This past Friday evening, May 12, a group of families and parishioners of several generations gathered in the Great Hall and our church for the last Messy Church of our first Messy season.  I think it is safe to say, all things considered, that we are a better parish with our Messy Church as part of us.  

It's a whole different way of experiencing church, and yet it is so much the same.  We gather and pray, and sing, and laugh and share insights, and share a meal together.  We also do crafts (which may be the most different thing).  But it is for sure a place for kids and parents to learn and love faith together.  And it is for sure a beautiful place for women and men of our congregation to volunteer.  

I am tempted to write about the numbers that have attended our monthly Messy Church sessions over this first year, but I won't, because other things are much more important.  Like the truth that we have together met Jesus and his mercy and his faithful love in a new way in these noisy, funny, and actually messy times.

I believe that families whose children are enrolled in Saint Anselm's Academy, even if another parish is their own, would just love Messy Church if they give it a try.  I am going to be an evangelist speaking that message this summer and into the fall.  So, as our presiding Bishop Michael Curry would say: All y'all consider joining us on the second Friday evening of every month at 6 pm, beginning in September.  Life is messy.  Let church be messy too.  God is there in the middle of the mess.

Blessings, and thanks to our marvelous volunteers and all the families who got messy this year!

Father John McGinty

Remarks of the Rev. Dr. John P. McGinty, Rector to the
2019 Annual Meeting of The Church of Saint Anselm of Canterbury
Shoreham, NY | Diocese of Long Island
January 27, 2019

Well, how are you?
This is the time set aside once each year to make sure we ‘take our temperature’ together.

Are we together?
Are we healthy?
Are we faithful?
Are we realistic?
Are we hopeful?
Are we imaginative?
Are we becoming what God is calling us to be?
Are we alive?
Are we loving?  

All these and more add up to a question to which we should never presume an answer.  No one should.

The question is:
Are we being the Church?

The question is tricky.  It’s like what Saint Augustine said about understanding God way back in the fifth century: ‘as soon as you think you understand God, the one thing you need to realize is that, whatever you have understood, it is not God.’

In this case, it’s like this.  As soon as we settle in and say anything like ‘we got this, we’re being the church,’ the one thing we need to realize is that whatever you are at that moment, you’re not Church.  It just flew by you, on Holy Spirit wings. It never stops moving.

Becoming Church is directly related to the individual invitation to become a disciple of Jesus.  It’s a moving target. There is always something more. It’s never comfortable for long. But it’s worth it.  It’s worth more than anything else you could direct your life toward.
So, how are we doing?

And wrapped in that question is the personal one: how are you doing?

I care, with you, about the building, about finance, about all the practicalities.  But it’s my first responsibility as your parish priest to care for you as sons and daughters of God, as sisters and brothers of Christ, as Temples (in this time and place) of the Holy Spirit.  In other words, as the Church.

So I will continue to work diligently with our church Administrator, Barbara Dougherty, with our Treasurer Laura Spillane, with the dedicated members of our Church Vestry, including those just elected, with our exemplary Wardens, Tom Killeen and Bob Pokorny, to assure that our assets of funds, buildings, and all things are maintained well, repaired as necessary, and replaced when they wear out.

But I will work with them also to assure that our volunteers in ministry - from among your ranks - are appreciated and encouraged and cared for.  And I’ll seek to do the same for that list of co-workers I named moments ago.

And underneath all that, prior to all that, more fundamental than all that, I will work to exhaustion to challenge you and me to continue to deepen our shared discipleship, our relationship to God in Jesus, our being as truly as possible the Church, living here and now.

How?

You’ll know it when you see it.  In our third year together, you may already know what looks like.  When something different is proposed, that maybe you haven’t seen before -
in worship,
in schedule,
in emphasis.

We only have so much time to live into Christ Jesus in this life.  And we only have so much time to do this together in this unique moment and this unique place.  So we need to deepen our discipleship with openness and with energy.

To make it clear, when my time as your priest is over, my hope is that you will sit back, take a deep breath, look at each other and say, “Well, that was demanding, but wow do I feel good.  Way down deep, do I feel good.”

And so, we continue.  Thank you!

​

On Sunday afternoon I was happy to be able to visit a parishioner who had been hospitalized just a few miles from church.  At the hospital front desk, three very welcoming folks greeted me.  They let me know where to find my friend and parishioner, and I noted in passing that I had managed to get myself lost the last time I tried to get to that particular neighborhood in the hospital.  Which was true.

The security man on duty, above and beyond the call thereof, offered to lead me there.  He led me much of the way and then kindly pointed forward to the path I should follow.  Alas, when I had reached the correct floor in the correct area of the hospital, thanks to his good offices, I was lost again, unable to figure from the signage exactly where the room I needed to find was to be found.

I did see a glass door and a nurse's desk beyond.  Pressing forward I walked up to the desk and was greeted by a friendly face.  I asked for our parishioner by name and received confirmation of the location of her room.  But then the woman at the desk continued, unexpectedly.  "It is so good that you are here, and on a Sunday afternoon!  I can see in your face the love of people and the glory of God.  Thank you for that!"  

Now, what do you say after something like that?  I thanked her and with wonderment actually found my way to the room, where we had a good visit and a moment of wonderfully genuine prayer together.  Then, somehow (!), I found my way back to the lobby and out the door again.

In the middle of that visit to a good person in a moment of life needing encouragement, affirmation and support, God had cleverly embedded a most unexpected moment of encouragement and support into my living.  Like a number of us, I presume, I am most often aware of my lacks, my weakness, my missteps, my sinfulness.  But through this lady whom I never saw before and may not again, through her gentleness and strength, I was invited to recognize something else in me, and that nothing less than God working through a very poor tool.  But working for good effectively nonetheless.

On all counts, it was a blessed summer afternoon,

Dear Saint Anselm’s,

This Sunday has been known as Gaudete Sunday in the western Church for a very long time. The origins of the season of Advent are as old as the 5th century. Its name is taken from the introit, the entrance song that was proper to the third Sunday of Advent. Here is that entrance song rendered in our English, based on Paul’s letter to the Philippians in chapter 4 and on Psalm 85:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob.

‘Have no anxiety about anything’! Here in 21st century America just to be asked not to be anxious can make us anxious. But do note. We are neither asked nor expected to bring ourselves to that state of inner and outer peace, free of anxiety and immune to deep stress. We are simply asked to live consistently in this way: handing over our sources of anxiety and stress to God in prayer. Simply letting God know what is going on. Handing it over. This is the time-honored path to peace.

And it opens the way to what this Sunday encourages and celebrates: Joy. We are bid to rejoice. In terms of this season, we are bid to rejoice because the Lord Jesus, and the celebration of his birth, is coming ever nearer. But let me ask you: what gives you joy? Keep in mind as you consider this question that ‘joy’ is not the same as ‘happiness.’ Happiness comes and goes like the weather, and is based on all sorts of fleeting things. Joy is based on deeper foundations, deep within, where the human spirit meets the divine. Joy, when we are found by it, endures.

Is this joy yours? Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe it was at one time and living on has seemingly erased it. But if you have ever known it, then you know how real it is. How genuine. How actual. How perfectly matched to human need and desire. And if you have never known it, good news! This is your time.

And best of all. This joy is available. Hand over the sources of anxiety. They may remain in your living, but your relationship to them will shift. You will be free. And then, just open to joy.

I pray joy will be yours this Gaudete Sunday, this Christmas, and always!
​
Advent blessings,
John+