Father George's
Comments

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, 

 We are two thirds of the way through the summer, and we are two thirds of the way through Pastor Mary+’s sabbatical . Whew! Tempus fugits, as my grandmother used to say. Time flies whether we are having fun or not. And as a parish family, our lives encompass both good times and bad, fun and tragedy. Some of our parish family members have had great joy this summer over marriages, birthdays and other celebrations. At the same time, two of our parish family have experienced death, loss and grief. It is our life together as a parish family.  These broad and diverse experiences of the People of God draw us closer together as a community of and within the Body of Christ. It is this diversity that makes us so rich.

As I looked at the photographs of Pastor Mary’s sabbatical time in Great Britain, I was reminded of the great heritage that we have in the Episcopal Church, a heritage that certainly comes down to us through St. Michael’s. (You can still see these photographs on Pastor Mary+’s sabbatical page on our web site.) Hundreds of years and countless generations of Christians who have found their faith strengthened and encourage through the churches of the Anglican Communion.

I think we suffer in this country by virtue of our youth. We have little surrounding us to teach us the value of past generations and their gifts to us. Looking at Mary+’s photos, and remembering my time  in Britain and other trips to Europe, I get a fresh sense of the immense value of the building blocks of our civilization. We in the US, and particularly in California, are babes-in-arms when it comes to  having a history. And, where we do have some, we tend to tear it down and build on top of the ruins. Where would Canterbury cathedral be if the English had that kind of attitude.

This is why the Eucharist is so important to us. This family meal puts us right back in our family history to the night on which Jesus took bread, broke it, and gave it to us saying, “This is my body… Do this for the remembrance of me.” We gather together as a family in order that we will never lose consciousness of that night, that it will remain part of our lives forever. Bread and wine remind us that we are citizens, not of any earthly state, but of the kingdom of heaven. It is an the family table that we gather to be the community of the people of God, the earthly manifestation of the Body of Christ; one with each other and one with Jesus our brother.

Fall is almost upon us, no matter what the thermometer says at any given moment. We’ll soon be back into program time with all of the busy-ness that St. Michael’s is capable of. But in the mean time, the Eucharist remains a constant for us, keeping our feet firmly planted in the history of our family. There are parts of our history that are not pretty, but that’s pretty much the case with any family. It is, however, our family, our church, our remembering, our history. It is so much of what we share as Episcopalians and as the People of God.

Faithfully,

George+