Katharine Jefferts Schori
Installation of David Rice
We’re here today to celebrate the next chapter in a very long story. The history of this diocese has roots in the first worship by Anglicans, led by Sir Francis Drake’s chaplain north of San Francisco in 1579. A group of Native Americans stood by and watched. It took 270 years before there was a […]
Epiphany 5A
Have you ever noticed how much time and energy we spend on what we eat? A current best-seller tells us to eat more fat and protein and give up sugars and grains, because they cause dementia.[1] Other experts tell us to eat low-fat diets, with lots of complex carbohydrates – whole grains, vegetables, and fruit. […]
Martyrs of Japan – Executive Council
Traditionally the church has talked about two kinds of martyrs – white martyrs and red ones. Red martyrs shed blood for claiming their faith, like Perpetua and Paul, or because of the challenge that they’ve offered to the principalities and powers of this world – like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Oscar Romero. White martyrs […]
Presiding Bishop’s opening sermon from Executive Council
[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori delivered the following sermon on Feb. 5 during the opening Eucharist at the Episcopal Church Executive Council meeting currently gathered at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum Heights, MD (Diocese of Maryland). Martyrs of Japan Executive Council, Maritime Center, Linthicum Heights, MD […]
Diocese of Louisiana-Service of Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation
The only international museum devoted to slavery is in Liverpool, England. Long before the Titanic, Liverpool was the site of ship manufacturing and trade in slaves and the products of their labors. By the 1740s it was the leading British slaving port, and remained so until Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807. Liverpool’s merchant […]
Third Sunday of Advent – Wood Memorial Chapel
There’s been a running story in the New York Times this week about a homeless family with 8 children. They live in a shelter in Brooklyn, and the writer has followed an 11 year old girl in particular – the oldest child who bears outsized responsibility for her younger siblings in this much-stressed family.[1] Her […]
Feast of Edmund of Anglia, 870
We’re celebrating 50 years of this remarkable community on the feast of an English king and martyr who died in the year 870. The two do have something to do with one another. Not only does this community continue to grow in the communion of saints who’ve shared life here for the last 50 years, […]
St. John's, Canandaigua – 200th Anniversary
I recall sitting in the exit row of a plane once, when a very big person arrived to sit across the aisle from me. I really wondered if that person would physically be able to get through the exit. It made me reflect on the ways airlines prepare to deal with emergency evacuations – disabled […]
Elizabeth Blackwell Award
I am humbled by this honor, and reminded that I stand here only because of the difficult work done by so many women and men before me. Elizabeth Blackwell went through 29 medical schools before she found one that would admit her, albeit grudgingly after what looked like another attempt to keep her and her […]
Opening Worship – Rochester Diocesan Convention
From all I have seen of this diocese, your boundaries do indeed enclose a pleasant land, as the psalmist puts it. You are planted here, as Ezekiel says, with hearts of flesh, for living here in this land as God’s people. There is joy abundant in this place, for those who know the abiding presence […]