February 21, 2025

“The Church is not the building but the people” is a saying I’ve heard more times than I can count (and truth be told, I wouldn’t mind not hearing it ever again!). Yes, the statement is true, but it doesn’t mean that our church buildings aren’t important. To focus on the Church as the Body of Christ over and against property owned by the Church is to create a false dichotomy. How can the Church’s buildings not be important to the work and ministry of the Church? Doesn’t worship, the center of our corporate existence as Christians, benefit immensely from the buildings in which we gather? Isn’t our worship shaped by the buildings? Don’t our church buildings provide necessary shelter for those on the streets, or kitchens to feed the hungry, or places of respite (like our retreat house) for the weary traveler and pilgrim? In an age, where we hear a persistent narrative of Church decline, church buildings and property can too easily become the metaphorical albatross around the Church’s neck.

I recently heard someone suggest that in a time like ours, maybe the Church is being called out into nature rather than into our precious buildings. But I wonder if the opposite is true. In a demystified age, isn’t the Church being called back into the transcendence of our buildings? Nearly every day, visitors wander through the open doors of our church. I’m frequently told that the stunning beauty of the space and its felt holiness are a strong source of attraction. This supports what I suspect is true: church buildings are sanctuaries of rest and mystical encounter in a depersonalized world.

As many of you well know, Good Shepherd holds a significant amount of property in trust for our diocese (over 15,000 square feet to be exact). (By canon law, we don’t technically own our property but are stewards of it for the diocese.) Over the past twenty years or more, the property has been severely neglected due to the turmoil of previous parish conflict with the diocese and Episcopal Church and the ensuing years of rebuilding after the parish returned to the fold of the Episcopal Church in 2012. Indeed, shortly after the parish returned to the Episcopal Church, the parish sold property on Lancaster Avenue and adjoining Roberts Road to seed a newly-established endowment after the near depletion of the parish’s former endowment during the years of court battles and conflict. It was a desperate time. Thankfully, this contentious period in the parish’s history is behind us. We’re practically a new congregation, and the spirit in this place is vibrant, healthy, and positive. We must move on, and we’re doing so with God’s help. But knowing our history is important. While we may not have created the problems we’re facing, but we are the ones that God has chosen to deal constructively with them.

As one can imagine, the past several years have required enormous attention to deferred maintenance on campus. From replacing boilers to fixing leaking roofs, the parish’s response has been one of reaction to crisis. In previous years, the parish wasn’t in a position to respond proactively to building concerns. Thanks to the hard work of our staff, our former Rector’s Warden Donald McCown, other parish leadership, and in recent months to the labor of our facilities manager Kevin Loughery, we’re in a much better place than we were four years ago.

And still, as time moves on, our buildings only get older. All but one of our buildings are well over a hundred years old. We have a running list of property issues, which we routinely triage. At the moment, we must isolate the most pressing concerns and address them first. At the same time, we’re moving out of crisis mode and into a more proactive stance. We’re beginning to look to the future with preparation and hope, rather than with anxiety to the immediate past and whatever crisis has emerged.

We’re taking a wholistic approach in caring for our buildings and property. The ministry that occurs within the walls of Good Shepherd is directly affected by the state of the buildings. For example, the bitter cold of the cloister and sacristy at the moment due to an insufficient heating system is both a burden on our acolytes as well as on chorister parents waiting for their children to finish rehearsals. The cold is also seeping into the adjoining organ chamber, causing the mechanics of the organ to be less reliable due to constantly varying temperatures. The compromised roof of the retreat house, if not tended to imminently, will impair ministry there. The lack of proper fire detection devices in the church, cloister, and Choir Room are safety issues. We can’t divorce our buildings from our worship and ministry. And now is the time to look proactively towards being even better stewards of our buildings and property for generations to come.

In 2025, our vestry-approved budget assumes that it will cost over $106,000 to maintain all our buildings and property. Thankfully, some of this maintenance is offset by rental income from tenants, as well as donations from our retreat house. But the additional capital projects to which I’ve already alluded (only a few of the many!) can’t be funded by our operating budget. We now need to establish a capital fund for the perpetual care of our buildings and property and of our pipe organ.

Last month, we received an astoundingly generous gift of $40,000 from an anonymous donor and friend of the parish, who offered this gift, unsolicited, as a gesture of confidence in what is taking place at Good Shepherd. The vestry has decided to invest this $40,000 (as well as the remaining $13,000 of a $26,000 bequest from the estate of the late Martha Wells) in a short-term investment fund with the Church Foundation (which manages our main parish endowment). This fund will be used for capital projects related to our buildings and property and care of our 1977 Austin pipe organ.

In just over a week’s time, we’ll be launching a fundraising campaign to raise additional money to supplement the $53,000 we’ve already been given. We hope to complete specific capital projects identified by our parish vestry. Stay tuned for an email introducing this campaign on Monday, March 3, when you’ll learn more about how much money we’re seeking to raise in this three-month campaign. I encourage each of you to consider giving generously to this fundraising effort. But I will also note that gifts to this campaign are separate from, and in addition to, pledges toward ministry in 2025. This fundraising campaign is a one-time ask for specific needs so that we can properly stewards our buildings and pipe organ. Any money raised above and beyond the total cost of the capital projects will be placed in the newly-established capital fund for future capital projects. It’s my sincere hope that many of you will continue to make gifts to this fund over the coming years so that we can bless those who come after us in this place. In short, this fundraising campaign is addressing needs in the present and looking with proactivity towards our future. I also ask you to mark Sunday, May 4 on your calendars, which will be a celebratory day as we close out the campaign, featuring an organ recital and hymn-sing by our Organist and Director of Music, Robert McCormick, followed by a catered reception and art exhibit/sale featuring works by Jessi Cooke, whose studio is now in Kemper Great Hall. Donations raised at the May 4th event will benefit the fundraising campaign. These donations are only a small part of what we hope to raise. To reach our goal, we’ll be relying on the generosity of parishioners and Friends of the parish.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m assuming that Good Shepherd has a future. Just four and a half years ago, the future was uncertain. But I hope you’ll agree with me that the faithful of God in this parish have responded palpably and energetically to the Holy Spirit’s presence here. The parish is growing. Ministry is expanding. Giving is rising exponentially. Our work is only beginning, but I’m utterly confident that Good Shepherd will survive and thrive into the future.

To be honest, there are days in which I feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of labor and money it requires to maintain our property. Some weeks, it doesn’t just rain; it pours. But almost every time, when I’m discouraged, God offers a gentle word of encouragement to me, whether through a random, kind email from a parishioner or Friend of the parish, or through a generous gift (like the $40,000 gift we’ve recently received), or through the recent donation of a beautifully refurbished piano by our piano technician Ralph Onesti. I notice those gestures from God, give thanks, and then gird my loins for the hard work ahead. And I remember, as I said in last week’s message, that hope is defined precisely by its presence in times of frustration and despair. I do have hope. I have great hope that the Church needs a place like Good Shepherd, Rosemont. I have great hope that God has a new future in store for us, for many, many years to come.

One final word of thanks: I’m thankful that this parish has chosen not to lament the presence of our buildings but, instead, to see them as gifts from God. While we may still have financial challenges, God has given us over 15,000 square feet that shouldn’t just sit empty but should resound with the voices and activity of God’s kingdom taking shape on earth. This is the posture we’re adopting at Good Shepherd. From day one of our collective rebuilding work over the past four and a half years, we’ve taken chance after chance on God’s abundant generosity. With God’s ever-present grace, may we continue to be responsible stewards of what he’s entrusted to us in this world, even as we anticipate with joyful longing the world to come.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

February 14, 2025

I was recently given a copy of Spirit of Hope by the Korean-born philosopher Byung-Chul Han. Although I’ve just started reading this essay, I’m already moved by a central point that Han makes. He claims that we inhabit a culture of fear, and fear, as Scripture tells us, is the opposite of love. Han describes fear as something that narrows our worldview and our perspective. Fear squelches our hope. But Han also distinguishes hope from mere optimism. Optimism refuses to acknowledge sorrow or darkness or despair. Hope, rather, is borne out of sorrow, darkness, and despair. [Byung-Chul Han, The Spirit of Hope, trans. Daniel Steuer, Hoboken, NJ: Polity Press, 2024]

St. Paul says as much in his magnificent Letter to the Romans: “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (5:3-5). Paul’s words are difficult to hear because they assume that we will all suffer. But Paul’s words are remarkable in suggesting that there is a disciplinary progression in bearing patiently with suffering. In doing so, he claims that we will discover hope. We can’t produce hope through our own efforts, but we can receive it as a gift from God, a gift that is always present.

If I wanted to paraphrase what I think Byung-Chul Han is saying, hope is believing that, with God, we always have a future. Han characterizes hope as “the midwife of the new,” (26) a “daydream” (29) that looks forward with a narrative, rather than a “nightdream” that can only look back in fear or anxiety. Daydreams “suggest a We that is ready to act to improve the world” (30). Hope is easy to find, of course, when things are going well. It’s incredibly difficult when we are in despair or depressed or anxious or fearful. And yet, we can’t avoid the central place of hope in the Christian life.

It goes without saying that to live in hope, we need God’s grace. But to live in hope, we also need each other. This is the We that Han describes. If we’re inhabiting a culture and world permeated by fear—and I believe we are—then, the Church is more important than ever before. The Church is a place where we’re schooled to exist together, to mutually encourage one another, to bear with one another, to share in each other’s joys and sorrows, and to call each other to hope. Just as we need God, we need one another if we are to abide in hope.

If you’ve been following the careful planning of this year’s Sunday adult formation sessions, you will have noticed that our theme is directly related to the theme of the 2025 pledge campaign: “Life in Community.” This is intentional. This program year, we’re focusing on the importance of abiding in community and on how we all need each other, even when we’re tempted to go our own way. In a deeply divided time, this intentional focus is of crucial importance. I believe we’re living in a golden moment for the Church. The Church has something unique, which is an identity rooted in the claim of the resurrection, which means that every breath we take is infused with the possibility of newness. We’re never deprived of a future. Every moment is a moment of hope. But notice that the Church can only embody this vision of hope if she continues to gather weekly for corporate worship and then proceed into the world to serve in our Lord’s name. Being together is not an ideal in our minds; it’s a reality lived in the flesh.

January and the first part of February have been difficult for me personally, partly because the weather has been so dreary and unstable, and partly because my heart breaks at the divisiveness I see around me. But also, I’ve struggled because there have been a number of unavoidable factors that have hampered our ability to gather fully on the Lord’s Day as a parish community. The weather has been vexing, and there have been many illnesses. All these things are beyond our control, but I want to name the fact that when any of us is absent from worship, I miss you. I feel a sense of loss because I yearn for the We. And this comes from the foundational fact of Christianity that we need each other. We can’t exist fully without one another. And we become most fully ourselves when we come together, in the flesh, on the Lord’s Day to break bread together, to share in that present and eschatological fellowship of communion, a communion that the world outside the Church knows little about.

In just a few weeks, on Sunday, March 2, our parishioner Bonnie Hoffman-Adams will be leading our next Sunday adult formation discussion on our “Life in Community.” Bonnie and I frequently talk about how Good Shepherd is such a beautiful place of community, and we also reflect on how it can be even more effectively a place of true Christian fellowship. I hope you will make every effort to come on March 2. Remember, we need each other.

