Wednesday

A day of travel. All went smoothly. It is, as always, wonderful to be home.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Image
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...
Read more

Ss Philip & James

Customary early-AM weekday routine. Performed some routine change-of-month calendar maintenance. Devoted some time and energy toward trying to figure out the best way to proceed toward maximizing the effectiveness of the diocesan communications apparatus. Made an appointment for then YFNBmobile to be serviced on Friday. Via an email exchange, made some incremental progress in a Christian formation project that is dear to my heart. Wrestled with the readings for Pentecost until I forced them to yield a homiletical message statement for the occasion (which will occur at St Michael's, O'Fallon). Lunch from Subway, eaten at home. Turned my attention to the pastoral teaching document on sexuality and marriage that I've been working on.  Laid it aside to take Brenda to a post-surgical checkup. Then we leveraged the fact that we were out and about on foot to turn the endeavor into a proper walk. Returned to the writing project and ended up with a rough draft of the next ...
Read more

Spring 2018 House of Bishops, Day 3

Image
We have new stricter social media rules now in the HOB--no photos taken during a session without the permission of those in it. So ... I'm having to be more creative about finding pics for the blog, because I'm not going to take a panoramic group shot and then contact everyone whose balding head shows in the photo! Once again, the day began with Eucharist. This time, though, I took a pass, and opted for a vigorous walk on a brisk morning. Having looked at the liturgy sheet in advance, there were enough triggers that I knew the net spiritual effect for me would be negative. #selfcare  I will say, however, that HOB worship has gotten incrementally less problematic during the tenure of the current Presiding Bishop, and I give props for that. When we convened at 10:15, there were the usual announcements, then a whirlwind set of summary reports from bishop members of the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) and the Task Force on the Study of Marriage. The full report...
Read more