Dear Friends,
What a great time of year this is. The signs of life are everywhere you look. For the past few weeks I have enjoyed watching a robin’s nest outside my office window. It is sturdily built and cleverly concealed. It seemed to appear overnight. One day it wasn’t there, the next day it was. Then I looked and saw three little fuzzy heads poking above the rim with their mouths wide open. The mother robin – and sometimes the father, too – would be back and forth with fat, juicy worms to drop down the throats of the little ones. During some heavy rains the mother would spread her wings across the nest to shield her young. I can honestly say that last Saturday I was more interested in watching the robins than I was in writing the sermon I had partially up on my computer screen. Now the nest is empty. Just like that, the kids have grown up and are out on their own.
This coming Sunday goes by many titles. Officially, it is the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Unofficially, it is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, because the readings are all about shepherds and sheep. But the most popular title of the day is, of course, Mother’s Day. The busy, nurturing, protecting mother robin has not been lost on me as an example of how God pours divine love into the world through human agents: mothers and shepherds, just to name two. I know next to nothing about shepherds. But I have witnessed a rich legacy of mothering throughout the generations of my family. This Sunday I will give thanks for all of it.
Other signs of life on Sunday will be five baptisms at the 9 am service. These come right on the heels of the thirteen baptisms we celebrated at the Easter Vigil just a few weeks ago. Also at the 9 am service we will enjoy the debut of a new choral ensemble that we are putting together. One thing that never recovered from the pandemic shutdown was the Parish Choir that used to sing at 9 am. People have missed it. The new group will be high school students who have graduated from our boys and girls choirs. They will form the section leaders of what we hope, in time, grows into a choir that welcomes volunteers. Come hear them this Sunday.
Finally, if five baptisms and a new choir isn’t enough for one service, we will also celebrate a renewal of wedding vows. This week I received a call from an Ottavio and Mary Del Vento, who were married at Grace Church exactly fifty years ago, on May 11, 1975. Fun fact: they were the final wedding that the Rev. Benjamin Minifie, the 10th rector, presided over before he retired. Ottavio wondered if I’d be able to say a prayer over them this Sunday. “Of course,” I said. So that’s what we’ll do. Come witness it all.
See you in Church,
Don