The Week of August 13, 2023

In Scripture, we hear Jesus invite children into his presence. “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Luke 18:15-17; see also Matthew 19:13-15 and Mark 10:13-16). Biblical scholars tell us that the point of Jesus inviting the children to him is not so much that little children are innocent but that they represented some of the most vulnerable in ancient society. So, Jesus lovingly welcomes the most marginalized and helpless. Point taken. But does this also have to mean that we adults can’t learn something profound from children? How many times have you seen a young child understand the mystery, joy, or humor of God more easily than an adult? For me, at least, I find it quite helpful to learn from the genuine openness and receptivity of children who have not yet been jaded by a difficult, harsh world. I think this has a lot to do with the posture required to enter the kingdom of heaven.

This past week at Good Shepherd was a reminder of what children can teach us in our lives of faith. Friday concludes our third annual children’s summer camp. Eleven children, more than half of whom were from outside the parish, spent five days learning about the ways in which God’s goodness is echoed in God’s good creation. Our theme was “Let All Creation Praise the Lord.” Each day, we began with prayer and then a story from Scripture, most of which were from our Godly Play curriculum. We sang, danced, made beautiful art, played games, and took field trips around the campus each day. The porch of our retreat house was a fantastic venue for art and play. The week culminated in a skit created and produced by the children that tells the story of creation, using pieces of music that represent the seven days of the creation story. It has been a delight to watch the children put their whole minds and heart into this imaginative enterprise.

Just three years ago, there was no children’s formation here at Good Shepherd. But with interest from a couple of families, and the support of the parish, we began a ministry for children and families at the height of the pandemic. It has grown by the grace of God over the past three years, and I pray this ministry will continue to flourish. There are many children in our neighborhood, and I often wonder if they have a church. Do these young children know God and his endless love and mercy? I hope so, and if not, I hope our parish might be a place where they can know God in Christ. Our annual children’s summer camp is just one way in which we reach out our hands to the local community to show God’s love to all.

I’m grateful to our camp helpers this week: Gail McCown, Heidi Kolberg, Sarah Austen, and Kit Apostolacus. Margaret Helminska and Anna Helminska provided snacks for the week, and our parish staff offered support to ensure that camp went smoothly. It’s a great gift that a parish of our size can support an endeavor like this week’s.

May God continue to bless this parish with children and families. May we always seek to be a community where children can see the love and joy of God visibly expressed in Christian witness. And perhaps it will be the children themselves who help us appreciate more fully the boundless forgiveness and compassion of a God who is always welcoming us home.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of August 6, 2023

A few months ago, when I announced that our beloved Organist and Choirmaster Matt Glandorf had been called to a new church position in Germany, I also announced that, with the consent of the vestry, I had asked Jack Warren Burnam to serve as our Interim Organist and Choirmaster at Good Shepherd while we conducted a thorough and prayerful search for a new Director of Music. I was thrilled that Jack accepted my invitation, after some consideration, and I’m happy to say that Jack is now officially on staff here at Good Shepherd as of August 1. He will be with us at least through the end of 2023.

You can learn more about Jack by visiting our staff page on the parish website. Jack comes to us with significant experience in church music in the Episcopal Church, retiring recently from Immanuel-Church-on-the-Green in New Castle, Delaware. Leaf through The Hymnal 1982 and you will even find some hymns harmonized by Jack! Jack is a published composer, a faithful Christian, and a wonderfully nice person. He and his wife, Jeannette, have worshipped at Good Shepherd on numerous occasions and, I feel, have already become a part of this parish community.

When Jack agreed to serve as Interim Organist and Choirmaster at Good Shepherd, he had already committed to a number of summer Sundays as a supply organist in other parishes. So, while Jack is officially on our staff, we will not see him regularly on Sundays until September 3, although Jack will be playing for us on August 20. However, Jack is busy at work already. He showed up for Morning Prayer yesterday morning to pray with me, and we have begun meeting and planning liturgies for the fall. I’m very much looking forward to serving with Jack.

I hope you will introduce yourself to him when you see him on August 20, and please join me in heartily welcoming Jack and Jeannette to Good Shepherd!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of July 30, 2023

Some years ago when I was serving as Director of Music in a parish, I made a presentation at an adult formation hour to explain why the parish should fund staff singers to support the volunteer choir. This parish had no history of paid staff singers as section leaders, so it was a big step for me to push towards adding that expense to the music budget. As part of my presentation, I looked at John 12:1-8, where Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus’s feet with precious, pure nard and wipes them with her hair. To me, this passage explains why we can justify spending money on music, vestments, and other aspects of worship, especially when the temptation might be to cut corners. True, we could worship without music. True, a priest could even celebrate Mass without vestments (and certainly without nice ones!). We could even (shudder!) buy electronic candles for the high altar. But that’s not the point. The point is that in John 12:1-8, Jesus justifies what Mary did. Remember that Judas Iscariot is the first to condemn Mary’s actions. “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” And we know what he ended up doing to Jesus. Judas’s protest creates a straw man. It’s not either you anoint Jesus’s feet with oil or you give to the poor. It’s not about any of that. Jesus affirms that Mary’s act of love and devotion is beautiful in and of itself. Full stop.

I recently finished reading Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by the Japanese artist Makoto Fujimura (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2020), and I was pleased to see that Fujimura also looks at John 12 (and John 11) to argue how artists are theologians. Artists, Fujimura suggests, spend time on things that our culture considers a waste of time. Painters spend all day in their studios on one finger of a person’s hand. Musicians practice for months for one hour-long recital. Fujimura contrasts our culture’s impatience and utilitarianism with what he calls a “Lazarus culture” (see ch. 10). Lazarus, you might recall, was Mary’s (and Martha’s) brother who was resuscitated by Jesus after dying. Jesus waited two more days before visiting Lazarus after learning he was ill, and then he raises him from the dead. What was the point in raising him from the dead, Fujimura argues? No point except to show the hope of the resurrection, to show that there is something beyond death. So a Lazarus culture is not utilitarian; it’s a culture where “wasting time” on art and music are essential to being creative people who echo in their own fallible way something of the perfect creativity of God.

Why do we spend hundreds of dollars on real beeswax candles for the altar? Why do we have so much rich art in our church, like works of Samuel Yellin and Davis d’Ambly? Why do we remain committed to funding staff singers and Choral Scholars and increasing pay for our musician while still drawing far too heavily from our investments? Why do we continue to offer public liturgies of Morning and Evening Prayer even when I’m often the only one present? Why do we, as a small parish, hold Sung Masses on feast days, even if only ten people are in the nave? We do all of this because it’s about giving all we have—and the best we have and can give—to God. We don’t offer Mass because we need a full church (although I’d love a full church!). And supporting music and the arts is one of the best uses of our parish’s budget because it reminds us that each and every one of us is called to give extravagantly to God. God doesn’t need our gifts, but we give them anyway.

Precisely when we are short on cash, we give recklessly to God. Exactly when we don’t have enough time to meet with someone, we do it anyway because it’s the kind thing to do. And when others throw mean words our way, we offer an abundance of loving words in return. It’s foolish outside of a Lazarus culture, but in a Lazarus culture, it’s what we do as disciples of our Lord.

I’m thankful that Good Shepherd is a place that is fostering a Lazarus culture. I’m thankful that I’ve never had to argue for supporting music, supporting staff appropriately, and buying good-quality things for our worship. We are not being reckless; we are being faithful. And above all, we are trying to echo in some imperfect way God’s perfect and extravagant (should we say wasteful?) devotion to each and every one of us, no matter how many times we sin and run away from God’s love. Such a God deserves nothing but our very best.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of July 23, 2023

I have missed seeing you at Mass over the past couple of weeks while I was away on vacation. On Sundays, July 9 and 16, I was worshipping at two different Episcopal parishes in the Atlanta area while visiting my husband’s family and making my way to Savannah, Georgia, to spend some time in that beautiful city on vacation. In a previous message, I encouraged all of you to find the nearest Episcopal parish in which to worship while on vacation. And if that’s not possible, find some church! The Lord’s Day is still the Lord’s Day, regardless of summer schedules. In the Christian life, it takes precedence over all other obligations and activities. But above all, Christian worship is meant to be full of joy! Every Sunday is a little Easter in which we celebrate Jesus’s resurrection from the dead and our concomitant freedom from sin and death.

