Diosef News

A letter from Bishop Duracin

2012-01-12T14:47:00.004-05:00

On this second anniversary of Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake, Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin of the Diocese of Haiti has sent this letter to all throughout the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion who are helping in the rebuilding of Haiti.

January 12, 2012
Port au Prince, Haiti

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Haiti in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As we transition from Advent season and welcome 2012, it is an apt time to remark new beginnings. We are pleased to be celebrating many new beginnings in the Diocese of Haiti. This year we do this while evaluating progress in light of the two-year anniversary of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

The earthquake of 2010 will be fixed in our national consciousness for decades to come and has thus been integrated into the national vernacular. When referring to events, Haitians almost always specify whether it occurred 'before or after the Twelfth'.

We are thankful this year, and always, to be a part of the World Wide Anglican Communion. The support within our Church continues to gain momentum even while the catastrophe fades out of international consideration.

On behalf of the Diocese of Haiti, I thank you for supporting the rebuilding of the Holy Trinity Cathedral. The Cathedral is the center of worship for Diocese of Haiti. We are pleased to state that the Request for Proposals to rebuild the Cathedral has been issued and the international team charged with rebuilding Holy Trinity will soon choose among the proposals a firm to design and build the new house of worship. We count on continued support to complete the project. The rebuilding of the Cathedral will be a victory for the Anglican Communion and the downtown Port au Prince renaissance. We appreciate all of you who participate.

Thank you also for your steadfast support of the Diocese of Haiti's diverse ministries. Individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds met us in Haiti and offered their gifts, talents, and resources. Many more offer their significant support from their homes. Thank you for giving of yourselves for the benefit of your brothers and sisters in Haiti. Despite the continued challenges of insecurity, limited access to clean water, and inflated prices, all Diocesan institutions are functioning, albeit in temporary structures made mostly of plywood and corrugated metal. We look forward to moving all of these institutions into permanent appropriate structures. We look forward also to increasing the community development programs of the Diocese such as micro-credit loans and technical education to insure ourselves for the challenges to come. Together we are moving from the relief stage of recovery into a steady pace striding into a better future.

In March, the Diocese of Haiti welcomed a Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Sikhumbuzo Vundla. Mr. Vundla works closely with Diocesan leadership to facilitate the reconstruction process. The Diocese benefits from his knowledge and experience.

This Fall, the Diocese of Haiti elected Rev. Canon Ogé Beauvoir as Bishop Suffragan to serve in the North. This is an important step in a plan to decentralize and reorganize. The Bishop Suffragan will share leadership duties with the Diocesan Bishop increasing the capacities of all Diocesan ministries.

The potential of what has begun in 2011 adds fuel to the fires of hope and resilience. We are elated to realize tangible advancements. We have many positive things to celebrate 'after the twelfth'. Our joy multiplies knowing that it is shared with so many brothers and sisters around the world.

God's Peace to you and your families at the commencement of a new year. Please know that each one of you is remembered in the prayers of your Haitian friends. May God bless each and every one of you in all of your endeavors this year.

In Christ,

The Right Reverend J. Zaché Duracin
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti

Frade blesses “Oasis” at the Duncan Conference Center

2011-12-22T13:01:00.003-05:00

It was the first day of winter. The sky was a clear, bright blue, and the temperature hovered around 80 as Bishop Leo Frade, wearing swim trunks, a t-shirt--and his miter--stepped into the new swimming pool at the Duncan Conference Center in Delray Beach.

Standing on the pool steps, the bishop offered a prayer, then walked around the perimeter and through the water at the shallow end, sprinkling the pool’s blue surface with holy water.

“Be present with your servants in this place, to which they come for fellowship and recreation,” he prayed. “Make it, we pray, a place of serenity and peace.”
The pool and surrounding gardens, named the Frade Oasis in honor of the bishop, are the first part of an upgrade of the diocesan conference center’s facilities that will also include expansion of the kitchen and dining room of the Bethesda Refectory, the addition of a sunroom for use as an indoor gathering place, and a gazebo near the pool.

When planning for the “oasis” began, the bishop had said, half-joking, that he wanted it called the T.G.I.F. pool—“Thank God It’s Frade.” As he waded into the pool, Duncan Center Director Alison Walsh asked him to move his feet so she could uncover a surprise: Set into the top step is a mosaic plaque that says, “TGIF.”

Walsh presented similar tile plaques to Frade and to Duncan Center Board members Karen and David Gury, whose donation made possible the construction of the pool.

“We’re committed to the transformation of this place,” said Karen Gury after the pool blessing, “because it is transforming lives.”

After the brief blessing service, Frade enjoyed a swim, along with David Gury and members of his family, and Fr. Andrew Sherman, rector of St. Gregory’s, Boca Raton. St. Gregory’s and its parishioners, including the Gurys, are faithful supporters of the Duncan Center.

The Dec. 21 pool blessing was a small event, attended mainly by board members. A full dedication celebration for the whole diocese is planned for March 2012.

Click here for a photo gallery from the pool blessing.

Youth Commission Report to the Diocesan Convention 2011

2011-11-17T16:35:00.003-05:00

Good morning. I am Nora Vinas, the new Youth Commission president. With me are Gillian Newman, our vice president, and Eva Ortez, our secretary. Our Administrative Assistant is Dominique Douglas, who couldn’t be with us today. We are proud to announce that our Youth and Young Adult ministry have been well represented in multiple diocesan events this year. From the youngest acolyte attending our annual Acolyte Festival last spring to our young adults coming together last summer at the first Young Adult Diocesan Summit, we’ve made sure all age groups are being integrated.

We begin each year with the Diocesan Christmas Ball. Last year Holy Family, Miami Gardens, hosted the event. This was a fantastic evening where the youth of our diocese shared a dinner and dance. This is one of our largest events of the year; over 100 youth attended this event last year, and we’re looking forward to this year’s Christmas Ball on December 17th at St. Benedict’s, Plantation.

In February our focus shifts to middle school. New Beginnings is a spiritual weekend designed especially for middle-schoolers focusing on their relationships with Christ, family and friends. This is a “Cursillo”-type event with content for middle-schoolers. High school students run this program with minimal supervision from adults, learning leadership skills to equip a new generation of church leaders. This all took place last winter at St. Martin’s in Pompano Beach. This year New Beginnings will be held at St. Benedict’s in Plantation, February 16th through 19th.

Each spring we are honored to sponsor the Diocesan Acolyte Festival. This is our biggest event each year, with over 400 attending last spring at St Marks, Palm Beach Gardens. We owe a special debt of gratitude to all the volunteers there for making this such a great event. This year the Acolyte Festival will be held at Trinity Cathedral on April 28th. The theme is “Acolytes Committed to Restoring our House of Worship.” A portion of the fee for the festival is going to help with the cathedral’s restoration.

Another event we offer is Happening. Happening is a spiritual weekend held twice a year by high school students for high school students and this IS a life-changing experience. Throughout the weekend we gather the youth and motivate them to take a step back and reestablish their relationship with Christ. We had the latest Happening just last weekend [Nov. 4-6], and over 80 youth, young adults and adults were present. The next Happening will be held March 23-25 right here at St. Joseph’s, and we couldn’t be more excited.

Also this past summer we attended EYE, the Episcopal Youth Event, held in St. Paul, Minnesota. This event is held every three years for youth from all over the country. Unexpectedly, we were asked to hold a workshop on Happening, along with selected youth from the West Texas and Iowa groups. The EYE workshop was a huge success, and we were invited to the Happening in West Texas, where the program originally began. EYE was absolutely incredible and an amazing learning experience, and I was reassured that the future of the Episcopal Church is growing in grace, with strong, young hands preparing to take our place in the church.

Additionally, PYE, The Province IV Youth Event, was held in conjunction with EYE in Minnesota. We worked with the Red Lake Nation helping to restore the Ojibwa tribe by working on two churches. This was a wonderful cultural exchange and very gratifying to know that in the tribe’s eyes we shined a light on youth. We definitely now know that our mission is to show God’s love by helping those who are in need.

As great as it is to travel to national events, it is great to gather our own each year at our Diocesan Youth Convention. This year we had delegates representing four of our six deaneries. We participated in workshops, held our election of officers and planned for the coming year. The closing service at convention was held at St. Benedict’s, Plantation, where we worshiped together and commissioned our officers. The next Youth convention will be held August 4th at Trinity Cathedral.

Many of you may not know, but this summer for the very first time we held a Diocesan Young Adult Summit at the Chapel of the Venerable Bede on the campus of the University of Miami. Thirty-five young adults attended with the intention of getting a diocesan ministry started. They elected officers and planned activities for the year. The group will be sponsoring the annual Christmas Ball for the Youth, as well as a dinner for graduating seniors to ease the transition from youth to the young adult ministry. We are very excited about this new ministry and look forward to watching it grow.

In the coming year there are many ideas we will be exploring to continue building up our ministry. We would like to have more weekend retreats, peer ministry workshops, Happening Reunions, and possibly to go down to the Keys and do a Happening there. One of our major goals is bringing our diocese together.

This year we plan to address the issues that interfere with the growth of our youth, such as communication and transportation. We are very blessed to have such a big and diverse diocese; but distance plays a big role in the youth’s not being able to participate in activities, because transportation is limited and we don’t have a camp in which to gather on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, this is going to be an exciting year in youth ministry.

I honestly thank all the youth coordinators who devote their time to insuring that youth ministry reaches all our deaneries and to running major programs on both the diocesan and deanery levels. I would also like to thank all the volunteers who go out of their way to help us and nourish us at youth events.

And of course, great leadership begins at the top. None of these events could be possible without the support of Bishop Frade; if you didn’t believe in us, this ministry wouldn’t have come this far. I can personally say the youth program has changed my life, and I know if we continue working hard the best is yet to come and we will achieve our goal of getting all our youth in the diocese together. Therefore, I encourage you, parents and youth leaders, to motivate your youth, to become involved in deanery and diocesan events. When your parish receives emails, newsletters and invitations for upcoming events, please get the message out there. This ministry needs the support of each and every one of you to make this a productive year. We need you to have faith in us because we can’t do it without you.

We may be the church of tomorrow, but we’re already making a difference today.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me!

2011-11-17T15:55:00.002-05:00

A Sermon by the Rt. Rev. James B. Magness
Convention Eucharist, Diocese of Southeast Florida
11-11-11

Isaiah 42:1-9; Hebrews 12: 1-3; Luke 4:14-21

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind....”

