April 2007
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Welcome to Episcopal E-news, the electronic newsletter of the Diocese of Massachusetts. E- news contains diocesan and Episcopal Church updates, news and links to resources. E-news supplements the information in the quarterly Episcopal Times. Your feedback is always welcome.

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The Episcopal Church's presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, spent two hours with members of the Diocese of Massachusetts on Tuesday, April 24 in Boston. En route to a conference for diocesan clergy on Cape Cod, Bishop Jefferts Schori made a morning stopover at the diocesan offices where more than 100 people gathered to meet and greet the presiding bishop, who took office last November.

Photo: Maria Plati, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

Bishop Jefferts Schori presided over an informal question and answer period, which covered a range of topics from interfaith dialogue and Middle East conflict, to ongoing dissention about the Episcopal Church's place in the Anglican Communion and different cultural contexts in the worldwide church that contribute to disagreement, to how the presiding bishop copes with her demanding role through her own spiritual practice: "It's a matter of looking for opportunities God has set before you for blessing and being blessed. A centering part of my prayer is body prayer that looks a lot like running!" she said, in an engaging touch of humor that several of her listeners noted in conversation after the session.

Bishop Jefferts Schori told the group that the Millennium Development Goals toward eradicating extreme poverty, which the Episcopal Church has made a mission priority, are a framework for mission work at all levels. "Mission looks different in different places, but once you begin to dig, you find that all of this peace and justice work is related. Once you encounter incredible human hunger in a place like Sudan, for example, you are that much more ready to respond to hunger here at home and wherever there are such needs all around us."

"Evangelism sometimes looks like advocacy work," she said. She cited a recent visit to the cathedral church in Portland, Ore., where members were being challenged to live on a food stamp budget of about $1 a meal. "Inviting people into that kind of experience is one of the better ways to motivate people into action," she said.

In response to a questioner who is about to be ordained, Bishop Jefferts Schori said that while ordination sets some persons aside for particular kinds of ministry, "Ordination grows out of Baptism, and it is through Baptism that we are all ministers. I would encourage you to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit; you may end up doing something unexpected. Keep your box wide."
--Tracy J. Sukraw
Sunday, April 22 was Earth Day, an international observance held annually to inspire awareness of and appreciation for "this fragile earth, our island home," in the words of the Episcopal Church's prayer book.

Photo: M. Plati, Episcopal
Diocese of Massachusetts
Bishop Bud Cederholm walked the Cambridge-to-Boston leg of last month's Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue, and at the event's culminating interfaith service and rally on March 24, he led the gathering of walkers and other environmental supporters in prayer: "I offer this prayer from the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology out of love for my grandchildren Noah, Shane, Lauren, Jack and all our children and grandchildren who will inherit what we do or fail to do to rescue God's creation from global warming," Bishop Cederholm said. "For the marvelous grace of your Creation-We pour out our thanks to you, our God. We confess, Lord, that we often are unaware of how deeply we have hurt your good earth and its marvelous gifts. We confess that we often are unaware of how our abuse of Creation has also been an abuse of ourselves. May we your servants increasingly serve; may we your servants increasingly come to love your Creation as we increasingly come to love you through Jesus Christ, our Lord."

View the video of Bishop Cederholm at the event.

The diocesan Committee on Faith and the Environment promotes environmental stewardship and recognition of the incarnational aspect of our faith.
Bishop Thomas Shaw was one of six Massachusetts religious leaders to speak at the 11th Annual Interfaith Summit for Immigrant Justice at the State House, April 12.

Immigration, along with affordable health care and economic justice, were concerns Episcopalians discussed with their legislators at the Episcopal City Mission Lobby Day, March 27.

Read Bishop Shaw's speech.
Photo: Maria Plati, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Photo: M. Plati, Episcopal
Diocese of Massachusetts
Greater Boston Students for Peace, a group based at St. Stephen's Church in Boston's South End, attended workshops and a multifaith peace vigil at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul and an anti-war rally on Boston Common on Saturday, March 24. The workshops focused on the cost of war and the way to peace and a training for students around helping their peers discern their reaction to military recruitment.

