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