Each November on Veterans Day we engage in a pause as we remember the men and women who have served their country through being Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen. Our remembrances have their foundation in the creation of Armistice Day observances when World War I ended in Europe. For almost a century we have remembered persons who have worn a military uniform and who have served their country; who have served us. We call this patriotism, a term that engenders suspicion in the hearts and minds of some of our fellow Christians. At the root of this question is a foundational concern – a concern that has to do with whether or not of people of faith in the risen Lord Jesus can be faithful believers and simultaneously serve their country in a military uniform.

That thorny conundrum begs a question that probes even deeper into who we are and what we do as God’s people. What makes a person of faith? How are people of faith formed into the persons whom God wants them to be, and how should people of faith live out their lives? We have some clues to the question of formation in the reading from the Gospel of Luke about the formation of Jesus.

To unpack this question of formation I want to do a few minutes of Bible study with you. In the gospel of Luke do you remember how Jesus started his ministry? Think for a moment. Yes, that's right; Jesus went down to the Jordan River to meet up with his cousin John and experienced John's primitive version water baptism. Everyone who saw what had happened knew full well that Jesus was, from that moment on, a marked man; Jesus was one with God his Father. How did they know that? Because when he was baptized the voice of God was heard to say, "You are my beloved Son..." At that moment the spirit of God DESCENDED UPON Jesus. Here Ends Jesus' Preparation Part I.

Do you remember what happened next? Of course you do; Jesus went off on a 40 day wilderness fast and retreat when he was in mortal combat with Satan for his soul. Three times Jesus was tempted by Satan to take an easier life path devoid of sacrifice and suffering. In response to each temptation Jesus kept his focus – a focus on the mission that his Father had for Him. In the end the victorious Jesus was FULL of the Spirit. Here Ends Jesus' Preparation Part II.

The next formative event is what we have in the reading we heard this evening. Jesus walks into the temple on the Sabbath, as the text tells us “…as was his custom[1]," to open a scroll of scripture to read about the power of God, his Father, to bless the poor, the captives and the blind. Considering where Jesus was, in the center of Jewish worship - the temple, and who Jesus was - the son of a common family, you'd have to be a bit crazy to go into the midst of such a potentially hostile crowd and say what Jesus said. Yet, through this act Jesus was filled with the POWER of the Spirit. Here Ends Jesus' Preparation Part III.

You can see the linear progression. The Spirit descends upon Jesus. Jesus is full of the Spirit. Finally, Jesus is filled with the power of the spirit. And it is a good thing, because Jesus’ life is just about to get crazy. From here on out people, both friend and foe alike, will never leave him alone. The power of the Spirit has filled Jesus because things are just about to get crazy and mission is about to happen.//

In the 1940s there lived a man by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonheoffer was a German pastor, a theologian, and ultimately a martyr. During that time he was in prison because after a long dark fortnight of the soul, he decided that the ruthless and controlling German leader Adolph Hitler had to be assassinated; and Dietrich decided that he was the one who had to perform this act. However, Dietrich was apprehended and imprisoned before he was able to carry out the deed. While awaiting execution he was critical of the German Christian church. How, he wrote, could the Christian church in Germany allow a man such as Hitler to exist without challenge? In one of his letters from prison he wrote about what he described as “religionless Christianity.” His idea of Religionless Christianity is of a faith that is devoid of all of the outward appearances, trappings and structures of religion; but goes to the actual heart of what it means to be a Christian, especially a Christian servant. The true servant of the risen Lord is a person whose mission flows from the heart. The emerging connection is between servanthood and mission.

Deitrich Bonhoffer taught us that there is a cost to being a servant engaged in mission - that through being a missional follower of Christ you could even be called upon to give up your life - for the sake of the lives of others. Over the years I've heard people say that true faith - true religion - is in the heart and can't be seen. Though I am not going to ask for a show of hands, I wonder how many of you believe in such a theory of the invisibility of faith and true religion. You see, I believe that the invisibility of our faith is a comfortable myth of which we've convinced ourselves. I believe that you have to be able to SEE faith in action if it is going to be real.

· Faith is about how you relate to your neighbor / when it would be easier to ignore your neighbor's plight.
· Faith is about the person or persons you determine to be your neighbor / when it would be easier to look the other way.
· Faith is about sacrifice for the good of the other / when sacrifice might not immediately benefit you or benefit you at all.

It has occurred to me on more than just a few occasions that there are times and places in life when you have to be a little crazy, both as individual believers and groups of believers, to stand up and proclaim your faith in the risen Lord. However, the real "crazy" happens when the actions of your life bear witness to what you believe. This "crazy" is no less than "crazy like Jesus." When the power of the Lord's spirit is upon you, you are willing to walk into potentially hostile environments in the same way that Jesus walked into the temple. When you get crazy like Jesus, the scripture is being fulfilled in your life.

“The church encounters the reality of sin and the brokenness of the world as the Spirit leads... (us) into the world to participate in God’s mission… (We know God’s mission is being accomplished when we hear the) creation itself, ‘…groan inwardly’ as all await release from the bondage of sin[2].”[3]

We do this by bringing the fullness of God – all those creative and redemptive forces – to bear upon our world. We are the ambassadors and the emissaries whose work it is to bear witness – often without fanfare, in the midst of horrendous, compromising and complicated settings. Our calling is to mission with all God’s children as together we exercise the power of God – the same power Jesus came to know and use in the temple that day so long ago.

The Episcopal priest/chaplains who represent you within the Armed Services are quite familiar with the environments in which our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen live out their lives. These hostile environments challenge our men and women in ways that some of us can only grasp in the fantasy of our imagination. Yet for them it is no fantasy. It is real and is all tied up with mission – for our chaplains and for many other men and women in uniform, the mission of the church.

* When a Soldier comes to one of my chaplains in a wounded warrior rehabilitation program at a sprawling Veterans Administration hospital and says, "Chaplain, I think I've lost my soul," I know it is about to get crazy, crazy like Jesus when mission starts to happen.

* When a Navy explosive ordinance disposal officer sitting in an overseas USO passionately tells my wife the story of his inability to stop 4 suicide bombers from killing over 40 people in a packed Roman Catholic Church in Iraq, I know it is about to get crazy, crazy like Jesus when mission starts to happen.

* When one of my chaplains is at the Dover Air Base Mortuary to meet the caskets of returning service members who had been killed in an aircraft crash in Afghanistan, and the wife of the pilot with two small children in tow comes up to him to ask where God was when her husband was killed, I know it is about to get crazy, crazy like Jesus when mission starts to happen.

Not only do such questions and statements bear witness to the incredibly difficult environment in which service members work and with which their families have to cope, but also it is a call to our Christian mission - into the midst of brokenness. Mission, after all, was what D.B. was doing when he endeavored to end Hitler's life; he engaged in a dilemma wherein the greater good was deemed to require that he break one of the foundational understandings of people of God - that you do not kill.

Military people have a keen understanding of what it means to embark upon mission and the planning entailed to be successful. However, they will also know that unless you have an unflagging commitment to the accomplishment of the mission, failure is always a possibility.

A servant, true servant, is the one who can so hold the other in his or her heart that the needs of the other become paramount above all else. Have you ever wondered how so many of the Medal of Honor recipients were able to sacrifice their lives? Though often we say that they did what they did for their country, which may be true, more so I am convinced that their heroic sacrifice was for the sake of their battle-mates whom they held in their heart.

There is a certain craziness about having the heart of Jesus. You see, in our culture it is more than just a little countercultural to consider the needs of the other to be more important than your own. And I'll tell you another thing. When you consider the needs of the other to be above your needs, something else is about to happen: mission. The mission of gospel proclamation is about to happen, and it is about to get crazy like Jesus. The mission of Jesus is the heart of a servant.

It gets crazy when the rawness of a person's soul is laid open before you. Do you know what it feels like to be in front of a person who opens her soul up to you? Recently one of my priest / chaplains described a situation when a commander of troops in Bagdad took him to see the wreckage of an armored vehicle that had been destroyed by a roadside bomb, a bomb that killed two of his Soldiers. My chaplain told me about the commander's intense description of what it was like to be at the head of a convoy of vehicles and hear the explosion behind him; knowing full well what would come next. My chaplain told me how very small and weak he felt in the presence of the commander's powerful words. Then he said he knew that the power of the Holy Spirit was in their midst. The chaplain knew that his mission was to stand there and be a physical reminder to the presence of God. The mission at that moment involved very few words and lots of silence. That was the craziness of that moment when he learned the truth of Isaiah's proclamation: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind..."

I am very proud that our franchise of the Christian church has a mission to service members and veterans. Part of that mission involves a significant outpouring of pastoral care for people who hurt, but an even larger component of the mission is our calling to share the redemptive good news of God in Christ. We have this mission because we care about and for God’s children, ALL of God’s children.

As I said earlier, November is the time of the year when we remember the sacrifice of our Veterans. These are men and women who have served and sacrificed for us - often for the sake of their faith. Many of these men and women felt compelled to address the dilemma between faith and military service. In the end, the men and women who chose to wear the uniform knew that for them the responsible action was to serve.

The mission of our church, through your military chaplains, goes where our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen go. In time of war and in time of peace, these service members have been there to serve us. They give and have given much; some gave all they had and, as vividly we are learning today, some gave even more than that,

Shortly we will celebrate one of the oldest rites of the church: Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is an act of remembering that Jesus was the ultimate servant who sacrificed his body and shed his blood that we might have life. We will remember that the work of a servant is giving back to God and God's people what God has given us. Mission in action is the foundation of the Christ-follower. We will be reminded to hold in our hearts the reality of faith that the greatest among us will first be a servant. AMEN.

********************************************************************************
[1] Luke 4.16b, New Revised Standard Version of The Holy Bible.
[2] Romans 8.18-24, NRSV.
[3] Rouse & VanGelder, A Field Guide for the Missional Congregation. (Augsburg, Minneapolis: 2008) 39-40.

Acolyte Festival—smoke, streamers and even a donkey!

2011-04-21T13:51:00.007-04:00

Close to 400 acolytes from 21 congregations around the diocese participated in the annual Diocesan Acolyte Festival, Apr. 16 at St. Marks, Palm Beach Gardens.

Because it was the day before Palm Sunday, the festival Eucharist followed the Palm Sunday liturgy, beginning with the distribution of palms and a grand procession led by a donkey, a colt and “Jesus” (St. Mark’s acolyte Patrick Cothern).

Acolytes read the lessons and a contemporary version of the Passion Gospel from The Message translation of the New Testament.

In his homily Bishop Leo Frade urged the acolytes to “live your faith every day.”

