Eleven young people from the Diocese of Massachusetts and their adult mentors, including Bishop Gayle E. Harris, traveled to Philadelphia for the Episcopal Youth Event (EYE) held July 9-12 at Villanova University.
Held every three years, the event gathers hundreds of young Episcopalians from across the church.
This year, after four days of worship, workshops, prayer, late-night conversations and contemplation of Scripture and the Anglican Communion's "Five Marks of Mission," EYE '14 all came down to the call to go out into the world and love it, according to an Episcopal News Service report.
“Whenever God is about to change the world, God tells somebody to ‘Go’” and that is what is happening now, Bishop Michael Curry of the Diocese of North Carolina said during his sermon at the event's closing Eucharist on July 12.
ENS Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Diocese of Massachusetts delegation, with Bishop Barbara Harris and Bishop John M. Burgess in stained glass over their shoulders, at Church of St. Thomas, Philadelphia
On one day, 20 pilgrimage buses took EYE-goers to local church and mission sites. The Diocese of Massachusetts delegation had an eye-opening experience at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas where the diocese's retired bishop suffragan, Barbara C. Harris, is among the saints and other holy women and men depicted in stained glass. “Wow,” one pilgrim said, according to ENS. “I know someone in a stained glass window. I never thought that would happen.”
During her sermon Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori challenged the pilgrims to contemplate and then tell the stories of their experience that day.
“You’ve been out and about in this city today, discovering its diversity, both its need and its blessings. Each one of you has a story to tell about the encounters of this day,” she said. “I hope you have been moved and marked and changed by someone or something you encountered today.”
Jefferts Schori said she hoped EYE '14 participants would tell the stories of that pilgrimage because their friends and the entire world need to pay attention to the brokenness of the world and its causes, and they need to hear about the dreams Christians have for the wholeness that is the kingdom of God.
When encountering a person who is hurting or hungry, she said, there is a choice. “Will we engage or will we ignore that person? If we connect, we’ve got to share something of that good news – that all of us are loved beyond imagining, and that we’re willing to show that love in concrete ways.”
And, Christians are called to do more, said Jefferts Schori. “It may start by feeding somebody who’s hungry, but it doesn’t end there. We can feed someone a meal, but if nothing changes, that person is going to be hungry again in a few hours,” she said. “That’s where the longer-term and bigger-picture work of transformation starts – asking why this person is hungry, or why so many people are standing on street corners asking for help.”
Those sorts of questions can be annoying and irritating, she said, but they come from the Holy Spirit “acting more like a mosquito than a dove” that will “pester us and make us restless until there is justice for all.”
“We all need to be bitten, marked with an itch for what the world could be like,” Jefferts Schori said, adding in an echo of the celebration at the museum earlier that evening: “We’re not going to live in peace until everybody can sit down and share God’s great picnic together in peace.”
Members of the Diocese of Massachusetts delegation (pictured above, from left) were Lillian Randall of St. John's Church in Sandwich; Sean Fontellio of St. Bartholomew's Church in Cambridge; Avery Nasworthy of St. Andrew's Church in Ayer; Lindon Phillips-Johnson of St. Cyprian's Church in Roxbury; the Rev. H. Mark Smith; Chloe Kolbet of St. Paul's Church in Natick; Bishop Gayle E. Harris; Kate McKey of St. Paul's Church in Natick and St. John's Church in Newtonville; Billy Boyce of Grace Church in New Bedford; the Rev. Sarah Randall, SSM; Megan Lightcap of St. Paul's Church in Natick; MaryGrace Clark of Christ Church in Quincy; Ben Hunt of Christ Church in Andover; and Erica Clark of Christ Church in Quincy. Also attending from Massachusetts as a member of the event's design team was Kayden Nasworthy of St. Andrew's Church in Ayer.
Episcopal News Service's full coverage of EYE is available here, along with video clips of two Massachusetts participants, Lindon Phillips-Johnson of St. Cyprian's Church in Roxbury and Chloe Kolbet of St. Paul's Church in Natick, talking about their favorite Scripture passages.