Over the past two weeks, I found myself reflecting on the breadth and diversity of the worldwide Church, even within the much smaller niche of the Episcopal Church. It was good for me to see other parishes engaging in their own ministries and continuing to celebrate the Sacraments and preach the Gospel, and I was impressed at how full both churches were that I visited. That is an encouraging sign in an age when we are consistently told of Church decline. As I’ve also said before, the more we preach that pessimistic narrative, the more it will become self-fulfilling. I was happy to see that, as with Good Shepherd, other churches proceed with ministry throughout the summer. Indeed, ministry never stops!

And yet, being away made me realize what I miss about Good Shepherd when I’m not here. I usually miss our liturgy, music, and of course, the people. And I’m also reminded that we may very well encounter our own visitors this summer at Good Shepherd, and I hope you will join me in warmly welcoming them to our own portion of God’s kingdom.

While summer is programmatically slower than the rest of the year, Good Shepherd continues to be a busy place. Consider all that has been happening this summer and all that will continue to happen in the remainder of the summer months:

• We are nearing the end of the time period for accepting applications for our new Director of Music position. Soon, we will begin in-person interviews and welcome Jack Warren Burnam as our Interim Organist and Choirmaster until a new Director of Music is called.

• Work has just been completed in the Lady Chapel to repair roof and plaster damage (this is being funded by money received from an insurance claim; otherwise, we would not have been in a position to fund this work).

• We have continued to address damaged roofing and leaking ceilings around campus, evidence of the extensive deferred maintenance on this campus, and we have more to do (perhaps some of you witnessed the torrents of water flooding into the church on July 9 and 16 during Mass). Unfortunately, for the present time, we are not financially poised to undertake major roofing work, but we are managing what we can to get us to a place where significant capital work can eventually be done. Thank you to Donald McCown, Rector’s Warden, for his helpful work in this regard!

• This week, the retreat house will host twelve participants in a summer institute sponsored by the Delaware Academy of Vocal Arts. Join us for Choral Compline sung by the participants on Thursday, July 27, at 8 p.m. in the church!

• We are finalizing our calendar for next program year, and we will soon be very busy with new retreat house offerings (day, program, and online), as well as children’s and adult formation and other parish events. Stay tuned! And it’s not too early to sign up for some of these events.

• We continue with the Daily Office and weekday Masses, in addition to Sunday Masses. Hallow the ordinariness of your day with the extraordinariness of prayer.

• We are looking forward to a new season of Pilgrims in Christ. Learn more about Pilgrims, and register here. You do not need to be new to the Church to participate!

And there is more. For a small parish that is growing, Good Shepherd is a busy place. And so as we draw closer to a new program year, I invite you to prayerfully consider ways of lending your time and gifts to ministry at Good Shepherd. If you’re already doing so, thank you! If not, please contact me, and I’d be delighted to assist you with discerning how God is calling you to serve his Church in this parish community. I hope you won’t be shy about reaching out. We always welcome the efforts of new hearts, minds, and hands in this place. For ministry at Good Shepherd to thrive, we need your help. I’m looking forward to seeing you on Sunday!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of July 9, 2023

Sunday, July 9, will be Matthew Glandorf’s last Sunday with us at Good Shepherd. For the past six years, Matt has served Good Shepherd faithfully, journeying with the parish through difficult times and seeing it through to the other side. As I mentioned at the farewell luncheon for Matt on July 2, Matt has played a major part in the revival of Good Shepherd, Rosemont. He has such a rare combination of gifts: musical brilliance, intelligence, and a passion for ministry. These three gifts, among many others, have been a blessing to all of us at Good Shepherd. And because Matt is confident in the gifts God has given him, he is also humble. It has been a great privilege to serve with Matt. As I’ve said before, at the end of Mass when Matt is improvising, I can happily stand at the door of the church with a smile on my face, knowing that great music is at the core of the vitality of this parish’s proclamation of the gospel. I will always be grateful for all Matt has done to strengthen ministry at Good Shepherd.

I’m sorry to miss Matt’s last official Sunday (I’m away on vacation until July 19), but my vacation was planned prior to my learning of Matt’s departure. So, I’m thankful that we could celebrate Matt’s time with us on Sunday, July 2. If you missed that celebration and will be in town on July 9, please send Matt off with your best wishes. And pray for Matt as he moves to Germany on July 10. Let’s give thanks for the gift of music, and especially for six wonderful years with Matt Glandorf on staff. May God bless Matt in his position as he continues to bless others with music.

O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; and grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty, and make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled for evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 819)

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of July 2, 2023

If you have a piano in your house, you probably know when it goes out of tune. Often, this happens gradually, perhaps with a change of weather. To maintain piano health, it’s essential to have pianos tuned regularly, whether or not they are being played regularly. The piano tuner’s job is to bring everything back into tune and stabilize the overall tuning of the piano. This is a complicated process that requires tuning different notes in different ways so that when many notes are played at once, the piano will be “in tune.” As you are reading this message, I will be returning from a three-day retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in upstate New York. For me, a spiritual retreat once a year is like a spiritual retuning.

As I approach the date to begin a retreat, I’m always aware of how much I’m in need of one. My heart, body, and soul feel slightly out of tune. If I look back on the past year since my last retreat, I see much joy and also many challenges. I have navigated periods of intense work, losses of parishioners, farewells to beloved people, and numerous joys. And all of this combines to put my soul in need of a retuning. But here the analogy must cease, because my spiritual state is retuned largely through silence and slowing down.

If you haven’t visited Holy Cross Monastery, I encourage you to do so. It’s located on a beautiful parcel of land on the banks of the Hudson River north of New York City. It is an Episcopal monastery (yes, we have a number of them!) of men in the Benedictine tradition. These monks take vows of celibacy and poverty and agree to live in community together until their deaths. Each day, they chant the rhythm of the Daily Office and celebrate Mass. They eat together, and those of us who are their guests do the same.

When I’m on retreat, I spend time in contemplative prayer, and I read, take naps, and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the peaceful monastery grounds. I unplug, which means that I avoid technology other than checking in with family. I prefer not to talk to others much, and periods of silence are mandated in the monastery, although there is usually conversation at meals. Rooms are simple; they still have no air conditioning. And after a few days of settling into this rhythm, I find that my body and soul have been recalibrated. I have slowed down. I have begun to enter into the first language of God, which is silence.

I don’t need to tell you that our world is too noisy. Smartphones have made it incredibly difficult to find silence, either audibly or mentally. But spiritual retreats are not just for clergy. Many laypersons make regular retreats. For your own spiritual wellbeing, I would encourage you to consider making a spiritual retreat once a year. Obviously, our Rosemont Community Retreat House is based on the ministry of hospitality, and we offer a place for others to find spiritual solace. But you and I will need to find other places, where we can have a change of scenery. Vacations are wonderful and necessary. But spiritual retreats are something different.

If you are looking for an Episcopal/Anglican community within reasonable traveling distance, consider Holy Cross Monastery, the Community of St. John Baptist (Episcopal nuns) in Mendham, New Jersey, or the Society of St. John the Evangelist (Episcopal monks) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Retune your body and soul by making an annual spiritual retreat part of your own rule of life.

I pray for Good Shepherd on my retreats, and making my own annual retreat enables me to care for myself so that I can care for you and be a faithful priest and pastor. I’m looking forward to being with you this Sunday for Mass and for our farewell sendoff to Matthew Glandorf.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 25, 2023

We are well into the Sundays after Pentecost, or what in some denominations are called the Sundays in Ordinary Time. I have always thought this was not the most enticing way to describe the Lord’s Day, for there is nothing ordinary about a Sunday! In our children’s formation classes, our Godly Play curriculum calls the Sundays after Pentecost the “green, growing Sundays.” That’s more like it. In fact, the Sundays of summer are not ordinary; the lessons for Mass usually have to do with the nitty gritty demands of discipleship. In the green days of summer and into the fall, we meditate on the earthiness of walking the Way with Christ. We go back to our roots and trace the steps of Jesus in his earthly ministry. We become little seeds, planted and nourished by God to bear fruit in the world.

It’s a bit unfortunate and ironic that during the summer Sundays, when many people are traveling and Mass attendance is diminished, we hear some of the most challenging Gospel readings on discipleship. Every Christian needs to be reminded, constantly, that following Jesus is costly, hard work, and not for the faint of heart. And while our choir and children’s formation are on hiatus and worship seems a bit simpler in the summer months, I invite you to let the Gospel readings at Mass over the course of the coming weeks become part of your spiritual reflection and meditation.

