Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry kicked off his weekend-long visitation in the Diocese of Massachusetts on Friday afternoon with a high energy stop in Lawrence, spending an hour talking with the students of Esperanza Academy before making a pastoral visit at Grace Church to hear from Merrimack Valley church and community members affected by last September’s natural gas crisis.
Esperanza students asked Curry what he likes to do best (watch the Buffalo Bills play football, even when they’re losing); what he likes to eat (“I’m a fried chicken kind of guy.”) and if he liked being a student in school (he said he loved learning about fractions in fifth grade but admitted to getting sent to stand in the corner quite a bit for being too talkative).
“Some of the things I learned in school I still live by to this very day,” he said. “These values that you’re learning here right now, the values of showing kindness to each other, the values of learning how to forgive each other when something goes wrong, the values of learning how to be a person of integrity and common decency—that stuff lasts, and will last you for a lifetime,” he said.
In addition to several ministry visits and meetings with designated groups over the course of the weekend, Curry will "jamboree" with middle and high school youth at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston on Saturday, April 27 (join the live webcast here, 1:30-3 p.m.) before preaching at a festive public “Way of Love” rally on Boston Common at 5 p.m.
He also will participate in a panel discussion with Bishop Barbara C. Harris and Episcopal Church General Convention House of Deputies Vice President Byron Rushing on Sunday, April 28 at 3 p.m. at Grace Church in New Bedford. All are welcome.
Find details at www.diomass.org/pb-visit.