He presented awards to acolytes chosen by each congregation for exemplary service (see list below).

The offering from the service will go to sponsor a child in school in the Diocese of Eldoret in Kenya, where St. Mark’s has an ongoing partnership with the Mama Ada Foundation.

Acolytes were also asked to bring supplies for the ministries of St. George’s, Riviera Beach, to the poor and homeless.

In the afternoon the acolytes participated in three workshops: Holy Smoke: The Work of the Thurifer; Jubilation Streamers; and Acolyte Bingo.

Photos from the Acolyte Festival

A video from the Festival posted by St. George’s, Riviera Beach

Diocese of Southeast Florida
2011 Acolytes Honored at the Acolyte Festival

Obinna Aribiana, Holy Sacrament, Plantation
Consuelo Boronat, St. Simon’s, Miami
Janelle Bradshaw, St. Mary Magdalene, Coral Springs
Marina Braynon-Moore, St. Benedict’s, Plantation
Mellisa Cadny, St. John’s, Hollywood
Nicholas Cooper, St. Matthew’s, Delray
Mason Farnan, Holy Trinity, West Palm Beach
Kristina Gomez, Trinity Cathedral, Miami
Peter Holland, St. Anne’s, Hallandale Beach
Watson Jaeron, Transfiguration, Opa Locka
Melissa Llewellyn, St. Bernard de Clairvaux, N. Miami Beach
Cameron MacDonald, St. Faith’s, Cutler Bay
Sean Miller, St. James-in-the-Hills, Hollywood
Kayla Morton, St. Mark’s, Palm Beach Gardens
Brianna Neat, St. Kevin’s, Opa Locka
Sean Palmer, St. Margaret’s and San Francisco de Asis, Miami Lakes
Leroy Parker, Church of the Incarnation, Miami
Scott Parker, St. Thomas, Coral Gables
Tristan Parker, Holy Family, Miami
John Pecaro, St. Martin’s, Pompano Beach
Nina Power, All Saints’, Jensen Beach
Tiffany Quinn, All Angels, Miami Springs
Renee Russell, Church of the Ascension, Miami
Gema Sanchez, Holy Comforter, Miami
Laura Marie Smith, St. Agnes, Miami
Quinlan Stewart, St. Andrew’s, Lake Worth
Khadine Thomas, St. Christopher’s, West Palm Beach
Anabelle Vabre, St. Andrew’s, Miami
Jacob Zlochower, Church of the Advent, Palm City

An award-winning sermon by Dean Douglas McCaleb

2011-04-20T11:36:00.003-04:00

A Pentecost invitation to a “Wild Goose chase”

On April 8, 2011, this Pentecost sermon by Dean Douglas Wm McCaleb of Trinity Cathedral, Miami, published in the June 2010 issue of The Net, won the Award of Excellence for devotional/inspirational writing at the annual Polly Bond Awards given by Episcopal Communicators.

Today is a breathing day--a day to celebrate the breath of God that fills all creation. All the great religions recognize the incredible power behind and within our breathing. James [Reho] has taught me a lot about the attention that many Eastern spiritual traditions pay to the regular, constant rhythm connected with breathing. And in our own Judeo-Christian tradition, the mystics referred to prayer as “breathing in and out the breath of God.” When we look at the word “spirit” and its Latin, Greek and Hebrew roots, it literally means “breath.” And breath is what you have when you’re alive, and what you don’t have when you’re dead. So today is the day to celebrate that we are alive with God’s breath—God’s Spirit that enlivens and empowers us to serve in the world!

….The marvelous lesson from the Acts of the Apostles gives us the story of that first Pentecost Day, when the lives of men and women were turned upside down by the violent wind of God’s Spirit. No special effects department in all of Hollywood could rival that morning!

Picture the scene: The disciples had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish festival that commemorates the Giving of the Law to Moses. And there, we are told, were devout people from all over the Roman Empire. And suddenly, there is a rush of wind, and their ears are unstopped and they hear in their own languages, dozens of them, what God is doing in the world. And they are bewildered, and amazed, and astonished.

And no one understands. Not until Peter stands up and says, “Friends, the disciples that you hear speaking are not drunk. After all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Remember what the prophet Joel said: ‘The Spirit of God will be poured out on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. The young will see visions and the old will dream dreams.’ That’s what happening here, right now, before your very eyes…in your own hearing.”

It’s a good story. But what does it have to do with us? My hunch is that most Episcopalians would be mighty uncomfortable with a violent wind, with speaking in tongues, with the sun turning to darkness and the moon turning to blood. Just give me the good ol’ Book of Common Prayer, thank you very much.

On the altar this morning, you see red roses and red peonies—two of the flowers that for centuries have been associated with today’s feast. By the time of the middle ages, the dramatic story of the first Pentecost had been softened by the Church, and during the singing of the Sequence, as the priest intoned
the ancient and powerful words, “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire,” choirboys would drop red flower pedals from the rafters of the church, symbolizing the tongues of fire that came on the apostles in Jerusalem…a pretty weak substitute!

But we do try to tame God’s spirit. We do try to soften the might of God’s presence among us. We do try to domesticate the power that turned that rag-tag, frightened bunch of disciples into bold apostles, proclaiming unashamedly the mighty acts of God. And the entire rest of the Book of Acts recounts story after story of how they did this.

The question is, do we want this to happen to us? Do we want God’s Spirit to blow into our lives like a mighty wind? Do we want God’s Spirit to set our hearts on fire? Do we want God’s Spirit to transform us as individuals, as a community, as a society so that we can show the compassionate, caring, inclusive and all-embracing love of God?

Along the North Aisle of the Cathedral, the stained glass windows are full of saints from the British Isles: Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales. You can see St. Columba, St. Brigid, St. Patrick, St. Margaret. Many of them came from the Celtic rather than the Latin tradition of Christianity. And for the Celtic Christians, the Church was all about community, and life was all about pilgrimage--always moving, yet always together with others.

In Celtic Christianity, the Holy Spirit was not as often portrayed artistically as a dove, peaceful and serene, but rather as a wild goose, big, noisy, and uncontrollable. For the early Christians of Britain, the wild goose was a better representation of the unpredictable and untamed nature of the Holy Spirit and reminded them that the Spirit is often sent to disturb as well as to comfort. When I visited the Island of Iona, off the West Coast of Scotland, I learned that geese fly in formation. And they fly faster and farther than they would alone. Maybe that’s a good lesson for us to learn as the Church. To remind ourselves that we’re generally better off in community than when we are by ourselves.

We all know that Pentecost has been called the “birthday of the Church” because from this day, empowered by the Holy Spirit, the first apostles went out to proclaim the Good News in extraordinary ways. How fitting that we are having our “Forty and Forward” Anniversary on this feast, commemorating our 40 years as the Cathedral Church of the Diocese. Maybe we too can be empowered by the Spirit to do extraordinary things--looking ahead, living in community like the Celtic Christians, flying in formation like the wild geese.

So I invite you on this birthday--on this anniversary, to follow the Wild Goose--to join me in a Wild Goose chase! It’s risky business. The Spirit is unpredictable and out of our control. And following God’s Spirit can mean that we have to let go of things we hold dear. It can mean taking chances, seeing things from a different perspective, broadening our horizons and going deep inside our souls. Chasing the Wild Goose--following the Holy Spirit--is never easy.

But God has given us gifts, and one of the greatest is that of one another, to support and to encourage us on our journey. So we rejoice in that, and pray that we might share God’s Spirit in all of its diversity, opening ourselves up to be filled with the breath of New Life--then breathing out, sending forth God’s Spirit, God’s Breath, so that in some way, our lives and the lives of others will be renewed, refreshed, and strengthened for God’s service. AMEN.

"Hope is rooted in God’s possibility"

2010-12-23T09:15:00.002-05:00

Sermon by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
December 19, 2010
50th anniversary of the consecration of the church building,
St. Columba, Marathon, Florida

Congratulations! Fifty years as a community of faith is indeed something to celebrate. I presume there are some in this community who were either here at the beginning or knew the founders well. Keep telling the stories about how and why St. Columba’s began, for the generations to come need to know them. Those stories are filled with hope – hope for the possibilities in a motley crew of salt water and fresh water Conchs. You give evidence of hope for those who aren’t members of this intimate group by your remarkable growth in this place, and by your attention to those far beyond these islands.

Isaiah’s prophecy is given to people who felt grievously isolated, living in mortal fear, with enemies on their doorstep. The big enemies around here are more likely economic or natural disasters, but the fear is the same – who will help, and how will we survive? Isaiah confronts King Ahaz about his despair in the face of those enemies, after he’s lapsed back into his faithless funk. Isaiah says, well hope is coming anyway, whether you want to ask for it or not. He says, look here, by the time this young woman gives birth, and before her child is weaned, your enemies will be gone. And by the way, this child will be named God is with you.

How and where do we find signs of hope when we’re languishing in the dark? How do we discover God with us? The saint your name recalls gives a significant example. Columba was a monk in 6th century Ireland. He wanted a copy of a very beautiful book in another monastery, so he went and spent months making a copy. When he tried to take it home with him, the abbot who owned the original objected. Struggles over copyrights are not new! The two monasteries went to war over it, and a significant number of people were killed. Columba was supposed to be excommunicated, but they let him go into exile instead. After he woke up from his envy frenzy, he chose Scotland, and went to work there, hoping to convert as many as had been killed in the battle over his manuscript. He founded the monastery on the Isle of Iona – which is even today nurturing Christian community in both new and ancient ways. Hope, new ventures, islands, and the ability to tell the good news of Jesus in new lands and new forms – they are equally ancient and post-modern challenges.

God is continually doing new things, and they often come in unexpected forms or surprising places. When people are most discouraged, caught in the deep darkness of spiritual winter, where does God show up? As a babe born to a young peasant woman in a land under occupation. Columba finds hope in exile, after grievous violation of his vocation as a monk, and God brings abundant and lasting life after the carnage he caused in battle. Even the declaration of independence in the Conch Republic has some of that hopeful flavor – no imperious outsiders are going to squeeze the life and unique gifts out of the people who dwell here. St. Columba’s is breaking down the walls that divide peoples of the earth, building bridges to new lands that are also figuratively islands in significant distress: Honduras, Sudan, and Madagascar. Where did the hope for that bridge-building work come from?

