “feel like it,” are tired, or “want a break,” is crucial to our spiritual growth. Indeed, it’s bound up with the very way in which the Eucharist is transformative. Radcliffe says that “the Eucharist works in our lives in ways that are profound but often barely noticeable and hardly register as experiences at all” (p. 6). This is the meaning of the Mass, and this is a direct counter to modern sensibilities. We inhabit an age in which we are consumers. We buy what we want. We do what we want to do, and we opt out of what we don’t want to do. Obligations and honoring commitments are shallow. But the Mass doesn’t work through immediate gratification. The Mass works on our lives and hearts in ways that are rarely perceptible in the moment. Of course, we may delight in the music or feel a sense of peace in a church building (and I hope you do!), but our reason for being at Mass is not because “we feel like it” or because we think our prayer will be instantly answered or that we’ll even feel changed after Mass. Our reason for being there is because it’s the most natural and appropriate response of our lives to the infinitely loving and creative act of the God who made us and continues to give us life.

Fr. Radcliffe suggests that at the most unexpected moments and in the most subtle ways, the Mass will work on our lives. By faithful attendance, and particularly in those moments when we’d prefer to sleep in on a Sunday, the healing power of the Eucharist rubs away our rough edges and shapes us into the people God is calling us to be. While God is always present with us and while we encounter God in a myriad of places, there’s no place like the Eucharist for us to be molded more and more into the likeness of God. There we are accountable to one another and to God. In the pews, we’re not let off the hook for bad behavior. At the Communion rail, we learn to relinquish control and receive God’s sublime gifts of the Body and Blood of Christ. Going to church is what it means to be a Christian, honoring our baptismal promises in which we said we would devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42).

So, this summer, if you’re in town, come to church. Even if you “don’t feel like it,” you will find, over time, I suspect, that being in church is a great joy. But even if it doesn’t seem so, it’s good for you. If you’re out of town traveling, go to church. Find a nearby Episcopal Church. It’s essential that we are occasionally reminded that we are not “Good Shepherd, Rosemont, Christians” but simply Christians. Worshipping in other parishes when we’re out of town reminds us of the catholicity of the Church. We are accountable to something much larger than ourselves.

Our Rector’s Warden, Don McCown, has told me of a pithy saying by our former rector Fr. Andrew Mead. He used to say, “run to Mass.” In the vein of Fr. Mead, I’d like to suggest the following. When you feel like you don’t have enough time in your day for anything, run to Mass. When you’re flustered, upset, and worried, run to Mass. When your job is eating you alive, run to Mass. When you have family or friends in town, run to Mass and take them! When you’re filled with joy and when you’re deeply sad, run to Mass. This is not cheap obligation. It’s a recognition that the Mass gives us something far greater than we can imagine. Putting the Eucharist at the center of our lives means an intentional, sometimes taxing, reprioritization of our lives.

This Sunday, I hope to see you running to Mass! Following Sung Mass, we will have a reception welcoming our new parish administrator, Renee Barrick. Run to Mass this Sunday, and then stop by the retreat house to introduce yourself to Renee and welcome her to Good Shepherd.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 9, 2024

A few weekends ago, the parish vestry and I engaged in our annual mutual ministry review. This year it was led by Fr. Peter Stube, a priest in our diocese, and it had two main purposes: aiding the vestry and rector in gently and prayerfully assessing their shared ministry (holding one another accountable), and helping the vestry and rector take stock of where the parish is and where we hope to go in the future. As part of this mutual ministry review. Fr. Stube reflected on St. Paul’s theology of shared gifts within the Body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12:12 - 13:13, Paul explains that none of us has all the spiritual gifts. In fact, a blessing of this unequal distribution of spiritual gifts is that we must learn to rely on the grace of God, who gives us every good gift, and then on one another.

Our mutual ministry review was quite encouraging. I saw more clearly how much we are doing in ministry. The vestry and I named perceived strengths of the parish (i.e., worship/liturgy/music, formation, hospitality, and outreach). But we also discussed quite honestly what is needed in order to further enhance those strengths. And I was pleased that no one named money as the primary need to strengthen existing ministry in the parish or even to expand ministry, which I took as a sign of health in the parish. What do we need, then? We don’t need talent, because there’s already a profuse amount of talent within this parish. I would say that time is our greatest need.

It should be obvious that we inhabit an over-scheduled culture, which makes it increasingly difficult to give time to God and the Church. Many of us would say that it’s hard enough to give time to our families and selves. But what would it look like to reprioritize our lives, gently and thoughtfully, so that our families are valued, as well as our jobs and other commitments, while we began to shift more time to God and the Church? The question here is not where we can get more time. Remember, that in God’s abundant provision, we already have exactly what we need to do the work God is calling us to do right now. The time is there, but it’s our task to figure out how to claim it and redistribute it.

Fr. Stube invited us to be patient as we wait for God to send us the right people with the right gifts for ministry in this parish as we live into a growing vision for the parish. In my nearly four years as your rector, I’ve already seen this happen. In the moment, we need to focus on sustaining the large amount of ministry that God has helped us build here. We can still dream about our future and even name those dreams, but it’s perfectly acceptable (and sensible) to wait to act on some of those dreams until we have sufficient gifts and people to realize them.

Building ministry is an exercise in patience. God has loads of time, even though we operate with a scarcity mindset about time. And yet, I know that there are still many untapped gifts within our parish. Perhaps you are new to the parish and want to take some time to find your place here; I fully support that. Maybe you’ve been here for a while and are shy about offering your gifts. Or are you uncertain about what gifts you have to offer? I’m always happy to discuss this further with you.

As we slow down a bit for the summer months, it’s an ideal moment to begin praying about using gifts for ministry at Good Shepherd. In fact, the summer may be the most crucial time to recruit new volunteers to share in ministry, especially as people travel. By sharing the burden together, we ensure that none of us risks burnout, and that this parish remains strong and healthy. Below are some particular areas where we could use more helping hands. I ask you to read through these and consider whether the Holy Spirit is stirring your heart to participate. If so, please email me directly, and we’ll talk about what this might look like for you. Training is provided for all ministries!

Sacristans Guild (formerly Altar Guild): preparing for Sunday and other Masses by setting up vestments and vessels and keeping the sacristies tidy

Laundering Altar Linens: washing and ironing altar linens, which can be done at home

Buildings and Grounds Committee: attending monthly meetings to discuss the careful and responsible stewardship of our wonderful property, and making other contributions as needed 

Daily Office: leading Morning and Evening Prayer on an occasional or regular basis, especially during the summer months when I travel 

Retreat House: support includes donations of money and time, cooking meals, stopping by to change bed linens, publicizing our offerings, and inviting friends to “like” us on Facebook

As I’ve said before, Good Shepherd is not what it can fully be unless every single one of us is sharing our gifts for ministry. Imagine what we could be doing if that were the case. Would you prayerfully reflect on whether the summer months can be, for you, an opportunity to reorient your life by giving more to God and the Church and saying no to the incessant (and often unhealthy) ways in which our culture demands more and more of us? A significant difference between giving time to “the world/cosmos” and time to the Church is that when we’re using our own spiritual gifts, we are fulfilled in such a way as to avoid burnout. Using our God-given gifts leads to life; feeding the grind of an over-functioning world very easily leads to death. This summer, I invite you to try out the way of life.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 2, 2024