I missed being with you last Sunday, as I was in Texas visiting family. As is my custom when I’m away, I found a nearby Episcopal church to attend. And although I always miss worship at Good Shepherd when I’m traveling, worshiping in other churches when I’m away helps me claim my membership in the wider Church. Every Episcopal church is a bit different from others, and it’s good for us to not to idolize our own type of worship at Good Shepherd. This emphasizes the catholicity of our rich Anglican tradition.

I always expect that attendance during the summer months will be less than during the program year because of people’s travel schedules. But nevertheless, at Good Shepherd, we carry on with our usual liturgical schedule, with some occasional exceptions to the weekday rhythm when I’m on vacation. (Please consult our website for the latest liturgical schedule.) Sundays are Sundays, whether they occur in the summer months or in September. They are always days to celebrate and feast on Word and Sacrament. The Anglo-Catholic tradition has sometimes referred to days of obligation or holy days of obligation. And while I feel that the word “obligation” can connote a perfunctory duty, it’s also true that our Christian identity comes with certain expectations. One of those expectations is that we will keep the Lord’s Day in worship. At times, we will not feeling like going to church, but those are the times when we need to go the most. So, while the Christian tradition does assume honoring the Lord’s Day, I hope that worship is, more often than not, a joy for you, not a mere obligation. When you are in town this summer, I hope you will attend either the 8 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. Mass. The Lord’s Day is never ordinary! And if you’re traveling, find the nearest Episcopal parish and go to Mass. You can search for any Episcopal Church in the country on this website. I hope that in doing so, you will be warmly welcomed at another parish and also be grateful for what we have here at Good Shepherd.

If we have any intention for these coming summer months, may we see the Sundays after Pentecost (the “green, growing Sundays”) as opportunities for going deeper in our own discipleship. They are feast days and days of joy. Through the long, green Sundays of the coming months, may our hearts, bodies, minds, and souls be transformed by the glory of worship. May they be watered by God’s grace and nourished to bear good fruit. Worship on the Lord’s Day enables us to be fed for ministry and thereby to feed others. For that very reason, worship is never ordinary.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 18, 2023

I’m writing this message from Dallas, Texas, where I’ve been attending the annual conference of the Association of Anglican Musicians (AAM), the official organization for Episcopal Church musicians (and others within the Anglican Communion). I have been a member of this organization since 2011, and since then, I have attended a number of conferences across the country. And for the past three years, I have served as chair of the Professional Concerns and Development Committee of AAM. In this work, I have been reminded of the importance of healthy working relationships between musicians and clergy. You may recall that our new retreat house hosted a program retreat last fall led by the late former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold that was attended to explore the shared mutual ministry of priest and musician. Our retreat house was also the recipient of a generous grant from AAM of $10,000 towards our retreat house. Collaborating with AAM has been one way in which Good Shepherd has expanded its connections beyond the diocese and within the national Church.

Over this past week, I have attended stunning concerts of choral and organ music, workshops, as well as liturgies in a variety of Episcopal churches in Dallas. I have been moved many times at the outstanding quality of music-making, as well as by the evident power of sacred music not only to support the liturgy, but to lift it up, as conference participants were reminded by Mother Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, an Episcopal priest who was a guest speaker at the conference. Church music is not a job for most musicians; it is a vocation. Sadly, for years, the Church has, and continues, to undervalue this vocation, and there continue to be vast disparities between pension benefits (and other benefits) for clergy and those for musicians. It is time for the Church to address this inequity. Our own bishop of Pennsylvania, the Rt. Rev. Daniel Gutiérrez, flew to Dallas for this week’s AAM conference to participate in a conversation exploring how the Church can better support musicians who are in conflict with their clergy and who are not receiving appropriate compensation and benefits from the Church for which they so lovingly labor. Bishop Gutiérrez is willing to begin to address these issues within our own diocese.

I am grateful that Good Shepherd has chosen to do the ethical and just thing in treating its employees. We are providing pension payments for our lay employees who work at least 20 hours a week (as we should), unlike some parishes who violate the national Church’s mandate to do so. And in the ongoing search for a new Director of Music, the vestry has approved offering full medical benefits (not required for 20-hour-a-week positions) as well. This is a remarkable testimony of how much we value our lay staff. Despite our significant financial challenges, we are willing to do the right thing rather than the cheap thing.

I have several takeaways from this week at the Dallas AAM conference. First, when a group of people organizes itself and intentionally utilizes the gifts in its midst with gusto, anything can happen. AAM has effectively advocated for change within the Episcopal Church and has made a significant impact upon musicians who serve the Church, and it does so as a non-profit with one paid staff member. This is a reminder to me of what Good Shepherd can do to further Gospel ministry if we put our minds to it. In short, if you are not already involved in ministry in the parish, we need your help! Good Shepherd is heading in a positive direction, but we have much left to do to reach a place of enduring health and sustainability. We need all of you to help.

Second, in the South, I have seen a different way of being the Church. The church campuses here are huge, well endowed and funded by generous giving, and the churches themselves seem to be flourishing, too. Church attendance is strong, and there is impressive financial support of parish ministry. Many parishes have multiple full-time musicians in their employ. We can’t and shouldn’t compare Good Shepherd to such churches, but we can look at other flourishing parishes to remind ourselves of what it takes to support long-lasting ministry: God’s grace, of course, and human faithfulness, but also humanpower and money. Talking about money is not opposed to the Gospel; it’s something that enables the Gospel to be spread to the ends of the earth.

Finally, I have heard consistently over the past week how music changes the lives of people: both adults and children. I have seen the communities that are fostered within sacred music programs and how such vibrant programs can bring people to Christ. And I have seen how children and youth have anchored their lives in Christ through music, too. This is no newsflash to me, but this week, talking with colleagues and experiencing the Church in another part of the country, I have been reminded of why it’s important that we at Good Shepherd continue to support sacred music, as well as expand our investment in it. I’m grateful for your willingness to do so over the years, even when the easy answer to financial challenges would have been to make music the sacrificial victim.

As a closing thought, you may want to watch a livestream from a service of Choral Evensong at the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, part of this week’s conference. Listen to the congregational singing (especially at 1:48:33 in the video) if you have any doubt of the power of music. You will hear a room full of professional musicians singing their hearts out. Please pray for all church musicians, for our own musician, Matt Glandorf, as he prepares to begin a new phase in his career, for our incoming interim musician Jack Warren Burnam, and for our Director of Music search. May God continue to build his kingdom and spread Christ’s Gospel through the art and gift of music.

I will be away this coming Sunday, as I’m staying in Texas to visit family. Thank you to Father Tim Steeves, who will be filling in for me as celebrant this Sunday for Masses. I will look forward to seeing you when I return!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

The Week of June 11, 2023

As we approach the Feast of Corpus Christi (transferred) this coming Sunday, we might consider the great Anglican priest and poet George Herbert’s poem “Love (III).” In it, Herbert describes the inner angst of a Christian sinner being invited to feast with God. The sinner (who seems autobiographical to some extent) finds every excuse to refuse God’s gift to sit down and eat with him. I’m not worthy. I’m unkind. I’m ungrateful. I have marred God’s image inside me. I must serve, not eat. With each excuse, God offers a loving rejoinder about how his image can’t be extricated even from the sinner. And finally, God dismisses all the sinner’s excuses with the clencher of a line: “You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.” No excuses, says God who is Love. I’m offering you a gift, and you must receive it.

Herbert’s poem reveals what all of us undoubtedly feel. To some extent, we must feel unworthy to come to Communion each Sunday because of the many ways we’ve messed up since last Sunday. We’re all too aware of how extraordinary Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist is, and so we may be tempted to find any excuse to avoid receiving his gift. The prayer book tells us that to receive the Eucharist, “[i]t is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people” (p. 860). This is a tall order. We will never achieve it perfectly in this life, but it’s what we should seek after diligently. And God knows this, and our desire to achieve such a state of charity and reconciliation pleases God. There are no excuses to shun my gift, says God. Come and taste my meat.

Herbert’s “Love (III)” also highlights an insidious sin that can crop up within our souls. Refusing to receive God’s gifts, whether the Eucharist or any other gift, can easily be a way of refusing to let God into our souls, trying to shield ourselves from God, as if that could work. It simply ends up hurting us. The fact is that to properly receive the Sacrament of the Altar by being in charity with others demands that we do something about our states of estrangement or enmity with others. And refusing the gift because we’re unworthy can be a way of letting ourselves off the hook. It can be a way of trying to control the gift that only God can control. Indeed, the definition of a gift is something to be received, not controlled.

