- Morning Prayer and daily task organization at home.
- Tried on new rochet and chimere that arrived during my absence.
- Consulted with the Archdeacon on some personnel and deployment issues. Reviewed a list of items that the Diocesan Administrator had stored up for me to make comments and/or decisions.
- Signed a form giving my consent for the Diocese of Haiti to elect a Suffragan Bishop.
- Processed a pile of correspondence that was waiting on my desk.
- Read, pondered, and processed the resume of a potential aspirant to Holy Orders.
- Spoke on the phone at some length with the past Senior Warden of a parish where some serious conflict is brewing.
- Composed and sent an email to the members of a working group I am convening in connection with my membership on the Nashotah House board of trustees. Spoke on the phone with a Nashotah administrative staff member on the same subject.
- Studied materials sent to me by the vestry of the parish I am set to visit this Sunday (St Michael's, O'Fallon).
- Began to lay the groundwork for the liturgy (sometime in May, most likely) in which I will be formally welcomed into the cathedral and seated in the historic cathedra.
- Prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and Evening Prayer in the cathedral.
- After dinner at home, worked on refining my sermon for this Sunday.
- Oh ... and I fell, completely, for Google's April Fools gag. Fell really hard.
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Ten years ago, minus about six weeks, I served as the supply priest for Trinity, Lincoln six days before my consecration as Bishop of Springfield. Today I was there for the final regular scheduled canonical parish visitation of my episcopate. (I have a few more gigs on my calendar: March 7 in Mattoon, the Chrism Mass, the Triduum at the cathedral, May 30 in Cairo, and June 27 back at the cathedral--May 2 is available and not yet spoken for--but the every Sunday routine of my life for the past decade (in a larger sense, for the last 32 years) is at a major flex point.) As much as it could have been in the midst of a pandemic, this morning at Trinity was luminous. We confirmed eight adults, six of them qualifying as "young." My homily had to compete with the sounds of active young children. (I would much rather do that than have no kids in church.) Trinity is one of the exciting points of light in my ministry in the diocese. I took my time getting out of Lincoln because I wante...
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