Dear Cathedral Family,
Again this week, we are being called to prayer, compassion, and hospitality in the unfolding of loss and pain following Hurricane Milton’s landfall in Florida. At the same time, we continue in the same for the recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene in the dioceses of Western North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The most direct way to help right now is through a monetary gift to our diocese; our bishop will forward those monies to the bishops there, who will place it directly in the hands of clergy on the ground in affected areas.
The prayers of our liturgical cycle frequently aid us in understanding God’s desire for us. That happens through this Sunday’s collect, in which we pray that the Lord’s “grace may always precede and follow us” and that through it we may “be continually given to good works.”
Some of those good works by the Cathedral Family happened last Sunday and Monday in the packing and distributing of the first round of bag lunches in our new Loaves and Fish feeding ministry, led by Deacon Pratt Paterson. A servery full of volunteers of all ages gathered early Sunday morning and quickly packed over 100 sack lunches. Almost 70 of these were distributed around downtown Mobile by another team of volunteers on Monday, with the remainder being distributed through our food box on Church Street. The demand on our food box is constant, and we are continually in need of more food to stock it, so please do continue to support this effort, for which many of our neighbors are thankful. At the same time, we will continue to grow this new lunch feeding ministry, which also responds to great need.
Good works also happen in reaching out to form good bonds with neighboring worship communities. That will be happening next Thursday evening, when Christ Church Cathedral hosts our first Community Hymn Sing. Elizabeth Gatter has done a wonderful job of assembling a program rich in the hymnody of several Protestant denominations, and she has gathered a gifted group of fellow church musicians to share the bench with her. Please do come in person to join in the singing, if you are able. The event will also be live-streamed.
Faithfully,
Beverly+
Commentaires