The collect we prayed at the start of the service offers a guide for nurturing that hopeful space within us, for helping us move beyond the fear and limited vision that can keep us mired in darkness: “Purify our conscience by your daily visitation, that your son may find a mansion prepared for himself.” We tend to lose hope when our awareness gets too muddied and muddled, when we assume that there isn’t any better possibility, that we’re just stuck with the way things are. That’s what put Ahaz in a funk, and sent him off to convince one enemy to get rid of another. Columba got stuck in a narrowed view of the world when he began to see his beautiful book as the greatest prize of his life. He found hope when he began to remember a bigger vision for his life’s purpose. Mary seems to have dealt with her surprising news rather more easily than Joseph did. But then Joseph began to find hope in the midst of a dream, when the angel’s words began to expand his idea of the possible.

Those assumptions that keep us bound in darkness are the fruit of fear. When we stop clutching at those tattered, darkening wraiths, and open our hands, hearts, eyes, and ears to the new thing God is always doing in our midst, hope is born. The biggest obstacle to hope is certainty – certainty about what is, and certainty about what’s possible and what isn’t. Hope is rooted in God’s possibility, which is always bigger and stranger than we can imagine.

The miracle of Christmas is mostly about how surprising it is – it’s evidence of God doing things far beyond our imagining. When the night is darkest, God answers the dark with the light of the world, Emmanuel – God with us, to whisper hope into hearts that are desperate for a word, a sign that we are not alone, that we haven’t been abandoned to the chaos around us. Discovering those words and signs gets a bit easier with practice, which is why the collect reminds us about a daily visitation. Purifying our consciences is lofty language for paying attention to what we focus on – are we, like Columba, obsessed with some beautiful thing, or are we simply giving up, like Ahaz? Are we focused on listening and looking for those whispers and wisps of hope that are emerging all around us, all the time? Are we paying attention? That’s really what a cleaned-up consciousness is about, as one of our Eucharistic prayers puts it, the ability to notice “the hand of God at work in the world about us.”

A eucharistic sensibility, the ability to give thanks, is one of the deep roots of hope. When we remember, and call to mind, what we’re grateful for, we’re nurturing that hopeful space, that expectant womb, where God can pitch a tent with us. That’s what happened with Mary – she was able to bless and give thanks for her surprising opportunity. Joseph’s evident sorrow about his circumstances was transformed into hope and possibility when he let go of his fear and began to give thanks for an unexpected future.

What are you most grateful for this year? What unwelcome surprises have become blessings? In these last days of Advent, spend a few minutes before you go to sleep and again as you awake in the morning, and notice. Keep watch through the day for more wisps of hope. Before you sleep, pray that your dreams may whisper hope in the ear of your heart. You will have prepared a mansion for the holy one, a tent for God in human flesh. A blessed and hopeful Advent, and may you long continue to be blessing and hope to a world bound in darkness and despair.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Diocesan mission team will leave for Madagascar on Sept. 16

2010-09-14T10:14:00.002-04:00

Our diocesan mission team will leave this Thursday afternoon, Sept 16, for their long journey to Madagascar, where they will spend the next two weeks. They ask our prayers for safe travel and for the work they will do in our Companion Diocese of Antananarivo.

Once the team arrives on Sept. 18, there will be daily reports and pictures from their ministry posted on the mission website.

Fourteen people, including the team leaders, the Rev. Debra Andrew Maconaughey, priest-in-charge of St. Columba, Marathon, and her husband, Kirk, will be in Madagascar till Oct. 1, visiting and working with our missionaries, Bishop Todd and the Rev. Patsy McGregor in Toliara.

In addition to the Maconaugheys, other team members include: David Lyon, Anne Morkill, Blair Shiver and TerriLynn Kelly from St. Columba; Rose Brown, Holy Family, Miami Gardens; Rick and Cordella Misseau, Bethesda-by-the-Sea, Palm Beach; Sharon Cassell, St. Joseph’s, Boynton Beach; Emily Nell Lagerquist, Chapel of St. Andrew, Boca Raton; Jacky Lowe, St. James-in-the-Hills, Hollywood; Dr. Emma Stoll from Fisherman’s Hospital in Marathon; and Carolyn Mackay, a friend of the Maconaugheys from Virginia.

Stoll and Kelly, who is a nurse, will head the medical team; Kirk Maconaughey, the Misseaus, Anne Morkill and Emily Nell Lagerquist all have experience in water and/or conservation work and will lead the environmental team.
According to Andrew Maconaughey, the mission will be “multifaceted.” The group will lead Vacation Bible School at two sites; offer a medical clinic and distribute several hundred pairs of eyeglasses; work on an environmental project aimed at providing clean water; and join with the people in Toliara churches and communities for worship and spiritual conversation.

And there will be the kazoos—Andrew Maconaughey said the team plans to take distribute about six-dozen kazoos: “Anything you can hum, you can play on a kazoo!”

She added that on previous mission trips she’s found kazoos to be a great way to break down barriers of language and culture.

Diocesan clergy sign Bishop Frade’s letter opposing Quran-burning

2010-09-09T15:10:00.006-04:00

Clergy signatures added to the bishop's letter

At the annual diocesan Clergy Conference, Sept. 7-8, the clergy voiced approval for Bishop Leo Frade's letter to the editors of local newspapers in which he called a small Gainesville, Fla., church's plan to burn copies of the Quran "an act of intolerance and religious stupidity."

Frade expressed concern that this act would endanger not only Christians living in predominantly Muslim countries, but also American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He appealed to Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center to "desist from an action that will hurt his Christian brothers and sisters around the world."

Read the full text of the letter here.

Forty clergy--about half of those attending the conference--added their signatures to the letter; many others were supportive but did not have time to sign before the end of the conference.

A copy of the letter, with the page of signatures attached, was mailed to Jones on Sept. 9.

Exciting day for diocesan acolytes at Trinity Cathedral

2010-04-20T14:20:00.002-04:00

More than 400 people—nearly 250 of them children and youth—spent Saturday, Apr. 17, at Trinity Cathedral, participating in the annual Diocesan Acolyte Festival.

Keynote speakers Diana Frade, founder and director of Our Little Roses Ministries in Honduras; the Rev. Donna Dambrot, president of Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida; and Deacon Anita Thorstad of St. Gregory’s, Boca Raton, who recently returned from seven weeks in Haiti, challenged the young people to be missionaries, serving others and taking God’s love out into the world.

Workshops throughout the morning offered opportunities to practice using incense; to experience meditation techniques; to pray with icons; to learn about peer ministry; and even to climb up into Trinity’s belltower and discover that the art of ringing bells is not as simple as it might seem.

After lunch the acolytes, vested and carrying their banners, crosses and torches, assembled in the parking lot between the cathedral and the Diocesan Office for the procession--led by a Junkanoo Band--out onto NE 15th street and around the corner into the doors of the cathedral.

At the Eucharist, Bishop Leo Frade commissioned the acolytes for their ministry and urged them to listen for God’s call--perhaps to ordained ministry.

“If God is calling you,” the bishop said, “please listen—and say yes!”

Each congregation had been asked to name one acolyte to be recognized for outstanding service; the bishop presented a certificate and a pin to each of these honored acolytes.

After the service all participants were invited to stay for a concert by the Christian idie rock group “Between the Trees.”

Click here for Acolyte Festival photos.

Bishop’s Spring Conference—Learning a new visual language

2010-04-14T11:54:00.002-04:00

“I’m Matthew Moretz, and I have things to show you.”

The Bishop’s Spring Conference, Mar. 12-13 at the Duncan Center, was all about “showing.” What Moretz, whose “Father Matthew Presents” videos have become a YouTube favorite, and television producer Bill Shomo offered participants was nothing less than the opportunity to begin learn a new visual language for communicating the Good News to the new communities that exist online.

On the second day of the conference, participants had an opportunity to tell—and show—how they’d make a video, starting with a script. Both presenters were adamant about the need for writing a script, planning both the shots and the words.

Divided into small groups, participants drafted a “creative treatment” for a video with a Gospel message—based on a satiric country song, “You Never Called Me by My Name,” by Steve Goodman.

After the small groups had presented their “videos” as skits, to enthusiastic laughter and applause, Shomo commented, “I don’t think either Matthew or I realized what great creative talent we have here!”

Young people had been especially invited to participate in the conference. Members of the Youth Commission led ice-breakers for the whole group on Saturday morning; Good Shepherd, Tequesta, brought 15 of its middle school youth; and three groups of youth presented their video ideas.

There was also a small group for Spanish-speakers. In their presentation, the Rev. Christina Encinosa pointed out that their first task had been to translate the words of the song into Spanish.

Not everyone will be making video, Moretz concluded, but he urged the group to make it a priority to learn this new language, and to create ways for people around the church who have these skills to come together and to pass them on.

Photo gallery from Bishop’s Spring Conference.

Click here to view a recent presentation by “Fr. Matthew” at a conference on church communications in the Diocese of Western New York.

Christian rock band at Trinity Cathedral

2010-04-12T13:44:00.000-04:00

The Diocesan Acolyte Festival on Saturday, Apr. 17, at Trinity Cathedral, Miami, will conclude with a concert by the Christian rock band Between the Trees, which is featured on the soundtrack of the current film Letters to God.

The concert will begin around 5 p.m. Concert tickets are included for all participants in the Acolyte Festival—but tickets are also available for $20 at www.ticketleap.com.

Profits from the concert will go toward diocesan relief efforts for Haiti, and to help acolytes from our diocese participate in the National Acolytes Festival in Washington, DC, in October.

Canon Richard Miller featured on new House of Deputies page

2010-04-09T16:01:00.003-04:00

Newly updated web pages of Episcopal Church House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson debuted on the Episcopal Church website, http://www.episocpalchurch.org/, on April 7.

In addition to Anderson’s views, sermons and statements and her travel throughout the Church; voices from the 800+ members of the House of Deputies; and updates of activities of Committees, Commissions, Agencies and Boards (CCABs), the site includes a section called “Featured Voice.” This section offers the words of people, Anderson says, “whose work and experience I consider especially compelling.”

One of the first to be featured is our own Canon Richard Miller, member of Holy Family, Miami Gardens, secretary of Diocesan Convention, eight-time deputy from our diocese to General Convention and president of Province IV. Click here to read his faith story.

Helping Haiti update--March 15-21

2010-03-15T10:47:00.002-04:00

Donations for Haiti are piling up at St. Paul et les Martyrs d’Haiti, but there’s still plenty of space in the trailer, which is scheduled to be shipped on Mar. 22—just a week from today. Don’t forget to bring your donations this week to the church, 6744 N. Miami Ave., Miami. Items needed include: medical and hygiene supplies, towels, toys, water and non-perishable (preferably ready-to-eat) food. (NO clothing, please—they already have many boxes of clothing and shoes.)

