- Task planning and email processing at home. In the office earlier than usual, given the heavy agenda of the day.
- Opened a package waiting on my office table: the white/gold cope, mitre, and stole just arrived from London and in time to be "blessed by use" at the cathedral's Easter Vigil. It's a lovely set.
- Managed a brief moment of prayer in the cathedral, but the actual morning office got away from me, as soon there were people around, full of question, in preparation for the Liturgy of Collegiality (aka Chrism Mass). I took the time to make sure everything I would personally need for the service was identified and prepared.
- Brief exchanges with Archdeacon Shawn Denney, Treasurer Jim Donkin, and Father George Pence.
- Worked at my desk on a pressing pastoral/administrative (sometimes it's difficult to make a distinction between the two) matter right up until it was time to go get vested for the Mass.
- The liturgy, on the whole, went smoothly. Father David Boase preached a fine homily (riffing on the traditional language of "making" deacons, "ordaining" priests, and "consecrating" bishops). It was both humbling and very gratifying to be the one holding the crozier in this particular transaction. I love this occasion because it is such a robust sign of an ecclesiology that sees within the life of a diocese all that is needed for the Church's life, witness, and mission.
- Very pleasant lunch in the Great Hall with clergy, spouses, and some lay leaders of the diocese. Had brief informal confabs with a couple of clergy regarding the pastoral/administrative matters referenced above.
- Retired immediately to the office conference room for a meeting of the Standing Committee. Their actual canonical business was slight, but I detained them for a goodly length of time seeking their counsel on sundry matters. Discussion was lively and, I would say, productive.
- Met in my office with Randy Winn, a Standing Committee member, regarding a mutual interest and concern of ours.
- Processed more emails and made a couple of short phone calls.
- Evening Prayer in the cathedral.
- Dinner with Brenda at Little Saigon Restaurant during a cataclysmic thunder and wind storm.
- Still subject to periodic violent coughing jags and head congestion, and my voice is still compromised. This too shall pass.
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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