In 1923, thousands of the Anglo-Catholic faithful assembled in the Royal Albert Hall in London for an Anglo-Catholic Congress. Mind you, these were the days when Anglo-Catholics were seen as peculiar (perhaps we still are!), and Eucharistic vestments and tabernacles were still somewhat rare in the Anglican Communion. So, Anglo-Catholics, it seemed, were always having to advocate for their “rights” within Anglicanism: to use incense, wear Mass vestments, and reserve the Blessed Sacrament. These battles seem rather tired these days, especially when, in the American Episcopal Church, we are used to a relatively Catholic way of functioning (just look at our Book of Common Prayer). But in any event, those former days of Anglo-Catholicism were the context of a concluding address by Bishop Frank Weston, then Bishop of Zanzibar, at the 1923 Anglo-Catholic Congress. Mark his words:

“I say to you, and I say it to you with all the earnestness that I have, that if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in his Blessed Sacrament, then you have got to come out from before your Tabernacle and walk, with Christ mystically present in you, out into the streets of this country, and find the same Jesus in the people of your cities and your villages. You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum. Now mark that — this is the Gospel truth. If you are prepared to say that the Anglo-Catholic is at perfect liberty to rake in all the money he can get no matter what the wages are that are paid, no matter what the conditions are under which people work; if you say that the Anglo-Catholic has a right to hold his peace while his fellow citizens are living in hovels below the levels of the streets, this I say to you, that you do not yet know the Lord Jesus in his Sacrament. … And it is folly — it is madness — to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the Throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children. It cannot be done.” (quoted in http://anglicanhistory.org/bios/kindly/weston.html).

Bishop Weston was saying that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has everything to do with mission. Indeed, the truest mission springs from a reverence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, for to start with mission and then add prayer or worship on top is to get the order wrong. If one can’t fall in awe before Christ’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament, then one will struggle to fall in awe before Christ’s image in other humans. And the risk is that mission will become distorted, either as a placation of privileged guilt or as a means of using other people in a well-meaning, but inevitably warped, quest to “do good” in the world.

Bishop Weston was echoing in more modern language the theology of St. Augustine of Hippo in his Sermon 227 on the Eucharist. We, as the Body of Christ, are what we receive, which is the Body of Christ. After the bread and wine are consecrated during Mass, it is we who are on the altar! What an amazing thought. And again, to paraphrase Augustine, we are to become what we have received.

This should give pause to anyone who deigns to receive Holy Communion frequently and regularly attend Mass and not behave as a changed person outside of the Church. When we fail to treat other bodies in the world as the Body of Christ, we, in some sense, show disrespect to the Sacrament, and we eat and drink judgment on ourselves (to use words of St. Paul).

This Sunday, we will observe the Feast of Corpus Christi (transferred from Thursday) by permission of our bishop. This great feast follows quickly on the heals of Trinity Sunday, when we’re reminded of how God as Trinity is mission itself and how we’re called into that mission. And so, as we transition to the “green” Season after Pentecost, Corpus Christi compels us to see our participation in mission as coming to have a reverence for all that God gives us: the company of other people and all of creation. We learn such reverence, first and foremost, in our adoration of the Eucharist. This is only one of many reasons why going to Mass matters!

We will conclude Sung Mass with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. This beautiful service of devotion can’t be properly divorced from our frequent reception of Communion itself, nor should it be divorced from our call to live faithfully as the Body of Christ in the world. “Behold who you are; become what you receive” is essentially what Augustine tells us. In an increasingly irreverent world, it’s not a bad thing that we spend a bit more time in loving adoration during Benediction in order to refresh our awareness of the glory of everything and everyone around us. We, as a Eucharistic people, need to play our part in showing the world how to be better, more reverent, more life-giving, more respectful, more loving. I’ll look forward to seeing you in church this Sunday, as we worship, adore, and then learn to be who we are.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of May 26, 2024

Four years ago, as this parish was making a challenging transition to calling a new rector, a remarkable gift was sent by God. That gift was Chris Wittrock. Good Shepherd was seeking a new parish administrator, and Chris was one of the applicants. As the newly-called rector, I was invited to be part of the interviews for candidates, and it became quite clear to me after meeting with Chris that she was the right person for the job. Not only was she abundantly qualified, but she was deeply interested in Good Shepherd and seemed to have a real heart for ministry. That ended up being an understatement!

Part of my deep affection for Chris as a person stems from our shared experienced in ministry. Chris came into the parish administrator position just as Good Shepherd was trying to find a new lease on life, after years of struggles and turnover in staff. Chris was handed a job description that included almost everything you can imagine! She was staring down significant deferred maintenance on our property. But working closely with me and other staff, Chris weathered all these challenges with enormous grace and aplomb.

Because Chris has engaged in ministry so quietly and effectively, it might be easy to overlook all that she has done in her four years as parish administrator. Working closely with Don McCown, our Rector’s Warden, she has helped us stabilize the care of our vast amount of buildings and property. She has patiently stuck with us as we moved the parish office first from the Choir Room (where it was located before I arrived) to the first floor of the retreat house and then to the second floor and now to its original location in the Parish House. When Chris was hired, we had no vision yet for a retreat house, but when we discerned that God was calling us to open one, Chris was fully on board. She and her husband, Bob, participated in campus cleanup days and painting days in the retreat house, and they’ve recently graciously donated a new refrigerator to our retreat house. Chris and Bob are truly generous people, and I can only begin to enumerate the ways in which Good Shepherd has benefited from their gracious spirit.

In short, Chris has all the right gifts we’ve needed over the past four years to enable ministry to expand and flourish at Good Shepherd. While Chris’s many gifts made this possible by God’s grace, Chris’s own personal faith and love of Christ allowed everything she did here to shine with love and care. Chris and I frequently laugh at moments in ministry early on in our time here. In those moments, perhaps things were not quite so funny, but in hindsight, we can rejoice that we endured rocky moments for the sake of the Gospel. I really don’t know what I would have done as rector without Chris’s can-do, entrepreneurial spirit.

This Sunday, after Sung Mass, we will celebrate Chris’s time with us before she and her husband, Bob, relocate to upstate New York. Our new parish administrator, Renee Barrick, began work this past week, and Chris will continue to work with her and train her in the coming week. (We will officially welcome Renee on Sunday, June 23 after Sung Mass.) Chris and Bob are also staying in the retreat house for a few more weeks before their move to New York, so, they aren’t leaving the area quite yet! But after Mass on Sunday, we will officially thank Chris for her dedicated and faithful service to the life of this parish. I know that Chris and Bob will remain Friends of Good Shepherd, and I’m grateful for that.

Sunday is also Trinity Sunday, a Principal Feast of the Church. It’s fitting that we honor Chris on Trinity Sunday, because an encounter with God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit inevitably brings us to an encounter with God’s mission in the world. God the Father has sent his Son into the world for its salvation, and the Son has breathed the Spirit upon the Church for her to be sent into the world. To worship a Triune God is to be implicated and incorporated into God’s mission. Appropriately, this Sunday, as we recognize Chris’s enormous contributions to life at Good Shepherd, we will send her and Bob into the next phase of their lives with our blessing and love. I will look forward to seeing you at Mass on Sunday!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of May 19, 2024

If someone didn’t know anything about the Holy Trinity, could they gain some insight into God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by our speech? Would they get some picture of God as Trinity, or would they think we worshipped only God the Father, or—in the case of many Christians—only Jesus? I suspect that in our speech, and perhaps even in our theological ruminations, we don’t quite know what to do with the Holy Spirit.

When is the last time you spoke openly about the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life? Do you have any sense of how the Spirit might be active in your daily existence or in the lives of those dear to you? Are you scared to speak about the Holy Spirit for fear of being labeled as a fanatic or charismatic? Or does the Holy Spirit frighten you because the Spirit blows where the Spirit will and has a tendency to disrupt our complacency?