This Sunday, with the permission of our bishop, we will use the propers from the prayer book “Of the Holy Eucharist” and observe the Feast of Corpus Christi transferred from yesterday, its proper feast day. This is our parish’s custom and is the custom of most Anglo-Catholic parishes, and Roman Catholic churches observe the feast on Sunday as well. This feast reminds us that all of life is a gift, and this is epitomized in the Eucharist. But the Eucharistic gift is not simply to be received. By it, we are to be changed into the very Body that we receive. And by receiving God’s gift, we are to go into the world and honor Christ’s Real Presence in all whom we meet.

At the end of Sung Mass, we will process the Blessed Sacrament through the church, followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. But as we adore in this sacred devotion, remember that the Body of Christ is not intended, first and foremost, to gaze upon. It’s a gift of heavenly food, meant to be consumed. The physical act of eating should not be underestimated; indeed, it’s at the very heart of the gift of this sacrament. We find our Christian identity in our bodies by virtue of the Incarnation, and therefore, to abide in Christ, “that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us” as the prayer book puts it (p. 337), we must sit down and eat him. This is no less scandalous in our own day than it was in Jesus’s own day (see John 6). Gazing upon the Blessed Sacrament is a worthy means of adoration of Christ’s presence in the Eucharistic Bread, but Eucharistic adoration flows out of the act of consuming the Body of Christ. Incarnational living demands that we take Christ’s Body into our selves and then into the world. The objective presence of Christ in the Sacrament changes us and heals us in ways we can never understand. And then transformed by heavenly grace, we are to go out into the streets, our workplaces, our schools, and our neighborhoods to treat every person as if they were the Sacrament itself. There’s no time like the present to do so. Every day the image of Christ is slain in gun violence, and it’s daily abused in hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, transphobic, homophobic, and bigoted rhetoric that is being accepted with terrifying alacrity. With each Mass, our reception of the Sacrament is a radical call to honor the Real Presence of Christ in all whom we meet, including ourselves.

On Sunday, come to the feast, unworthy though you and I may be. Let it be a challenge for us to amend our ways and turn again to God. But let us sit down and eat. Love bids us welcome. Love is offering a gift. It is a gift that can’t be refused.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of June 4, 2023

When I was confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, after the bishop laid hands on my head and prayed, he gently slapped my cheek. That has traditionally been a practice at Confirmation, although I think only a handful of Episcopal bishops still continue the practice. The reason for the slap was to remind the confirmand of the seriousness of Christian commitment. Prior to the official toleration of Christianity with the issue of the Edict of Milan in 313 AD under the reign of Emperor Constantine, being a Christian was risky, serious business. Afterwards, Christianity became more and more the religion of the empire and of the state, and accordingly, less risky. Being Christian was easier to take for granted. Hence, the slap at Confirmation was needed in a comfortable age. The slap offered a gentle, if slightly stinging, summons: Don’t forget what it means to be baptized into Christ’s body. Don’t forget the cost of Christian discipleship.

Some have likened our current age to pre-Constantinian Christianity in that it can no longer be assumed that people will take their Christian faith seriously. It can no longer be assumed that the Church is perceived as important in society. And yet, unless you are living in a part of the world where being a Christian is indeed dangerous, being a Christian in our current age doesn’t seem to have the severe sting of pre-313 AD. Maybe a little slap here and there is a good thing for us!

I am reflecting on the Confirmation slap as our Pilgrims in Christ class has wound to a close for this past program year. In early September, Pilgrims will resume, but I’m already thinking ahead to next program year. I’m pondering how Pilgrims is something of a Confirmation slap. If you will recall, Pilgrims in Christ is a nine-month intensive adult formation class intended for anyone seeking to deepen their Christian faith, and it’s especially appropriate for those preparing for holy Baptism, Confirmation, Reception into the Episcopal Church, or Reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows. Pilgrims is a “slap” because the entire curriculum is built around an assumption that Baptism, Confirmation, and renewing one’s own commitment to Christian discipleship is a serious matter. By serious, I don’t mean lacking in humor or devoid of fun. And by a “slap” I don’t mean something painful! By serious, I mean that it demands commitment, discipline, and ultimately, metanoia—a change of behavior and a turn towards Christ.

The Episcopal Church has no specific expectations around length of commitment for preparation for Baptism or Confirmation, but it expects that such preparation will be done and taken seriously. The Episcopal Church also hopes that all baptized persons will eventually make a public affirmation of their faith (i.e., be confirmed). This is particularly true for those baptized before the age of reason. In my opinion, recent decades of the Church have seen a lowering of commitment in terms of Christian discipleship, which is why Pilgrims is something special. At Good Shepherd, I sense that we take seriously the discipline and commitment of living as a Christian in what has been called a “secular age.” I suspect that when we do, we begin to understand something of St. John’s message that finding our life in Christ is to live abundantly (John 10:10). Following Jesus gives us a fullness of life that cannot be found exclusively in our work, in our hobbies, or in anything else to which we give our time. And yet, through Christ, our work, our hobbies, and our other relationships can blossom into abundant life.

Although September seems like a long time away, we are already beginning to plan for next program year. Are you feeling a call to deepen your own faith through Baptism, Confirmation, Reception into the Episcopal Church, or Reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows? Or are you eager to integrate knowledge with bodily practice in your life of faith, while connecting with a wider community of fellow disciples? I invite you to consider participating in Pilgrims. Pilgrims is not just for those who have not yet been baptized, confirmed, or received into the Episcopal Church. It’s for those who were confirmed forty years ago, too!

Next program year, I will be expanding the class to make it more adaptable. The first six weeks will be an introduction to the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism, focusing on the Anglican ethos. Anyone who wants to learn more about the Anglican tradition and prepare for Reception into the Episcopal Church would be welcome to participate for only the first six weeks. But I hope all or most will choose to continue for the rest of the program year. Also, Pilgrims will now take on a hybrid in-person/Zoom format, opening the class to anyone across the world! Pilgrims will meet on the first three Thursdays of every month (vestry meetings being on the last Thursday of the month), from 7 to 8:30 p.m., from early September through May.

I ask you to pray about whether you might like to make participation in Pilgrims part of your Christian commitment beginning in September. I believe it’s well worth the time and effort. Please take some time to indicate your interest by registering here. I would also love to have conversations with any of you who have questions about the class or about deepening your journey in Christ.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of May 28, 2023

Each year when Pentecost rolls around, I brace myself for images from churches all over the world: fire eaters, doves on sticks, streamers, spirit sticks, swathes of red. On the one hand, it is fitting that one of the seven principal feasts of the Church year receives such attention. On the other hand, I wonder whether our Pentecost theatrics can be a cover for avoiding what Pentecost is really about. Are we, in truth, afraid of the Holy Spirit’s power? If so, then hoisting doves into the air and throwing confetti are just ways of avoiding the scary task of looking within our souls to see where the Holy Spirit is trying to get in. I know all too well how easy it is to try to evade the Spirit’s convicting power. What about you? Do you find it easier to throw a birthday party for the Church than to open the dusty crevices of your heart to the Holy Spirit?

Many of us—and particularly Episcopalians—are wary of charismatic Christianity, and perhaps for good reason, since there have been numerous abuses of the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues. These are not visible signs of God’s special favor for certain individuals, but rather, they are genuine gifts intended to build up the Church. But is defiant suspicion of such gifts only another excuse for refusing to yield personal control? There is no question that when we are dealing with the Holy Spirit, we are not in control.

While this may be terrifying, it is also liberating, encouraging, awe-inspiring, and hopeful. I have frequently asked myself why the baptism of thousands of people in one day, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, is unheard of in the twenty-first century. If we look around, it might seem as if the Holy Spirit is dormant or has given up on us. But this is not true. The Holy Spirit is like a magnetic force field hovering around us, but the magnetic pull of our own egos and the idol worship of our culture is like an opposing magnetic field keeping the Spirit at bay.

As we celebrate the Day of Pentecost this coming Sunday, we will celebrate this great feast with a procession at the beginning of Sung Mass and with the full richness of Anglo-Catholic ritual. And yet the challenge will be not to evade the true meaning of the feast through the observance of mere ritual. Every day of our lives is a day of Pentecost. Every day is an invitation to be honest about the gifts we have all been given for the building up of God’s kingdom on earth and for the spreading of the good news to the ends of the earth.

