Rector's Note 10.1.26

Dear Friends,

This Sunday marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis. In popular imagination, he’s a saint associated with animals, birds, and nature, a kind of free spirit who celebrated the good things of creation while remaining somehow apart from the problems of the world. But digging a little deeper reveals a man deeply aware of the world’s pains and griefs. A soldier in his city’s campaign against neighboring Padua, he was injured, captured and held for ransom as a prisoner of war. Revolted by leprosy and the unsightliness of the poor, his decision to renounce his family’s wealth and wed himself to Lady Poverty was a decision to embrace what appalled him rather than run away — literally, by embracing a leper on the street in the first flush of his new calling. 

Francis’s first mission was to rebuild, stone by stone, by himself, with his own hands, the little church of San Damiano outside Assisi. This is the work that attracted his first followers and would begin the Franciscan order of friars minor. Somehow, for St. Francis, bringing the joy of the Gospel into the darkest corners of human life entailed great care and attention to the actual physical buildings of the Church. We’re used to thinking of these commitments as standing in opposition to each other, at different ends of a spectrum, or at the very least in tension with each other. Yet for St. Francis, they belonged together, they were wrapped up in each other. The problem with wealth was not that it existed, but that it permitted an escape from the demands of loving God and our neighbor. Paying attention to buildings, bodies, and even the birds of the air was a way of saying we escape all these things only at our peril — peril of losing something essential about ourselves, of forgetting what it means to be human.

Celebrating the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’s death is a good opportunity to remember that the spiritual and material worlds belong together, both “out there” in the world at large and “in here,” in the church and within ourselves. Love of God entails love of neighbor — and vice versa. Heaven and earth meet in the person of Jesus Christ, and through him, in each of us as well. By the example and intercession of St. Francis, may we too refuse all escape, giving ourselves to the care and keeping of this world and its creatures, that the glory of God may shine through all the brighter.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Blake

Rector's Note 9.24.26

Dear Friends,

I can’t say Thank You enough, to everyone who came to Saturday’s institution, and especially to the staff, musicians, servers, presenters, ushers, and volunteers who made it happen. It was a beautiful, moving experience for me, and I hope it was a day for the whole parish to celebrate what is so special about this community and its mission.

I was also really touched by the readiness of so many friends, colleagues, and former parishioners to travel so far for the occasion. We talk a lot about “chosen family” in the church, how life-giving and beautiful it can be. Often we find those people in the regular course of our lives. Sometimes they come as a set, after moving someplace new, taking a new job, or starting a new hobby. Other times, they find us when we most need them. It’s one of the mysteries of grace that some of our “chosen family” are people we might not have been drawn to, if they hadn’t shown up anyway. Yet, to a person, their love makes more of us than we could have been without them. 

In my life, I have had the good fortune of finding chosen family in all these circumstances and more, and I am deeply grateful now to count the whole parish family of Saint Mark’s among them. In my view, Saint Mark’s embodies the very best of the Anglo-Catholic movement, and it’s a great privilege to be your rector. I pray this family continues to grow, in strength and in courage, to embrace all whom God will give us to love, and that such love will redound to the healing of the world.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Blake

Rector's Note 9.17.26

Dear Friends,

Between Homecoming Sunday and Saturday’s institution, I don’t want to miss at least mentioning this past Monday’s major feast: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. You might know the story: the Empress Helena, on her (4th c.) expedition to uncover Christian sites in the Holy Land, was able to determine which of three crosses was the True Cross, because lepers were healed in proximity to the True. In my homily, I commented that this is always the test: the true cross is the one that heals. In a world where religion is frequently used to control, abuse, and sow fear, it’s worth remembering that the true cross is the one that heals.

Maybe you also know the old joke, that there are enough slivers of the “True Cross” floating around to build Noah’s Ark. That’s probably true. But if five loaves and two fish fed five thousand with whole baskets left over, perhaps it’s not an impediment to faith to think that the Cross has likewise multiplied. Perhaps it’s a late-breaking miracle of the Gospel that slivers of the True Cross will continue to multiply until there are enough for one to lodge in the heart of every person, where we can only pray it brings the same healing that Helena witnessed in Jerusalem: healing of spirits now as well as of bodies. If nothing else, this is a good starting point for understanding the life of the Church — a community of persons being healed by drawing ever nearer the Cross of Christ.

I’m looking forward to seeing you on Saturday for my institution as your fifteenth rector. Bp. Gutierrez will celebrate the institution, and the preacher will be Fr. Martin Warner. Fr Warner recently retired as the 103rd bishop of Chichester, but I knew him as my parish priest twenty years ago while I was an MA student in the UK. He was the first person to help me discern a vocation to the priesthood, and I’m really thrilled he’ll be here over the weekend. A new rector is always a new chapter in a parish’s life, and the future can’t help but bring many unknowns. Still, I hope this institution is an opportunity to celebrate and give thanks for the beauty and goodness of Saint Mark’s and the many graces God has given here over the last 177 years, as well as to commit this next chapter to his care and keeping.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Blake

Rector's Note 9.10.26

Dear Friends,

At the beginning of St. Benedict’s Rule, he writes that the purpose of Christian community, as he envisions it, is to be “A school of the Lord’s service. . . As we progress in our life together and in faith, our hearts shall be enlarged, and we shall run with unspeakable sweetness of love in the way of God’s commandments.” A parish church is not (thankfully!) a monastery, but the vision still applies: here is a community fed by strong Food; in whose fellowship we learn and grow as Christians and as human beings, plumbing ever more deeply the mystery of God’s love: in Christ, in our lives, and in the world. By this work our own hearts grow larger, our love grows truer, and we can enjoy more fully the grace that is given to us, in all the ways God gives it. 

As Homecoming Sunday approaches, with the beginning of Saint Mark’s program year, I am looking forward to renewing this work with you all. This is a place where, from the newest baby to the oldest member, we are all embarked on the project of growing up in Christ. None of us has yet arrived at the destination; all of us are well past the starting block. Even if this is the first time you’ve come to church, the first time you’re receiving a parish newsletter, or the first time in ages, you’re not starting from scratch: the Holy Spirit has long been at work in you to bring you to this point. 

That this is something we get to do together is the great joy and privilege of Christian community. We are here to encourage one another, bear with one another, build one another up, as we bear witness together to our risen, glorified Lord. No one has to do it alone; we cannot do it alone. So, as this year’s Homecoming Sunday draws near, we say again, “You are not alone.” Come and discover afresh this year the next step God is calling you to make as you continue to grow up in Christ. Come and meet afresh the broader family God gives you in the Body of Christ, the Church. Come and taste afresh the unspeakable sweetness of love that God grants to all those who seek him.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Blake