I have written before of how palpably I’ve felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my time at Good Shepherd. Maybe it’s because, as I get older, I’m more attuned to the need to let go of control, and letting go of control, from a Christian perspective, is partly about submitting to the Spirit’s ability and proclivity to blow unpredictably throughout my life. But it could also be that Good Shepherd has felt like such an open place for the past several years. I mean “open” in the sense of being a tabula rasa, a blank slate. When a place is not crowded by old ways of doing things and lots of parishioners being set in their rigid ways, the Holy Spirit’s invigorating and refreshing power has a way of coming to light.

It was by the Holy Spirit’s power that I was nudged, through the urging of a former staff member, to consider coming to Good Shepherd. It was by the Holy Spirit’s power that some of us began to recognize the potential latent in physical space on this campus, as well as the unique gifts of some parishioners, all of which led us to start our retreat house ministry. It was by the Holy Spirit’s power that many of you found yourselves on our doorstep, and we, in turn, discovered—rather surprisingly—that you had exactly the right gifts we needed to sustain the ministry to which we felt called. These are only some examples of the Holy Spirit’s work among us.

But the Holy Spirit, of course, can’t be controlled by the Church. In the Church, we learn how the Holy Spirit is shaping our lives and pushing us outside our comfort zones. But in the world (the kosmos as St. John puts it in his Gospel), we are called to witness to the Spirit’s power. We observe the Spirit moving and breathing among our friends and loved ones. We detect, through the Spirit’s provocations, that our voice is needed to speak to justice in the face of injustice. We discern that we’re called to a particular workplace, or school, or geographical region in order to live as fully as God desires for us to live. By the Spirit’s power, our hard-hearted ways are judged, and we are cut to the heart, and we seek repentance. By the Spirit’s power, we follow not a whim but a distinct feeling that moves us to be in the right place at the right time.

And above all, the Spirit is there to comfort us (for the Spirit is the Comforter, Advocate, Paraclete—one who “comes alongside us”) when we are in the valley of the shadow of death, enabling us to pray “with sighs too deep for words” as St. Paul tells us. The Holy Spirit gives voice to our prayer. The Holy Spirit reassures us that in our loneliest moments, we are not alone. It’s because of the Holy Spirit’s living, breathing presence in our lives that we are able even to pray at all. And it’s because God has given us the Holy Spirit that the Church is able to do “to do even greater things than these [works of Jesus in his earthly life]” (John 14:12).

This Sunday is the Day of Pentecost, the day when the Church marks the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the earliest disciples as they were gathered together, fifty days after the celebration Passover. The disciples would, of course, never be the same after this palpable manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s presence, and they would be propelled to the very ends of the earth, telling the story of God’s good news as known in Christ and engaging in God’s work of mission.

Does our current malaise within the Church mean that we’re ripe for another Pentecostal moment? Or rather, is it that every minute of our Christian existence is a moment for Pentecostal dynamism? I’ve often wondered why the fervor and spiritual fire of the Church’s earliest days (as particularly conveyed in the Acts of the Apostles) seems so far removed from sleep-in Sundays, “dying” churches, and financially anxious parish meetings, where budgets are slashed to “keep order” and ministry is whittled away. I’m thankful that this isn’t the case at Good Shepherd, where I see ambitious reaching for new ministry and an overwhelming sense of God’s abundance. And thank goodness for that. The Holy Spirit is no less alive now than two thousand years ago. Perhaps it’s that we have tuned our antennae to other frequencies: busyness, consumerism, fear, predictability, and normalcy.

The question when speaking about the Holy Spirit is how we know whether we’re following the Spirit’s voice or not? That’s not an easy question to answer. But we have some guideposts to help us along the way. If the nudges we’re following restrict our capacity for abundant living, they’re probably not of the Spirit. If something actively creates divisions and has no impulse to restore people to one another and God, then it’s probably not of the Spirit. If an urging provokes fear and shame, it’s likely not of the Spirit. But if we’re faithful in our prayers—that is, making prayer a regular part of our lives—then I’m convinced that we can trust the nudges we feel because they probably stem from the openness that God creates within us when we’re actively at prayer. Heeding those nudges, the voices of others in our lives, and the circumstances in which we find ourselves are all part of tuning our own antenna to the frequency of the Holy Spirit.

On Day of Pentecost, a principal feast of the Church, we will welcome a child, Douglas Joseph Backman, III, into the Body of Christ through the sacrament of Baptism. He will rise to new life in Christ through the water of Baptism and be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Every Baptism is a reminder that each moment of our lives is an opportunity for Pentecostal living. Let us take that Pentecostal fire into a world that needs its cleansing power and its refreshing potential for newness. I’ll look forward to seeing you in church on Sunday.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of May 12, 2024

There are eighty names on the list: the oldest was 74 and the youngest 12. They are the names of the victims of gun violence in Montgomery County over the past five years. Many of the victims are in their twenties and thirties. Tomorrow, at Good Shepherd, members of our campus ministry and young adult ministry will install a Memorial to the Lost in front of the church on Lancaster and Montrose Avenues. The Memorial will include T-shirts with the names of all eighty victims of gun violence in Montgomery County over the past five years. The Memorial is sponsored by Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence, a local organization that “seeks to energize the American faith community and actively seek an end to gun violence through public witness and policy advocacy.” Heeding God’s Call is not a partisan organization; it’s an organization that tries to encourage people of different viewpoints to work together for commonsense advocacy to ensure that the streets of our communities can be safer places.

Barry Levis, one of our parishioners, serves on our diocese’s Anti-Gun Violence Commission, and Barry has helped us connect with Heeding God’s Call to host the Memorial to the Lost on our lawn for two weeks. I’m grateful to Barry for his work on this commission. Bishop Gutiérrez is also a co-convener of Bishops against Gun Violence, a group of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to address the gun violence epidemic in the United States.

I see the installation of the Memorial to the Lost at Good Shepherd as a witness to the local community of our Christian commitment to peace. When people walk by our church and see the Memorial on our lawn, I hope they will know that we are doing our best, with God’s help, to be a place of reconciliation, hope, and peace. True peace is not simply the absence of conflict; it’s a state of being in a state of harmony and unity with one another. As Christians, we believe that only Christ can give the world the peace it so desperately needs. When we exchange the peace of Christ at Mass, it’s not social hour. It’s a holy offering to each other of the peace that comes, first and foremost, from Christ himself.

For the installation of this Memorial at Good Shepherd to be more than a shallow gesture of goodwill, we must see it as sacramental in some way: effecting what it says. For it to effect what it says, it must move us to be a different kind of people, a people united in the peace of Christ. We, as a Christian community, are called to be together, to work together, to receive Eucharist together in spite of our different viewpoints, personal whims, or political beliefs. The Church is not a monolith but a living organism of diverse peoples with a variety of gifts. The point of being a Christian is to die to self to rise to a larger life, a life in shared fellowship with one another. Our own grievances, stubbornness, and ideologies are smaller than Christ’s call to honor one another as children of God.

Our Lord showed us another way than that of violence. When Peter unsheathed his sword to cut off the ear of one of Jesus’s persecutors during his Passion, Jesus rebuked him. Jesus’s death is the defeat of all cycles of vengeance and violence. If we are his followers, we will ask for his grace to refuse to be a part of such vicious cycles. The violence that we renounce as Christians is not just physical violence; it’s the violence of hateful speech and rhetoric, of passive-aggressive anger, of unkind words, and of factional infighting. Even today, the universal Church is rife with dissension and petty arguments. To be a sacramental witness of peace, we must rise above such behavior, even as we are in disagreement with one another. Perhaps the Church is the only place left on earth that is intentionally organized around such a premise.

