A message from your Interim Rector 8/11/2026

Does it seem like a busy start to Fall?  It certainly does to me. Here we are halfway into August and it still feels like it should be early summer. A lot has happened in a few short weeks.  We said goodbye to Fr. Trey, Mo. Shannon, Seminarian to be Melody and to Rachel from the office staff.  And we said hello to Megan Shannonhouse who took on a new role as Youth ministry coordinator.  We are still looking for someone interested in the Children’s ministry position which is also part-time staff about 10 hrs per week. We also did some rearranging of responsibilities within the office and as noted in a prior email, we think that we will have everything evaluated and ready to hire a part-time person for the office whose focus is on worship materials and internal communications such as this newsletter that you are reading.  In the meantime, all the staff have stepped up to help cover these realigned responsibilities.

I thought it might be a good idea to remind ourselves in this time that throughout the church year are scattered major feast days (high holy days) that provide us with examples of a Godly life.  This week it is the feast day with the longest title of all the feast days - Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mary brings us many images of faithfulness: a willing servant of God, a loving mother, a faithful follower of Jesus during his ministry, a sorrowful mother who stands by her son at his death, and one of the disciples who rejoices at this resurrection.  When we look at Mary’s relationship to God, then perhaps our own relationship with God takes on a new and different meaning than the encounters with the God of the desert who came with fire.

This feast day is also about all of us - a celebration of the willingness of yet another of God's children to say yes to God's call to them.  Mary was willing to say yes to God's request.  Mary is in a real sense one of the first disciples. She believed in Jesus from the beginning, even if she did not fully understand all that was happening.  She followed him in his ministry even encouraging him to act when he was reluctant to do so such as the wedding in Cana; and she faithfully stayed by his side even in adversity as one of the few who remained at the cross.  Her’s is a story of faithful obedience to God and of service to God’s Son.

We are reminded that God has chosen and called us also.  We are called like Mary to ponder God’s promises in our hearts until they become incarnate in our own lives.  When something becomes incarnate in our lives, it becomes physical and knowable - we make Christ known through the words, actions and choices we make.

          Paul tells us that God sought us out and adopted us as sons and daughters.  We are part of God’s family and we have a responsibility to love and to serve God’s family here on earth.  We are the people of God, called to continue the work of God’s kingdom through all the changes that this life brings.

Yours in Christ’s service, Mother Pat+