Thank you to all who participated in the Cathedral’s annual parish meeting last Sunday, December 6! Cathedral members elected a chapter class for the upcoming three-year term: Angelica Baños, Ward Bondurant, Mary Caroline Cravens, Merritt Dyke, Bill Monroe, and Kate Stotts. And, Sam Wilmoth was elected as junior warden for the upcoming two years. Thank you to all who stand for election! Our treasurer, Haven Long, gave a report on the financial status of the parish and Dean Sam Candler gave his annual report, reminding us all that we are called to comfort one another:
“The year 2020, the year of the pandemic, has been an incredible discomfort. ‘Comfort, O comfort, my people,’ says our God; and we have cried out in pain and desolation and mourning.
Here at the Cathedral, if anything has eased the pain and challenge of my ministry here, it has been you, so many of you faithful parishioners and members, you who have been joining in the comforting. Comforting God’s people is not the role of any one person of the Church; it is the role of all of us.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for taking that comforting so seriously, thank for comforting generously.
…’Comfort, O comfort, my people.’ It is okay to acknowledge the truth, especially if it is painful. That is the way through pain and discomfort. This year has been painful, deeply disappointing, distressing, terribly discomforting. Death and social anxiety are real. They can be devastating.
But Isaiah prophecies that the word of the Lord will stand forever. Christians, and this Cathedral of St. Philip, proclaim a word of grace and gospel that does stand forever.
What we offer here at the Cathedral, even in the midst of a pandemic, really has helped people; it really has helped the world. God feeds the flock, like a shepherd, through the amazing grace of you, the people of the Cathedral Parish of St. Philip. We are equipped only with what God provides: grace upon grace, and love upon love.”
