Friday (St Dominic)

  • Morning Prayer in the cathedral. Final prep for Diocesan Council Mass.
  • Conferred with the Archdeacon on a couple of administrative matters regarding property in two of our parishes.
  • Presided and preached at the 10am Council liturgy, keeping the lesser feast of St Dominic.
  • Presided at the quarterly meeting of Diocesan Council. It took two hours, but this is the one where we have vigorous discussion of the draft budget, and today's was particularly wide-ranging and candid. I mean all that in a good way.
  • Pre-arranged meeting with Fr Bruce DeGooyer, who is one of our key players in mission strategy development.
  • Dashed to the McD's drive through on South Grand for a burger, which I consumed in the car.
  • Joined a Commission on Ministry meeting already in progress.
  • Wrote a discretionary fund check to provide seed money for an important Christian formation ministry in one of our parishes.
  • Responded by email to a request for feedback from one of our priests regarding efforts to move away from self-intincting of consecrated hosts by communicants, I practice I am endeavoring to gently discourage.
  • Set in motion arrangements to share our Springfield Current mailing list with The Living Church, so they can use it for a subscription campaign. I heartily encourage subscriptions to TLC. Its aims are completely synergistic with our aims in the Diocese of Springfield.
  • Took a walk around two blocks.
  • Reviewed and approved a request for a Marital Judgment. These always make me uncomfortable, and I would like to more toward encouraging civil marriages, with a subsequent blessing in the church, but that's not a something I want to take on just yet.
  • Took care of a piece of administrivia on behalf of a cleric.
  • Took a phone call from one of our clergy.
  • Conceived, hatched, and partially developed a homily for Proper 19 (14 September), which requires a bit of extra pastoral attention, since the occasion will be the final service at St Laurence, Effingham, which we will then close.
  • Friday prayer: Lectio divina on the OT reading for Morning Prayer tomorrow (Abimelech's comeuppance for the murder of his 70 brothers).
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral.

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