But before March 2, we have another opportunity to gather together in person and reflect on how our parish can live in a “spirit of hope.” We should rightly rejoice in how this parish’s recent history has been a visible testament to a “spirit of hope.” When death was near, God gave us new life. But our story isn’t over. We have a future. The Church has a future. And especially in a fearful age that gives up easily, we need to maintain a “spirit of hope” by renewing our commitment to God and one another. Our Parish Visioning Conversation on Sunday, February 23, after Sung Mass is such an opportunity. It will be, first and foremost, a time of mutual encouragement. We exist together and we come together in worship and fellowship to find this mutual encouragement. We need one another. I need to hear your stories, as well as learn of your pain and joy, and you need to encounter mine. February 23 will be a time for us to reflect on why we value this parish so much. Why do we come here week after week? How do you find hope in our life in community? What can others do to help us in that effort to be present here and be involved here? What are your gifts that you long to share? And above all, how is God directing our efforts as we seek to exist in a “spirit of hope.” Before you read another word, please take a moment to register to attend the February 23rd conversation. If you’re introverted and this sounds scary, you’re not alone. No one will be forced to speak, but everyone can. We will simply come together to listen and encourage one another. If you can’t make the conversation, I’d still love to talk with you individually. Please contact me.

It’s my sincere prayer that each of you will find the Church and this parish to be a place that calls you more deeply into a “spirit of hope.” If you’re afraid, come to this place, come and worship and be with others. If your life is great, come to this place, come and worship and be with others. We all need each other, and the world needs the Church. There’s never a time when we don’t need God and the Church and each other. In God’s loving embrace, in the fold of the Church, and in the company of one another, we learn most truly that every moment, no matter how dark, is a moment in which to hope.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

February 7, 2025

At Wednesday’s Low Mass, the following words from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians lit up for me like an electric sign: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). If we’re honest, these words should give us great comfort and also disorient us profoundly. Only by hanging on to both visceral reactions can we truly understand the call of Christian Baptism.

Those words of Paul speak to the magnitude of Baptism. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Out with the “I” and in with the larger family of God. This is upsetting information to a culture of individualism, which has even pervaded the Church. I, for instance, can go online and buy anything I want without ever talking to another person. I can choose what to do with my things. I can tailor my various profiles, whether in Facebook or Google or LinkedIn to be all about me. I can decide what my “truth” is. I can set my own boundaries and tend to myself alone. I can, if I choose and put blinders on, go to church and let it be about me and tune out everyone else.

But to do any of that is to live against the grain of being a baptized Christian. When each of us is baptized, we become part of a larger family that we don’t choose. Indeed, the point is that we don’t have control over who’s in our family in Christ. When another person is baptized, then you and I become responsible for their spiritual and physical well-being. In this, we also don’t have control over those who become part of our family. This is why people were and still are offended (and try to render more palatable) Jesus’s words from Scripture about who his family is. When told that his mother and brothers are asking to speak with him, he says, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother’” (Matthew 12:48-50). It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

If we believe St. Paul that through baptism it’s no longer we who live but Christ in us, then the Church matters supremely. In a time and world in which “I” supersedes “we,” the Church has great importance. The Church is the heartbeat of our lives because she’s the spiritual organism, founded by Christ, in which we are schooled in letting Christ live in us. When we show up at church on any given Sunday, we can’t control who will also be there. We’re forced to sit shoulder to shoulder with others who irritate and annoy us, as well as with those (hopefully!) who bless us and give us strength and companionship. We’re invited to move with them from our comfortable(?) pews to the Communion rail, to receive the same Sacrament, to drink from the same cup, and to be strengthened in our fellowship with one another. In some sense, when we come to Church, “I” always takes second place to “we,” and while that may be uncomfortable to us, it’s the core of the Christian message.

When we’re sitting in the pew on Sunday, we share the sorrow of the grieving spouse, of the friend struggling to pay the bills, of the teenager bullied at school, and of the stranger to this country who is deeply afraid. When they sorrow, as Paul tells us, we should sorrow. But we rejoice with our pew companion who just got a new job, who aced a school test, who has a new grandchild, and who just moved into the cancer remission stage. Their joy is ours, too. In the Church, we’re summoned to renounce our selfishness, our need to control, our clinging to “our” possessions, and our ego, so that it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. At Good Shepherd, this sense of accountability to one another is present in both the pews and at coffee hour. Our Parish Visioning Conversation in just two weeks’ time will be one more opportunity to let Christ live in us. Who is my neighbor? How does my fellow parishioner hold me accountable, and how do I hold them accountable? How is my own salvation tied inextricably to theirs? These are foundational questions for our visioning conversation.

In our current times, the Church has enormous power if we heed Paul’s words. I urge you not to underestimate the potential of this power. But that power is rooted in an honest embrace of Paul’s words. If we believe that it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, then profound changes in our own lives for the welfare of all should be inevitable. Our family includes, then, the immigrant and refugee. Our family includes those who are vulnerable and radically different from us, not because we need to understand or judge their situation, but because Christ went to such people himself. And if he lives in us (and we have renounced the “I” within us), then we go to those people, too. We’re, indeed, their companions when they’re hurting. Our family includes all: people we don’t choose to be part of our family, regardless of political views, regardless of country of origin, regardless of economic status, and regardless of anything else that those outside the Church use to sow divisions.

If we’re not careful, the devil will turn members of Christ’s body against one another. He does it in small, subtle ways. Beware but be aware. And then, turn your back on him and turn to Christ, which is the central spiritual movement in Baptism. Turn to Christ and come to the Church, which will remind you of who you are as a baptized Christian or who you will be as a baptized Christian. Come and learn how to let Christ live in you. I need the Church. You need the Church. I need your presence in the Church on a weekly basis for the sake of my own soul. You need my weekly presence in the Church and the physical, in-person presence of your fellow Christians. We’re in the business of salvation together, for once we’re marked as Christ’s own forever, it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And if Christ truly lives in me and you, then imagine what we can do in the world in his name.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

January 31, 2025

In our Baptismal Covenant (found in the Book of Common Prayer, p. 305), the entire congregation and the person(s) to be baptized profess that they will, with God’s help, “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.” All too often, words are cheap, and speech is meaningless. Countless persons have given up on the Church because they claim that her members say one thing and do another. So, could it be that in such an age as ours, we proclaim the Good News most effectively by example? One of the most striking documents from the Church’s earliest years (around the 2nd or 3rd century) is the Letter to Diognetus, in which the author says the following of those first Christians.

“They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers.” (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0101.htm)

We could do worse than to aim for others to praise us in such a way. It’s humbling to recognize that our writing and spoken exhortations may have little effect on those we’re addressing, but our behavior—a simple action, a kind word, a selfless gesture, a refusal to return evil for evil—speaks volumes.

We might say that we Christians hold a quiet power to command respect and attention through what we do. The earliest Christians committed themselves to a way of life—indeed, it was called The Way (see the Acts of the Apostles). True, there were profound speeches in those early days (think of Peter’s sermons in Acts or Paul’s letters that were meant to be heard), but the way those Christians lived is perhaps what grabs our attention even to this day. Many went to gory deaths because they refused to speak out of both sides of their mouth. Rather than renounce their faith, they said nothing at all and were killed. They literally gave their lives rather than deny their Lord.

Because of the prolixity—and frequently, the cheapness—of modern-day speech, exacerbated by social media and television, I find myself longing for fewer words, maybe even no words at all. My heart keeps getting pulled more and more down the via negativa. I crave silent prayer. I long for beauty. And even into “the city’s crowded clangor,” to quote a famous hymn, our actions as Christians can speak more powerfully than words, crying “aloud for sin to cease” (Judge eternal, throned in splendor, words by Henry Scott Holland).

I’m compelled to point out the power of actions here at Good Shepherd. At this very moment, parishioners are welcoming the stranger among us. Some among us are quietly reaching out to those who are sick or lonely, ensuring them that they aren’t alone. Right now, children and youth are being embraced by this parish even when they’re alienated at school. And the beauty of all this is that, despite our diversity of perspective and viewpoints on some matters, we exist together, in love. It’s the Gospel that unites us. And we do our best to live the Gospel, which restores us to God and one another.

I don’t want to dwell on the divisiveness of our current national climate or on the growing animosity among nations of the world. I want to dwell on the potential for the Church to step into the rancor surrounding us and live as if we confidently believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ. When we’re confused, we can be grateful for our Lord’s words in Luke 4 (heard last Sunday at Mass). We have marching orders, and they’re fairly clear, as I said in last Sunday’s sermon. Preach good news to the poor. Do something for them in Christ’s name. Preach release to the captives. Better yet, work for their release and live your life as if you believe in God’s forgiveness for all. Ensure that the blind receive their sight, and strive for the healing of all who suffer. Human healing is rooted ultimately in Christ’s power to heal. Let the oppressed go free. Work to ensure that their social status, ethnicity, or place in life is not a barrier to their living a full life. The Incarnation of our Lord assures us that these hopeful words are more than words; they can be realized in action with God’s help. As his body on earth, Christ has told us (in John 14), that we will do even greater works than the ones witnessed in his earthly ministry. We will do them only by God’s power. Let that soak in for a minute. So, my invitation to you is to focus your gaze on Christ. Let his Gospel animate your life. When too many words weigh you down, do something. Recalibrate the actions of your life around the One who gives you life.

As we think about how to live in Christ and preach the Gospel by example, I’m pleased to share that our recently dormant Social Concerns Committee is being revived by parishioners Allen and Jason Crockett and John Williams. A few years ago, this committee was formed to function as a kind of social conscience for the parish. Of course, we must all hone our own social consciences as Christians, but this committee pledges to be a visible presence of prayer, attuning itself to the needs of the local community and world. Every parish needs a “remnant,” a small group of the faithful who are visibly doing things on behalf of the whole. Some of us show up as a remnant for the Daily Office, knowing that the entire parish can’t be present, and yet, the prayer offered is no less effective than if it were fifty persons present. So it is with the Social Concerns Committee. This group of parishioners will gather regularly to pray and discern how Good Shepherd, with its gifts and resources, might give public witness to the Gospel. They will then invite the parish into this public witness.

The committee will meet on Zoom on Saturday, February 22, at 2 p.m. to discuss next steps. If you feel called to participate in the work of this community, please email me, and I will send you the Zoom link. I hope that the revival of the Social Concerns Committee will enable us to connect our retreat house ministry more tangibly with the needs of the neighborhood, as well as those beyond.

I leave you with the striking words of our Lord to his disciples as he approaches his death: “when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11). When I’m feeling rudderless or anxious or uncertain, I take great comfort in these words. Don’t worry. Don’t be anxious. The Holy Spirit will tell you what to say. And I also believe that in our hour of greatest need, the Holy Spirit will also show us what to do.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

January 23, 2025

The weekly parish email and my rector’s message are being published a day earlier than usual this week so that you can take time to thoroughly review the 2025 Annual Report. On Sunday, we will hold our annual parish meeting immediately following Sung Mass in Kemper Great Hall, which is on the second floor of the Parish House. After Mass, simply move through the cloister hallway and up the steps into the Parish House, and take the elevator or stairs at the end of the hallway to the second floor. Whether you are a newcomer to the parish or have been here a while, whether you are officially a member and eligible to vote in the parish elections or not, please attend this important meeting. Your voice and gifts are crucial to the continued flourishing of ministry at Good Shepherd. Lunch will be provided.

In lieu of my usual weekly message, I invite you to read my report on the state of the parish in the annual report, as well as the extensive reports from parish leadership. I hope that you will be encouraged by the vibrancy of parish life at Good Shepherd, as well as the bold decisions made to support the growth of ministry and the Gospel here. Our time together on Sunday in the annual meeting (our “family meeting”) will be most productive if you’ve taken time to read the Annual Report and study the year-end financials from 2024 and review the vestry-approved 2025 annual budget, both of which may be found in the Annual Report. The parish vestry and I value transparency, so it’s important that you know how money is spent in the parish and what the expanding vision of our life in community looks like. For those of you eligible to vote in the parish elections, please review the ballot before the meeting and read the minutes from last year’s annual meeting. I’m grateful to the Parish Nominating Committee (Donald McCown, Sarah Austen, Timothy Austen, Bonnie Hoffman-Adams, and Elly Mulcahy) for the selection of a slate of candidates for all positions.