I have said this before, but I will say it again, because it can’t be emphasized strongly enough. Each of us has been given particular gifts by God. That is a fact. In the Church, we call them spiritual gifts. Some of these gifts will be used in our daily work and occupations. But the oft-neglected arena for using these gifts is the Church. So many demands are made on our time outside the Church. The job market and the rhythm of our daily lives are hungry beasts that will never stop making demands on our time. This will easily lead to burnout.

But the Church’s call to us—we might say the demand the Church makes on us—is different. God expects that we will use the gifts he has given us for the strengthening of the Church. When we properly discern the gifts God has given us to use in his Church, our use of them will never burn us out. While our jobs and daily lives expect that each of us must fill a standard mold of “never enough,” St. Paul tells us that the Body of Christ only functions effectively when the specific gifts of everyone are used so that all are working together. This prevents burnout. Here’s the good news: each of us does not have all of the Spirit’s gifts, and each of us never will. Isn’t that freeing? The Body of Christ only flourishes and thrives when all of us work together. It’s not a competition. It’s not an individual contest. It’s a collaborative effort, fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The mission to which God is calling the Church of the Good Shepherd is clarifying because we are prayerfully attending to the gifts present in this community. Careful discernment of such gifts is how we know the ministries that should be established in this parish. But this parish will only continue to grow and thrive if more of us use our gifts for the well-being of the Church. None of us is insignificant here. God asks for more of us than attendance on Sundays at Mass. Worship is only the beginning of what God has in store for us. Outside the Church, we may be written off, bullied, or dismissed as ineffective, but God says that every single one of us is necessary for the kingdom to flourish. And perhaps the current state of the Church is proof that too many spiritual gifts are lying dormant and untapped. How can we be a different example at Good Shepherd?

If you are not yet sharing and offering your spiritual gifts for ministry at Good Shepherd, I pray that you will consider doing so. Indeed, God expects that you will, because we need what you have to offer! If you would like assistance in discerning your own spiritual gifts, I would be delighted to help you. There is no “gifted and talented” echelon in the Church. Every single one of us is gifted and talented. Now, that’s something to celebrate.

Your in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of May 21, 2023

Not my money. Those were the words my seminary class was encouraged to repeat over and over again by the canon law professor. He was speaking about the rector’s discretionary fund, a pot of money intended only for supporting those in need of charity. The professor was right, of course. The money stays at the church even after a rector leaves. It’s not the rector’s money; it’s the church’s money. Well, actually, it’s not even the church’s money. It’s God’s money.

Not my money. I have been reflecting on that phrase this week, especially after the spring Rogation Days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week). Rogation Days seem anachronistic, as they are the product of pre-technological cultures, in which it was considered necessary to ask for God’s blessing on the harvest. But Rogation Days are not anachronistic. We need them now, more than ever, when we litter the earth, waste natural resources, pollute the air, and neglect the care of this planet entrusted to our hands. Not our planet. But what do Rogation Days have to do with money? Quite a lot, actually. This past Rogation Wednesday at the Mass celebrated during our program retreat sponsored by the retreat house, the Gospel was from Luke 12, the parable of the rich fool. This man has such an abundant harvest that he decided to pull down his existing barns to build larger ones, to store up provisions for the future. By today’s standard, this man would be considered smart. He is practical and preparing for his future. He’s a good businessman. Having implemented his practical provisions, he could “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” The poor guy had no idea that he was about to die. So what use were his attempts at financial security?

Not my money. Our money is not ours, nor is anything we may harvest. The earth that’s in our care is not ours either, so in stewarding all things, our hearts and minds are directed back to God and God’s intentions for what has been loaned to us. Not my money. Not our goods. Not our bodies. Not even our souls. They all belong to God. But this is not what we usually think, and why? Because we are given constant messages that there is never enough. You will not have enough money for retirement. You will not have enough savings to put your children through school, or even preschool now! Your children will not have enough “things” on their portfolios to get into the right university. You will not have enough time to care for your health and prosper in your job. You will not have enough money to buy groceries and give to the church. You do not have enough talents to compete with that other person for the job you want. The list goes on and on.

The temptation is, like the rich fool, to hoard. We hoard, and then if there is anything left, we make a gift to the church. Or we give to a charity. But the order is all wrong. Not my money. None of it belongs to us, and so it is foolish to pretend as if it is. To believe that God is abundantly kind, merciful, gracious, compassionate, and caring is to trust that when we do something scary like, first, give back to God, perhaps we’ll be just fine in the end. Why do we always assume that God will not care for us? This isn’t tempting God. It’s simply believing in the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross was not a waste but the salvation of the whole world. To believe that being generous is not reckless is difficult, I know. But it is nothing less than remembering that everything comes from God. Not mine but God’s.

What the rich fool in Luke 12 forgot were the injunctions back in the Book of Leviticus (chapter 19) not to reap the harvest to the very edges of the land but to leave something for those who are in need. Not my harvest. In a book that we love to hate sometimes, we find some of the kindest, most generous commands imaginable. If what we “have” is really not ours at all, then it belongs not only to God but to those whom God wishes to give it.

And of course, this speaks to the most obvious elephant in the room. What about those among us who do find it difficult to buy groceries or find a meal? What about those who do suffer from genuine material poverty? God has given us a solution back in Leviticus. It’s an imperative that those who are blessed with material abundance and wealth not reap to the edges of their harvest. Save some for the stranger. There is plenty of wealth out there to go around. God has indeed provided for all. There is abundance.

To be a Christian in 2023 is to live in radical contrast to an anxious age: we are to live as if there is always enough. Always, full stop, end of story. We are to take chances of generosity, even if we think it will jeopardize our future. Of course, it doesn’t mean that we fail to live wisely or ensure that those who depend on us will be cared for. It just means that we refuse to live from a place of anxiety and choose to live from a place of trust. I suspect that none of us will actually end up jeopardizing our future because we decide to be extravagantly generous. In my own experience, I have never seen that happen. But above all, we must ask ourselves this: what good does it do us to be anxious about having enough? Indeed, what good at all, when Jesus has taught us to trust and believe in a God with whom there is always enough?

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of May 14, 2023

In my email last week announcing Matthew Glandorf’s departure in mid-summer, I also noted that I would soon update you on our plans for this period of transition in our music ministry. I shared that Jack Warren Burnam, a wonderful church musician of over fifty years’ experience has agreed to serve as our Interim Organist and Choirmaster after Matt Glandorf’s departure and at least through the remainder of this calendar year. I’d like to introduce you to Jack, and I hope that you will have an opportunity to meet him on a Sunday in the near future, before he is officially serving here. Below is a brief biographical note and picture that Jack has sent me.

Jack Warren Burnam has pursued an active career in music for more than fifty years, as a choir trainer, conductor, organist, accompanist, and composer. He recently retired as Parish Musician of Immanuel on the Green in New Castle, Delaware, where he served for twelve years. Prior to that, Jack was Choirmaster and Organist of Immanuel Church, Highlands for thirty-five years. He served for eighteen years as Music Director of Congregation Beth Emeth; for twenty years as Director of Middle and Upper School Choral Music at Tower Hill School; and as founding Artistic Director of the chamber choir CoroAllegro for twenty-seven years. Jack accompanied the Delaware Senior All State Chorus for five years, and from 2013 to 2017 accompanied the University of Delaware Chorale under the direction of Paul Head.

Jack is a gifted composer of choral and liturgical music for his own choirs and congregations, as well as of a number of commissioned works. His anthems have taken first place awards in two national competitions: sponsored by the Association of Anglican Musicians (2001) and the Sewanee Church Music Conference Fyfe Award (2020). The Hymnal 1982 includes five of Jack’s hymntune harmonizations, and several items of service music appear in the supplemental hymnal Wonder, Love, and Praise.

Jack holds degrees in sacred music from Houghton College (NY) and Catholic University of America, as well as Associate and Choirmaster certificates of the American Guild of Organists. He has served as Dean and Subdean of the Delaware Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and he is an active member and Past President of the Association of Anglican Musicians. He lives in Delaware with his wife, Jeannette.

It will be a great gift and blessing to welcome Jack to Good Shepherd in a few months’ time. Due to previous engagements before he agreed to serve in an interim capacity here, Jack’s first Sunday with us will be on September 10. But he will begin work here before then, in addition to playing a Sunday in August. Please welcome Jack and his wife Jeannette to Good Shepherd when you have a chance to meet them!