After Sung Mass on Sunday, I ask you to join me and the acolytes on the lawn following the organ voluntary for a brief dedication and blessing of the Memorial to the Lost. I pray that this Memorial will be not only a public witness on behalf of Christian values but also spur each of us to witness to Christ’s peace, in whatever way we can, in a world that can only be healed by the hand of almighty God and his peace which passes all understanding.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

In memoriam:
Ja'vein Brown
Jeremiah Hawkins
Tyrell Brown
Nathaniel Harris
Mary Meister
Wanda Deshong
Adam Deshong
Ziyir Wright
Joshua Gonzalez
Michael Gillins
Derek Mayo
Ryshid Simpson
Arthur Thomas
Alhaji Koroma
Shafeeq Robbins
Jordan Hayward
Wesley Smith
Rachel King
Nevaughn Beasley
Frank Acosta
Daniel Hawkins
Anthony Pinckney
Daquan Tucker
Anthony Johnson
Emilio Alvarado
Reid Beck
Miriam Beck
Keishla Arroyo
Sean Robbins
Willie Peterson
James Hunt
Harvey Harris
Chrisian Chambers
Ruben Simon
Steve Green
Simon Jacob
Angel Vazquez
Nahmer Baird
Stephan Bates
Irving Harris
Armand Hayes
Donald Forsythe
Aaron Richardson
William Edney
Dakari Rome
Skyler Fox
Jami Lee
Brandon Bacote-Byer
Tyrek Bpgle
Trey Bartholomew
Frank Wade
Jasiyah Vasquez
Junior Pinnock
Henry Palmen
Layth Evans
Michael Paone
Barry Fields
Carla Forde
Chediaz Thomas
Darrius Waller
Adrionne Reaves
Robert Pollock
Wendell Allison-Haucey
Jonathan Adams
Mekenda Saunders
Latiya Clea
Nadege St. Preux
Nahray Crisden
Rebecca Evans
Jerry White
Ebony Pack
Rasheed Bundy
Jeanne Edwards
Otis Harris
Sun Won
Joshua Smith
James Madison
Alonzo Anthony
Keith Robinson
Ralph Williams

The Week of May 5, 2024

One of the most moving moments of the Mass is the Communion of the faithful. From my perspective near the altar, I see pew by pew of people approaching the Communion rail, kneeling, crossing themselves, and stretching out their hands. It’s significant that we don’t grab the host or the chalice. We open our hands, and then we bring our hands directly to our mouths, consuming the host. Likewise, we guide the chalice (being offered by the minister) to our lips. These liturgical movements are a theological expression of the Christian life. We approach the altar of God, offering “our selves, our souls and bodies,” to use the prayer book’s language, and then we receive the gifts of God, the Body and Blood of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Eucharistic action is countercultural, for we live in a consumerist age. We buy whatever we want, assuming we have the means to purchase it. Those who don’t have the means go without. We control gifts as we please, and we attach strings to our money. We deny love and mercy to those we dislike. We refuse gifts, perhaps, from those we want to hurt. But the Eucharist cuts right through all this as an expression of the infinite generosity of God. God doesn’t withhold gifts from us. What God has to offer is always on offer. We, of course, can refuse to receive those gifts but at the peril of our souls. We can’t control God’s gifts, nor should the Church use them as a form of spiritual manipulation (although this is sometimes done). The Eucharist is the purest form of the offering and reception of a gift.

And for this reason, we need the Eucharist to live most fully. It is “food for the journey” (viaticum) in our lives of discipleship. It’s the sustenance for our lives in Christ and the means by which we are healed, particularly from selfishness and ingratitude. For this reason, and for so many more, we go to church. We go to church not to earn an eternal reward, for that would simply be to perpetuate a culture of transaction. We go to church first and foremost to praise and adore God. True worship is the most selfless of actions. In adoration, we hope for nothing in return; we simply offer our worship. But when we do so freely, we find that we are changed. We find that we have, in fact, received something priceless in return. It’s not why we go to church; it’s simply a fruit of that action.

When we go to church, we are also reminded that we need one another. Going to church isn’t a vague humanist enterprise (we can engage in good works without the Church). But in going to church, we find that we are incomplete without others, indeed our own salvation is incomplete without others. The Mass embodies Paul’s theology of the Body of Christ. In the ritual of the Mass, each of us contributes something through our presence. In the Anglican tradition, there can be no Mass without the faithful. We need each other, and above all, we need God.

As we look towards the summer months, when many of us travel and when there might be a temptation to take a vacation from church, I suggest that we hold the opposite view. When you travel, find the nearest Episcopal church and go to Mass. And if you’re in town, come to Mass! This summer, I’ll be leading a book study before the 10:30 a.m. Sung Mass, beginning at 9:30 a.m. We will be reading Timothy Radcliffe’s book Why Go to Church?: The Drama of the Eucharist. This book was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2009 Lent book, and it’s a wonderful explanation of the Eucharistic action. It can help us explore the meaning behind something that can become just another mindless ritual. I hope you will consider joining me this summer for this book study, even if you will be away for some Sundays due to travel; come when you can. Our first meeting will be on Sunday, June 16, so you have plenty of time to order the book from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or the book seller of your choice. If purchasing the book is a hardship, please contact me privately, and the church will buy you a copy. Stay tuned for a more detailed schedule and reading assignments.

And above all, I hope to see you in church this Sunday! Before then, consider attending the retreat house benefit concert this evening (Friday) at 7 p.m., performed by Ruth Cunningham. You won’t be disappointed. As usual, this Sunday, the Sixth Sunday of Easter, we will end Mass with a procession to the gardens and bless them in honor of the traditional Rogation days this week, when we give thanks for the fruitfulness of God’s creation and ask his blessing on creation and the fruits of our own labor. Our guest preacher at Sung Mass will be Bishop Geralyn Wolf, former Bishop of Rhode Island, and now Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Long Island. Until Sunday. . .

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of April 28, 2024

The great Anglican divine and poet George Herbert (1593-1633) penned the following poem about the Blessed Virgin Mary, called “Anagram.”

How well her name an Army doth present,
In whom the Lord of hosts did pitch his tent!

Short and succinct, it says so very much. It’s called “Anagram” because the word “Army” can be rearranged into the word “Mary.” One online analysis suggests that the power of Mary is like that of an army. So, army is “a reference to the vast number of people who have been saved through her intercession” (https://allpoetry.com/poem/8472553-Anagram-by-George-Herbert). Church tradition has been inclined to find a connection between the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament and Mary, a kind of “Ark” in the New Testament, for Mary bore the Son of God.

In the Anglican tradition (as in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions), we have a high view of the communion of saints. Not only do we believe that they exist in the nearer presence of God, but we pray for them; and they pray for us. Why should this be surprising? Wouldn’t we ask a dear friend to pray for us in a difficult moment? The communion of saints is bound up with us who are still in our earthly pilgrimage. And as the Theotokos (God-bearer) and Mother of God, Mary is known as the “queen of heaven.” Why would we not beseech the intercession of Mary?

Devotion to Mary has always had a place within the Anglican tradition, although it was somewhat suppressed in the immediate years following the English Reformation. Within the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, Mary has always been revered in various ways. The rosary is prayed in many churches. Statues of Mary can be found. Marian antiphons are included as part of worship. In fact, at Good Shepherd, we begin every Morning and Evening Prayer with a Marian devotion (either the Angelus or Regina coeli in Eastertide). Our Tower bells peal the typical series of bells (three sets of three, and then nine) as we recite these devotions. A plaque in our Tower entrance notes that an electric mechanism was installed at some point to ring the Angelus bells in memory of the Incarnation. (We’re currently trying to find a decent mechanism to play the Angelus bells after the original mechanism was removed a few years ago.) On a regular basis at Good Shepherd, our recitation of the Angelus reminds us of the tactile nature of the Incarnation. And this is only fitting, since Mary is the one “In whom the Lord of hosts did pitch his tent!”