Saturday, Mar. 20 at 5 p.m., there will be a Eucharist (celebrated in French and Creole) at St. Paul’s to pray for the people of Haiti and to bless the trailer before it is shipped. Everyone in the diocese is invited.

Sunday, Mar. 21, the Rev. Lauren Stanley, appointed missionary of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Haiti, will be at Trinity Cathedral, Miami, preaching at both the 8 and 10 a.m. services and leading the adult forum following the 10 a.m. service. Since the earthquake she has served as a liaison between the Diocese of Haiti and the Episcopal Church in this country, going back and forth between the United States and Haiti, and posting all available information to her blog, Go Into the World. She will provide an up-to-date first-hand account of the situation in Haiti.

Worship in the Ruins

2010-02-17T15:22:00.002-05:00

Fr. Frantz Casseus, former chair of our diocesan Haitian Commission, returned to Haiti the day before the earthquake and is now a member of the Crisis Commission established by the Diocese of Haiti.

He has been officiating at services “in the backyard” of the rubble that was Cathédrale Sainte Trinité, the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. On Jan. 31 the first Eucharist since the earthquake was held on the cathedral site, with 143 worshipers sitting on whatever chairs could be found.

Since that first service, a temporary worship structure has been set up at the cathedral site with pews salvaged from the cathedral ruins and sheltered with plastic sheeting stretched over a wooden frame. Casseus sent the photo above, which shows the service on Sunday, Feb. 14, attended by more than 350 people. He said that more than 600 attended a memorial service at the end of Haiti’s nationwide weekend of mourning that marked the one-month anniversary of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Fr. Smith Milien reports on Haiti

2010-02-01T07:48:00.005-05:00

"The population is sleeping in the streets," Fr. Smith Milien said. Here he shares outdoor sleeping accommodations with earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince.

An "epistle" from Haiti

On Saturday, Jan. 23, more than 230 worshipers from around the diocese gathered at Holy Sacrament, Pembroke Pines, for a Eucharist for Haiti. Bishop Leo Frade was celebrant, with the Haitian clergy of the diocese concelebrating. The choirs of Holy Sacrament and St. Paul et les Martyrs d’Haiti, Miami, led songs in English, French and Creole. The offering of $4,781 went to the Haiti Fund of Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida.

Frade introduced Fr. Smith Milien, priest-in-charge of St. Paul et les Martyrs d’Haiti, who had just returned from a trip to Haiti, saying that Milien would present “an epistle to the people of Southeast Florida from the people of Haiti.”

Here is Milien’s report, both in English translation and in the original French.
*****************************************
A Report on the Situation in Haiti after the Earthquake

The Rt. Rev. Leopold Frade, bishop of the Diocese of Southeast Florida,
Dear colleagues, members of the clergy,
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am thankful for the timely decision of our diocesan bishop that allowed me the possibility of traveling so soon to Haiti with my brother, Sophonie, to be better informed about the situation caused by the earthquake on Tuesday, Jan. 12, and to see my family members and friends affected by the disaster, with whom I hadn’t been able to communicate before.

My thanks go also on behalf of the Haitian community of this diocese to my Episcopal brothers and sisters, for their attention and their interest in us and our families after they learned that our country had been seriously battered by this terrible catastrophe.

After traveling through the Dominican Republic, we were in Haiti from Saturday, Jan, 16, through Wednesday, Jan. 20. During those five days in Haiti, we were able to verify the damage caused by the earthquake, which permits to me to present this report to you.

Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, with a population of about 3,000,000 people, was 90 per cent affected. The main offices of the Haitian State have been destroyed; only rubble can be seen at the National Palace, the Premature, the Justice Palace, the Congress, the General Office of Taxes, and at the offices of the Secretaries of Finances, of Public Health and Population and of the Internal and National Defense. Hundreds of the injured are lying outside the General Hospital, where the building is still standing, but with damage in a number of places. We also found first-aid stations or emergency clinics in many places around of the capital and its surroundings.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral is destroyed, and other churches like Sacre Coeur of Turgeau, and Sainte Therese in Darbonne, no longer exist. The archbishop of Port-au-Prince, the Rt. Rev. Serge Miot, and Bishop Benoit of the Roman Church, are dead. Seminarians and religious lost their lives. The shadow of the death hovers over the city.

Episcopal Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin doesn’t yet have a complete evaluation of the damage throughout the diocese. The bishop’s house is destroyed. His wife, Edith Duracin, has fractures in a leg, and is now receiving the necessary care. But the clergy are safe, as are the religious-- no injury, no death among them. However, at least eight Episcopal parishioners have already been reported dead, among them Vesta Joseph and her son, two members of Epiphany Church, my beloved parish. We personally witnessed that the Holy Trinity Cathedral has been reduced to debris. The College St. Pierre, the Convent Ste. Margaret, the St. Vincent school, the Episcopal University have all collapsed. Other churches and schools in Leogane, Darbonne, Matthieu, Buteau and Trouin were destroyed, too.

In the country we do not have yet an exact count, but we estimate that the number of the deaths is up to about 200,000 people, and about 300,000 people are injured. We observed dozens of corpses everywhere in the streets. Others are still shrouded by the rubble, causing a nauseating stench all around. The city itself has become a source of contamination.

In Port-au-Prince, as in other areas affected in the Department of West, South and Southeast, the population is sleeping in the streets or in open fields as a precaution, for fear of the risk of aftershocks, like the one that occurred on Wednesday, Jan. 20, at about 6 a.m. with an intensity near 6.2 on the Richter scale. On the grounds of College St. Pierre, our Church has welcomed about 3,000 people, sheltered under tents. There are also victims staying on the grounds of the Holy Spirit school in Darbonne.

People from many countries of the world are there giving help and showing their solidarity. Electric power has not been reestablished yet, and communication is still difficult. The sale of fuel is improving slowly. Some banks whose buildings remain standing are closed. Air travel is still made through Dominican Republic, the neighboring country, which has shown unprecedented solidarity with Haiti in these circumstances. The Dominican Episcopal Church has maintained a limited communication with that of Haiti.

During our visit we were able to provide spontaneous help to transport an injured woman who had been abandoned. She had begun to have infections from injuries in her back and feet, and had not yet seen a doctor in the seven days since the earthquake.

My cousin Nadege died under the rubble; my cousin Jean-Gardy’s wife died, and the child of one other cousin is dead. They had to cut off the right arm of one of my cousins, and his father, who is my godfather, is hospitalized because of multiple fractures, particularly in his right foot and left arm.

But many survivors are again praising the name of Jesus. They thank God because their lives have been saved.

Our Church now faces a great challenge of solidarity. We are concerned, and we are also called to participate in the work of rebuilding Haiti. We can do this especially through the Episcopal Church of Haiti. Such rebuilding will certainly take time, but it will be possible, because with God all is possible.

Then let us pray to the Almighty that he may protect forever all the countries of the world from a catastrophe like this; and during the present time, let’s continue to thank our heavenly Father, because we are certain that to this moment, the Lord has helped us. To him are the glory, the honor and magnificence forever and ever. Amen
****************************************

INFORMATIONS SUR LA SITUATION D’HAITI APRES LE TREMBLEMENT DE TERRE

Mgr. Leopold Frade, Evêque du diocèse of Southeast Florida
Chers collègues, membres du Clergé
Chers frères et soeurs dans le Christ,

Je remercie la décision opportune de l’Evêque du diocèse qui m’a accordé la possibilité de voyager ponctuellement en Haiti, accompagné de mon frère Sophonie, dans le but de mieux connaitre la situation provoquée par le tremblement de terre du mardi 12 Janvier 2010, et voir les membres de ma famille et amis affectés, avec qui je ne pouvais pas me communiquer avant.
Des remerciements vont aussi, au nom de la communauté haitienne de ce diocèse, á tous mes frères et soeurs épiscopaliens pour leur attention et leur intéret de savoir á notre sujet et au sujet de nos proches, depuis qu’ils savaient que notre pays avait été frappé sérieusement par un terrible catastrophe.

En effet, nous avions été lá-bas du samedi 16 au mercredi 20 Janvier dernier, passant par la République Dominicaine. Durant ces 5 jours en Haiti, nous avions pu constater les dégats causés par le tremblement de terre, ce qui me permet de vous présenter mon témoignage.

Port-au-Prince, la capitale d’Haiti d’une population d’environ 3.000.000 d’habitants fut affectée á 90%. Les principaux sièges de bureaux de l’Etat haitien ont été détruits. On ne voit que des décombres: au Palais National, á la Primature, au Palais de Justice, au Palais Législatif, au bureau des contributions, aux sièges des Secrétaireries des Finances, de la Santé Publique et de la Population, de L’Intérieure et de la Défence Nationale…, des centaines de blessés sont acuéillis sur la cour de l’Hopital général, dont l’édiffice est encore debout, mais avec des dommages par ci et par lá. On trouve aussi des postes de secours ou clinics pontuels dans plusieurs endroits de la capitale et de ces environs

La Cathédrale de l’Eglise Romaine est détruite, d’autres églises comme Sacré Coeur de Turgeau, Sainte Térèse á Darbonne, ne sont plus. l’Archevêque de Port-au-Prince, Mgr. Serge Miot et l’Evêque Benoit de l’Eglise Romaine ont trouvé la mort. Des séminaristes, des religieuses ont perdu leurs vies. L’ombre de la mort planait sur la ville.

L’Evêque de l’Eglise Episcopale d’Haiti, Mgr. Jean Zaché Duracin, n’a pas encore une évaluation complete des dommages au niveau du diocèse. L’évéché oú il résidait est tombée. Son épouse Edith Duracin, a recu des fractures au pied, et elle recoit actuellement les soins nécessaires. Mais le Clergé a été préservé, les religieuses aussi. Pas de blessés, pas de morts. Néanmoins près de 8 membres de l’église Episcopale, sont déjá reportés morts, l’une d’entre’eux, Vesta Joseph ainsi que son fils mort, étaient de de l’Epiphanie, ma bien-aimée Parroisse. Nous constatons personnellement que la Cathédrale Sainte Trinité et réduite en débri0s. Le college St. Pierre, le Couvent Ste. Marguerite, l’Ecole St. Vincent, l’Université Episcopale, ont été sucombés. D’autres églises et écoles á: Léogane, Darbonne, Matthieu, Buteau, Trouin ont été détruites aussi.