I would also like to give you an update on a proposed timeline for the search process for a new Director of Music. Last Sunday, I met with our advisory committee (Sarah Austen, John Burrows, Ellen Charry, Anne Hallmark, Mitos Hart, and Don McCown) to review the proposed position description. Once details of compensation and benefits are approved by the vestry at its May 25th meeting, the position will be advertised on our parish website and social media and through the Association of Anglican Musicians and the American Guild of Organists. Applications will be accepted through July 31. The advisory committee and I will promptly being reviewing applications and winnow the pool down to a list of semi-finalists, whom we will interview over Zoom. We hope to bring three finalists to audition and interview in person sometime in the early fall. If all goes as planned, we would like to issue a call before Christmas, with a new Director of Music beginning work sometime in the early new year.

But above all, we want this to be a prayerful and thoughtful process. The advantage of having an Interim Organist and Choirmaster is that we don’t need to rush this process, even though we have no intention of dragging it out. We are listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice in this to discern whom God is calling to serve here as our next Director of Music. We might need to adjust and extend our timeline. We shall see, but in all things, we will endeavor to be faithful in this work.

Please pray for the advisory committee as this process unfolds, for Jack as he prepares to join us, and for Matt, who is preparing for an exciting new phase in his career. We are collecting a purse as a small token of thanks for Matt Glandorf’s many contributions to Good Shepherd. To contribute, please make checks payable to “Church of the Good Shepherd,” with “purse for Matt Glandorf” in the memo line, and leave in the collection plate or mail to the church office by Sunday, June 25. Thank you! Please recall that we will celebrate Matt’s time with us after Sung Mass on Sunday, July 2. Matt’s last Sunday will be on July 9, and until Jack Burnam joins us, we will have supply organists for Sunday Masses. Should you have any questions about the music search process, please reach out to me.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of May 7, 2023

Nearly eight months ago, the Rosemont Community Retreat House officially opened its doors. To date, twenty-one individuals have stayed in the house, twenty-one individuals have participated in group program retreats, three parish vestries have used the house for day retreats, and the diocesan staff has met in the house twice. Looking ahead, eleven individuals have bookings in the near future, five people are planning to attend the next program retreat in just under two weeks, and the diocesan Commission on Gun Violence will be holding their next meeting in the house in June. Additionally, the house has sponsored five day retreats since its opening. Distinguished guests such as Father Andrew Mead and Mother Sarah Coakley have stayed in the house during their visits to preach. And every Wednesday evening, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., parishioner Don McCown leads a contemplative prayer and mindfulness group that meets in the library.

And yet, it’s only the beginning. We have just released the 2023-2024 program year offerings for the Rosemont Community Retreat House, which you can learn more about here. Next season, we are expanding to include two online-only offerings by Dr. Ellen Charry, our theologian-in-residence. Please look at next year’s retreats, and help us spread the word! And “like” the retreat house on Facebook. I’m grateful to our wonderful publicist, Eliza Brinkley, a seminarian at Virginia Theological Seminary, who is promoting all of our offerings creatively and effectively.

The Rosemont Community Retreat House is an outreach ministry of Good Shepherd, Rosemont. First and foremost, it’s a place for prayer, rest, healing, spiritual formation, and fellowship. There are many kinds of poverty in our world, and while material poverty is indeed a pressing problem, there is also spiritual poverty. There is loneliness, too, in a world that is more connected than it has ever been and where people are, at the same time, increasingly more and more isolated. The retreat house is a place to build community and foster healing, and this is one form of outreach to the poor.

There is only one aspect of our envisioned mission for the retreat house that has not yet transpired. For various reasons, we have not yet been able to host a family through Hosts for Hospitals. But that still remains a possibility, which we hope will occur in the near future. We are also looking at ways to connect with other organizations who seek lodging for families visiting the Philadelphia region for medical care. If you have ideas, I would love to hear about them.

Finally, since the Rosemont Community Retreat House is a parish ministry, I invite you to consider ways in which you can help. We need your help! Here are some possibilities:

• Cook or serve meals for program retreats. You can make them at home and bring them to the retreat house when needed. It’s simple. Or if you wish, donate a meal from a restaurant. We will accept those, too!

• Ferry dirty laundry to the cleaners as needed.

• Welcome guests.

• Share our programming with friends and family.

• Donate to support operating expenses and scholarships for retreatants.

To assist with any in-person tasks, please email Chris Wittrock.

I’m grateful to all who have supported our retreat house ministry in so many ways. Thank you! And may God bless this peaceful house, which seeks to be a beacon of prayer, hospitality, love, fellowship, and healing.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of April 30, 2023

Jerome Berryman, the founder of Godly Play (a Montessori-based curriculum that we use for our youngest children at Good Shepherd), considers the Parable of the Good Shepherd to be the foundational story for children in their growing relationship with God. In this, Berryman is clearly influenced by Sophia Cavalletti (1917 - 2011), the late Roman Catholic educator who developed the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Montessori-based curriculum.

The more I have taught and preached, the more I understand how this is so. Perhaps it’s obvious: I’m the rector of a parish named The Church of the Good Shepherd. But I think the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is utterly compelling. It really does encapsulate all that Jesus did, taught, and preached in his earthly life. First, Jesus never abandons us. We are never alone. When we are lost, he will find us and bring us home. Second, Jesus’s seeking of the lost is based in his unconditional, sacrificial love for all humankind. No one is too insignificant to receive his love and care. Third, Jesus is always present and always true. He is a stable and constant presence, no matter how amiss things are around us. He sticks with us, especially when worldly leaders and others do not. He is the opposite of the hireling, who gives up when the chips are down, who is a coward, and who is only a “shepherd” when it’s convenient. When the wolf comes, the hireling runs away, abandoning the sheep. The hireling is self-consumed and is not a real leader. Finally, the Good Shepherd knows each one of his sheep by name, and his sheep know the sound of his voice. Consequently, they will follow him. But in contrast to a leader who gets sheep to follow even when it is to their detriment, Jesus the Good Shepherd leads his sheep to safety, into God’s eternal sheepfold.

Part of the complexity and richness of St. John’s use of the Good Shepherd image for Jesus is that we can easily identify with any character in the story. Of course, Jesus is the foundational, primary Good Shepherd. But there are also times when each of us is called to be a good shepherd to others. And at some point or another, we’re all lost sheep. Perhaps we’ve been the hireling from time to time. Maybe we’ve encountered the wolf on an occasion. It’s a beautiful irony that this parish, named after Jesus the Good Shepherd, found itself to be a wandering sheep for many years. It was corporately the lost sheep. And what we’ve recently discovered is that Jesus found us. We are on his shoulders, and he’s bringing us safely home. No parish, no matter how small and broken, is beyond the reach of the Good Shepherd’s loving embrace. Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is a testament to that fact.

In my role as rector of this parish, I think constantly about what it means to be a good shepherd. I do not take this responsibility lightly. I am committed to being with you, loving you, and accompanying you on your journey in Christ. When you are lost, I want to be there with you. But this is also our duty as a parish. Because of our namesake, I believe we are called to be a collective shepherd to the lost in the world, to allow our parish church to be a safe and loving sheepfold rather than a sheepfold with closed gates to keep certain people out. How can we be such a place in our community and in the world? In what ways is God calling us to be a good shepherd to others?

This Sunday we will celebrate our Feast of Title. Because our parish is not named after a patron saint, we always commemorate our Feast of Title on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, when the Gospel reading is always about Jesus the Good Shepherd. This year we have a full day planned! Father Andrew Mead, the 8th Rector of this parish and Rector Emeritus of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue will be our guest preacher at both Masses (and celebrant at 8 a.m.). We have a celebratory luncheon planned after Sung Mass (register here by the end of Friday, April 28!) And then our day concludes with Choral Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at 3 p.m. I hope you can join us for a day to rejoice and give thanks that God, who gave his Son the Good Shepherd of the sheep for the salvation of the world, found this parish when it was lost. God, in his great goodness, has provided for us and ensured us that we do have a future and that the Church and world do need this parish. Let us give thanks as we move into the new creation that God is calling us to be, which God has raised up from the old. I will look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of April 23, 2023

I remember the first funeral I ever attended. I must have been in the second grade or so. I was nervous beforehand, and I recall sitting in the church pew waiting for the coffin to arrive at the door of the church. When it did, it was covered with a white pall by the priest and led into the church, just as the body of the person being buried was brought into the church in a white garment to be baptized many years before. In hindsight, I am thankful that my mother took me to that funeral. I’m grateful that she did not try to shield me from the reality of death. The funeral was not a traumatic experience for me; it was a helpful life lesson that we can’t avoid death.

