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Bishop Gayle Elizabeth Harris joined with other
Massachusetts religious leaders to celebrate an
Interfaith Service for the Inaugural of Governor Deval
Patrick and Lt. Governor Tim Murray at the Old South
Meeting House in Boston on Jan. 4.
“We who came from different confessions and
creeds, different colors and languages, with different
scriptures and vestments, came to invoke and
encounter the Holy. We prayed for God to lead and
bring forth from our elected officials, and all in
Massachusetts, the best that is in us, that we may
be a commonwealth committed to justice and
equality, to respect the dignity of each person, to lift
up the lowly and disenfranchised, and to be
compassionate and responsible stewards of all the
resources of Massachusetts,” said Bishop Harris of
the event.
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“Catch the Epiphany spirit with countless others and
ask yourself this question: How might God be
calling me in support of the mission of
reconciliation and healing that Jesus Christ
revealed?”
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Bishop Tom Shaw and the Rev. Judith Stuart,
Episcopal chaplain at Boston College and
Northeastern University, have just returned from
Kenya with a group of college students; while there,
four decided to take a big step in their faith lives
and were confirmed into the church. “These young
people are critical to our Christian witness,”
Bishop Shaw said in a Jan. 5 phone interview from
the Diocese of Maseno North.
Those who work with youth and young adults point
out
that they are markedly service oriented in their
spirituality.
In April a group of 29 eighth through
twelfth-graders from nearly 20 Massachusetts
congregations will travel to Biloxi, Miss., during
their spring school vacation to help people who are
still cleaning up and trying to rebuild after 2005’s
Hurricane Katrina. They will join a group of 30
volunteers from Christ Church in Needham. All will
stay together at a work camp set up for volunteers.
“What I have found is that nothing kicks into gear
one’s faith transformation like a mission trip,
whether it’s international or domestic. And the
reason is that when you are sitting in your church
basement hearing stories about Jesus, it’s all
hypothetical. But when you are working alongside
somebody and it’s all about shelter or warmth or
food or water, all of a sudden Jesus Christ is real.
The Gospel is real. And that’s true whether it’s
El Salvador or Biloxi,” says the Rev. Robert Bacon,
diocesan director of youth ministries, who will
accompany the group.
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Massachusetts congregations are featured in the new
video “A Map of Faith” produced by Episcopal
Migration Ministries, which will have its local
premiere at Trinity Church in Topsfield during a
Feb. 9-10 conference on immigration and resettlement
sponsored by Refugee Immigration Ministry (RIM). “A
Map of Faith” unfolds as Episcopalians in dioceses
across the country encounter those forced onto a
new
path—refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and
hurricane evacuees—and follows them along the road
they travel together. Their experiences demonstrate
how the risks taken to make and share these journeys
lead to spiritual discovery.
The RIM conference will also feature as its guest
speaker Thomas Albrecht, the regional director for
the United Nations high commissioner on refugees.
To find out more, contact Refugee
Immigration Ministry at
rimboston.rim@verizon.net or 781/322-1011.
Episcopal congregations are active participants in
RIM, an interfaith ministry that serves uprooted
people through programs like Spiritual Caregivers,
which trains and sends volunteer visitors to those
in detention facilities; a multi-lingual telephone
help line; and a cluster program whereby interfaith
groups of congregations work together in their
communities to support people in their resettlement
process.
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Spread the word! Forward E-News to your fellow
parishioners, family, friends and seekers and let them
know they can sign up for future issues at: www.diomass.org/elist.shtml.
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
email:
enews@diomass.org
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