[Magdalen] Catching up

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

This soul has revivified a parish, and everyone is justly delighted.
That's the Church -- with the Spirit at work.

The Church isn't dying; it's being transformed.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 1:13 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm sitting in the rather weak sun on my porch, trying to decide if it's
> too cold to stay out here. It's supposed to turn bitterly cold tomorrow, so
> I'm making the most of this respite.
>
> This past weekend was a whirlwind. I drove to Philly on Friday for the
> ordination Saturday of a former directee at the Philadelphia Cathedral,
> spent Saturday afternoon with Carol and Andre Trevathan for some birding at
> a wildlife refuge, a driving tour of the city and the obligatory Philly
> cheesesteak at Abner's.
> Sunday I attended the church where my directee celebrated his first Mass
> and then drove to Tom's River, NJ, to see friends I hadn't seen in 37
> years--since our kids were little.
> Drove home Monday  and got here just in time for the quarterly meeting of
> our Master Naturalist chapter.
> Crashed on Tuesday...
>
> The ordination service at the Cathedral made me realize that I need to get
> out of the Diocese of Virginia more often! It wasn't just the higher
> liturgy--which I expected--but the whole tone of the occasion and some of
> the nuts and bolts of it.
> The presentation of the ordinands and the initial questions put to them
> took place at the baptismal font, which is on one side of the cathedral and
> has a baptismal pool as well as the regular smaller font, from which water
> flows into the pool.
> Then the entire party processed to the front, and the liturgy continued.
> Somewhere in there we were all asperged (Is that a verb?) by the Bishop.
> The Cathedral itself is beautiful and arranged unlike any I've ever
> seen--too complicated to describe here. You can probably find some pictures
> on their website.
> There were two ordinands, both male, and during the singing of the
> Veni...Spiritus they prostrated themselves in front of the bishop. I
> understand the symbolism, but I'm REALLY glad I didn't have to do
> that--especially on a concrete floor.
> The Nicene Creed and Eucharistic Prayer were from Enriching Our Worship.
> After the service the two new priests remained up front to offer blessings
> to those who wanted to come forward. I've only seen that done once in our
> diocese, and it didn't take place inside the church, but on the way out.
> My directee's (Jordan,) congregation was there in force, all dressed in
> red, and they all went forward for a blessing.
> The Sunday service at Jordan's church was equally moving--and as long! The
> liturgy was straight BCP with Eucharistic Prayer B, and Jordan had eight of
> us listed as con-celebrants, and we all joined him at the altar for the
> Great Thanksgiving. Seven of us were Episcopal priests from a number of
> places, and one was a UU minister from Atlanta! All were African-American
> except me. In fact, the organist and one person in the congregation were
> the only other white people in attendance. The parish has a mixture of
> African-Americans and people from the Caribbean. Quite a few young people
> and children, and Jordan has already revitalized a youth group. He went
> there in July, was given the title of rector, even though he was just a
> deacon, because the bishop felt that was important for the congregation,
> which had basically been neglected by the diocese for years. They hadn't
> had a bishop's visit for three years. (Bishop Gutierrez is also new.).
> All in all, it was a wonderful day, and it was touching to see how the
> congregation has embraced Jordan and is enthusiastic about working with
> him. They've already had a vestry retreat up at Pendle Hill, led by Lloyd
> Casson, who used to head up the desk at 815 that had to do with ethnic
> minorities. He was there on Sunday--what a delightful man!
> Enough--probably way more than you wanted to know!!