At Good Shepherd, we have a beautiful Lady Chapel, in honor of Our Lady, with a lovely statue on the wall. A rack of votive candles (of the color blue, which is Mary’s color) stands in front, and at the end of some days, when I enter the church for the evening Office, I find that some unknown visitor has popped into the church and lit some candles, asking for Mary’s prayers. On the north side of the pulpit in the church, there is a Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham, remembering the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a medieval nobleman in the 11th century at Walsingham in Norfolk, England. To this day, there is a shrine (jointly shared by Anglicans and Roman Catholics) in that little village. I have often imagined Mary’s persistent intercession (like an army!) anchoring Good Shepherd, Rosemont, in its roughest moments. The very invocation of her name has great power, as George Herbert so wisely noted.

May is traditionally the month of Mary. Flowers begin to bloom, and we get a taste and scent of new life springing up from the earth. We’re reminded of fertility and abundance. We can imagine that as Mary conceived a child by the power of the Holy Spirit in the most unexpected way, so new life springs among us in surprising ways. May is a time to celebrate Mary. It’s also a time to rejoice in the manifold ways in which God gives flourishing to our lives in times when they seem as dead as the cold of winter.

To celebrate the month of May and the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are hosting a special concert on Friday, May 3 at 7 p.m. in the church, featuring Ruth Cunningham, a marvelous musician who was a founding member of the famed women’s vocal ensemble Anonymous 4. Ruth, who sings ancient chants and improvises new ones, will sing and accompany herself on harp. For some of the chants, she will be joined by our own Robert McCormick on the organ in joint improvisations. You will not want to miss this concert! Not only will you hear glorious Marian music, but you will have a chance to make a donation to support the Rosemont Community Retreat House, which is a major outreach ministry of this parish. It is also a considerable source of revenue (through donations) that supports the overall ministry of Good Shepherd. To enable this ministry to flourish into the future through outreach into the community and wider Church, as well as to further the financial health of the parish, we need your support of the retreat house. And one way you can help is to attend next Friday’s concert. Even better, invite a friend. You can learn more about Ruth and hear her music-making by visiting her website. You can purchase a ticket to the concert online or at the door. The concert will also be livestreamed to Facebook and to our parish website. I hope to see you on Friday, May 3, but before then at church on Sunday!

O God, who by the Resurrection of thy Son, Jesus Christ, didst vouchsafe to give gladness unto the world; grant, we beseech thee, that we being holpen by the Virgin Mary his mother, may attain unto the joys of everlasting life, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.                        

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of April 21, 2024

Over the Tower doors of the church building, there is a statue of Jesus the Good Shepherd. This shepherd looks young but reasonably confident. He seems to have a bag of provisions but no armor. The rescued sheep is carried on his shoulders, and in a beautiful, intimate gesture, the sheep’s head is craning towards the face of the Good Shepherd. This statue is a striking contrast to the image in the stained glass window over the West doors of the church, which features St. Michael the Archangel, armed for battle. There certainly is a place for such an image of protection, of Michael bravely battling the forces of evil. But in a violent world that is often hyper-defensive, I personally feel a greater draw to the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

For 130 years, the faithful have entered the doors of our parish church building where the statute of Jesus the Good Shepherd now stands (it was added some decades after the church was constructed). For 130 years on this site in Rosemont, sheep have ritually entered into the sheepfold. At times in our history, there has been division, deep challenges, and looming danger, but what has kept the sheepfold of our parish church in existence has been the indefatigable love of the Good Shepherd.

Have you noticed how, throughout Scripture, Jesus fails to get embroiled in others’ anxiety and conflict? Have you detected how non-anxious and non-defensive he is when confronted with accusations, snide questions, and even death? The statue of the Good Shepherd over the Tower doors to our church reminds us of the source of our strength, life, hope, and protection. That source is the life of prayer, offered to God the Father, in the Name of Jesus the Good Shepherd, by the power of the Holy Spirit. That prayer, anchored in God’s gracious providence, is the only thing that can explain the continuing existence of this parish church today.

The love of the Good Shepherd reminds us that no matter how much we stray or wander and no matter how much danger we face, our hope and strength are found in God alone. Indeed, the Church’s very unity will be found in heeding the voice of the Good Shepherd, and if we take St. John’s words seriously, we will likely be very surprised at those we encounter in the sheepfold of eternal life. Those numbers will be larger than we could ever have fathomed or, in our sinfulness, have wanted. We tune out the Good Shepherd’s voice when we get caught up in reactivity and anxiety. We heed his voice when we quiet our own voices and emotions to hear his gentle but confident voice calling, “Come and follow me.”

In my nearly four years as rector of this wonderful parish, I have seen a beautiful congregation of sheep forming and becoming one in love under the guidance of the Good Shepherd. When I arrived here in August of 2020, I could never have predicted that our little sheepfold would look like it does today. I am always surprised at those who decide to walk under the statue of the Good Shepherd and into this parish church, clearly following the voice of Jesus. In the wider Church’s current anxiety over decline, we forget that there is no quick-fix method of getting people through the gate into the sheepfold. Ultimately, that’s not really our job. The voice of the Good Shepherd is always calling them, but to walk through the gate, one must want to be found. Our Christian duty is to help others hear the Shepherd’s loving voice.

At Good Shepherd, Rosemont, in keeping with the spirit of the One for whom our parish is named, I pray that we can keep the gate for the sheep wide open. It’s not our job to be gatekeepers; only Jesus is the Gatekeeper. May we never forget what the voice of the Good Shepherd sounds like, and may we always strive for the selfless love that he models in his goodness.

This Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, we celebrate our Feast of Title. I hope to see you walking through the Tower doors, under the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd. Come to morning Mass and give thanks for being led by his voice to this parish and into the greater sheepfold of God. Then return for Choral Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at 3 p.m. Let’s celebrate the flourishing of this parish once again under the guidance of the One who never fails to lead us and stay with us even when the wolfs come. May Christ the Good Shepherd lead us and guide us home into the loving arms of God, who calls us each by name.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of April 14, 2024

If we were to adopt the geographical trajectory of St. Luke’s writings (his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles), everything that happens before the resurrection of Jesus is intended to move towards Jerusalem. And afterwards, all action moves from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Thinking about this in terms of the Church year, much of our preparation moves towards Jerusalem. We consider Easter to be a high point, and we imagine the days following as anti-climactic, perhaps even less important. But there are many missed opportunities in such thinking.

There are forty days of Lent and fifty days of Easter. For fifty days (called the Great Fifty Days) the Paschal candle towers over all our prayer and worship in the church, reminding us that by the power of the resurrection, we are compelled to continue the trajectory of our discipleship to the ends of the earth, bringing the light of Christ into the darkest places of our communities and lives.

When looking at the register of services in our sacristy, I’d love to see those numbers skyrocket after Easter. I’d love to have my inbox full of messages from people wanting to know how they can use their unique gifts for the sake of the Gospel. I’d love to see parishioners inviting others (“from the ends of the earth”) to experience the transformation, joy, and power of the resurrection. The Great Fifty Days of Easter are a time for evangelism.

I wish evangelism were not a nasty word, but I understand why many balk at it. So much damage—mental, spiritual, and physical—has been done in the name of evangelism. But just because it has been hijacked by careless and irresponsible Christians doesn’t mean that it has no value. Indeed, all the more, it’s our bounden duty to reclaim evangelism from those who would use it violently.

We might imagine that the devil, in his chilling wiliness, laughs when Christians shy away from evangelism. This is exactly what evil would like: for a good thing gone wrong to lose its original power. But I haven’t given up hope that thoughtful and compassionate Christians will indeed rescue evangelism (which, after all, has to do with the good news) from its bondage to evil.

