New Hitchhiker's Guide To Luke

Under construction: 

We are underway for year C!  I have begun the construction of the new Hitchhiker's Guide To Luke site, with lots of information and links to help "read, mark, and inwardly digest" the Gospel of Luke.  Click on  the link to be redirected to the new site.

Clergy Conference

After Tuesday's downpour of much needed rain, today's sunshine is glorious. Beautiful day at Camp Allen with clergy from throughout the diocese gathered until Wednesday for annual Clergy Conference. We invited clergy from the Diocese of Ft. Worth to join us and are delighted that several were able to join us. It is a blessing to host these folks and share our many resources with them and encourage them in their ministry.  After a presentation on the new vision and priorities of the diocese, our clergy gathered in small groups to add their input to make sure we get it right. We had a great hymn sing last evening and then a concert by jazz singer Kat Edmonson, daughter of our own Sue Edmonson, who works at the diocesan center in Houston. She is incredible! 

We are blessed with some of the finest clergy in The Episcopal Church today and we hope this conference nourishes and refreshes them.  Here are a few pictures from Tuesday.

Debbie Hillick

It is with great sadness that I write to tell you that Debbie Hillick, who worked in the diocesan database services as a continuing education associate, died unexpectedly this morning just after arriving at work. Debbie worked with many people throughout the diocese while she maintained the more than 30,000 names on our Texas Episcopalian mailing list, helped those who needed to obtain lay licenses, coordinated background checks for laity and kept up with continuing education hours for our clergy. Debbie was a steady person in every storm and managed all her multiple duties with grace, kindness and dedication.

Debbie prayed before coming into the office every day. She enjoyed singing hymns to the Lord. She loved Jesus and she loved us. She was a light, and we love her.  I was blessed to be invited to be with the family this morning at the hospital, to witness their love and friendship and care for each other and for Debbie.  I believe they would each tell you that she inspired this love within the family.  Debbie's death affects both Christ Church Cathedral and St. Mark's, Houston as her brother in law (John) and sister (Laura) work in these congregations.

I ask your prayers for Debbie and her family as well as the Diocesan Staff who all miss her already. She leaves behind two married sons, one daughter and two grandchildren. They are a great family.  Debbie was a good and kind person.  We give thanks to God for her life and her work in our community.
 
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Debbie. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.  Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.  Amen.
 
May her soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Mission and Service

All our mission work and our ministries are expressions of the life of prayer that we lead. The work that originates in prayer is work that makes Christ real in the world around us. Mission and service bring the community of the Trinity into the real world. The same God that propels Jesus Christ into the world in order to draw people to the Father, through prayer, sends and commissions us on the same errand. We are to bring people into a closer union with God. We do that work by responding to people who wish to learn how to pray with companionship that helps them find their way along the journey of conversion. We must teach others to pray.



Our prayer leads us to help people find and discover their own vocations. We use our work of prayer to do the work of discernment with others. We are guides along the way listening with people as they seek to discern their own unique calling into ministry. Our prayers for the poor, widowed, sick, homeless in Christ bridges the chasm between us and sends us out, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to work for healing and reconciliation, forgiveness and restoration.



Our prayers lead us to be the voices of those who have no voices. Our prayers bring the work of companionship with the oppressed and the deprived into a stark reality. And the Holy Spirit sends us out to be the very real human resources who offer dignity and love to those people who believe they are lost and without God's love. Furthermore, prayer will lead us to stand up and act on behalf of those who are abused. 


If we are to follow Jesus we are to work at prayer. If we are to follow Jesus prayer will originate our work. In one we come to know our place within the community of God, by the other God's community roots itself on earth.

The Mystery of Intercession

Jesus Christ is our great High Priest. Jesus Christ makes the great and eternal intercession for our lives and our world. Christ makes his prayer of intercession to the merciful Father "through the prayer of all the faithful who are baptized into his body. His voice does not appeal to God separately from theirs." Father Benson, the first brother in the Society of St. John the Evangelist wrote the following. "They are…so many mouths to Himself; and as they pray…His voice fills their utterance with the authority and claim belonging to Himself."



When we pray, God hears the voice of his Son in our prayers and accepts them as Christ's own. We reflect to God the beauty of his Son's sacrificial offering, we reflect the glorious resurrection that offers transformation. When we pray we bring those for whom we pray into the loving arms of the merciful Father. When Christians pray the merciful Father hears the beautiful words of Jesus Christ whispered into his heart. When those who are not Christians pray, God hears them too. God hears them and he hears Jesus whispering into his heart those words, those ancient words, those yearning words of Jesus, "How long have I wished to gather you in my arms, as a hen gathers her young."



It is God's Holy Spirit that invites us to join Christ in the "offering our love in intercessory prayer and action, to be used by God for healing and transformation." God delights in the work of prayer. God makes us partners in the restoration of the world. We are "fellow-workers" with Christ. It is through our intercession that we bring all things and all people to Christ. 


The work of intercessory prayer is an ancient tradition for those who followed Christ. We may read in diaries, fragments, and ancient stories how important the work of prayer was for those first Christians. Perpetua prays for her fellow martyrs, her family, her persecutors. In praying Perpetua declares her Christian faith.



Perhaps since the very apostles prayed at the foot of the cross of Christ, Christians have been called to the edge of culture so as to be poised to hear, with ears open, the "deepest cries of humanity" (SSJE, Rule 24). Again, I quote Father Benson: "In praying for others we learn really and truly to love them. As we approach God on their behalf we carry the thought of them into the very being of eternal love and as we go to him who is eternal love, so we learn to love whatever we take with us there" (SSJE, Rule 25)



We discover in our intercessions a deep and abiding kinship. I pray for my family, my friends, my coworkers, my clergy, parishioners. People give me their names and their causes because they know I pray for them. I pray for them by name and I imagine their faces. I believe God is at work in these prayers, and that my voice is part of Christ's voice raising each person to God, my father, who is in heaven. As we live in the divine community, dwelling with Christ, we discover that God welcomes all our work, our struggles, our afflictions, and our daily lives to bless and uphold the world (SSJE, Rule 25).