Dans le pays, on n’a pas encore un chiffre exact, mais on estime que le nombre des morts, est élevé á près de 200.000 personnes, et près de 300.000 de blessés. Nous avons observé des dizaines de morts dans les rues, d’autres demeurent encore ensevélis sous les décombres, dégageant des odeurs noséabondes dans les entourages. La ville est actuellement une source de contamination.

A port-au-Prince, comme dans les zones affectées dans les departements de: l’Ouest, du Sud et du Sud-ouest; la population dort en pleine rue ou dans des savanes, par précaution ou par crainte; car il existe encore des risques de répliques facheuses comme celui du mercredi 20 Janvier dernier, aux environs de 6.00 du matin, avec une intensité de près de 6.2 dans l’échelle de Ritcher. Sur le terrain du College Saint Pierre notre Eglise accueille près de 3.000 personnes, oú des tentes sont placées pour les proteger. Il y en aussi des sinistrés sur le terrain de l’Eglise Saint Esprit á Darbonne, Léogane.

Représantants de différents pays du globe sont sur place fournissant des aides, manifestant ainsi leur solidarité. L’énergie électrique n’est pas encore retablie, la communication reste encore difficile. La vente des combustibles s’améliore lentement. Quelques banques dont leurs édiffices demeurent encore debouts sont fermés. Les voyages aériens se font toujours voie Rép. Dominicaine, le pays voisin qui en cette circonstance a manifesté une solidarité sans précédente.
L’Eglise Episcopale Dominicaine a maintenu une étroite communication avec celle d’Haiti.

Durant notre séjour nous avions aidé d’une manière spontanée á la transportation d’une dame blessée qui avait été abandonée á son compte, alors qu’elle commencait á avoir des inffections, causées par des blessures au dos et aux pieds, depuis le jour du seisme, puissequ’elle n’avait pas été encore vue par un médecin, après 7 jours.

Ma cousine Nadège est morte sous des décombres, la femme de mon cousin Jean-Gardy est morte, l’enfant d’une autre cousine est morte aussi. On a du emputer le bras droit d’un de mes cousins, alors que son père qui est mon parrain est encore hospitalisé, á cause des fractures recues dans ses membres, particulièrement, au pied droit,et au bras gauche.

Mais nombreux survivants louent encore le nom de Jésus. Ils rendent leur action de grace á Dieu, parce qu’ils ont la vie sauve.

Notre Eglise se trouve actuellement face á un grand défit de solidarité. Nous sommes concernés et appelés nous aussi á participer dans les travaux de la reconstruction d’Haiti. Oui nous pouvons le faire d’une manière spéciale par moyen de l’Eglise Episcopale d’Haiti. Telle reconstruction prendra certainement du temps, mais elle est possible. Car avec Dieu tout est possible.

Alors, prions le tout-puissant, pour qu’il se plaise d’épargner á jamais, á tous les pays du monde d’un catastrophe de genre. Pendant ce temps, continuons alors á rendre grace á notre père céleste, car nous sommes certains que jusqu’ici, le Seigneur nous a aidés. A lui soit la gloire, l’honneur et la magnificence, pour les siècles des siècles. Amen.

Some other ways to help

2010-01-23T14:44:00.003-05:00

Church of the Resurrection, Biscayne Park, has put its request for help for Haiti right out front.

January 22, 2010

Our congregations are finding a variety of ways to collect funds to help the people of Haiti.

Several young people at All Angels, Miami Springs, set up a stand in their neighborhood on the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday to sell lemonade and brownies, and raised over $500.

The gift shop at Trinity Cathedral, Miami, is currently donating 20% of all sales to Haiti relief.

The choir at St. Thomas, Coral Gables, will present a concert on Feb. 21 at 3 p.m.; admission is free, but donations are requested for Red Cross efforts in Haiti, and a grant will match funds raised up to $10,000. Click here for more information.

St. David’s, Wellington, is partnering with Live Arts Florida to present a concert by Grammy-winning violinist Mark O’Connor on Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the WCHS Theatre on the campus of Wellington Community High School, 2101 Greenview Shores Blvd., Wellington. Profits from ticketing, parking and concessions will go to Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida for Haiti. Click here for information.

Message from the Crisis Commission, Diocese of Haiti

2010-01-21T15:59:00.003-05:00

January 21, 2010

The picture above shows part of the tent city in Port-au-Prince where Bishop Jean Zaché Duraçin and many of the diocesan clergy are living and ministering to several thousand people who are no homeless after the earthquake. (Credit Jois Goursse Celestin/Episcopal Life Online)

Today Bishop Frade and Archdeacon Bazin received the message below from Fr. Frantz Casseus, who had been serving in our diocese, had just returned to serve in the Diocese of Haiti on the day before the earthquake. He has been appointed by Bishop Duracin to serve as a member of a diocesan Special Crisis Commission; the message he sends is from that commission.

EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF HAITI

January 21, 2010

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ

The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, Anglican Communion, is facing one of its worst catastrophes in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010.

A special Crisis Commission established by the Bishop of Haiti, the Rt. Rev. J Zaché Duraçin, is working under his guidance to help manage this crisis.

Millions of people are now homeless. College St-Pierre, one of the best high schools in Port-au-Prince, is unfortunately completely destroyed, and its property is being used as an emergency shelter for approximately 3,000 displaced people coming from all over the capital without any consideration given to religion, creed and social class.

As a direct result of the earthquake, eighty-five (85%) percent of the Diocesan institutions have been destroyed or severely damaged: For instance, Léogane, one of our largest deaneries, sustained about 90% damage. The following institutions within the capital are destroyed:

The Bishop’s Court; Holy Trinity Cathedral; Holy Trinity Complex (Elementary, Music and Trade Schools; St-Margaret’s Convent; Foyer Notre Dame; Universite Episcopale d’Haiti; St Vincent Centre for Handicapped Children; St-Martin’s kindergarten,
Secondary school and rectory; Episcopal Theological Seminary.

In Léogane and the surroundings: Ste. Croix Secondary School; St. Mathias’ Church and institutions, Grande Colline; St-Etienne’s church, Buteau; St. Marc’s Church and institutions, Trouin; Annunciation Church’s Elementary and Trade School, Darbonne.

Among the severely damaged we count Church of the Ascension, Bainet, and St. Matthew’s Church in Matthieu, Léogane.

A complete list of [the condition of] all the institutions around the diocese will soon be published.

Emergency supplies such as food, medicine, water, transportation, generators and so on are urgently needed to care for the displaced.

The purpose of this note is to request your overall support, as well as specialized engineering assistance on a mid-term basis, in order to rebuild our institutions.

We thank you in advance for your daily prayers and your anticipated support in our time of need.

God is good all the time.

The Special Crisis Commission
Diocese of Haiti

Video of Bishop Duracin

2010-01-21T11:50:00.003-05:00

January 21, 2010

The Wall Street Journal has posted an excellent video, including an interview with Bishop Duracin, about the work of the Diocese of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. Click here to view that.

There is also an article with more about Bishop Duracin and how the Episcopal church is ministering to survivors in Port-au-Prince.

We received a warning yesterday from the canon to the Presiding Bishop that fraudulent emails have been circulating, purporting to be from Bishop Duracin and asking for donations. Do not respond to any requests for aid unless you are sure that the sender is who he or she claims to be.
In our diocese donations are being collected through Episcopal Charities, http://www.ecsefl.org/, and will be disbursed at the direction of the Diocese of Haiti--which, as the video shows, may have lost many of its buildings, but is still carrying on its ministry.

Volunteers discouraged from traveling to Haiti

2010-01-20T12:45:00.005-05:00

An important posting on the Haiti pages of the Episcopal Church website today:

January 19th, 2010

There are a number of inquiries about volunteering. Here’s the bottom line:

1. Episcopal Relief & Development discourages all volunteer travel to Haiti for the foreseeable future. The situation is very unstable and safety and security cannot be guaranteed.

2. The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is fully occupied with ministering to its members and is not in a position to host volunteers at this time.

3. At some point in the future, Episcopal Relief & Development may consider organizing volunteers to go to Haiti. We will publicize those opportunities when and if it becomes appropriate.

4. In the meantime, please collect names of those who may be interested and hold on to them so that when the time is right and a call goes out, you can be in touch with people.

Haiti updates--January 18, 2010

2010-01-18T21:27:00.002-05:00

Today Bishop Frade was able to talk with Bishop Duracin, who, Frade said, “He wanted to make sure that you all knew how thankful he is for all of your efforts to help Haiti and our wounded church.” Our bishop’s message about his conversation with Bishop Duracin is posted on his posted on his blog.

Other links of interest today:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s homily at the prayer service for Haiti last night at Washington National Cathedral;

A message from Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin of Haiti

A story from Episcopal News Service with more first-hand information from Bishop Duracin.

Finally, from the Dominican Development Group (the dioceses that share companion relationships with the Diocese of Dominican Republic), we have a report from Bishop William Skilton, retired bishop of South Carolina, now assistant bishop in DR, the mentions our own Fr. Smith Milien as part of a team that headed for Haiti on Saturday morning. Below are excerpts from Bishop Skilton’s report:

Friday was spent trying to help Water Missions International (a Charleston non-profit that builds simple water purification systems and sends then to areas of need.... How does one rent a 4 wheel vehicle to drive into Haiti? How do you coordinate the airport pick-up, lodging and trip... what needs are evident.... Well, the Lord was good and we did it.... so 3 folk were ready to go to the Haitian border at 6am this morning as part of a 3 car convoy.

We left at 6:00am... the WMI SUV, Fr. Smith Milien (Haitian, trained here, married a Dominican, works in Miami) with 3 others including doctors... 2 priests from Central Florida with longstanding Haitian work… 2 Bishops, our Vicar General and the Development officer and wife... for the diocese.... plus the Bishop's son.... It took us 6 hrs to get to Jimani & the border....stopping twice to get containers filled with diesel and water to take...

While in JIMANI, we met with our young Priest as he spoke of the community responding to the injured being brought in and the needs that were evident. The quake took place on Tuesday... and international relief has not been distributed... water is not to be found....

We visited the small hospital in Jimaní and all those going into Haiti were given tetanus shots... we were all instructed to wear protective masks as we walked some of the halls...

It took us 5 hours to make it back to Santo Domingo....with some rain cooling us down....

There is no doubt in my mind that the Dominican Republic and our church have the responsibility of providing “the pipeline" to get the help that is needed into Haiti. We share a border and need to continue to help responding to this catastrophe....

Some of you have asked.... What can I do.... PRAY.

