Announcements

• Pastoral Statement on Mass Shooting in Buffalo

  Pastoral statement on mass shooting in Buffalo from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

  View this email in your browser Note: the following information is presented in English and Spanish Aviso: La siguiente información se presenta en inglés y en español Pastoral statement on mass shooting in Buffalo from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry My heart is heavy with the news that a white supremacist gunman took the lives of 10 children of God in Buffalo on Saturday. I grew up walking distance from the scene of this hateful crime, and my friends and I used to ride our bikes around the neighborhood. Buffalo’s Black community raised and formed me. I grieve with the city and people I love. The loss of any human life is tragic, but there was deep racial hatred driving this shooting, and we have got to turn from the deadly path our nation has walked for much too long. Bigotry-based violence—any bigotry at all—against our siblings who are people of color, Jewish, Sikh, Asian, trans, or any other group, is fundamentally wrong. As baptized followers of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to uphold and protect the dignity of every human child of God, and to actively uproot the white supremacy and racism deep in the heart of our shared life. Please join me in prayer for the shattered families in Buffalo. Please also join me in expressing profound gratitude for the intervention by Buffalo police that likely saved many other lives. Even amid tragedy, even when manifestations of evil threaten to overwhelm, let us hold fast to the good. It is the only way that leads to life. Declaración pastoral del Obispo Presidente de la Iglesia Episcopal, Michael Curry, sobre el tiroteo masivo en Búfalo Mi corazón está apesadumbrado con la noticia de que un supremacista blanco armado le quitó la vida a diez hijos de Dios en Búfalo el sábado. Crecí a poca distancia de la escena de este odioso crimen, y mis amigos y yo solíamos andar en bicicleta por el vecindario. La comunidad negra de Búfalo me crió y formó. Lloro con la ciudad y la gente que amo. La pérdida de cualquier vida humana es trágica, pero hubo un profundo odio racial que impulsó este tiroteo, y tenemos que alejarnos del camino mortal que nuestra nación ha recorrido durante demasiado tiempo. La violencia basada en el fanatismo, cualquier fanatismo en absoluto, contra nuestros hermanos que son personas de color, judíos, sikh, asiáticos, trans o cualquier otro grupo, es fundamentalmente incorrecta. Como seguidores bautizados de Jesús de Nazaret, estamos llamados a defender y proteger la dignidad de cada hijo de Dios, y a desarraigar activamente la supremacía blanca y el racismo en el corazón de nuestra vida compartida. Por favor, únase a mí en oración por las familias destrozadas en Búfalo. Únase a mí para expresar profunda gratitud por la intervención de la policía de Búfalo que probablemente salvó muchas otras vidas. Incluso en medio de la tragedia, incluso cuando las manifestaciones del mal amenazan con abrumarnos, aferrémonos al bien. Es el único camino que lleva a la vida. FOR MORE INFO CONTACT: Amanda Skofstad Public Affairs Officer, The Episcopal Church askofstad@episcopalchurch.org Subscribe here Facebook Twitter YouTube Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2022 The Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from ALL email communications from The Episcopal Church.

   

• Community Meals - May

  

  Carry-out meals!

  All are welcome!

• A Message from Bishop Hollingsworth on the Invasion of Ukraine

  February 24, 2022

  Dear colleagues and friends,

  The news reports emanating from Ukraine bring directly into our homes and hearts the terrifying reality of war. With it come emotions that including anger, fear, and helplessness. We feel these both for ourselves and for all those more immediately in harm’s way.

  It seems unimaginable that, as an advanced civilization, we are unable to find ways to move toward peaceable resolutions that, in the words of our baptismal covenant, “respect the dignity of every human being” and protect the vulnerable and undefended. It is hard to accept that destruction and death constitute an acceptable way to find stability and security.

  We may be thousands of miles from where the missiles are launched and the bombs land, but we are all complicit. In continually succumbing to a we/they construct in addressing our local, national, and global differences, we are inevitably led to polarization and destructive results. I offer this not in judgment, but in confession. It remains our common human condition.

  As disciples of the one who said, “Peace I give to you, my own peace I leave with you,” we turn to him now for guidance and help. We hold before him our human brokenness that keeps leading us into dehumanizing behavior, and we offer our broken selves back to the God who has given us this life to share. Our prayer for the victims of this attack on Ukraine and our prayer for those who have initiated it must be accompanied by our prayer for ourselves, that we will give ourselves to peace. Such willing self-sacrifice is at the heart of all intercession. Indeed, God can do anything, but always demands our participation.

  The answers Jesus gives to our prayers at this moment will doubtless cost us. They will require us to pick up the peace he has given us, his own peace, and make the same sacrifice of ourselves that he made for us. They will require us to hear what God needs of us to incarnate the peace of Christ in our own lives and be willing to pay the price.

  Let us, therefore, pray for peace; for the safety and comfort of all victims in this time of fear and devastation; for those in leadership and those carrying out their orders; and for ourselves, that we will give all that we are to the peaceful resolution of all conflict:

  Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquillity your dominion may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 258)

  Know that you are in my prayers,

   

  The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr.

  Bishop of Ohio