The Lord's Day (XXVI Pentecost)

Woke up in my Effingham hotel room and hied over to St Laurence's Church to preside and preach at the 8am liturgy. It's a very small congregation, but proclaiming the Word and celebrating the Sacrament is an inestimable privilege under any circumstances. Then it was down I-57 to Salem (past more deer roadkill than I think I have ever seen), where the people of St Thomas' Church, along with St John's in Centralia, have been doing a mating dance this weekend with a recently retired priest from outside the diocese who looks like he's a good fit to take pastoral charge of those communities. When the tornado warning siren surrounded around noon, we were already in the basement, which is just where we needed to be. Home around 5:00. In the evening, I had to be about packing, as I have a 6am flight from SPI to O'Hare, and then on to Albany, where I will be leading a retreat this week for the priests of the diocese of the same name.

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