Led primarily by high school and college students, the vigil expressed the commonality in a range of traditions with music, readings and prayers focused on the theme of peace, including the words of Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thich Naht Hanh. The students then joined an estimated crowd of 5,000 on the Common to hear peace activists Cindy Sheehan and Howard Zinn speak, and to join in a peace march through the surrounding neighborhood.
Summer anti-violence programs are one way the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts is playing a role in protecting city children and youth.

Bishop Shaw with Mary Oliver at
St. Paul's Church in Newburyport.
Tickets are on sale now for a special benefit program, "An Evening with Poet Mary Oliver" on Thursday, May 3 at 7 p.m. at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (138 Tremont Street) in Boston. The event will raise money to support three Episcopal Church programs: B-SAFE at four sites in Boston's South End, Lower Roxbury, Codman Square and Upham's Corner; Arts in Action at St. John's Church in Charlestown; and the Trinity Education for Excellence Program of Trinity Church in Boston.

Tickets are $30 ($15 for students) and can be purchased here.
Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson, a member of St. James's Church in Cambridge, delivered the Good Friday reflection at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston on April 6. Jackson opened his reflection connecting his faith to contemporary social issues and then focused on a poignant story on the passing of legendary football coach of Grambling State University, Eddie Robinson, to instruct about racial equality.

Photo: M. Plati, Episcopal
Diocese of Massachusetts
"There are many ways we could discuss how we in the wealthiest nation in the world collectively behave like Simon Peter, denying our children well-funded public schools, denying our families universal health care and our government denying the reality of global warming and the truth about Iraq. There are many ways that we are no better than the soldiers who divided up and cast lots for the clothing of Jesus: We are in a wealth gap that should be unimaginable precisely because of our wealth, with the rich behaving as if the poverty level is not $10,000 but 10,000 square feet. Only greed can explain how we are a nation both of McMansions and subprime lenders. We may be the first nation where it can be said is literally eating itself to death."
The Episcopal Church will join the observance of the 400th anniversary of North America's first permanent English settlement in Jamestown, Va. The Episcopal Church traces the heritage of its first congregation to Jamestown, where settlers, for their first prayer service, led by Church of England priest Robert Hunt, are said to have suspended "an old saile" between trees to shelter the congregation. The commemoration officially begins April 26 with the marking of the English settlers' first landing at what is now Virginia Beach.
Photo: M. Plati, Episcopal
Diocese of Massachusetts
Governor Deval Patrick delivered the keynote address at the annual Lantern Ceremony at the Old North Church Sunday, April 15 commemorating the event which launched the Revolutionary War. Twelve-year-old Sarah Goodnight carried the two lanterns into the church steeple, recreating the act performed on April 18, 1775, by her ancestor, Robert Newman, the church sexton. Governor Patrick met parishioners and guests at a reception before the ceremony, which was led by the Rev. Stephen Ayres, Vicar of Old North.
Tuesdays, beginning April 17: Church of the Advent in Boston offers "Ockham's Kegger" at the Cheers Bar (84 Beacon Street) in Boston, a six-week conversation series on St. Augustine's Confessions, 7 p.m.

April 26: Esperanza Academy's "Breakfast of Hope" at the Sheraton Ferncroft Hotel in Danvers, 8-9 a.m., a chance to learn about and support this tuition-free Episcopal middle school for girls in Lawrence. Contact Susan Casey at susan.casey@esperanzaacademy.org (978/686- 4673).

April 28: "The Welcoming Church" workshop at St. Chrysostom's Church, Wollaston.

April 28: Bicycle collection drive at All Saints' Church in Stoneham, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

April 28: Parish Historians Society meets at Episcopal Divinity School (99 Brattle Street) in Cambridge, 9 a.m.

April 29: Chinese Cultural Music Concert, featuring 23 types of Chinese musical instruments, performed by the Boston Chinese Chamber Ensemble and presented by the Episcopal Boston Chinese Ministry, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (138 Tremont Street), Boston, 3-5 p.m.

April 29: U2 Eucharist at St. Andrew's Church, Framingham, 5 p.m.


May 17: St. Andrew's Church (7 Faulkner Street) in Ayer hosts tri-parish service with St. David's Church of Pepperell and Trinity Chapel of Shirley, 7 p.m.

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