Since that funeral well over thirty year ago, I have attended many more funerals. I have been the celebrant as a priest at numerous funerals. I have sat at the bedsides of those who are dying. I have given Last Rites. I have gone to be with families when their loved ones have died. “In the midst of life, we are in death,” the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, in the beautiful but sobering words from the committal service, when the body or ashes of a person are laid to rest.

And yet, in the modern West, we live in a culture and age in which many seek to deny the reality of death. It’s a strange and tragic irony that in a nation where senseless violence is a daily reality, many people seem to believe they’ll live forever. Some are looking for a cure for death. People don’t want to talk about death. Modern medicine has made it possible for people to live much longer, but sometimes at great expense of quality of life. The vast majority of obituaries in the newspaper don’t say someone died but, instead, use other euphemisms to refer to death. But it’s undeniably true that each of us will die one day. No semantic gymnastics or quests for human-devised immortality will change that.

On Sunday, after Sung Mass, I will be leading a conversation entitled “Ars Moriendi: Prayerfully and Practically Preparing for Death and Dying.” It may seem strange to discuss death in Eastertide, but the Easter season is exactly when we are confronted with the fact that death and life are inextricably bound together. When we are baptized, we die to sin and rise to newness of life. The resurrection of Jesus Christ tells us that death is a reality but is not the end of the story. The mark of Christian maturity is to live each day as if it might be our last, in holy preparation for the time when we can commend our own souls to God’s eternal care beyond the grave.

Preparing for death is difficult, if not impossible, when one is in ill health, actively dying, or not in compos mentis. This is why the art (and I use that word deliberately) of preparing for death is a lifelong Christian practice. By the time you are reading these words, you have moved closer to death than when you began reading them. This is not supposed to be depressing or scary. It is meant to be a joyful hope that we are that much nearer to the closer presence of God.

And beyond efforts to prepare one’s own soul for dying and death, it is crucial (as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us) to have one’s own earthly affairs in order out of consideration for one’s family. Mourning the death of a loved one can be excruciating for family and friends. The more each of us can prepare for our own death in practical terms, the more gracious we are being to those we love.

I hope you will join me in conversation on Sunday after Sung Mass. Coffee and light refreshments will be available as always. I will talk about a spiritual and theological preparation for death and dying, and I will discuss practical concerns to consider, including the planning of one’s own funeral. The Church expects that I, as your parish priest, will not neglect this important responsibility. Our conversation is not intended to be a depressing one but a realistic, honest, mature, and hopeful one. I will look forward to seeing you on Sunday, as we continue to celebrate the Great Fifty Days of Easter and its abiding hope in the resurrection from the dead.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of April 16, 2023

The Second Sunday of Easter is frequently referred to as “Low Sunday,” but that is an unfortunate choice of words, isn’t it? I’d prefer not to assume that there will be fewer people in the pews in church on the Sunday after Easter Day or that something about that Sunday’s Mass will seem deficient. Indeed, we are only just beginning our Eastertide journey. While Lent consists of forty days, Eastertide has fifty days. In this Sunday’s famous reading of “Doubting Thomas” (although the word “doubt” never occurs in the original Greek text!), we are challenged to confront all that makes us afraid of being Christian. What are you afraid of, and how will the Risen Christ empower you to move beyond fear?

Historically, the Great Fifty Days after Easter has been a period of “mystagogia,” a time for the illumination of the “mysteries” of the faith and when the Church traditionally prepared newly-baptized persons for ministry and service. Might we say that the common liturgical deemphasis on the Great Fifty Days has non-liturgical ramifications? In what ways does everything stop at the door of the church after Mass? Is formation divorced from worship and ministry? Is mission rooted in worship? Do we engage in acts of service and outreach without anchoring them in the truth of Jesus’s resurrection? Eastertide is precisely the season to put our money where our mouth is. If we profess a crucified and risen Savior, then we are also called out from behind the closed doors of our churches into service of the poor, neglected, lonely, and oppressed. We are asked to ensconce all we do in the astounding truth that Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to his Father’s right hand, therefore enabling us to accomplish even greater works than he did (John 14:12) because of the Holy Spirit’s power. How’s that for a charge?

At the Great Vigil of Easter, everything became new. We lit a new fire, from which the Paschal Candle was lit. We blessed new water in the font, which was poured into the holy water stoups by the church doors and sprinkled on the heads of the faithful at Mass. New bread and wine were consecrated at the First Mass of Easter. So, during Eastertide, we, too, are made new once again by God.

What will this look like for us? For some of us, we might make an Eastertide resolution to forgive those we have refused to forgive. The Risen Christ is the One who gives us power and authority to bind and loose and thereby gives us grace to forgive. For some of us, Eastertide could be an opportunity to become evangelists for the Good News that has brought light and life to our broken lives. More than simply inviting someone to church, evangelism is a visible commitment to allowing one’s entire life to radiate the love of Christ. For some of us, Eastertide is a chance to prayerfully discern the spiritual gifts that God has given each of us for ministry. We all have gifts that are intended to be used, not hidden under a bushel basket. How will you use yours? In what ways are you afraid of using your gifts and why? If I can be of assistance in discernment of your own spiritual gifts, I would be delighted to speak with you about this.

This Eastertide, consider this: let the small, flickering light of the Paschal Candle (which is lit for liturgies during the entire Fifty Days) be a reminder of the Light that enlightens the world and that defies death. Let the Paschal Candle’s light be a summons to overcome whatever is keeping you afraid of living fully as a disciple of the Risen Christ. Let this light be a powerful beacon of hope that when death does its worst and speaks its lies, a greater truth calls more powerfully: come and see, and you will be changed.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of April 9, 2023

The holiest week of the Christian year has begun, and we are on the brink of the most important liturgy of the entire Christian year. It is one liturgy in three acts: The Paschal Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter. In the Triduum, we come closest to how the Church’s ancient Holy Week liturgies were celebrated. Rather than commemorating different events in Jesus’s life separately, the earliest liturgies of Holy Week were observed in one long liturgy, centered around the historical locations of the final moments of Jesus’s earthly life. While there were pauses within the liturgy for practical reasons (i.e., so people could eat and rest), the liturgy of Holy Week was meant to encompass all the events of Jesus final hours on earth. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the passion, the cross, the empty tomb: they are all there in the way the earliest Christians celebrated Holy Week.

This is important because it means that, if we participate in all the Triduum liturgies, we aren’t given the option of choosing what we want to experience, suffering or glory. If we’re going to have salvation, it comes with the whole package: Jesus’s earthly life, his saving deeds, his ministry, his teaching, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection from the dead. When we participate in all the liturgies of the Paschal Triduum, we must acknowledge our own suffering and sinfulness. We must be honest. We must go into the darkest moments of existence with our own selves and with others. We don’t get to pick Easter alone from a buffet of offerings. We either have all of the Paschal Mystery, or we don’t have it at all.

If you have never before experienced all the liturgies of Holy Week, would you consider making time to do so this year? I believe you will be changed. If you truly want to understand the Christian faith, these liturgies will teach you about the deepest mystery of the Gospel.

Here’s some of the good news we will find this week: When truth itself has lost its moorings, eternal Truth speaks confidently in the faces of lies. When immigrants are allowed to die at the border of a country that could offer them a better life, the Risen Christ stands at that border, too, wounds and all, to give them life. When racism continues to play out in insidious ways publicly and privately, we are shown in the mystery of baptism the potential to rise to new life from the death of our sinful prejudices. When hateful rhetoric demonizes our Jewish brothers and sisters, the heirs of God’s first covenantal promises, we know that the mystery of salvation surpasses heinous scapegoating. When LGBTQ+ youth are denied support and safety by the state, leading some to suicidal despair, and while some may wish to wash their hands of their blood, the Good Shepherd finds the lost and brings them home. When death speaks all its accusing lies, the voice of the Risen One tells each of us that we are loved and all that is past can be forgiven.

This is not a week for triumphalist glory. It is a week to celebrate that our truest hope meets us in darkest despair, not with easy answers or facile solutions, but with patience and long-suffering compassion. May you find the loving embrace of the Risen Christ in all the varied emotional moments of this week. In the Paschal Mystery, may you find the salvation offered to the entire world. And may this week be a blessing to you and yours.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of April 2, 2023

On Sunday, Palm Sunday, we will enter deeply into a different kind of time. Truth be told, the entire Church year, every Mass, every liturgy, really, takes place in both linear/human (chronos) and God’s (kairos) time. But to fully appreciate the sacred mysteries of Holy Week, we must intentionally stand with one foot in ordinary time and another in the eternity of God’s time.