If you’ve not yet done so, please register online to attend the annual meeting. If you can’t attend in person, please email me for the Zoom link. Sunday will be a time for celebration: to give thanks to God for his many blessings to us and to dream about the future God has in store for us. I’ll look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

Yours in Christ
Father Kyle

January 17, 2025

In my report to the vestry for its January meeting, I reflected on the Church—and specifically, Good Shepherd, Rosemont—as a place to be found, especially when we’re lost. At the risk of repeating myself to our vestry, it seems important to share my reflections with you, parishioners and friends of the parish. It would behoove us to ponder exactly what makes the Church the Church in 2025. Why go to church? Why invest time and energy in the Church when we have plenty of demands on our time from organizations and entities outside of her? For those of us who believe in the importance of the Church and her mission, why is the Church inseparable from our desire to lead full and meaningful lives? I’d like to share my own responses to these questions by way of a message I recently wrote to our vestry, which I offer here in a slightly revised form.

I’m not surprised that one of the most beloved stories in the Bible is the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or of the Loving Father, or of the Son Who Was Lost but Found, or whatever you want to call it. I think this story is popular not only because it’s a wonderful story but because we all know what it feels like to be lost. And we relish the security of being found. In St. Luke’s Gospel, this beloved parable is preceded by the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin. In the former, even one sheep among ninety-nine others is sought after with great zeal and love. In the latter, a woman turns her house upside down until she finds one lost coin. As much as many Christians out there delight, rather perversely, in telling us about a God who seems to have it in for us, the God described across the pages of Scripture and revealed to us in Jesus Christ is a God of infinite love who seeks everyone who is lost. This God knows us by name. This God knows every hair on our heads. This God is the “hound of heaven” who pursues us in love. When we’re lost, God will find us, somehow, somewhere.

From the moment I was called to be the rector of this parish, I was acutely aware of the theological significance of the parish’s namesake. I still take seriously the call to be a good shepherd, and I try to be a responsible shepherd. It’s ironic that a parish with such a name went astray for so long. And having been here for four and a half years now, it’s not lost on me that we’re a sheepfold for lost sheep. I don’t mean “lost” in the sense of being profligate or wasteful or irresponsible, but I simply refer to that very intrinsic part of the human condition—being lost. We’re all lost. When we sin, we’re lost. When we’re lonely and searching for community, we’re lost. When we’ve lost someone dear to us, we’re lost, too. When we’re unhappy with some aspect of our lives and know that there must be something better, we’re lost. When our children are out of control and we feel that we can’t help them, we’re lost. When the world seems like an increasingly dangerous place and we long for safety, we’re lost. When we’ve not made God a part of our lives before but now yearn for him, we’re lost. Yes, all of us are lost in some way. All of us have been lost. Indeed, all of us are lost in some fashion or another.

I’m always delightfully surprised at how many newcomers find the Church of the Good Shepherd, and I’m convinced that the Holy Spirit has drawn them here. And I also maintain that there’s something special about the community forming at Good Shepherd. It’s true that the Church should always be a refuge for sinners and a home for the lost, but some churches are more unfriendly, less welcoming, more cliquish places than others. The Church of the Good Shepherd is not. I feel strongly that we’ve been called to a ministry of hospitality, which involves more than dishing out a muffin or a mug of coffee after Sunday Mass. It means scouring the church with our eyes until we notice the person who is new among us. It means leaving our comfortable circles at coffee hour to go and speak to the person who is sitting alone. It means saying our usual hellos to our old friends at church and then walking up to the person who has attended for the first time and kindly, but without any pressure, offering to escort them to coffee hour. It means reaching out by email to the newcomer and inviting them for coffee. It means risking the discomfort of breaking our shyness to make conversation with someone new.

But it’s even more than this, and here’s where it gets a bit scary. Ministry to the lost means first recognizing how we are lost. It means unearthing those painful memories of being bullied in school or ostracized or made fun of. And then from that dark place, we keep our eyes open for those among us who are also lost. We tell them about the place that has changed our lives, where we’ve been found and have experienced community—Good Shepherd, Rosemont. We invite them to experience this home, this safe sheepfold, with us. In short, we follow the Great Commission to be evangelists, the duty of every Christian.

You already know that I believe our parish and the wider Church is called to grow. Growth is assumed in the Gospel message. But for our parish to continue to grow and become sustainable for a long future, we can’t merely rely on those who find us on their own (and through the work of the Holy Spirit). No, the Holy Spirit often uses us to find others. We shouldn’t neglect this charge. So, invite someone to church. Tell them about this place that you love so much. If you have an idea for how this parish can minister more effectively to the lost, voice your idea but also lead the charge in realizing it. Our parish’s growth will depend not just on ideas but on leaders committed to turning ideas into reality. We all have a hand to play in the growth of this parish. 

I hope that it can be the mission of each one of us to always be on the lookout for that lonely person. Please talk to them. And would you please go a step further? Would you use our Realm directory to locate the email address of someone new and invite them to coffee or tea? Or lunch? The Church will be stronger if we don’t just talk about community but live it in an intentional way.

We’re told nearly every day that the Church is dying, but what such despairing, narrow-minded messages overlook is that in a world that is deeply lost, where cruelty can assert itself with ease, and where there is an increasing loss of meaning, the Church is the steward of a treasure. That treasure is the Gospel. And this means that for the person who has no home at school or in the workplace, or for the person who is struggling to find friends or community, or for the person who is quietly suffering or deeply lonely, the Church is their true home, because it’s the home of us all. The Church will revive if we embrace this and believe it. If we refuse to continue feeding the beast of a world that demands more and more of our time but chews us up and spits us out, and if we turn, instead, to the Church that will comfort, nourish, and strengthen us, then we will have learned something about what all of us need from the Church. The Church’s mission is always to the lost, because the best news we can offer to the world is that, although we once were lost, now we’re found.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

January 10, 2025

I was recently reminded of an old Anglo-Catholic phrase “assisting at Mass.” We Anglo-Catholics have a peculiar language at times, but below its quirkiness lies a rich piety if we aim to discover it. “Assisting at Mass” doesn’t refer merely to those serving at the altar, nor does it apply only to clergy or musicians. Assisting at Mass is the duty of everyone present.

The Anglo-Catholic tradition has been accused at times of clericalism and of promoting an individualistic piety. I’m sure it has been and is true in some (many?) Anglo-Catholic parishes. But if we dig below the surface of dutiful observance and obligation (both of which can be good things), we’ll find that the phrase “assisting at Mass” is anything but clericalist. To assist at Mass isn’t only to show up; it’s to invest oneself in the Mass. Assisting at Mass assumes that a Mass needs more than just a priest. It needs a priest and at least one other person present.

Have you ever noticed the way the Amen following the Canon of the Mass is printed in our prayer book (and leaflet)? It’s in capital letters and italics. This Amen is the assent of the congregation to Christ’s presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. The priest can pray all she or he wants, but the voice of the congregation and their presence—indeed, their assistance—are necessary. Christianity is not an individualistic affair. We probably need this reminder more than ever in the age of livestreaming. Livestreaming is a gift to connect our parish with friends near and far. It’s a gift to those of us who must stay at home due to illness but want to worship online. But livestreaming is no substitute for our fleshly presence at the Mass. It’s no substitute for receiving Christ’s Body and Blood, which restores our bodies and souls.

I frequently reflect on what it means to be Anglo-Catholic in the Episcopal Church in this century, when we have a Catholic prayer book and the Eucharist is now the principal service of worship on the Lord’s Day. Part of what it means, in my humble opinion, is to call the wider Church—specifically the Episcopal Church—to a robust practice of worship, especially an observance of the Church’s great rhythm of prayer and celebrations of the liturgical seasons, feasts, and fasts. Worship is not mere perfunctory observance. Worship is a living encounter with the One in whom we find abundant life and salvation, Jesus Christ. This encounter, which is part of how we are saved, means that we must show up first. We show up sometimes when we aren’t “feeling like it.” When we “aren’t feeling like it” is precisely when we most need it. Worship requires our physical presence, in person, so that our bodies can breathe and sing and kneel and stand in real time with the physical bodies of our friends in Christ.

And so, “assistance at Mass” isn’t specifically an Anglo-Catholic thing, but because Anglo-Catholics famously worship a lot, perhaps it’s our gift to the wider Church to call more people into a hearty liturgical practice. People frequently comment to me on how much worship we have at Good Shepherd, especially considering our size. That’s true. But I hope it’s not a burden to us. I hope it’s life-giving. It’s an integral part of how we can genuinely discern God’s call to us in mission and service. A regular practice of worship is crucial to our salvation, because salvation is not about “me and God.” Salvation is about “us and God” and a shared life where we all exhort and “assist” one another in growing more and more into the likeness of God. After all, Jesus came to draw all people to himself, as St. John tells us (12:32).

During this season of the calendar year, when weather is cold, inconvenient, and downright unpleasant at times, we may need a reminder of “assisting at Mass” more than ever. As the Preface of the Mass reminds us, “[i]t is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, holy Father, almighty, everlasting God.” The fruits of our “assistance” might be felt right after Mass, but more likely, they won’t. You may feel those fruits three days later or three years later. The point is that we show up to “assist.” We assist on Sundays, but also on weekdays, on feast days, and on days of fasting. Our presence is necessary. And what a delight and privilege it is that by virtue of the Incarnation we can dare to call God “Abba,” Father. What a joy that our presence at Mass is not optional, our presence is necessary. I will look forward to seeing you on Sunday to assist in the holy mysteries of our living encounter with the One who gives us life.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

January 3, 2025

Technically speaking, we Christians have already begun a new year. It began on December 1, the First Sunday of Advent. At the beginning of Advent, I wrote about newness. But since we are inevitably tied to secular calendars as well as liturgical calendars, as we begin 2025, we should once again reflect on newness. If you’ve watched our parish video, produced in the early summer of 2022, you will have noticed an intentional reference to the apostle Paul’s words: “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Those words of St. Paul encapsulate the recent history of this parish. Less than ten years ago, it looked as if this parish might close its doors, but God did something new. The newness that God brings is evident almost every day I spend here, and the parish video is itself proof of this ongoing newness. It’s already woefully out of date! So many new faces have arrived at Good Shepherd since that video was made, and sadly, some are no longer with us. So much new ministry has been birthed since the video was filmed. Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is a shining, visible example of God’s new creation among us. We who have experienced directly God’s power to make things new in this parish can and should give witness to this.

But we inhabit a world that is tired and worn down. It’s a world that primarily functions as if everything is old, and we don’t know how to cope with that reality. We rehash old grievances. We neglect the elderly among us, assuming that nothing new could occur in their lives. We hearken back to how things used to be, as if nothing good could come out of the future. We even think that some are worthy of death because they are defined by their former, corrupt past. We judge people by their worst mistakes. We despair of the Church having a glorious future again because she’s in decline. So we say.

And yet. . . and yet, God is always making things new. To be a Christian is to live in the hope that newness is always possible. The heart of our faith lies in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, where even death itself doesn’t have the final word. Newness proliferates because Jesus still lives among us and the Holy Spirit enlivens our bodies, our hearts, and our imaginations. And God’s revival of this wonderful parish is living proof of that newness.

At this moment in time, the Church has a privilege and a duty to proclaim to a tired, worn, skeptical world that in Christ, a new creation is always possible. Can we live as if this is so? I wonder what this will look like at Good Shepherd. I like to imagine a new calendar year as an opportunity to dream about what the coming year will look like in the parish. What new people will God send our way to join us in ministry? What new ministry will take root here? What old ideas can be revived and realized in new ways?

Please mark January 26 on your calendars, which is when we’ll hold our 2025 annual parish meeting after Sung Mass. At this meeting, we’ll reflect on the old year with eyes of hope towards the new one. The visioning of a new future at Good Shepherd is not the sole provision of me your priest, nor is it only the responsibility of the vestry. Dreaming about a future graced by God’s newness is for all of us, which is why your presence at our parish meeting is so essential.

I hope you’ll join us for the Feast of the Epiphany, a Principal Feast of the Church year. If you’re in town, please prioritize this feast. We’ll close out the Christmas season with a Procession and Sung Mass on Monday, January 6, at 7 p.m. At that Mass, we’ll also bless chalk for the chalking of doors at home, an Epiphany tradition. A potluck supper will follow in the retreat house. Until then, savor the final days of Christmas. This is, after all, the season in which the wonder of God’s newness comes to us in the newness of a little Child, our Savior, in whom all things are made new.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

December 27, 2024

The Hymnal 1982, our authorized Episcopal hymnal, contains thirty-nine Christmas hymns. Most years, I lament the fact that we’ll only have three occasions to sing these hymns during the Christmas season. But this year, because of how Christmas falls within the calendar, we’ll have two Sundays in the Christmas season. This gives us more opportunities to sing from the great treasure of hymnody for the Christmas season.

Many of the hymns are standard favorites, hymns you wouldn’t imagine not singing at Christmas. At this point in the Christmas season, we’ve already sung many of them. But there are some overlooked gems. One of my personal favorites—both tune and text—is #104, “A stable lamp is lighted.” The text is by the late American poet Richard Wilbur. The tune is by the living American church musician David Hurd, currently Director of Music at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City, one of our sister Anglo-Catholic parishes. In my opinion, David Hurd’s tunes are some of the best examples of American hymnody in the previous and current centuries.

I adore both the tune and the text of “A stable lamp is lighted.” The tune is poignant, even sad. The text is theological poetry at its finest, redolent with Scriptural allusions and centuries of Christological ponderings. One of the reasons I’m so fond of this hymn is that the text moves to a deeper level than some of our beloved Christmas hymns. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t want Christmas without “O come, all ye faithful” and “Angels we have heard on high.” But “A stable lamp is lighted” reminds us that at Christmas, we celebrate a mystery that transcends a cozy birth story or feelings of constant merriment. Christmas joy is not mere happiness or cheer. Joy assumes a measure of hope, and joy can come to us even in our sorrow. Joy is profound enough to withstand suffering.

In Wilbur’s great hymn, all of creation responds to the birth of the Messiah. “The stars shall bend their voices/And every stone shall cry.” Wilbur references, obliquely, Psalm 19 but also, more directly, Habakkuk 2:11, where in the face of injustice, even the stones themselves will not be able to remain silent. Recall that when Jesus enters Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel, some Pharisees ask Jesus to rebuke his disciples, who are greeting him with praise. Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40). “Every stone shall cry” is a constant refrain in Wilbur’s hymn. This refrain expresses the mystery of Christmas: all of creation cries out at the birth of the Messiah, but the cry is mixed. It’s a cry of both joy and sorrow because the happiness felt at Jesus’s birth is tinged with an unshakeable feeling that a sinful world will not be able to hold the perfect goodness found in Jesus the Christ. In the Christian life, joy and sorrow can’t be easily separated.

Wilbur’s hymn plays with imagery inspired by the Church’s early Fathers, where in the manger, “straw like gold shall shine” and “A barn shall harbor heaven” because a stall will “become a shrine.” The extraordinary meshes with the ordinary. Jesus’s throne is in the manger. From Jesus’s birth, the cross is already in the picture. This Light of the world will be rejected and refused by the world, even though the darkness can’t overcome the Light.

All of this might not immediately seem like good news on Christmas. It might, in fact, seem depressing. But the truth is that this season can be bittersweet—even deeply sad—for many people. It’s mistaken to assume that if we’re good Christians, we’ll be happy and cheery all the time. The real truth of Christmas tells us otherwise. Jesus was born to a wandering family who ultimately made his crib in a barn or a cave, not in a palace. Jesus was born under the boot of Roman oppression. Jesus was born to peasant parents in questionable circumstances, at least from a human point of view. The mystery of Christmas is complicated and messy, and the good news is that in such a manner, our redemption comes to us. As the Church Father Gregory of Nazianzus told us, “that which is not assumed is not saved.” Jesus comes to save it all.

As Wilbur notes in his hymn, the sky whose stars bend their voices at Jesus’s birth will “groan and darken” at his death. When heaven touches earth in the Incarnation, all of creation is affected. The mystery of Jesus’s birth leaves no corner of the earth untouched. And today, for those of us struggling with sadness or illness or despair, the mystery of Christmas assures us that we can be joyful Christians who retain hope even when we can’t facilely dismiss our sadness.

The final verse of Wilbur’s hymn explains the heart of the mystery of Christmas: “But now, as at the ending,/The low is lifted high;/The stars shall bend their voices,/And every stone shall cry./And every stone shall cry,/In praises of the Child/By whose descent among us/The worlds are reconciled.” No darkness can squelch the light of Christ. No sorrow can eliminate the joy. And no matter how many voices are silenced by oppression, the stones themselves will cry out in testament to the One who is our Savior and has redeemed the world.

May God bless you and yours this Christmas. If you’re in town, please come to Mass to sing the wonderful hymns of Christmas and to give thanks in the Eucharistic feast for the birth of our Savior, who continues to reconcile the worlds and whose light always shines in the darkness.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

December 20, 2024

On Tuesday, at Evening Prayer, we began using the “O Antiphons” with the Magnificat, an ancient tradition in the days leading up to Christmas. These “O Antiphons” are known most familiarly in the hymn “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” The “O” refers to the word that begins the antiphons, which are intended to flank the recitation or singing of the Magnificat, Mary’s great song from Luke 1. Beginning on December 17, each day is assigned a particular antiphon. The antiphon for December 20 is “O Clavis David.”

O Key of David,
and Scepter of the house of Israel,
that openest and no one shutteth,
and shuttest and no one openeth:
Come and bring the prisoner out of the prison-house,
he that sitteth in darkness and the shadow of death.

In the imagery of today’s appointed antiphon, Christ is the Key that unlocks the door to freedom from sin and death. What an incisive and powerful image this is!

On Sunday, after Advent Lessons and Carols, I was putting things away in the sacristy, including the cope that I wore for the service. All our copes reside in a closet just outside the vesting sacristy, and this closet is usually locked. I was hanging the key to the closet on the peg where it usually lives when it fell and disappeared. I heard it hit the ground, and I searched and I searched the sacristy, but to no avail. I couldn’t find the key. And then I noticed a small hole in the floor next to the radiator. Surely, the key, with its attached label, wouldn’t have been small enough to land exactly in that hole, which is no more than an inch and a half in diameter? I shone a flashlight down the hole, but I couldn’t see the key anywhere.

My frantic search, and my obsession with finding that key, persisted. I would need to access the cope closet before Christmas Eve. Where was the key? I felt a bit like the woman in Luke’s parable of the lost coin. She sweeps the floor of her house, yearning to find that one lost coin. Sometimes, the thing for which we search so desperately seems small, and yet the sense of losing something can be overwhelming, no matter how tiny the lost item is.

When something is lost, especially a key needed to unlock a door, we experience a helplessness. Whether it’s a car key that’s locked inside the car, or a house key that’s left hanging in its place while you stand outside in the cold unable to enter, keys are uniquely important. The British priest and poet Malcolm Guite notes the particularity of a key to unlock a door in his poem on today’s “O Antiphon.”

Even in the darkness where I sit
And huddle in the midst of misery
I can remember freedom, but forget
That every lock must answer to a key,
That each dark clasp, sharp and intricate,
Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard,
Particular, exact and intimate,
The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward.
I cry out for the key I threw away
That turned and over turned with certain touch
And with the lovely lifting of a latch
Opened my darkness to the light of day.
O come again, come quickly, set me free
Cut to the quick to fit, the master key.

(https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2014/12/20/oh-clavis-a-fourth-advent-antiphon-and-sonnet-2/)

Being a part of the human condition is so often like being locked out of a room full of treasures. The room in this analogy is freedom. To be locked out is a horrible feeling of exclusion. There’s a sense that something that could be readily available to us, and which is so near at hand, is being withheld from us. But when we find the balm of freedom—when we finally discover something that is lost, or when a door in life is opened to us—it’s sheer bliss. Do you recall the last time you experienced that?

Sin and evil in our world feel like powers that take the key to the door of freedom and throw it away. Unlike the lost key for which I was searching, when sin and evil are involved, it’s as if the key was deliberately taken and thrown into some bottomless pit. As St. Paul reminds us, sin is really Sin; it seems like a power or force that holds us hostage. it locks us in a prison and then throws away the key.

In these final days leading up to Christmas, there may be no more powerful image to hold onto than that of Christ as the Key of David. He is the Key, as Malcolm Guite reminds us, that in our sinfulness and willfulness we throw away. And yet, he is not lost down a hole or in some dark abyss. He’s right here, reigning in our hearts. He visits us daily. Our Key of David is not far away. He’s not lost. We’re lost, and he has found us.

There’s surely some logic to the fact that some people who usually never go to church nevertheless find their way to churches at Christmas and Easter. They must somehow know that without Christ, they’re lost and need to be found, they’re outside a locked room without a key. This is the deepest meaning of Christmas: our Key is always available to unlock the door and let us into freedom.

If you’re traveling this Christmas, may God give you a safe journey. If you’re in town, I hope to see you at Masses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both Sung Masses with choir. Join us, too, for Low Masses on the Major Holy Days following Christmas Day. If you know people who are struggling because they’ve lost the key to joy, would you consider inviting them to church? May God bless you this Christmas as we celebrate the perpetual arrival in our lives of the One who is the Key of David, the Christ, the Messiah, the only One who can set us free.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

P.S. It turns out that the lost key to the cope closet did indeed fall through the hole in a floorboard of our sacristy. But thanks to Kevin Loughery, our wonderful buildings and property manager, it will be recovered in time to open the cope closet for Christmas!

December 13, 2024

There’s a letter that I’ve been waiting for in the mail for a few months now. Every day, I glance in the church mailbox to see if it’s arrived. It will eventually tell me whether a grant that I applied for has been awarded. But the letter hasn’t come yet. Waiting for something can easily become an obsession. I usually don’t like waiting. On many Wednesdays, I’ve sat in the Lady Chapel, ready for the 12:05 p.m. Mass, and I’ve waited for people to show up. Usually, after five minutes or so and no one has arrived, I return items to the sacristy and move on with my day—I can’t offer Mass without a congregation. Waiting is never easy. I’ve waited for medical test results before. I’ve waited for academic exam results. I’ve waited for college admission letters. I’ve waited for phone calls from loved ones to assure me that they’ve made it safely on a road trip or that they’re doing okay. Waiting is usually not enjoyable. I’ve waited for the answer to prayer. I’ve waited for some kind of divine affirmation that I’m on the right path. Waiting is, at times, frustrating.

But I wonder if waiting could be more pleasant than it usually is. Does waiting always have to be an anxiety-ridden endeavor? Does everything have to be centered on what’s been waited for? What if waiting were more focused on the present rather than the future? Perhaps that’s really what waiting is from a theological perspective. Spiritual waiting usually involves some measure of hope in the future, but it also doesn’t neglect the present. It may be that the purpose of waiting is to redirect our gaze to the present.

If one waits long enough, one may be conditioned to accept the present, with all its uncertainty. One may cease to idolize the future of knowing something for sure and, instead, embrace the gift of the present moment with whatever it brings, which often surprises. Over the past few years, as we have added liturgical services to our daily round at Good Shepherd, I’ve shown up and waited. I’ve said the Daily Office alone, and I’ve waited for people to show up. And with time, they have. I’ve sat in the Lady Chapel, hoping people might show up for Mass, and I’ve waited, and on some days, just when I think no one will, someone does. I’ve waited for the right gifts to come with the right people to address a need in our parish, and I’ve waited, and then they’ve appeared. Waiting can be a rich time because in the act of waiting, we learn to depend solely on God.

One of the reasons I’ve felt more and more drawn to silent, contemplative prayer with time is that it encourages me to be more comfortable with waiting. If I’m not using words to ask God for something, then I’m less likely to be expecting a direct answer. Instead, I sit in silence or even gaze at an icon, and I wait. I wait for the Spirit to show me something in that time of doing very little.

