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