We are rather like those earliest disciples of Jesus who cowered in the upper room out of fear. They feared for their lives as ambassadors of the Gospel. It was far easier to stay locked behind closed doors rather than venturing bravely out into a dangerous world to announce good news. But we know that, with time, those disciples did venture out, some to their deaths in remote corners of the world, but all to plant communities of hope in a world just as broken as our own.

So, what can we do this Eastertide? First, we can show up on the first day of the week to share in the breaking of bread and in the prayers (see Acts 2:42). It’s helpful to remember that unless prevented by illness or exceptional circumstance, this means in the flesh, in person. There’s no more important thing we can do as Christians because this sacred action that has been the defining feature of the Church from the resurrection of Jesus reminds us that we need God and each other. Being together, in our bodies which will one day be raised by God, is what coaxes us out of our complacency and wears down the rough edges of our sinfulness. It’s what heals us. Second, we can recall that having broken bread and shared in the prayers with each other and possibly even with total strangers, we are commanded to move out through open (not locked) doors into a world that desperately needs our witness, perhaps quiet, perhaps bold. Two things are required of us: to break bread and say our prayers together and to be natural, sincere evangelists who live embodied lives that reflect our own inner transformation in the power of the Spirit.

Evangelism is not for a select few, such as the ordained or visible lay leaders. It’s for each of us. Eastertide is the season for us to celebrate that if we say we’re Christian, then we are to believe and act in hope. And such hope doesn’t allow us to give up on the world or the Church. It demands that we expect the Church to grow, not for the sake of numbers but for the sake—indeed for the salvation—of the world. And may the life-giving, transformative Gospel of which we are inheritors spread to the ends of the earth, not for the sake of human or ecclesial power but for the sake of love.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of April 7, 2024

It can be difficult to return to normal after Holy Week and Easter. For weeks, many of us have been preparing for the complex liturgies of the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter). And there is a naturally felt movement to a climax in celebrating Easter with all its pomp and glory. It seems somewhat anti-climactic to return to “normal.” But Easter is only just beginning.

It’s wholly unfortunate that the Second Sunday of Easter is treated as “Low” Sunday. No Sunday is “Low,” and certainly no Sunday is unimportant. In fact, there may be no more important Sunday for keeping the momentum of Eastertide going than the Second Sunday of Easter. This Sunday, then, is the Sunday for launching us fully into the rest of the Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Historically, in the ancient Church, the Great Fifty Days was a time in which the newly-baptized were integrated into the life of the Church. Heretofore, they had only participated partially in the Sunday Masses as preparation for their baptism. But with their baptism at Easter, they were now members of Christ’s Body. Baptism was not an endpoint; it was a beginning. And so it is with all of us who have been baptized. Easter reminds us that our life and work in Christ are only just beginning.

Admittedly, around campus this week, things seems a bit quiet. It was a blessing to have guests with us in our retreat house for Holy Week and Easter, including our preacher for the Triduum, Mother Sarah Coakley, as well as Deacon Durango Jenkins, visiting from Virginia Theological Seminary. I’m grateful for their presence in enriching our liturgies. I also am deeply thankful for the hard work of our staff, choir, acolytes, lectors, those who assisted with retreat house hospitality, and all others who helped in various ways as we prepared for Holy Week and Easter.

For me, this past Holy Week and Easter were a glimpse into what Good Shepherd, as a parish, can be. We were able to celebrate last week’s important liturgies with three sacred ministers (priest, deacon, and subdeacon), a longstanding tradition at Good Shepherd but largely impossible these days because I’m the only cleric here. Attendance was better than it’s been in many years. The retreat house was full. And so the temptation is to feel a letdown after such excitement. But now, as we’re only beginning the Great Fifty Days of Easter, is a time to let that excitement propel us into our new future as a parish. What might this look like for us?

For some of you, perhaps it was your first Holy Week and Easter here. How were you changed? In what ways are you being called, like the early Church’s newly baptized, to use your gifts for ministry in building up the Body of Christ? For others, what dreams do you have for this parish, having witnessed it at “full steam”? What did the Holy Spirit teach us during Holy Week and Easter that beckons us into our new future at Good Shepherd? These are the questions that we are only beginning to explore as we approach the Second Sunday of Easter, not “Low” Sunday, but a Sunday that energizes us into the new creation that God is preparing for us.

Easter is a time of newness. But remember that when the Risen Christ appears to his disciples after his resurrection, he still bears the mark of his wounds. As we at Good Shepherd move into a new future, our wounds are not erased. We still bear them, but we and the wounds are changed. The wounds no longer define our identity. The resurrection means that Jesus was physically raised from the dead, as we, too, shall be, but it also means that life as we once knew it has changed. We’re living in a new reality. There are many weeks ahead in which we are being called to explore that new reality, intentionally, as we journey towards Pentecost. May this Eastertide be a blessing to you, and may you prayerfully discern how God is calling you to be a part of Good Shepherd’s newness as we daily rise from the dead to new life.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of March 31, 2024

As I write these words, we are (in linear time, at least) somewhere between Jesus’s betrayal and arrest and his crucifixion. As you read them, perhaps he is already on the cross. But, of course, we are in God’s time, not linear time. Every day, Jesus is crucified and every day he is risen, and yet for these Three Sacred Days of the Paschal Triduum, we try to enter God’s time and make some theological sense of what is happening.

The greatest temptation right now is to jump to Easter, so, now, I’m not writing with easy assurances of the Easter greeting. While we are always partially in Easter, but at this moment, we need to linger with the uncomfortable silence of the aftermath of Jesus’s death and his resting in the tomb. This is the space that most people wish to flee. The silence of our lives as we are with Jesus in the cold tomb causes all our unanswered questions, grief, pain, suffering, insecurity, anger, and envy to surface. But if we are to be redeemed, these things must come out. We must hand them over to God. And now is the time.

Every year, I find myself putting most other work on hold for a week or two as I finalize liturgy leaflets, write sermons, work on liturgical customaries, practice chanting, and ensure that all is in order for Holy Week services. While it may be tempting at times to imagine this as a waste of time, it is not. As I’ve said before, the liturgies of the Triduum are the earthly context in which we are “working out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). And because I believe this is true, then all the time rehearsing with acolytes, printing leaflets, decorating the church, and attending the liturgies themselves is at the heart of who we are as people living in Christ.

I’m deeply grateful to all who are assisting with the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter: liturgical participants, Altar Guild, musicians, staff, and countless others who serve behind the scenes. Thank you. It’s a delight this year to have the Rev. Dr. Sarah Coakley with us as our guest preacher for the Triduum, as well as guests in our retreat house, who are spending this holy time with us. Thank you to those helping with retreat hospitality.

I pray that these Three Days may be a blessed gift in which you rush not to Easter too quickly but stay on the cross and then in the tomb for a time. God is there with you, as the poet Malcolm Guite says in a meditation on the Stations of the Cross, “on his knees” with you. And when we rush to the tomb on Easter morning, we bring all that has surfaced this week and let God take it and redeem it. I leave you with this poem by the late Anglican priest and poet R.S. Thomas:

The Answer

Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to reform
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us

Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.

(R.S. Thomas Collected Poems: 1945-1990, Phoenix Publishing, p. 359)

The Week of March 24, 2024

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? These are the opening words of the traditional Spiritual. Most people, thinking rationally and “remembering” past events as the English word “remember” suggests, would answer, “No; of course, not!” But as we begin Holy Week, and as we seek to reclaim a deeper way of remembering, the answer to the words of that Spiritual can only be, “Yes; of course, we were there!”