Anyone who preaches or who writes or who creates art knows that waiting is essential. It’s very difficult to sit down and write something that’s inspired. It’s impossible to preach a good sermon without waiting for some word of inspiration from God. A work of art is trite at best unless it springs from a divinely-given creative impulse. It’s all about waiting.

The waiting of this season of Advent is too often focused on the future, on Christmas and then on the Second Coming. Yes, Christmas will come on December 25 (it always does!), and yes, Christ will come again to judge both the living and the dead. Both of those comings can elicit anxiety. Will I be able to deal with the stress of family this year at Christmas? Will I be able to stand before Christ’s judgment throne and not be swallowed up in fiery wrath? So much perceived condemnation accompanies the awaiting of these comings.

But waiting in the present moment is different. It judges us, for sure, but as a gift. It’s not about what could happen or what I will do if something happens in the future. It’s about how I respond to Christ’s glorious coming into the present moment of my life. As I wait for test results or a letter in the mail or people to show up for Mass or for Christ to come again in glory, the present moment happens. And in the present moment, the risen Christ comes to me and to you, in all his glory, to bless us and surprise us. In the present moment, Christ teaches us, and the Holy Spirit reveals new understandings to us. In the present moment, Christ simply is, and we are invited to be with him just as he is, as Mary sat patiently at his feet while Martha busied herself in the kitchen.

Advent is a time of year in which we’re tempted to go the route of Martha—not that it’s bad or wrong. We’re tempted to be always on the go, always shopping, always wrapping gifts, always going to another holiday party, always filling every minute with more and more activity. But what if we embraced this Advent as a season of Mary, who sat at the feet of her friend Jesus’s feet and simply was with him? This is a season of hope. It’s a season of waiting. It’s a time to rejoice that as we await the celebration of the coming of God-with-us, Emmanuel, in this present moment—especially as we wait—God-with-us is already here. We’re waiting with him. And in that present waiting, we are indeed blessed.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

December 6, 2024

In this past week’s Pilgrims in Christ meeting, someone asked why we genuflect at the mention of the Incarnation in the Nicene Creed at Mass (“was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man”). It was a good question. I suggested that one reason was to remind us of the concreteness of the Incarnation. At one particular moment in time, in a specific location in the Middle East, the eternal Word was made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Christianity is a religion of particularity. It’s nothing short of astounding that an eternal God made himself visible in human flesh in Jesus, the perfect image of God. This eternal God’s image is also localized in our own bodies, which, of course, exist in temporal space. So, when our knees touch the floor as we say some words in the Creed, we remember the doctrine of the Incarnation. We remember that our bodies matter. We remember that our bodies are not “shells” to be discarded at death, for our bodies—loved and redeemed by God—will also be raised one day at the end of time. As words from Sunday’s Gospel tell us, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6).

This particularity of Christianity has manifested itself in the Church through the parish system. Historically, a parish was a geographical area in which one lived. One usually was a member of the church within the bounds of the parish in which one lived. Devotion to one’s geographical parish is rare these days, although we still technically have parish bounds. But the point remains the same: to be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus in a specific place and time. As Christians affiliated with Good Shepherd, Rosemont, our parish community grounds us and localizes us in one place of worship, even if we live thirty-five miles from the church.

On this view, then, being a member of a parish is an important part of Christian identity. Membership is a way in which each of us is formed among a unique group of people. We’re called to a parish for a variety of reasons. Perhaps we are fed by the worship there. Maybe we like the people. Or the music stirs us immensely. But I also believe that the Holy Spirit draws people with certain gifts to specific parishes that are in need of such gifts. And people with definable needs are drawn to parishes with resources and people that can minister to those needs. In all this, we see the doctrine of the Incarnation at work. Particularity matters. Time and place matter.

And so, the very practical reality of membership within the Episcopal Church is more than merely practical. It’s more than managing statistics. It’s an accounting of our identity within one parish within the wider Episcopal Church that is part of the larger worldwide Anglican Communion that exists as a Communion of churches within the worldwide Church Catholic.

On Sunday, at Sung Mass, we will officially welcome sixteen new members to Good Shepherd. Some of these new members have been worshipping here for well over a year, but they’ve now indicated that they wish to become members of this local community of disciples. Their names have been inscribed in our parish register in pen, for posterity, giving testimony to the particularity of their membership in this community of faith. With membership comes commitment. These new members are pledging their lives of discipleship to occur in this parish of Good Shepherd, Rosemont. And I’m so glad that they’re here!

I should say a word about membership in the Episcopal Church. Any baptized person may officially become a member. Practically speaking, “adult communicants in good standing” in this parish are those sixteen years of age and older, “who for the previous year have been faithful in corporate worship, unless for good cause prevented, and have been faithful in working, praying, and giving for the spread of the Kingdom of God” (Canon 1.17.3). This means that one’s baptism is recorded in our parish register, one attends church regularly, and one pledges financially to the ministry of the parish. To vote in parish elections at each year’s annual parish meeting (to elect members of the vestry, delegates to diocesan convention, and delegates to deanery meetings), one must be an adult communicant in good standing who has attended Good Shepherd for at least one year previously. I encourage you to read more about membership on our website. If you’re not yet officially a member of Good Shepherd and would like to be, please contact me.

I also recognize that there are many among us who are not officially members but who worship here regularly, pledge to the well-being of the parish, and give sacrificially of their time and talent to Good Shepherd. I’m most grateful to these individuals. Even though they aren’t officially “members” by the canonical definition, they are valued assets to this community of faith and are fully integrated into our parish’s life and witness. Regardless of whether you are a member or not, you are loved and cherished here.

On Sunday, as we celebrate the welcoming of new members, we will appropriately be distributing copies of our new parish directory, which has been printed from information included in our online database, Realm. Now, you’ll be able to remind yourself of the name of that person whom you see regularly but whose name has escaped your mind. (But please remember that you can access all this information right now by logging into Realm!) You may pick up a copy of the directory at Mass on Sunday. I hope that this simple directory will be one more way in which we can grow closer in community, pray for one another, and ensure that all here feel a sense of belonging. Thank you to Lorraine Mahoney for leading the charge on creating this parish directory.

We are people of the Incarnation, of particularity in time and place. And I’m thankful that each of you has chosen to immerse your own life of faith in this parish. I pray that in doing so, you will grow more fully into the likeness of God by virtue of the other faithful disciples here. May you sense a divinely inspired meshing of your own gifts with the gifts of this parish, and may it all be to the flourishing of Christ’s kingdom.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

November 29, 2024

John Keble (1792-1866), initiator of the Oxford Movement, of which Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is a child, penned this remarkable hymn in 1822.

New every morning is the love
our wakening and uprising prove;
through sleep and darkness safely brought,
restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
hover around us while we pray;
new perils past, new sins forgiven,
new thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If on our daily course our mind
be set to hallow all we find,
new treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

The trivial round, the common task,
will furnish all we need to ask,
room to deny ourselves, a road
to bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love
fit us for perfect rest above;
and help us, this and every day,
to live more nearly as we pray. (The Hymnal 1982, #10)

Keble’s hymn is not an Advent hymn per se, but it certainly encapsulates a prominent theme of Advent: newness. Advent is the beginning of a new liturgical year. But even more than this, Advent is a season in which to reflect on the newness of God’s mercy that we encounter in the act of repentance.

Advent is famously the season of the Church year in which we hear the incisive call of the prophets to turn from wickedness back to the ways of God. John the Baptist points to Jesus the Christ, who is the newness of God enfleshed. Indeed, the coming of God into our lives, of which we’re reminded during Advent, occurs on three levels: the coming of Christ at Christmas; the coming of Christ at the end of time (the Second Coming); and the coming of Christ every day,—“every morning,” to quote Keble—into our lives. Each of these “comings” is a moment in which the freshness of God—the one who makes all things new—intersects with the oldness and tiredness of our quotidian existence. Advent is itself a relatively short season, but it’s an intense one. Advent is an extended wake-up call, to be alert and energetically aware of God’s challenging call on our lives, to live each second into the newness of God.

There may be no better way to celebrate Advent than to reflect on the theme of God’s newness. A month before people traditionally make New Year’s resolutions, the beginning of Advent is an invitation to press restart on our spiritual lives. Because God makes all things new, there’s no moment in our lives that’s incapable of redemption. Every second is an opportunity to turn in repentance back to God. This is quite unlike what we’re used to, where we’re defined by our worst failures or branded with pejorative labels for life or consigned to inferior status based on one moment. Our world is egregiously unforgiving, a world where we are perpetually “stuck.” The good news that the Church must tell is that the unforgiveness of our world is a lie; it’s wrong.

So, this Advent, will you embrace the newness of our vocation as followers of our Lord? If you’ve fallen away from the Church for whatever reason, you’re not judged by this community. You’re loved, and especially, you are loved by God. Return to the arms of the Church, because every moment is fresh and new. God is always standing with open arms to receive you into his loving embrace.

If you’re tired or lonely or anxious for whatever reason, look for the light of Christ this Advent. As the days grow shorter and get darker earlier, keep your eyes on Christ’s light as a call to newness of life. If you’re rejoicing or happy or content, keep your eye on Christ’s light, too, and remain open to his continual call on your life.

If regularity in prayer and public worship has been difficult for you recently, consider this Advent as a chance to renew your life of prayer. The Mass is the liturgical action in which we encounter Christ’s newness most acutely.

If you are troubled by sin or by conscience, I encourage you to avail yourself of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (private confession/the reconciliation of a penitent). This sacrament is available at any time by appointment with me (or of course, with another priest). This sacrament is a vivid encounter with the newness of God’s mercy.

Advent is a season of intentionality, and this requires prioritizing our daily lives to some extent. I draw your attention to our upcoming Advent Quiet Day, led by Bonnie Hoffman-Adams on “Praying with Icons.” You may register online. And I hope you will attend our annual service of Advent Lessons and Carols on Sunday, December 15 at 3 p.m., sung by our adult choir and children choristers. Advent is a season of marvelous hymns, music, and anthems.

I hope to see you this Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, as we give thanks for the newness of God’s mercy and love. In Keble’s beautiful words, The trivial round, the common task,/will furnish all we need to ask,/room to deny ourselves, a road/to bring us daily nearer God.”

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

November 22, 2024

St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It has been much maligned and abused, but it’s an extraordinarily beautiful book. When read as a large, extended argument by Paul, we learn a great deal about God’s expansive mercy. Towards the end of the Letter to the Romans, Paul offers some practical advice to the church in Rome, exhorting them to be a community bound together by love for one another, despite their diverse gifts and differing viewpoints and practices.

New Testament scholar Richard Hays sums up St. Paul’s arguments in the Letter to the Romans, chapters 12 and 13, as follows, characterizing Paul’s words as encouragement to be “a community living with minds renewed by God’s mercy” [Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hays, The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality within the Biblical Story (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2024), 195].

• “It is a community characterized by humility, recognizing diverse and complementary gifts within the one body.

• It is a community characterized by rejoicing in hope, patient suffering, and hospitality to strangers.

• It is a community that blesses its persecutors, rejoices with those who rejoice, weeps with those who weep, and lives in harmony with one another.

• Above all it is a community that fulfills the law by obeying the commandment, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (p. 196)

It’s my deep prayer that Good Shepherd, Rosemont, can be such a community. I think that we are already such a community in so many ways. Paul’s words are crucial for the Church in every time and age. We’re one of the few places that claims to affirm the gifts of all people, not just gifts for scholarly work or athletic prowess or musical genius or business acumen. We believe that God has blessed everyone, and that all our gifts are needed for the flourishing of a community of faith.

I’ve seen so much hope at Good Shepherd in just over four years here. I have seen a great deal of patient bearing with others and with challenging situations. I certainly have witnessed profound hospitality that has exceeded any of my expectations. Daily, I see such love among the people here, that I’m deeply moved and humbled. We weep with those who are weeping—such as when we gather as a parish to bury one of our beloved members—and we rejoice with those who rejoice as we celebrate the happy occasions of marriages and welcoming of new members and the baptisms of children and adults. And I do think that we’re striving as much as we can to love our neighbors as ourselves.

But there’s always more work to be done. I offer these words as encouragement, because I want us to celebrate how much goodness is present in this parish. I hope we’ll also challenge ourselves and stretch our comfort level as we face new challenges in loving our enemies and existing together despite our differences and in offering unyielding hospitality to strangers. And I hope that each of us will go into the world to tell of the work being done in this community. Let me share a few scenes from a community “living with minds renewed by God’s mercy.”

• Our vestry decides not to press charges against someone who vandalized our shadow box sign on Lancaster Avenue. The person was reacting against the sign’s pronouncement that we’re affirming of the LGBTQ+ community. We knew the person had been hurt by the Church in the past. We offered forgiveness instead of punitiveness.

• At Evening Prayer, parishioners go out of their way to help newcomers navigate the complexities of the liturgy, offering such warmth and welcome that newcomers want to return to worship with us.

• One of our youngest parishioners greets another child at formation after they’d been absent for a few weeks with a hug and the words, “I’ve missed you so much.”

• Coffee hours after Sung Mass are more and more crowded. There’s such warmth and welcome. All are fed. Everyone is “seen.” Community is formed. We’re not alike, and some of us see the world quite differently. But we agree to exist together in love and respect for one another.

• Our Pilgrims in Christ group is growing, now at fifteen participants. Each newcomer is welcomed with open arms. Many different backgrounds and religious experiences are represented. All are united in a desire to know Christ more deeply.

• Eleven children darken the doors of the church weekly (and some twice a week) to make music, enjoy each other’s presence, and find a very special kind of community.

• Parishioners are working quietly behind the scenes to help those who are in need so that we can truly be a parish that welcomes the stranger.

These are only a few “scenes” from a parish that I believe is committed to “living with minds renewed by God’s mercy.” In the coming weeks, there will be several opportunities to invite others to experience the beauty of this parish community. Would you consider inviting a friend to come with you to church? Remember that wonderful invitation from John’s Gospel: “Come and see.” This Sunday, our children choristers will sing at Sung Mass. Come and see. On Monday, we will celebrate Thanksgiving as a parish with a Low Mass with hymns at 6 p.m., followed by a potluck. Come and see. On Sunday, December 7, parishioner Bonnie Hoffman-Adams will offer an Advent Quiet Day on “Praying with Icons.” Come and see. On December 8, we will welcome at least fourteen new members to the parish at Sung Mass. Come and see. On December 15, we’ll anticipate the coming of Christmas with a beautiful service of Advent Lessons and Carols at 3 p.m. Come and see. Come, bringing others along as well, to see the Spirit at work in a community “living with minds renewed by God’s mercy.”

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

November 15, 2024

One of the many gifts of praying the Daily Office is being exposed to a lot of Scripture. Praying Morning and Evening Prayer every day, one is forced to reckon with large swathes of Scripture that are never encountered in the Mass readings and that one would probably not seek out for private study or meditation. We hear dry lists of purity codes in Leviticus but also humorous tidbits, like Jehu son of Nimshi, who “drives like a maniac” (RSV translation, 2 Kings 9:20) and Balaam’s talking donkey in Numbers 22.

And we hear things that we might never wish to hear again. We read of God’s people entering the Promised Land after their years of wandering in the wilderness and slaughtering all those in their path because they believed they had an unquestioned right to the land. We read of blatant xenophobia in Ezra and Nehemiah. We recite psalms in which horrible things happen to enemies, and indeed, where we ask God to do horrible things to those who have wronged us. We are confronted with the sometimes-violent language of the Book of Revelation. The list of such difficult passages is quite long.

But I, for one, am glad that we don’t have a Jefferson Bible, where everything we dislike is removed. I’m glad we didn’t go the way of Marcion, whom the early Church deemed a heretic because he excised the entire Old Testament, claiming it told of a vengeful, wrathful God who was different from the God of the New Testament. All this censoring of Scripture impoverishes us. How, you might ask? Why should we be forced to read of brutal genocide and pray psalms that entreat God for vengeance on our enemies? Well, because the omission of those offensive passages is dishonest.

It’s dishonest to pretend as if we’ve never had a wrathful feeling towards someone who has wronged us, and it’s false to pretend as if our ancestors in faith didn’t either. Which of us is immune from the many sinful impulses of which we read in the Bible? The Bible is, above all, an honest document. The formation of the canon of Scripture wasn’t intended to create a pure, logically-consistent document. It was intended to give us a clear-eyed testament, from the perspective of human authors working under divine inspiration, of how God’s people have come to understand his presence in their lives. The errors in judgment of those who committed atrocious acts in the past in the name of God shouldn’t be banished from our memory, even if we rightly abhor their sinful deeds. If we’re honest about our own sinful tendencies, we’ll continue to read the Bible’s uncomfortable passages and learn from them. We’ll see just how far removed human arrogance and violence are from the God who inspired the injunctions in Leviticus to leave the edges of the land unharvested for the neighbor in need. We’ll see how far removed all the nasty parts of the Bible are from the Shema. We’ll see how far they’re removed from the God who is revealed to us in Christ Jesus. And we’ll look inside our own hearts to acknowledge there the same sinful inclinations present also in others, at which we so often point our fingers in judgment.

If anything, holy Scripture keeps the Church honest. In a hierarchical Church such as ours, there’s a great temptation for authority and power to be abused. In an age of growing national exceptionalism in many corners of the world, including our own, it’s not such a large step from Biblical faithfulness (whatever that might mean for some) to secular exclusivity. Many modern-day Christians aren’t so different from our ancestors in faith who believed they had a divine mandate to destroy others. So, if we continue to confront the more horrendous passages from the Bible—corrected by the knowledge of God’s love and compassion revealed in Christ—we should be severely humbled. Scripture holds up a mirror to us in judgment.

I’ve been thinking about this aspect of Scripture over the past week, partly because we’re discussing the Bible in our Pilgrims in Christ formation process, and partly because I’ve recently learned of the horrendous details of the abuse scandal in the Church of England involving John Smyth and his numerous victims. All of this led Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to resign on Tuesday. Welby admits, in a spirit of repentance, to not doing enough to ensure that the concerns of the victims’ families were heeded. He has said that he failed to take necessary action to report the actions of Smyth to the proper authorities, which could have prevented further abuse. Inaction is in the category of “things left undone” that we confess regularly in our general confession at Mass.

For many people who have left the Church, they can no longer tolerate the Church’s longstanding culture of secrecy and hypocrisy. Many can’t see past centuries of abused authority and misused power, which has led to all manner of disastrous consequences. I understand the revulsion towards this tragic history. And yet, I have great faith in the Church. The Church is composed of fallible humans, but she is still God’s Church. Christ is Lord of the Church, not any bishop or priest or lay person. The Holy Spirit has not abandoned the Church either. The Spirit is alive and active, purging the Church of sin, nudging her to reform, and empowering her to mission in the world.

So, how do we remain faithful to the Church despite her past and current sins? This is where Scripture keeps us honest. We need to understand our own history so as not to repeat the same mistakes. We need to learn our own history so as to be humbled by the risks that come with power and privilege. We need to tell the truth about modern-day scandals, not as gossip but as a way of confessing the Church’s weaknesses so that she can live anew in the power of God’s forgiveness. To boldly confront the unsavory dimensions of the Church’s life is rather like bracing ourselves to stomach one of those offensive passages from the Bible. We shouldn’t ignore or cancel them; we should wrestle with them as a way of discerning how God has done something new, time and again, from out of chaos and human failure.

We have no secrets before God. God is calling us to utter honesty with ourselves and each other. The Church offers us ways of becoming more honest and humble, one of which is the Sacrament of Reconciliation (private confession). During times when our faith in the Church and her leaders is tested, God invites us not to give up hope but to remember that Jesus alone is Lord of the Church. Jesus alone is our Savior. And we’re his Body, his Church, called to holiness. Despite her complicated history, the Church is holy because she ultimately belongs to God. The Church is the living Body of Christ on earth and in heaven. Christ is calling us to repentance, forgiveness, and then thanksgiving for God’s abundant mercy.

We should pray for the victims of John Smyth’s heinous abuse, as well as for the victims’ families. We should pray for an increase of spiritual maturity and humility within the Church. We should pray for all who hold authority in the Church. We should pray for Justin Welby. Let us encourage one another to honesty and love, holding one another accountable as we seek to grow into the full stature of Christ.

Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (BCP, p. 816)

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

November 8, 2024

During my last year in seminary, on the day after the 2016 presidential election, my liturgy professor walked into our class. He knew, of course, that there were many complicated emotions swirling around. He asked the class to open the Book of Common Prayer to Psalm 46, and we prayed together:

God is our refuge and strength, *
    a very present help in trouble. 

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, *
    and though the mountains be toppled into the
                             depths of the sea; 

Though its waters rage and foam, *
    and though the mountains tremble at its tumult. 

The LORD of hosts is with us; *
    the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, *
    the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her;
she shall not be overthrown; *
    God shall help her at the break of day. 

The nations make much ado, and the kingdoms are shaken; *
    God has spoken, and the earth shall melt away. 

The LORD of hosts is with us; *
    the God of Jacob is our stronghold. 

Come now and look upon the works of the LORD, *
    what awesome things he has done on earth. 

It is he who makes war to cease in all the world; *
    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear,
    and burns the shields with fire.

"Be still, then, and know that I am God; *
    I will be exalted among the nations;
    I will be exalted in the earth." 

The LORD of hosts is with us; *
    the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Then, we all closed our prayer books, and we had class. It was so simple and yet so profound. What the class needed that day—and there were conflicting political perspectives in that class—was a reminder that God is our rock. No earthly ruler is our rock. No human being is our savior. And even if our world seems to be falling apart, the LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

So, now, just a few days after another major presidential election held in the midst of searing divisiveness, the Church must remember her roots. If you’re disappointed or dismayed with the results, please remember that we’re called to hope—not to be unrealistic or naive, but to hope. This doesn’t diminish our very real fear and anxiety, but hope comes to us within such emotions. Be honest about how you’re feeling; God can handle it. But, ultimately, hope means trusting that the Lord of hosts is with us, even in the valley of the shadow of death. If you’re pleased with the election results, please remember that for many, the results have brought great fear and pain. The election results are deeply personal for many vulnerable citizens. So, for you who might be content with the election outcome, remember, too, that God alone is our hope and strength, something no earthly ruler or government can claim to be.

Emotional times are dangerous times because we can lose our moorings. We may say things we regret. We may make drastic decisions. Social media doesn’t help any of this. But be wary, because in these moments we’re vulnerable to the wiles of the great Deceiver, the Devil. He will prey on our disagreements and despair. He will try to turn us against one another. It’s precisely at this moment, as the Church, that we should remember what we hold in common and what we believe. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. No mortal being can validly make that claim. As the wonderful hymn tells us, “Mortal pride and earthly glory, sword and crown betray our trust; though with care and toil we build them, tower and temple fall to dust” (#665, “All my hope on God is founded,” Robert Seymour Bridges, in The Hymnal 1982).

Is not this, then, a moment for the Church to rise in strength? Our prayer book catechism says that the mission of the Church is “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (p. 855). No matter how we feel about this past Tuesday, restoration is our calling. Nothing should get in the way of this. There may be moments in the coming years in which the Church will be called to make difficult decisions to remain true to the Gospel. Time will tell. But we don’t know nor can we predict the future. All we can do is embrace our call from God to be people of restoration and reconciliation, of love, hope, and peace.

