A Message from our Extended Supply Priest

Friends:

I want to tell you how impressed I have been with the willingness of so many to lead--and to offer the homily at--Morning Prayer on those Sundays that there is no supply priest! It really is a sign of the inclusion and participation of the whole Body of Christ in worship. 

Last Sunday, I hope you had an uplifting worship with Bp. Paula and the St. Anskar's congregation. I wish I could have been with you. I just wanted to share with you a reflection that Clare Kagan had prepared for Sunday. She was assigned before the invitation came from St. Anskar's, and I think it is well worth sharing. 

Blessings,

Gloria+

REFLECTION ON MATTHEW 14: 22-23 by Clare Kagan

There is a theme running through our readings of desperate situations and being heard because God is Lord of all. I think we can all relate to that sense of desperation. Are the winds of controversy and waves of disaster so loud that they mute our cries for help? Can God hear us above the tumult? There’s a detail we don’t want to miss in the gospel, look closely. Peter cries out and Jesus reaches out, but the storm continues. Only after they both get into the boat does the storm settle. The raging chaos doesn’t interfere with God‘s ability to hear us. “There is reverent silence out of which every genuine sound must come” (music of silence) God listens to our depths and draws us back to our center. The storm subsides.

Jesus says “oh man of little faith” I don’t think Jesus‘s words to Peter are so much a rebuff as perhaps a reassurance. Think of a parent going to the room of their child who woke with a nightmare. The child says where were you? Why did you leave me? My bad dream almost got me? The parent replies Sweetheart, why would you think I’d leave you? I’d never leave you.

That is the good news! God will never leave us “for between God and the soul there is no between” (Julian of Norwich)