We were there when they nailed Jesus to the tree, when they laid him in the tomb, and when he was raised from the dead. To understand Holy Week, we must believe that we were there. During Holy Week, we enter kairos, or God’s time, which transcends human chronos time. Kairos time is a time in which remembrance is deep and participatory. Just as our Jewish friends engage in such deep remembering with the celebration of Passover, Christians do as well during this holiest of weeks. The grammar of remembrance defies the rules of the English language. Consider these words from the great Exsultet hymn in praise of the Paschal Candle, sung by the deacon at the Great Vigil of Easter: “This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.” Such a mingling of tenses makes no sense unless we were there when God did all this. And Holy Week is when we remember, deeply and in a participatory way, that we were and we are and we always will be there at the heart of salvation.

If we pay attention to St. John’s Gospel, we will see that the evangelist invites us into a view of salvation that is partially realized. Salvation meets us here in the present, as well as in the future, and it’s also in our past, too. And if this is indeed true, then when we participate in the liturgies of Holy Week (and when we participate in any of the Church’s liturgies), we are truly participating in our own salvation. And so this means that in our longing for God to save us by making us whole, reconciling us to himself and to one another, there’s nothing more important that we can do than participate in the saving liturgies of the Church. Going to church, in this sense, matters greatly.

The drama of Holy Week all begins on Palm Sunday, when we face the glaring dissonance of human sin pitted against God’s salvation in Christ. If we are bothered by the celebration of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, hailed by the fickle crowds as King, and the ensuing jeers of “Crucify him!”, then we have properly understood something of this liturgy’s purpose. It’s not meant to make sense. It’s meant to disturb us out of our complacency, as any recognition of sin should do. We hear for the first time during Holy Week an account of Jesus’s Passion, this year from Mark. Holy Week is not linear time but time in a spiral. We need to hear more than one account of Jesus’s Passion during this week to understand how salvation unfolds in the mystery of God’s time.

On Maundy Thursday, we begin to move out of our estrangement (only from our perspective, of course) from Christ through sin into fuller identification, first through the washing of feet, which embodies Christ’s command to selfless love and through sharing in the Eucharistic feast, as we remember its institution. But we are left at the end of the liturgy with a stark reminder of Christ’s abandonment in the stripping of the altar and in the lonely watch before the Blessed Sacrament as we “watch” with Christ in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing that we, like Jesus’s disciples, often struggle to watch with Christ. (Sign up here to watch after the Maundy Thursday liturgy.)

Good Friday is an oxymoron. We experience both the starkest liturgy of the Christian year (so stark, in fact, that it’s the only day where Mass is not celebrated) and also a profound identification with Christ as we move into our vocation as a priestly people. This occurs in the Solemn Collects, where we inhabit the place prepare for us by the Great High Priest, Jesus himself, interceding on behalf of the world. We hear St. John’s Passion account, and this is essential, for in it, we see that the cross is the moment of glory. Christ reigns from the tree, community is formed at the foot of the cross, and the whole world is being drawn to God the Father.

And then we finally arrive at the Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter. It is the Christian Passover. As we move out of the apophatic silence of Holy Saturday, everything becomes new: a new fire of Christ’s light, new water of baptism, and new Eucharistic bread and wine. We move from death into life. The First Mass of Easter is our first celebration of the hope of the resurrection and of what Christ has done for us. It’s the liturgy that acts out the upending of the world that occurs in the Gospel.

My understanding of the salvific character of the Holy Week liturgies is influenced largely by the scholarship of James Farwell in his book This Is the Night: Suffering, Salvation, and the Liturgies of Holy Week. I commend it to you. I can’t encourage you enough to attend all the liturgies of Holy Week. The Paschal Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter are one liturgy. If we long for salvation, these liturgies are essential to our Christian discipleship. If you need to take any days off from work, this is the week to do so.

Our guest preacher for the Paschal Triduum is the Rev. Dr. Sarah Coakley, former Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. We will also be blessed to have a visiting deacon for the liturgies of the Triduum and Easter, the Rev. Durango Jenkins, a student at Virginia Theological Seminary, and this will allow us to celebrate these liturgies with three sacred ministers, a rare gift these days at Good Shepherd!

As we approach the saving liturgies of Holy Week, I pray that you may find the joy of God’s salvation, a salvation that can’t be separated from the suffering of our world. It’s a salvation that meets us in that suffering, and this is the good news of the Gospel, the greatest news of all.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of March 17, 2024

In a recent book I finished reading called The Way of Thomas Merton: A Prayer Journey through Lent, the author makes this insightful claim, reflecting on Merton’s approach to reading the Bible: “[T]he Bible must be read existentially. That is to say, in order to read the Bible at all is to read it as if one’s life depended on it, not as if the book were meant for someone else. The book’s meaning and value simply does not yield itself to a purely analytical or dispassionate reading. An ‘alienated reading,’ as Merton calls it, looks at the Bible as an artefact of the past or a species of antique theology. Neither reading is in sync with the book’s true organizing principle” (from Robert Inchausti, The Way of Thomas Merton: A Prayer Journey through Lent, London: SPCK, 2022, p. 89).

I’ve certainly found in my teaching that the Bible is often approached as an artifact, or at the very least, with some sense of separation, or “alienation” as Merton put it, between reader and text. I have come to diligently avoid Biblical commentaries that are dryer than a valley of bones and that miss the forest for the trees in interpreting a living Word that should put sinews and flesh on the dry bones of our lives. After all, the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (4:12). Our modern mindsight too often wants to treat Scripture as an archaeological dig or an objective text mined for knowledge or, more usually, clues to be crudely used for salvation.

But historically, the Bible was read more imaginatively, and certainly more prayerfully than we are wont to do. Monks of old, who had few books in their libraries, would “chew” on the text slowly. This method of reading, often called lectio divina, involved a slow and prayerful reading of a Biblical text until some word or phrase would “light up.” The reader would then put the text aside and use said word or phrase as an impetus to prayer.

Another prayerful way of reading Scripture is Ignatian in character (inspired by Ignatius of Loyola). One puts oneself in the text, “as if you were there” when the action happened. The readers hears things, smells things, touches things, and is sensorily engaged with the text. One might be the woman at the well whom Jesus doesn’t condemn but looks upon in love. One might be Jonah, pouting under the bush. One might even be Judas, who betrays his Lord.

In the bimonthly Bible study that I lead at Bryn Mawr College, we attempt to read the text on various levels, but principally, in a spiritual fashion. And my experience has shown that most of the students are less interested in heady, academic “mining” of the text than they are in discerning how the text is speaking to their lives, right then and there. Such holy reading submits to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

The final spiritual practice of Lent named in the Invitation to a Holy Lent on Ash Wednesday is “reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (BCP, p. 265). There are many ways to do this, some of which I’ve already enumerated. Praying the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer is one of the best ways to swim in the sea of Scripture. The Daily Office regularly exposes us to more Scripture than we’d normally encounter in other liturgies. And obviously, we hear a lot of Scripture at Sunday Mass. But I want to suggest that the way we encounter Scripture liturgically is far different from a Bible study. In the liturgy, we don’t encounter Scripture with our heads buried in the text; we allow God’s Word to speak to our hearts through the ritual movement of our bodies and the shape of the liturgy. We listen. And when we listen—rather than read—we are impacted differently.

