Dear Cathedral Family, This Sunday following Ascension Day draws us closer to the Day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Our Gospel this week brings us Jesus’ final prayer on earth, what is called his “High Priestly Prayer.” Jesus prays for the ultimate fulfillment of his mission—to give eternal life to all those the Father has given him. By this Jesus means knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ. Jesus also prays for his disciples, the ones who have received him,

Dear Cathedral Family, The diocesan diaconate ordination last Saturday, May 2 was a wonderful day of celebration. I am thankful for the servant ministry of The Reverends Thomas Heard and Pratt Paterson, music director Dr. Joshua Coble and choir, children’s and family ministry coordinator Sabrina Evans, and all the volunteers who greeted, wrangled, and offered hospitality to our diocesan family on Saturday. You may access pictures here and recordings of the sermon and service

Dear Cathedral Family, Spring is the season of new life and growth in all aspects of created life, in the natural as well as the human worlds. Our young people begin new stages in their journey to adulthood as they close one school year and move toward another, and we witness their growth in life with wonder and thanksgiving. And we pray, both for them and their flourishing and safety and for ourselves to be wise guides and supporters and to keep “home base” open and availa

Dear Cathedral Family, Graduation season is upon us, and this Sunday we will celebrate and pray for our graduates in the Cathedral Family. This will be our annual Senior and Youth Sunday, when our young people assume their roles as ministers and leaders in our worship. We have watched them grow up before our eyes, and the joy and the hope that they inspire in us is one of the greatest gifts of our life together. I know that you will all be praying for them as they launch th

Dear Cathedral Family, This Sunday will be our 21st Annual Cathedral Celebration, with our bishop’s annual parochial visit for confirmation. Confirmation is grounded in baptism, the essential commitment that establishes our lives in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and binds us to Him and to one another and to the whole world in love. We will renew our Baptismal Covenant as we join with five youth and one adult who will be affirming their commitment to Christ in confirmati

Dear Cathedral Family, Following last Sunday’s great Easter Day celebration, this first Sunday after Easter is traditionally known as “Low Sunday.” The “low” doesn’t refer to attendance, but to its place as the Octave Day of Easter—part of the feast, but “to a lesser degree.” The much needed and appreciated rain last Sunday was also kind enough to hold off enough to allow our annual Easter Egg Hunt to take place in the garden. No Easter outfits were ruined in the process!

Dear Cathedral Family, When most church people say “Easter,” they mean the Sunday morning of Easter Day--spectacular flowers, glorious music, fancy clothes, baskets and egg hunts. But Easter is so much more. It is, of course, the whole Great Fifty Days of the Easter season, but before that it is our participation in the whole of God’s saving acts through Jesus Christ. Originally, Easter was celebrated as a single event including both the passion and the resurrection, the

Dear Cathedral Family, The progressively longer Gospel readings of the last few weeks have been a kind of spring training for reading the Passion Gospels of Holy Week. We will begin in earnest when we gather on Palm Sunday. After the short lesson from Matthew in the Liturgy of the Palms, we will move on to a dramatic reading of the Passion narrative from Matthew in the Liturgy of the Word. The full transformative power of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ journey to the Cross lie

Dear Cathedral Family, Vivid, dramatic depictions of signs of hope for the future and for life appear in this Sunday’s readings. Signs in the biblical sense are actions that point to God and that can be rightly understood only when seen through the eyes of faith, with belief. Ezekiel’s visionary prophecy of the Valley of Dry Bones holds out hope for restoration and life for Israel in exile. It is a sign that in returning to following God’s ways, Israel will again know life

Dear Cathedral Family, I am thankful for the service of our wonderful delegation to last weekend’s 55th annual diocesan convention in Pensacola Beach. We had a great time worshiping and learning together with friends from throughout the diocese during the plenary and workshop sessions gathered into the theme “Let There Be Light,” and we had fun socializing together and with friends old and new. You should be especially proud of our Convocation 1 youth representative, our own

Dear Cathedral Family, When we began the first Sunday in Lent with The Great Litany (BCP 148), said with clergy and choir in procession, we were participating in a version of the very first rite of our Church published in English. It was crafted in 1544 by Thomas Cranmer as a special supplication when Henry VIII was at war with Scotland and France, to be used by the people in procession in church. It has been continually revised and included in all English and American editi

Dear Cathedral Family, In our bishop’s sermon here on Ash Wednesday, he invited us to keep a holy Lent as a “reset” from those ways of living that keep us “frozen” or sluggish in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. Like our digital devices, over time we build up the need to unplug, restart, reset so that we are ready to do the things God calls us to do. Lent is the season set aside in the Church for doing so. The Gospel reading for this first Sunday in Lent focuses on Je