At Good Shepherd, I believe we will do this. I believe we will seek reconciliation with one another. If we have wronged another, we will ask for God’s forgiveness. If our conscience is troubling us about something, we can avail ourselves of the healing grace found in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (private confession). We will be a place that stands out from “the world/cosmos” in that we will humbly recognize that we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. This, in fact, binds us together rather than driving us apart. We will find our deepest communion/restoration with God and one another in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. We will proclaim that every human being has dignity in the eyes of God. We will welcome the stranger and those on the margins. We will strive to love as Jesus loved. While we may speak words of disagreement at times, we will always speak them in charity. We will proclaim the Great Commandment and teach it to our children so they can teach it to their children: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. We will embrace every person who comes here, regardless of their social status, sexual orientation, political views, gender identity, or background, and we will ensure that our speech to one another is honest but charitable. We will be a safe place if other places become dangerous. We will commit ourselves to being united despite our differences rather than divided by them. We’re children of the Gospel, and nothing else can claim our ultimate loyalty. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

As your priest, I will be here for you to talk or listen if you’re in despair. I am your priest regardless of where you are emotionally in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election. Do not hesitate to call me or reach out at anytime. We’re accountable to one another as fellow Christians on the Way. We’re all here together, sinners loved and redeemed by God, working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Perhaps this Sunday is an especially appropriate time for Commitment Sunday. It is, practically speaking, the day in which we bring our pledge cards to Mass as visible signs of our financial commitment to ministry in this parish. But it’s much more than that. By making a commitment to ministry at Good Shepherd, we’re making a wholistic commitment to the values of the Gospel. We’re committing to be together in love. We’re committing ourselves to love God, self, and neighbor. We’re committing ourselves to reconciliation, not to division. These are all values that we hold dear at Good Shepherd, and it’s what makes this parish such a profoundly beautiful place.

Above all, let us pray for and with one another. If you feel helpless and without answers, extend grace to yourself and ask God for strength and patience. Ask your fellow parishioners or me for support. If you’re feeling content and proud, pray as well; ask for humility and remember those who are in despair right now. We have one Savior, and he is our Lord Jesus Christ. We have one God, and he is to be worshipped and adored with all that we are and have. The Holy Spirit is still moving among us, always calling us to greater unity, to love, and to peace. Remember what Jesus told his followers: in our hour of anguish and need, the Holy Spirit will teach us what to say (Luke 12:12). May that be so. And remember: The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. He always has been, and he always will be.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

November 1, 2024

Every year at the Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter, we either welcome someone into the Body of Christ at the font, or we renew our own baptismal vows. It happens in the dark after we’ve heard the ancient stories of God’s saving actions among his people, all by the small but piercing light of the Paschal candle. For those of us who know how the liturgy goes, we’re aware that, by the time we’re at the font, we’re quite close to proclaiming the first Alleluias of Easter. The suspense is thick. The water in the font has been blessed, baptism has happened, and then there’s a wonderful procession from the font to the altar, all still in the dark, with hints of candlelight.

As the procession moves to the altar, a litany is sung by the choir. It’s the Litany of the Saints. As the congregation is aspersed with holy water, we call on the prayers of those we believe are in the nearer presence of God. Holy Mary, Holy Peter, Holy James, Holy Joseph, Holy Lancelot Andrewes, Holy Jonathan Myrick Daniels. . . Pray for us! We sing it with great enthusiasm as our hearts beat faster. The effect of this chanting is ethereal, a cascading effect of names of those who have gone before us. Some gave their lives at the stake or at the teeth of lions in Roman arenas, and some died peacefully in their beds. But all believed in Christ. All believed in the resurrection from the dead. All let the light of Christ guide their lives.

In the dark, after a long Lent and a patient waiting for Easter to break, the Litany of the Saints is a powerful reminder that we’re not alone. It’s yet one more affirmation that we can’t be Christians without the help and aid of others. We can’t be Christians without swallowing our pride and asking for the prayers of our friends in Christ. And it’s our job to pray for them as well.

Just seven months after the Easter Vigil, we celebrate All Saints’ Day. Now, unlike spring, the days are getting shorter. We encounter more darkness with each day that grows closer to December 21. But in addition to the physical darkness outside, there’s a metaphorical darkness around us in this nation as we approach the divisive election of a new president. We’re surrounded by bitter rancor, hateful rhetoric, and searing anxiety from all kinds of people. We seem to be in a state of intractable conflict and division. Is it any wonder, then, that many of us might feel alone, beleaguered, hopeless, and anxious? It’s into the midst of this time of political turmoil and national disunity that the Church has a word to say from her ancient tradition. We’re not alone, and there’s a holy alternative to this state of affairs.

All Saints’ Day affirms these things. We’re not alone. If the Church is truly being the Church, we’ll testify to this in word and deed. We need each other, and the world needs us and the Gospel’s beautiful message of peace and love. On All Saints’ Day, when the veil is peeled back for a time between this world and the next, we catch a glimpse of how things should be, a holy alternative to our present lack of peace and unity. It’s found in the worship of heaven, which is wondrous and glorious, full of united song and praise. There’s more to our existence than anxiety, worry, fighting, and hate. There’s the joy of being in communion with one another, just as on All Saints’ Day, we celebrate our deep union with those who are in the nearer presence of God. They pray for us, and we pray for them. They sing with us, and we sing with them.

As we approach Election Day, remember that we’re meant to be working together, not against one another. The Gospel truth is reconciliation not division. If we’re fostering divisiveness in any kind of way, then we’re missing the Gospel truth. We may not always agree (and that’s okay), but we must love sacrificially. We must always look out for those who will be trampled on by this world. This is who we are as the Church. I pray that the Church across the world in this divided age might have the courage to speak this truth. The world needs to hear it. On Tuesday, November 5, the church will be open all day, as usual for prayer. Stop by if you can to pray Morning Prayer at 9 a.m. or Evening Prayer at 5:30 p.m. We will also offer Low Mass at 12:05 p.m. with prayers for the nation and for a peaceful election process.

But before then, and to remember our Gospel call to unity, come and celebrate All Saints’ Day. This evening, come to Mass at 7 p.m. on this Principal Feast to remember your baptism (or look forward to your future baptism!). Come to rejoice in song and glorious worship with those beloved saints who are still alive in Christ and are experiencing the perfect unity that we can only dream about here. Feast with our parish community after Mass in our retreat house as a visible sign of our dear fellowship. And then come to Mass again on All Souls’ Day, November 2, to pray for those beloved of us who are still making their pilgrimage to the throne of God. Finally, come to Mass yet again on Sunday, because it’s the Lord’s Day. There’s no day like it. For over two thousand years, Christians have gotten up on the first day of the week to remember that we’re never alone. We need each other. And nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, as St. Paul tells us. And this is so because on the first day of the week, Jesus broke the bonds of death and defeated once and for all the evil that still rears its ugly head among us in our own day. But the victory has been won, and in this time of great division, it’s our job—our bounden duty—as Christians, to get up on the first day of the week, every week, to proclaim that what unites us is greater than what divides us. Hope is always present to us if we dare to see it. The Mass is where we find our deepest communion with God and one another.

If you’ve been away from the church for some time, it’s never too late to come back. If you know someone who’s been away from church for a while, bring them to church with you. The Church is our mother, our true home on this side of heaven. In this time of darkening days, physical and metaphorical, let’s celebrate the light that always shines in the darkness. And nothing can put it out.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

October 25, 2024

Read Scripture carefully, and you will notice how non-anxious Jesus usually is. People, whether his opponents or his disciples, try to lure him into their circles of anxiety, and he resists. Jesus had quite a lot to say about avoiding anxiety. Of course, he said nothing about biological and chemical predispositions to anxiety, which are very real and beyond our control in some ways, but Jesus’s words, on a spiritual level, are helpful, nonetheless. “Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on” (Matthew 6:25). And “do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day” (Matthew 6:34).

There are many other examples from Scripture of Jesus refusing to take the bait of anxiety. The problem with anxiety is that it wants to be passed on. It’s like a bad gift that no one wants to keep. We instinctively want others to take on our anxiety, as if that would make us feel better. But Jesus invites us into trust, but more concretely, into proactivity. In the feeding of the 5,000 (if you recall from last week’s message), the disciples are anxious that there’s not enough for the massive crowd to eat. “You give them something to eat,” Jesus says. If only they could trust that there was enough to go around, they would stop fretting and try to do something about it!

This season of stewardship is a summons into a stance of proactivity rather than reactivity. I don’t need to enumerate the ways in which reactivity has been a disastrous part of our own parish’s history. But over the past four years, I believe we’ve moved into a more proactive posture. The parish’s leadership no longer spend much time fretting and worrying about money (even though we have significant financial challenges). Rather, the parish leaders recognize our many challenges and say, what can we do about it? Let’s make a plan. This is the heart of our five-year plan for fiscal sustainability. All our talk about this plan is not an obsession with money. It’s about being honest that it takes money and vision to do the ministry to which God is calling us. We need to talk about money. We have to talk about money. If we’re resistant to talking about it, then there is perhaps a spiritual issue within us that we need to confront.

So, rather than worrying ceaselessly about drawing too much money from our meager investments, our vestry has said, “Okay, let’s look at five years and see how we can get from here to there, from a deficit budget to a balanced budget.” Over the past few weeks, the Advancement Committee has been explaining why we continue to increase our pledge goal each year. What will such an increase support? For one, increased pledged giving supports expanded ministry, like our new, thriving chorister program. It supports fair compensation for our hard-working staff. But it also supports proactive care of our magnificent buildings and property.

There are over 15,440 square feet of property on this campus, all of which we must maintain. Some of it we rent out, but we are still responsible for caring for this property, which ultimately belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. By canon law, we are entrusted by the diocese to steward this property. And much of it is well over a hundred years old, some buildings dating from the late 19th century. Needless to say, there is a large amount of deferred maintenance on our campus. We could worry and fret about this space. But the parish’s leaders have decided to say, “what a gift from God! What a gift to the local community! What priceless space to be used for Gospel ministry.” Maintaining 15,440 square feet of property can’t be done by a staff of two part-time employees, a full-time priest, and a part-time financial administrator. The vestry recently agreed to hire Kevin Loughery, a local contractor, to spend up to five hours a week (as an independent contractor) to tend to building and property needs. You may recall that Kevin was responsible for the gorgeous renovations of the retreat house a couple of years ago. Kevin is a wonderful human being and a gifted craftsman. Already, his presence on campus has helped us care more proactively for our buildings.

Speaking of buildings and property, I invite you to join me and others for a workday in our Memorial Garden tomorrow, October 26, from 1 to 3 p.m. The Memorial Garden (on the side of the church near the circle drive) is the resting place of the mortal remains of two parishioners, with room for many more burials. As we approach All Souls’ Day and as a gesture of love for those who have been laid to rest in the garden, we will clean up the garden and begin envisioning a plan for its future. Register in Realm to let us know you’ll be there, or simply show up!

A proactive stance towards our buildings and property requires an increase in our budget in 2025. This is only one way in which pledged giving allows Good Shepherd to thrive and continue to be a stable presence of spiritual depth in the local community and wider Church. This year’s appeal from our Advancement Committee is one that invites us to echo what our vestry has been doing over the past few years—to be risky in generosity. The Gospel demands nothing less than utterly reckless, sacrificial giving of all that we have and all that we are.

If we listened only to the constant voices of anxiety in our culture, we might be incapacitated by fear. But we at Good Shepherd have chosen to listen to our Lord. Why worry about tomorrow’s troubles? Why worry or fret at all? God knows the number of hairs on our heads. God knows our troubles and our challenges. And God also provides. God has given us enough. Now, gracious Lord, give us the eyes to see it.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

October 18, 2024

If we imagine the canon of Scripture as a three-dimensional map, there are certain stories from the Bible that stand out in bold relief, like raised mountains towering above the plain. It’s not so much that these key stories are more important than others; it’s rather that they speak across the ages in powerful, timeless ways. Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000 is one such story. It appears in all four Gospels, signaling that there is something vastly important about it. It was in this story that I heard a clear word from the Lord during Morning Prayer this past week.