We will soon be entering into the holiest of weeks for Christians. In the liturgies of that week, we participate in the saving events of our salvation, and the use of Scripture in those liturgies is intended to convict, judge, and give hope to our mortal lives. Above all, this Word of God, which we hear all the time, is living and active. It gives meaning to our lives, past, present, and future. It’s one way in which God touches each of us personally. As we draw near to the cross and empty tomb, may God’s holy Word enliven your heart and your mind, and may you find in it, the risen Christ, who has already prepared a place for us in the heavens.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of March 10, 2024

This past week during our campus ministry’s Bible study at Bryn Mawr College, we discussed the “Parable of the Rich Fool” from Luke’s Gospel (12:13-21). If you recall, in this parable, a well-off man finds himself with an abundant harvest. Running out of room for storage, he decides to tear down the existing barns and build larger ones to store up his overflowing crop. At that very moment, God comes to him and says that he will die that night. The question is this: to whom will belong all that the rich man has amassed? Without knowing he would die (and perhaps imagining that he was invincible), the man has saved up his fortune for nothing. The moral of this parable is that there is judgment for those who are not “rich toward God.”

As we discussed this challenging parable at our Bible study, we explored what this might mean for us today. Does it mean that we shouldn’t prepare for our future through fiscal responsibility or savings? Are we not supposed to “store up” material things to provide for our children and relatives after we’re gone? We could ask question after question in this vein. But I don’t such questions are really what Jesus was after when he told this parable. I think that Jesus was speaking about a posture of abundance as opposed to a posture of scarcity. If you recall, the “rich fool” enters into a solipsistic dialogue with himself. He addresses his own soul in the dialogue. It’s a terribly self-centered conversation that he’s having. And God is the one who interrupts this self-centeredness with a stark reminder that the man is mortal and the world is larger than this man and his wealth.

My reading of this parable is that it’s not a question of preparing for the future or not. Of course, we should be sensible in preparing for our future, that of our loved ones, and yes, of the Church that will live on after we have died. Rather, the parable poses the questions of whether our preparations for future security are fear based and whether or not we are willing to give even more than we are willing to save. Jesus’s parable challenges our desire for security, which is usually material security or emotional security. We want to store up everything we can so that we can be happy. In short, if we see with the eyes of scarcity, it’s hard to trust God.

Trusting God is what the spiritual practice of self-denial is all about. Self-denial can look like any number of things, but ultimately, it’s about parting with what seems dearest to us in order to strengthen our reliance on God alone. In this sense, self-denial is quite similar to fasting. Fasting refers, particularly, to refraining from food or drink to remind ourselves that we don’t live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3). Self-denial means that we refrain from doing something that pleases us in order to recall that it is indeed possible to survive (and even thrive!) without the thing that has taken hold of us. Self-denial is not masochism or deliberate torture of ourselves; there’s no edification in such practices. Instead, denying ourselves is instructive in forming our whole-hearted dependence on God alone.

Self-denial is the opposite of what the rich fool does. The rich fool is foolish because he things that material happiness is all there is to life. But with the mind of Christ, what seems foolish to the rich fool is wise, and the rich fool (wise by the world’s standards), is indeed foolish. Self-denial reaffirms our truest joy and spiritual fulfillment as coming from the One who is the Source of our life and strength: God.

There is a striking paradox in self-denial. The more we deny ourselves, the more we find our true selves, as we have been created and are loved by God. In self-denial, what we’re really denying is not our self but a self shaped by lies, which tell us that we need money, material things, success, affirmation (fill in the blank) in order to be fulfilled. When we deny ourselves—emptying ourselves so that God can fill us with his Spirit and life—we find who we really are in God.

What does self-denial look like, practically speaking? During a season of self-denial, such as Lent, it could be as simple as refraining from eating something that we rely too much on (e.g., sweets, desserts, chocolate are the typical Lenten ones). It could mean that we stop ordering all those things we don’t really need but which are readily accessible online (do we really need one more piece of clothing or that extra book?). Perhaps we give up practices that are spiritually harmful, such as gossiping or reveling in criticism of others, practices that perversely make us feel stronger through the denigration of others. Maybe we give up social media, because it has become an obsessive source of self-affirmation for us. Whatever we give up or deny ourselves, it should be something that hurts when we part with it. In that experience of loss, we will hopefully discover that we have gained something far better—an awareness of our true self as made in the image of God. Ultimately, we learn that in our fear, we can yet trust God to take care of us.

At its heart, self-denial means that we break the vicious cycle of turning inwards on ourselves. We enlarge our world to include, first of all, God, and then our neighbors and all of creation. Self-denial affirms our citizenship as members of the family of God. That is what Lent is all about: living more fully into the promises we made in baptism, or promises that were made on our behalf. And in doing so, we discover who we truly are.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of March 3, 2024

These days, we can have almost anything we want on demand. We can rent our favorite movie while staying in a hotel. We can order almost anything we need online. The world has become a vast marketplace. We are the consumers, and if we don’t find what we want, we will go or shop wherever we can.

But imagine for a minute that you’re in a situation where you can’t get what you want. Maybe your internet is down and you can’t order that book for your Kindle (since you just finished another book). Or you’re looking for a particular ingredient in the grocery store, but they’re out of stock. What do you do? These are privileged problems, but regardless, they teach us something. When we can’t get what we want on demand, we usually find ways to cope. Moreover, we might even realize that the things we so readily covet are actually inessential to our lives.

The spiritual practice of fasting is intended to teach us how to rely on God alone. “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Fasting, in and of itself, is not utilitarian. It’s not intended to get something or achieve something, for that would defeat the purpose of fasting. Fasting opens interior space within us to make room for God. Fasting enables us to prioritize God over all other things. Fasting also reveals those dark things inside our souls that we paper over with possessions and habits. In his book A Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster notes that “[w]e cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, it will be revealed almost immediately. . . Anger, bitterness, jealousy, strife, fear—if they are within us, they will surface during fasting. At first we will rationalize that our anger is due to our hunger; then we will realize that we are angry because the spirit of anger is within us. We can rejoice in this knowledge because we know that healing is available through the power of Christ” (from A Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, p. 55).

The Invitation to a Holy Lent, which we heard on Ash Wednesday, highlights fasting as an intentional practice of Lent. The point of fasting is not to earn points with God or fulfill an obligation. The point is to make room for God within our cluttered selves and amid a cluttered world. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday have traditionally been days of fasting, and our prayer book designates them as such. There are different types of fasts. One might choose a modified fast, where one full meal is consumed in a day, drinking only water throughout the day. If one does not have liturgical duties on either of those days or work obligations that could be impaired by a rigid fast, one might choose to eat nothing during the day. In any case, severe fasts must be taken with caution and preparation, especially if one has medical conditions that would make fasting physically dangerous.

There are also other kinds of fasts that are common in Lent. A longstanding custom within Anglo-Catholic circles (and still in Roman Catholic circles) is to avoid flesh meat on Fridays. A practice that is traditional throughout the year is to abstain from any food or drink (except water) at least an hour before consuming the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass. I recognize that we live in an age that tends to dismiss these practices as “old-fashioned,” but I believe that there is great merit in these spiritual practices. They all remind us that we don’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. St. Augustine of Hippo understood this when he observed that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. God alone can fill the empty void in our lives, and the spiritual practice of fasting helps us see that no amount of food or retail therapy can truly satisfy that void in our lives.

In a technological age, we might even benefit from digital fasts. How much time do we spend reaching for our smartphones when we have a minute to spare in the line at the grocery store or are bored? What if that minute was spent in prayer or in reminding ourselves of how much God is in love with each of us? Fasting can include so many things.

Whatever spiritual practices you’re considering this Lent, remember that they have one purpose alone: to open ourselves to God more fully. Practices will not win us favor; we have no need for that. We are already favored in God’s eyes. Practices will reveal our sinful proclivities and besetting sins more clearly. And at the end of the day, hopefully we will see that all of those things we think we so desperately need are just stale bread. What we truly need is the living word that comes from the mouth of God.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle