Dear Cathedral Family,
This second Sunday in Advent takes us further into this season of preparation for new life; a new year in our life together is already beginning. I hope that each of you has found at least one way to mark this time of waiting in your life. Our email earlier this week contains many suggestions for ways to be quiet in the midst of this bustling season and prepare your hearts for the coming of Christ. All of these suggestions and links will also be available on our website.
Children will begin Christmas pageant preparations this Sunday during Children’s Chapel and Sunday School, and during our parish meeting following worship they will learn about the meaning of the Advent wreath and receive a kit to take home to make their own. Later in the afternoon they will gather, along with parent drivers, for a Christmas Caroling Parade.
This Sunday will be the first of two annual parish meetings, this one for the purpose of electing a vestry slate put forward by the nominating committee and approved by the vestry at their last meeting. You will also elect a slate of delegates and alternates to our diocesan convention in February. Their names follow in this email and are also in Sunday’s bulletin. Both of these slates are encouraging and hopeful signs of health, growth, and faith as a new generation of younger leadership steps into the long line of faithful servants at Christ Church.
Stewardship season continues this week with our final Sunday speaker. This week you will hear from Lucy Pryor Slaton, and you may find the inspiring messages of Bragg Van Antwerp and Carl Cunningham, Jr. on our website and in links that follow. Junior Warden for finance John Brooks will give a brief report on stewardship in our parish meeting.
The themes of the weeks of Advent form a progression toward the Savior’s birth: last week’s theme was hope, and this week’s theme is faithfulness. As we walk together toward Bethlehem to welcome the Christ child, the inner light of these truths guides and sustains us.
Faithfully,
Beverly+