Scripture is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” as the Book of Hebrews tells us (4:12). When listening to or reading Scripture, God speaks into our lives from out of the text through the power of the Holy Spirit—at least, if we’re open to it. When I heard a word from the Lord on Wednesday of this week, it was during an ordinary service of Morning Prayer that I was leading. It was just me in the church (and anyone tuning in on the livestream). I had been musing that morning about church finances and thinking about our ongoing pledge campaign. And then, some words lit up for me. It was the story of Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000 in Luke’s Gospel (9:1-17).

A huge crowd was following Jesus, and at the end of a long day, the twelve disciples tell Jesus, “Send the crowd away, to go into the villages and country round about, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a lonely place.” And Jesus turns the tables on them. "You give them something to eat,” he says (emphasis added). The disciples don’t think there’s enough to feed the crowd. They want Jesus to do something about it. But Jesus holds them accountable. They may have only five loaves of bread and two fish, but with that, Jesus works a miracle. I don’t buy the reductionist interpretation that Jesus simply inspired everyone’s generosity so that they dug bread and fish out of their pockets, which they’d been hoarding. I believe Jesus worked a miracle. But I also believe that there’s something profound in that miracle beyond simply the multiplication of loaves and fishes. There had been enough all along, even though the disciples doubted. That was the good news that I needed to hear in Morning Prayer. When we think there isn’t enough, God shows us that we already have enough to do what he’s calling us to do because God’s abundance is miraculous. And recognizing that is also its own kind of miracle.

It should come as no surprise that we’re in the midst of our 2025 pledge campaign at Good Shepherd. Every year, this season of stewardship is intended to help us cultivate a spiritual posture to last the entire year—our whole lives, really. The message is this: there’s always enough. God is generous and has been generous with us, and so our only proper response is to be generous in return. There’s a direct correlation between generosity and trust in God’s gracious provision. Those who are grateful to God and believe in God’s goodness tend to be naturally generous with what God has given them. A pledge campaign is asking us to take a chance on generosity in a very practical way: by making a financial commitment to this parish to support its ministry, which is really God’s ministry.

Perhaps I should say a few words about the practice of pledging, as it may be unfamiliar to some of you. If it’s not, it still might be useful to understand why pledging is an essential part of our life in community. Practically speaking, sacrificial giving from all who are active in this parish is necessary to ensure that Good Shepherd can continue to thrive into the future. Other than some financial support from our diocese towards my salary, Good Shepherd is entirely self-sustaining. And each year, we’re weaning ourselves off that diocesan support. Our projected operating budget in 2025 is around $500,000. We may be a small parish (although growing!), but to maintain our substantial buildings and property, ensure that our staff are compensated fairly, and support expanding ministry, our budget can’t remain small. We rely rather heavily on rental income to support our budget, but beyond that, pledging is the primary way in which we can sustain ministry at Good Shepherd. It’s the healthiest way of supporting ministry here.

Our investments are quite limiated, to date around $450,000. But currently, we have to draw too heavily from these investments to support our budget, which is not sustainable. We are passing a deficit budget each year. The vestry and I are fully aware of this, and so, to address this issue in a responsible fashion, our five-year financial plan is intended to get us to a balanced budget by 2028. In 2020, total giving (pledge and other giving) in the parish was $52,000. In 2024, over $185,000 was pledged ($15,000 more than the 2024 goal)! You can see that we’re headed in the right direction! Our vestry has rightly understood that we need to give ourselves time to increase our own parish giving to support our budget and refrain from drawing from the capital of our investments. And at the same time, each year we must revisit our five-year plan and adjust it to account for expanded ministry, a sign that this parish is growing and not declining. A static budget would mean that we’re not growing.

Reaching our goal in 2028 of a fully balanced budget is ambitious but realizable. When I heard God giving me a word in Scripture at Morning Prayer the other day, I was gently reminded that everything we need is right before our eyes. I’m convinced that we have more than enough to reach this year’s pledge goal of $225,000. If we truly believe we’re responding to God’s call faithfully in envisioning ministry, then we must also trust that we have what we need to support it financially. Jesus is saying to us, you give them something to eat. Jesus is inviting us into ministry. Yes, we must get our hands dirty and live out the vision to which we’re called. But we must also support this ministry through our own sacrificial giving. Giving goes along with doing. They work together.

God is asking us to give to further the work of his kingdom not out of fear, but out of trust. Throughout this pledge campaign, I’ve been inviting each of you to join me in giving sacrificially as a spiritual practice of rejecting the ubiquitous narrative of fear. This might mean working towards a tithe on net income or increasing your pledge from last year. Consider prioritizing your giving to God first, and then balance everything else out.

The leadership of this parish has been recklessly generous in its own stewardship of finances over the past several years. When other parishes might have been tempted to slash budgets out of fear, Good Shepherd’s leadership has elected to trust that while we need to draw more from our investments in the short-term to be a vibrant parish, we can have confidence in God’s gracious provision. By asking you to be generous in your pledging this year, we’re asking you to echo what this parish’s leadership has already been doing. And of course, it’s what God always does for us.

Before you make your pledge, pray. Ask for God’s wisdom. A pledge can be any amount of money, $50 or $5,000 or more, so I believe that everyone can pledge. Pledging is about our life in community because we’re all in this ministry endeavor together. We need each other. Our gifts of money and time to this parish are tangible expressions of our commitment to this parish.

You give them something to eat. I believe that Christ is calling us to feed the world (not simply rely on renters or other unexpected financial gifts to enable the feeding to happen). We who are part of this community called the Church of the Good Shepherd are called to feed the world. And I believe, too, that we have what we need to feed the world. We’re already feeding others. But to ensure that Good Shepherd can feed more and more people with the good news of the Gospel, your and my financial support is crucial.

It’s not too early to pledge. In fact, I encourage you to pledge now online if you haven’t already done so. If you have, thank you! You don’t have to wait until Commitment Sunday (November 10). But on Commitment Sunday, bring your completed pledge card to Mass (even if you’ve pledged online) as a visible sign of your commitment to ministry in this parish. Why pledge? One final word: it’s the most reliable and sustainable means of giving to Good Shepherd. We welcome and are grateful for your special gifts, but I ask you, regardless, to make a pledge. It’s a way of trusting this parish’s responsible leadership to decide how your generous gifts will be a part of Good Shepherd’s thriving in the future.

How does the Gospel story end? “All ate and were satisfied. And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces.” There was enough. There was more than enough. That’s always the way it is with God.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

October 11, 2024

Over twenty years ago, I was serving as an organ scholar in an Episcopal parish in northwest Connecticut while in graduate school. My boss and mentor was a magnificent church musician who lived with his wife on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere. One night, after a choir concert and an ensuing party, I stayed the night with my boss and his wife since there was another concert the following day and it was too far to drive back to my home nearly an hour away. After everyone had turned in for the night, I was preparing to turn in as well and noticed that the front door was unlocked. I spent a good deal of time trying to lock the door, but to no avail. I only fell sleep uneasily, knowing the front door was still unlocked. The next morning, I explained to my boss what had happened, and he laughed. He said the door was never locked; in fact, the door had to be locked with a key, but he had no clue where the key was!

I had never heard of leaving a door unlocked at night, and I suppose it was perfectly safe on a remote mountaintop in northwest Connecticut. It’s not a good idea, of course, in most places. But the sentiment is lovely. The door to that house was always unlocked, suggesting a level of trust regarding the outside world. Without literalizing unlocked doors to our peril, in what way can the Church—indeed, Good Shepherd—be a place with unlocked doors, all the time, for all people? To be such a place, we must be secure in our identity as the Church, formed and sustained by God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church isn’t called to lock our doors against the world as if the world is a threat. If we know who we are and understand our ecclesial vocation, then we can confidently unlock our doors to the world. That is precisely God’s call to the Church.

As a parish with a retreat house ministry based around hospitality, we claim to be a place with open doors. We leave the church doors open during weekdays for people to stop in and pray. We’re responding to St. Benedict’s encouragement to greet all guests as Christ himself. Over the past two years, the Rosemont Community Retreat House has opened its doors to visitors from across the world. Hardly a week goes by when someone or some group is not in the retreat house as a guest. I’ve been moved by the feedback we’ve received from guests. From vestries on day retreats to individuals making their own retreats, many have said how welcomed they felt here. There’s something intangibly warm and inviting about reading in the downstairs library or hearing the church bells ring the Angelus. The atmospheric qualities of being on retreat at Good Shepherd don’t go unnoticed by our guests.

When we started planning our retreat house ministry over two years ago, we took a leap of faith. It was a major undertaking for this small parish to renovate a large house with significant deferred maintenance and to build and sustain a new ministry. But it transpired through hard work and abundant generosity from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, the Association of Anglican Musicians, and numerous organizations and people. Because of the incredible labor of Kevin Loughery, our contractor, we were able to renovate the former rectory and turn it into a beautiful place for retreat. The parish’s leadership felt quite strongly that God was calling us to this ministry of hospitality. We looked around at several thousand square feet of largely unused space and were convinced that it could be a resource for the local community and wider Church. Ministry usually begins with a dream. Rooted in prayer, people assess the resources that God has given them and the gifts present in the faithful gathered in a particular place, and then an idea for ministry ensues. It was that way with us.

Many of you have come to Good Shepherd since the Rosemont Community Retreat House opened. But perhaps some of you have not spent much time in the retreat house other than for coffee hour or a parish potluck supper. As we look towards sustaining this ministry for the long-haul, we need and welcome your input, ideas, and help. The retreat house has already touched many lives. I pray that it will continue to touch many more for years to come.

But there’s a dimension to the retreat house that I don’t believe has yet been realized. While the house is a place for prayer and respite for people from across the wider Church, I pray that it will also be used as a vital resource to address needs in our local community. It is, after all, a community retreat house. We’ve not yet fully lived into this part of the vision for our retreat house, but it’s crucial to our identity as followers of Jesus Christ and especially as a parish within the Anglo-Catholic tradition. We may be a parish that draws people from several different states, but we’re rooted in the village of Bryn Mawr in Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County. I’m convinced that God’s vision for us must emerge from our local context as well as through our connections to the wider Church.

Last week, members of the vestry and some other parishioners met with thirteen people from the local community for a Community Conversation guided by Partners for Sacred Places. We gave tours of the retreat house, church, cloister, and parish house. And then we sat down with our neighbors to ask what struck them about our buildings. In what ways could our buildings be used to partner with organizations doing life-changing work in the local community? What unmet needs are there in our community that we can address through the development of our buildings and property? Because we’re still dependent on rental income from our Parish House, perhaps we should start to answer these questions by looking at our retreat house.

We must not forget the poor, whether the materially poor or the spiritually poor. They are and always will be with us in this life, as Jesus has said. Each of us is poor in some way. We move from honoring the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar to honoring his Real Presence in the poor. What will that look like for us at Good Shepherd? Answering this question is not the sole responsibility of the vestry. It will start there as we begin to unpack it in next week’s vestry meeting, but it must then spill over into our whole life in community. All of us need to be a part of it. What those conversations with you will look like and when they will occur are yet to be determined, but they will happen.

In the meantime, I ask you to pray for a greater understanding of how we can engage more with our local community as a natural outgrowth of our worship together. Ask God to show us how we can be with the poor more intentionally. Spend a night in our retreat house. We will all be better interpreters of God’s call to us if we can understand the potential of our buildings. As we approach All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, consider spending a night in our retreat house on Friday, November 1 after our parish potluck, and then stay on campus to attend the All Souls’ Requiem Mass on November 2. Book your room here, and if you’d rather not worry about a donation, email us. The retreat house is not just for outside guests; it’s for all of us. In the coming months, you will hear more about parish conversations intended to help us all discern the specifics of the outward-looking posture to which God is calling us. I’ll look forward to seeing you in church on Sunday!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle