Encomium

The sad news of the death of Bishop Ed Salmon of South Carolina and more recently of Nashotah invoked in me a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude for having known him. He was an eagle among Church leaders, the kind that younger priests (as I was at the time ) naturally saw as an example.  His heart for evangelism, his wit, and a palpable sense of joy pervaded his ministry. He now stands before the Lamb and in a greater light.

For the purposes of this blog I want to hold Bishop Ed up as a defender of honoring the Ninth Commandment.  He was an advocate of directness, candor, honesty, and an opponent of all forms of gossip and rumor - mongering. The New Testament took this very seriously. Bishop Ed once visited Wycliffe College (where I made the mistake of calling him the 'interim dean'!). He told how, whenever he heard a rumor he required the bearer to write it on the blackboard in the refectory, with his or her name, with the person from whom he or she heard it next called to add their name, etc. It was the death knell of gossip in his seminary. Only someone like Bishop Ed could get away with that.  Still we would do well to emulate as we are able.

That quotation about seeing further if you stand on the shoulders of giants also comes to mind....and may almighty God be glorified in His saints. 

Peace

+GRS

 

Intercessors

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Sometimes great questions for a community are also quiet ones.  We live in a time when questions about ethics have proved momentous. Older questions of liturgical approaches remain. We avoid political questions, wisely, though they exist.

But the question I have been thinking about recently grows out of the following fact. A generation of lay leadership in our diocese was the fruit of the spiritual power of Cursillo. It was born of the lay witnessing in the rollos and continued in fourth day gatherings etc.  I appreciate the important efforts of by our Cursillo leadership to find new ways to present and format the weekend for a new generation. But the wider question is this:  what form does spiritual renewal take in the present moment, renewal that will bear fruit in a new generation of lay leadership?

Clearly the place to begin is by praying for renewal. I commend this calling to all of you. I know that our own evangelist, Carrie Headington, is hoping to develop a network of intercessors across parishes to this very end.

Peace,

+GRS

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