The Palm Sunday liturgy can be disorienting, which is actually one of its most important characteristics. The prayer book’s name for the Palm Sunday liturgy notes the dissonance of this day: The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday. We begin with the Palm liturgy, in which we participate in Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Palms are blessed, and we process around the church with cries of Hosanna. If this seems like a charade, it’s because it is. It’s a charade because to facilely welcome Jesus with boisterous hosannas belies our sinful tendencies to push him outside the gates of our hearts. But we must enact this hypocrisy in the liturgy so that we can begin to live into that rich paradox that is the Christian life: we are sinners and yet redeemed, we welcome Jesus while we reject him. If you want to learn more about a particular soteriological understanding of the liturgies of Holy Week, I highly recommend This Is the Night: Suffering, Salvation, and the Liturgies of Holy Week by James Farwell (New York: T & T International, 2005). Farwell’s premise is that the very mode of our salvation lies in our participation in the liturgies of Holy Week. And so on Palm Sunday, we will find a great dissonance between the initial hosannas of the Palm liturgy and then the whiplash effect of moving to the liturgy of the Passion, where we are in the crowd crying for Christ’s crucifixion.

As I said, Holy Week invites us into a different way of encountering time. We do not move chronologically through Holy Week in the order of the events of Jesus’s final days. We hear one Passion account (from the synoptic Gospels) on Palm Sunday, move to the washing of feet and institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, and then we are back at the Passion again on Good Friday (from John’s Gospel). Holy Week is not linear. If you subscribe to James Farwell’s thesis, by Good Friday we are in a very different place than on Palm Sunday. Over the course of Holy Week, we move from a perceived distance/separation from Christ in the fickleness of the Palm Sunday crowd to a “soteriological fusion of identities” on Good Friday. The pivot point seems to be Maundy Thursday, where in the footwashing we are commanded to imitate Christ’s humble servanthood when we wash the feet of others and strive to love others as he loves us. By Good Friday, we are in a place of intercession, “soteriologically fused” with Christ when we pray the Solemn Collects, as we inhabit the place prepared for us by Christ the Great High Priest.

When we arrive at the Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter, we arrive at the most important liturgy of the Church year. In the great Exsultet hymn sung before the Paschal Candle, we proclaim “This is the night.” It’s the night when God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It’s the night when death was put to flight. It’s the night when we moved (and still move!) from death into life.

At the heart of all these liturgies is the great Paschal Mystery, which stands at the center of every Mass. In this mystery, we do not mechanically appropriate saving grace by virtue of Christ’s blood. The liturgies themselves become salvific, and we find events of the historical past being re-presented in the present, where they are truly alive, real, and saving for us. As the beautiful Spiritual asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Our resounding answer in Holy Week is YES. We were there. We are there now. And we will continue to be. . .

I hope that I have given you enough of a teaser to seriously consider attending all the liturgies of the Paschal Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter). They are the most important liturgies of the entire year. It requires a sacrifice to make the time necessary to attend them, but it’s well worth it. If you want to begin to understand the mystery of what it means to be a Christian, these liturgies will help you.

I will offer something else, too: as we hear many readings from holy Scripture over the coming week (some of which, like John’s Passion, can be difficult to bear at times), we hear them as they are situated in the liturgies themselves. Liturgy invites us to move from our heads into our hearts. Hearing Scripture liturgically is not so much about analysis as it is letting it speak to us metaphorically, poetically, and in an embodied way through ritual. I encourage you to consider all this as you participate in the Holy Week liturgies.

But perhaps the greatest news of all, is that these liturgies don’t teach us to chronologically move from suffering to relief of suffering. They defy linear time and modern metanarratives of simplistic progress. They reassure us that God meets us in the liturgies. (See more in Farwell’s book.) We don’t pass through Good Friday just to get to Easter; we find Easter even in Good Friday. In John’s Gospel, the cross is the moment of Jesus’s glorification, even in the face of suffering and death. This is God’s strange, eternal time. It offers hope to everyone who is lamenting now. In Holy Week, we lament with parents who grieve the deaths of their children massacred in schools. We lament with those who still miss their loved ones whom COVID took three years ago. We lament with those grieving recent losses. We lament with our Jewish brothers and sisters, who have experienced hatred and violence during this week for centuries, as they still face anti-Semitism. We lament with every person now who is longing for joy. We lament with all our brothers and sisters, but we see in the darkness of such suffering and trauma a candle burning as a still, small point of a newly-kindled flame. It shows an empty tomb. The flame will grow and spread throughout the church until, waiting in the darkness and encouraged by its meager light, we sing, Rejoice.

A blessed Holy Week to you.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle

Week of March 26, 2023

Let’s be honest: prayer often is not easy. Which of us truly knows how to pray? What words do we use in the wake of devastating loss or in a deep depression? How do we articulate our needs and desires without trying to sway God’s hand too much or telling God how to answer our prayer? When you are numb from grief or, alternatively and oddly, when things are going swimmingly, finding the right words to pray eludes us.

Which is why St. Paul’s description of prayer in his Letter to the Romans is some of the best news in the Bible. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Paul gets it all out there: we simply don’t know the right way to pray. We’re human. On this side of the Fall (using the words of theologian Lauren Winner), we will inevitably ask for the wrong things. And yet, the effort is worth everything. The answer is not to stop praying but to let God pray within us, as Rowan Williams says. We must submit, we must cede control, and this is not easy for us.

I usually think of St. Paul’s words in relation to wordless prayer. Sitting silently as our interior space aches with grief or holding our anger intentionally before God is prayer. We lack the linguistic facility to articulate what we really need, so the Spirit prays within us. But there is another way in which we can let the Spirit pray within us and make ourselves available for God to answer our prayers in his good time, as much as that may seem like procrastination to us. This making ourselves available is perhaps most effectively seen in the regularity and rhythm of the Daily Office.

A priest friend of mine recently remarked that the rhythm of daily prayer (the Mass and the Daily Office) is the “heartbeat” of the parish, especially in Anglo-Catholic ones that make an effort to keep this rhythm. I believe this is true. It seems less than honest to put on a splash on Sundays for Sung or High Mass without recognizing the echoes of that prayer during the week. Daily prayer—ordinary prayer, maybe with only a priest praying the Office, or with one or two in the congregation at Mass on a Thursday—is what keeps us humble. It’s easy to enjoy the sumptuousness of a Sunday Mass, but the ordinariness of daily prayer ensures that we are actually intending to stick with God in good and bad times. There is no pomp and circumstance in daily prayer. Sundays are when we eat, liturgically, whatever we want—fried foods, lipids, sweet desserts (except maybe during Lent!). On weekdays, we need to ensure that our diet is healthy for the benefit of our spiritual system. Daily prayer is also a humbling reminder that prayer can be sustained by even one or two pray-ers, whose prayers intercede for all. When schedules don’t permit everyone to be present on Monday or Tuesday for Evening Prayer, those who are there pray for us. We need each other as members of Christ’s living Body.

And people come. I can’t usually predict when they will come, but strangers wander into the church as our doors are open for prayer. Some stay to pray with us. Some realize they want to stay with us long term. People’s need for prayer is not limited to Sundays.

Tomorrow, we have an opportunity to spend one of the waning days of Lent reminding ourselves of the power of ordinary, daily prayer. Our Rector’s Warden, Donald McCown, will lead a Lenten Quiet Day inspired by the interesting quasi-monastic seventeenth century community of Little Gidding, England. Dr. McCown will tell us more about it tomorrow, but suffice it to say that the historic witness of Little Gidding is a part of what we aim to do at Good Shepherd. We keep the rhythm of daily prayer suggested by our Book of Common Prayer. It’s not fancy or complicated. It’s just what we do.

If you’re looking to claim a few moments of quiet and prayerful reflection during Lent, I encourage you to attend tomorrow’s Quiet Day. You can register online. In the middle of the day, at noon, we will celebrate Mass for the Feast of the Annunciation; all are welcome for that. For a moment, we’ll let the extra-ordinariness of a Major Holy Day interrupt the ordinary rhythm of daily prayer.

Often, prayer is about not trying too hard. It’s simply placing yourself intentionally before the Triune God, within whose life prayer is already happening. The Father has sent his Son, in the power of the Spirit, to sweep us up into that divine life of prayer, so that we may ultimately live with him. Whether aching with pain or complacent with happiness, our task is to remember to place ourselves there before God. For when we don’t really know how to pray, which is most of the time, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Thanks be to God.

Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle