Dear friends,
Last Sunday was very special for me. I had bronchitis, which got worse, and I also had laryngitis, losing my voice. So, as a result, I worshiped with you all from the Rectory!
When I am on vacation, Alison and I like to visit other churches and discover new communities, but, last Sunday, I became a proper part of the webcast community for the first time since becoming Rector. It made me appreciate not only the hard work of Avery Griffin, who makes our webcast possible, but also how many people are involved in making our worship vibrant and life-changing. Fr. Bennett’s sermon was challenging, yet extraordinarily pastoral, linking the hard words of Jesus from the Gospel reading to present day realities. It made me stop and think. And I realized that one of the great gifts of a church that prides itself in being open every day of the year is that it can be a sign of reconciliation, day by day and week by week in a noisy world.
This Sunday, we will prepare ourselves for the rigors of Lent by listening to the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. We will sing ‘Alleluia’ for the last time until the Great Alleluia of the Easter Vigil fills the church on the evening of April 11. During Lent, we will have a sermon series on the seven virtues, inspired by several small and beautiful windows in the Rector’s office, and thirty-four of us will travel to the Holy Land and walk in the steps of Jesus and his first followers. We have decided to send messages and images back to you from our pilgrimage so that you will be able to connect with us and pray with us, as we will pray for you.
The Transfiguration is a pivotal moment between the Incarnation and the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This Sunday’s Gospel helps us see the reality of the Word made Flesh, and how he will resolutely walk the way of suffering to bring redemption to all.
In 1949, Archbishop Michael Ramsey wrote a book titled “The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ” while he was a Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at Durham University, shortly before he became Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. It is significant that the memorial to Michael Ramsey in Durham Cathedral (he was Bishop of Durham from 1952-1956) is a stained-glass window that has as its subject the Transfiguration. It is placed near the great Shrine of St. Cuthbert near the High Altar, and it is quite breathtaking to gaze upon while sitting in the shrine. The window was designed and made by Tom Denny, and dedicated on 25th September 2010.
Michael Ramsey wrote in that book: “Confronted with a universe more terrible than ever in the blindness and the destructiveness of its potentialities, men and women must be led to Christian faith, not as a panacea of progress or as an otherworldly solution unrelated to history, but as a gospel of Transfiguration. Such a gospel transcends the world and yet speaks directly to the immediate here-and-now. He who is transfigured is the Son of Man; and as he discloses on the holy mountain another world, he reveals that no part of created things, and no moment of created time lies outside the power of the Spirit, who is Lord, to change it from glory to glory.”
Every blessing,
Carl
your priest and pastor.
P.S. I was very touched by the many messages of good will and the prayers I received last weekend when I was poorly. Thank you for your kindness.