There are a number of relief agencies that do good work... Support them. We are blessed and need to give from our abundance.... There are church related ones and secular ones.... just respond... they need your help…

Helping Haiti

2010-01-16T16:31:00.005-05:00

Janaury 16, 2010

On Jan. 12, only a few hours after the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Bishop Leo Frade issued an appeal to the diocese “to respond to this crisis in a country that needs our prayers and help.”

Donations

The bishop has asked that donations be directed to Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida; contributions can be made online at http://www.ecsefl.org/, or checks can be mailed to: Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida, 8895 North Military Trail #205C, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410. Funds will be distributed through—or at the direction of—the Diocese of Haiti, as soon as Bishop Frade is able to contact Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin to determine what will be most helpful.

Information

Bishop Duracin is unharmed, but his wife, Marie-Edith, has a broken leg. Their home was destroyed, as were the Cathédrale Sainte Trinité, the cathedral complex (including a school), the College St. Pierre, and the convent of the Sisters of St. Margaret.

Information from Haiti, including items from across the country on missionaries, church responses and persons in Haiti, is constantly being updated by The Episcopal Church Office of Communication at a new webpage.

Last night, Jan. 15, Fr. Smith Milien, priest-in-charge at St. Paul et les Martyrs d’Haiti, Miami, left for the Dominican Republic, where he is joining with Bishop Julio Holguin and a group from our companion Diocese of Dominican Republic today to drive to Port-au-Prince to meet with Bishop Duracin, assess the situation and offer assistance.

Several of our congregations are already partnering with other organizations and community groups or individuals to collect relief supplies, and the diocese will be setting up several drop-off locations for supplies, as soon as we have specific information on (1) what is most needed, and (2) how these goods can be most efficiently transported and effectively distributed.

Prayer

In the words of our bishop, in his Jan. 12 appeal: “While we wait for more details of how we can help, let us surround the people of Haiti—and their anxious family members in our midst—with our prayers.”

There will be a diocesan Eucharist for Haiti on Jan. 23, at 4:30 p.m., at Holy Sacrament, 2801 N. University Dr., Pembroke Pines. Bishop Frade will be celebrant and preacher, and the Haitian clergy of the diocese will concelebrate. This is a time for us to come together to mourn with those who mourn, to commit ourselves to give whatever aid and support we can, and to be in solidarity with our Haitian sisters and brothers in our own diocesan family and our communities, as well as the people of Haiti.

In addition to your own personal prayers, you may find these helpful:

A litany by Fr. William “Chip” Stokes;

A prayer by Bishop Jeffery Rowthorn;

A prayer from Washington National Cathedral;

And here’s a prayer written by Archdeacon Fritz Bazin:

A Prayer for Haiti

Almighty Father, God of mercies and giver of comfort, deal graciously, we pray, with the people of Haiti in the midst of the great suffering caused by the catastrophic earthquake. May they cast all their care on you and know the consolation of your love.

Give us the courage, zeal, wisdom and patience to assist them, not only in these first days and weeks of urgent need, but as they continue to need the care and partnership of all their sisters and brothers around the world in the long and difficult work of healing and rebuilding.

Grant eternal life to those who have died, healing to the injured and strength to all the survivors, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

The Ven. Dr. J. Fritz Bazin
Archdeacon for Immigration and Social Concerns
Diocese of Southeast Florida

“40 and FORWARD”—Diocesan Convention, Nov. 13-14

2009-11-18T16:16:00.003-05:00

Our 40th Annual Diocesan Convention, with the theme “40 and FORWARD,” was held Nov. 13-14 at St. Paul’s, Key West.

Resolutions, election results and other details can be found at the Diocesan Convention link. There is also a Convention photo gallery.

In his address Bishop Leo Frade gave thanks for the leadership of the diocese’s first two bishops, the late James L. Duncan, and retired Bishop Calvin O. Schofield, Jr., as well as the “men and women, lay and ordained, who in the past through their sacrifice and obedience to our Lord established our church in this part of the world.”

Looking forward, he announced that he plans four “visioning days” in 2010 in different locations in the diocese, at which he will ask the people of the diocese to focus on “what God is calling us to do,” and to help him determine the direction of our diocesan ministries in the next five years.

The bishop also announced that he will name the Rev. Dr. Carlos Sandoval, a medical doctor and psychiatrist, as well as priest-in-charge of St. Simon’s, Miami, as Canon for Health, a new position intended to help the diocese address a variety of public health issues.

Frade also said that planning is almost complete for beginning a Portuguese-language ministry with the Brazilian community in the Pompano Beach area of Broward County. He noted that that the three towns in the United States with the largest populations of Brazilians are found in that area.

Click here for the full text of Bishop Frade’s address.

The preacher for the convention Eucharist was Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves of El Camino Real. Gray-Reeves is a Miami native who grew up as a parishioner at St. Stephen’s, Miami, and served as rector of St. Margaret’s, Miami Lakes, from December 1998 until she was appointed diocesan Archdeacon for Deployment in early 2005.

“I am honored to be with you,” she said. “You are part of me, and I am part of you; I literally cannot unwind myself from you the connection is so significant.”

She told the congregation to “dwell in the word…to discern what the word is saying directly to us,” and to “dwell in our community… dwelling in a neighborhood means that you don’t study it, you have a relationship with it.”

“There is no substitute for a relationship,” she said.

“It is so important to remember that we do not exist for the institution, we exist for the sheep,” she concluded. “I stand here as a visible presence of the institution to say that we do not exist for ourselves…May we never forget that we exist for the sheep who long for Jesus, who long to be told they are loved, who long to come home.”

Click here for the full text of her sermon.

The Rt. Rev. Todd McGregor, area bishop for Tulear, in the Diocese of Antananarivo, Madagascar, and his wife, the Rev. Patsy McGregor, presented an update on their ministries. The diocese has partnered in various ways with the McGregors since they first went to Madagascar as lay missionaries in 1991, and Antananarivo is one of Southeast Florida’s companion dioceses. The offering from the convention Eucharist was divided equally between the McGregors’ work and Episcopal Charities of Southeast Florida.

As part of its convention presentation, Episcopal Charities asked deputies and guests to bring donations of non-perishable food items, which was offered at the convention Eucharist and presented to community food pantries in Key West and Marathon.

The convention passed an amendment to the diocesan constitution that would grant seat and voice in convention to each deanery’s Youth Coordinator. Other resolutions approved included three proposed by the diocesan Youth Commission: One calling for restricting the use of bottled water “at all church sponsored activities, starting immediately;” one designating the Bishop’s Spring Conference for 2011 as “an experiential music workshop,” and asking that the Bishop and the Executive Board form a committee to develop a list of music resources for the diocese to be presented at the 2010 Diocesan Convention; and the third calling for the formation of a steering committee to study the viability of establishing a diocesan Youth Retreat Center.

Another resolution called for the convention to give thanks for the newly approved full-communion relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Moravian Church and to send greetings to the Moravian congregations in southeast Florida communities—three in Miami and one in West Palm Beach.

The convention approved a budget for 2010 of $3,518,253, slightly lower than the amount approved at last year’s convention for 2009, but slightly higher than the revised 2009 budget of $3,399, 453 approved by Executive Board after the 2008 convention.

In the approved budget the assessment percentage for congregations will remain at the current 13.99 percent. In order to maintain this rate, diocesan staff will receive no COLA raises in 2010, and one staff position will be eliminated.

Welcoming “creatures great and small”

2009-09-08T11:08:00.009-04:00

The Blessing of the Animals has become an annual event in many of our congregations; it’s usually scheduled on or close to the Oct. 4 Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose joy in all of creation is recalled in stories of his friendship with birds and animals.

Here’s a schedule of services at which parishioners and neighbors are invited to bring their animal companions to church for a blessing. This list will be updated as we receive more dates and times.

Oct. 2

8:30 a.m. St. John’s School, Homestead

Oct. 3

10 a.m.-2 p.m. St. John’s, Hollywood (Event includes Fall Fest)
11 a.m. Church of the Resurrection, Biscayne Park

5 p.m. St. Mary Magdalene, Coral Springs

Oct. 4

8 & 10 a.m. Holy Trinity, West Palm Beach
8 & 10 a.m. St. Luke’s, Port Salerno (Event includes pet costume contest)
9 a.m. Bethesda-by-the-Sea, Palm Beach
9 a.m. St. Mary’s, Stuart
10 a.m. Church of the Intercession, 501 NW 17 St., Ft. Lauderdale
10 a.m. St. Andrew’s, Lake Worth
10 a.m. Chapel of the Venerable Bede, Coral Gables

noon St. Andrew's, Palmetto Bay

2 p.m. Church of the Advent, Palm City
3 p.m. St. James-in-the-Hills, Hollywood

3 p.m. All Saints’, Jensen Beach
4 p.m. Good Shepherd, Tequesta
4 p.m. St. Benedict’s, Plantation
4:30 p.m. St. Mark’s, Palm Beach Gardens

Oct. 7

9 a.m. St. Christopher’s-by-the-Sea, Key Biscayne

Oct.10

4 p.m. St. Gregory’s, Boca Raton

Oct. 18
10 a.m. St. Martin’s, Pompano Beach (Event includes petting zoo, refreshments, other activities)

Convention concludes

2009-07-18T01:49:00.008-04:00

The volunteer "Ubuntu Choir" sang with guest musicians at every Eucharist during General Convention. Dean Jennie Lou Reid (second from right) and her husband, dioceasan Vice-chancellor Ben Reid, were among the choristers.

July 17, 2009

The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church concluded this afternoon, somewhat ahead of the 6 p.m. scheduled closing, and having completed more legislation than any General Convention in recent memory.

Many who have participated in the convention have remarked that it was also a time characterized by the awareness of our interrelatedness with each other that reflected the theme of “Ubuntu”—“I in you and you in me.”

Bishop Jon Bruno of the host Diocese of Los Angeles called this “probably one of the least rancor-filled conventions I have been to.”

For reports on the work accomplished by the bishops and deputies, keep following the stories and at Episcopal Life Online.

For insights into the experience of being part of General Convention, there’s Char Vinik’s Diary of a Deputy and Dean Jennie Lou Reid’s “Priest’s Letter” at http://www.saintfaiths.org/ --or, for something completely different, haiku from General Convention. (Disclaimer: They’re written by your director of communications.)

In addition to our own photo gallery, which will be updated in the next few days with many additional photos, and the photos from the Media Hub, there’s an excellent gallery posted by Jim DeLa, director of communications for our neighboring Diocese of Southwest Florida.

Urging a vote for youth

2009-07-16T21:13:00.001-04:00

July 16, 2009

One of the resolutions debated this afternoon in the House of Deputies, D066, asked that members of the Official Youth Presence, who now have seat and voice, but no vote, in the House, be given the right to vote with their deputations as lay deputies. This proposal would require a change in the Canons of General Convention.

Michael Sahdev from St. Benedict’s, Plantation, who is one of two Province IV representatives in the Official Youth Presence, spoke in favor of this resolution.

He said that giving youth a vote would “send a message to all the youth of the world…[that] we believe in our youth and we know they aren’t just the future of the church, but the church now.”

“I’m a full voting member on my parish’s vestry. I have voted at my diocesan convention the past two years, and I assure you it hasn’t hurt us a bit. In fact, I think having our youth vote adds a new perspective on what the church needs and is…”

“Please show us we belong in this church and let our voices be heard.”

Many deputies spoke in support of the resolution, but the decision was made to discharge it to the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons for further work.

On the convention floor

2009-07-16T11:21:00.003-04:00

July 16, 2009

Yesterday after the joint session of the House of Bishops with the House of Deputies to hear the presentation of the budget, there was a brief time when photographers were allowed on the convention floor.

Here’s Bishop Frade with our deputation. Left to right, front row: Archdeacon Bryan Hobbs, Char Vinik, Saulo Salvador (alternate), Bonnie Weaver, Dean Jennie Lou Reid (alternate), Dean Carol Barron, Tom O’Brien; left to right, back row: Dean Horace Ward, Richard Miller, Fr. Chip Stokes, Bishop Frade, Dean Bernie Pecaro (alternate), Michael Sahdev (Official Youth Presence).
There’s much legislative work to be done today and tomorrow. You can follow all of General Convention at Episcopal Life Online and the Media Hub (this resource takes time to download and may be difficult for some browsers—be patient).

Be sure to visit the Media Hub photo gallery and our diocesan photo gallery (which will be updated later today).

Char Vinik is also keeping us up to date with information, insights and photos on her Diary of a Deputy blog.

July 15--Eighth day of General Convention

2009-07-16T02:34:00.004-04:00

The celebrant for this morning’s Eucharist was our friend and former archdeacon, Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves of the Diocese of El Camino Real. The theme for today was Creation Care, so the Eucharist was “paperless”—there were no worship booklets, and all songs, prayers and responses were projected on screens behind the altar.

The preacher was Bishop Steven Charleston, assistant bishop of California and provost of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. He gave a passionate (as he said, “prophetic”) plea for the Episcopal Church to join with other faith communities to address what he called the two critical questions facing humanity: Can human beings live together in peace, even when they disagree, and can we make the changes in our civilization necessary for us to reverse the damage we have done and live in harmony with all creation?

Click here for the video of Bishop Charleston’s sermon.

At least 15 resolutions on environmental issues are before General Convention. Bishop Charleston said later that he feels the most crucial one is Resolution C070, which would commit the Episcopal Church to the Genesis Covenant.

********************************************
This afternoon the bishops came into the House of Deputies for joint session at which the proposed budget for 2010-2012 was presented. In anticipation of greatly reduced income, due to the current economic situation, the proposed budget reflects a reduction in the amounts requested from dioceses—and a $23 million cut, which could eliminate some churchwide programs, as well as the positions of 30 of the 180 people employed by the Episcopal Church in its New York and regional offices.

The House of Bishops was due to begin discussion on the budget this afternoon, and the House of Deputies must concur with the bishops' decision in order for the budget to be adopted. Either house may amend; but if a specific line item is increased, the amendment must specify which other line item would be decreased.

More information about the proposed budget is available here.
*********************************************
A major topic of conversation today around the Convention Center was Resolution D025, which was passed yesterday. The resolution recommits the Episcopal Church to continued participation in and financial support of the Anglican Communion, but also affirms the openness of the ordination process to all people.

More information is available here.

Young Adult Festival

2009-07-14T13:59:00.004-04:00

Lem Moncur, Laurie Jean and Garrett Braaf ready to learn a dance at a workshop on Native American cultural expressions in worship

July 14, 2009

This is the third General Convention to include a Young Adult Festival, a gathering of young adults 18-30 years old from the Episcopal Church and around the Anglican Communion. The event began Friday, July 10, and concludes today.

In keeping with the Ubuntu theme of General Convention, the theme for YAF has been “Together”—and the young adults were together, with each other in workshops and special events, with the deputies and bishops in hearings and legislative sessions, and with all the participants in General Convention in worship at the daily Eucharists.

Three young adults from Southeast Florida participated in YAF: Lem Moncur, from Historic St. Agnes, Miami; Laurie Jean, from St. Paul et les Martyrs d’Haiti, Miami: and Garrett Braaf, from St. Benedict’s, Plantation.

Moncur, who has worked with Young Adult Ministry for several years, said he was glad to have others from our diocese participating in this YAF.

Jean said she liked “some of” the workshops and the opportunity to be with other young adults. “What I didn’t like was waking up at 6 a.m. and going to bed at 2 a.m.,” she said. “But,” she added, “It was worth it!”

Braaf, a Gospel hip-hop artist and student at the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, told Episcopal Life’s Convention Daily on Saturday that he sees the issue of young adult participation in the Church as being in God's hands. “We as humans can't perceive God's plan. The people that are supposed to be at a place will be there. God knows what's best – it's not about the numbers.”

A last night’s YAF closing reception he said that what he appreciated most about YAF was “the fellowship with a lot of folks just like me, looking for a Christian home” after graduating from youth group.

Click here to hear Moncur, Jean and Braaf talk about their YAF experience.

Click here for more on YAF and Young Adult Ministry in the Episcopal Church.

Sunday legislative session

2009-07-13T03:11:00.001-04:00

Sunday was not a day of rest for bishops and deputies. After this morning’s joyous worship, it was time for a long afternoon of hard work.

This afternoon the House of Deputies concurred with the House of Bishops in approving a resolution recommitting to the Millennium Development Goals as a “primary mission priority,” and increasing support for the MDGs from .7% of revenue of the Episcopal Church to 1%. The text of this resolution is at http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=952&type=Current.

Much of the discussion this afternoon was around resolution D025, a response to resolution B033 from 2006 General Convention, which urged restraint concerning the election of bishops whose "manner of life" would cause offense to the wider Anglican Communion. That has been generally perceived as a moratorium on electing bishops who are gays or lesbians in committed same-sex relationships.

D025 reaffirms the ongoing commitment of The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion, but also opens “any ordained ministry” to any person whose “call is tested through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.”

The full text of the resolution is at http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=986&type=Current.

Another important resolution passed by the deputies this afternoon is D038, which asks the Church to allocate $3.5 million for the implementation of “The Episcopal Church's Strategic Vision for Reaching Latinos/Hispanics in the United States.”

The full text of this resolution is at http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=953&type=Current.

Earlier in the week a young woman new to our diocese testified before the Evangelism Committee in favor of this resolution. Michelle Aguilar, 16, whose father, the Rev. Richard Aguilar, is the new priest-in-charge of St. Margaret’s and San Francisco de Asis, Miami Lakes, told the committee, “The Strategic Vision of the Episcopal Church for reaching Latinos and Hispanics responds to the current concern of the church regarding the decline in membership, and at the same time it provides the tools needed by the church.”

“The Latino population is constantly increasing,” she said, “and I believe that more Latinos should know about the Episcopal Church.”

She noted that there is currently insufficient funding for Hispanic/Latino ministry that could reach out to these persons who “are looking for a church that is open and welcoming to persons from all backgrounds.”

Implementing the Strategic Vision would mean that “finally our slogan invites everyone”--La igleisa episcopal le da la bienvenida.

D038 must now go to the House of Bishops. In this evening’s media briefing Bishop Frade expressed some concern that the resolution might not find such easy approval from the bishops, because of budgetary concerns. But, he said, he would try hard to convince his sister and brother bishops of the need to approve the plan, because, “It’s about 20 years too late, and we have to move fast.”

Sunday Eucharist and UTO ingathering

2009-07-13T02:07:00.001-04:00

July 12, 2009

At this morning’s Eucharist the cavernous hall in the convention center was nearly full, as parishioners from all over the Diocese of Los Angeles joined for worship with deputies, bishops, exhibitors and everyone else who is participating in any way in General Convention.

At the head of the first group of bishops in the procession was our deputy Char Vinik, who served as one of four vergers for the service. Right behind her was Bishop Frade. (Char’s blog at http://www.allsaintsfl.org/diary2009/deputy.htm has additional pictures of her with participants in the service.)

The Korean Drum Band that opened the Exhibit Hall on Tuesday was part of the procession, along with rippling streamers and dancers swirling scarves. Several thousand voices reverberated in familiar hymns--with some stanzas sung in Spanish--and choirs and soloists added music ranging from Mozart to Gospel.

At the heart of the service was the UTO offering; as each diocese was announced, a representative offered at the altar a piece of paper with the amount of that diocese’s United Thank Offering collected over the past triennium—a total of $6.7 million churchwide.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was celebrant and preacher for the service, and former Presiding Bishops Frank Griswold and Ed Browning concelebrated with her—probably the first time that three presiding bishops have been at the altar together at a General Convention.

In her sermon Bishop Katharine urged that we “travel light.”

“The offering that we receive today is a sacrament of traveling light,” she said. “When we hold something lightly, we’re much more able to offer it freely, like sharing peace – if you find it, great, if not, let it go and move on. The United Thank Offering is a sacramental sign of inward gratitude for what is, turned to outward and visible mission.”

“Mission is our life, and it is a life spent on the road, traveling light, anticipating hospitality, and sharing what we have.”
The complete text of her sermon is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_112412_ENG_HTM.htm.

Proud morning for youth in House of Bishops

2009-07-12T11:51:00.003-04:00

Bishop Frade and Michael Sahdev in the House of Bishops

July 11, 2009

This morning Bishop Leo Frade escorted the president of our diocesan Youth Commission, Michael Sahdev, and a young woman from the Diocese of Southwest Virginia, Grace Aheron, to the front of he House of Bishops for their presentation from the Official Youth Presence.

After introducing himself, Michael got the bishops’ attention with, “Please hear my words and put them into action.”

“Too many Christians are no longer fishers of people, but keepers of the aquarium,” he said. Citing statistics on the decline of Episcopal Church membership, he noted that only 21 per cent of Episcopal churches say their members are involved “quite a bit” or “a lot” in inviting new members.

“Not only does this hurt us as a church, but it hurts the rest of the world,” he said. “People who needed the Episcopal Church will fall deeper into sin and never know Christ.”

Young people especially need the church, he said. “Youth are looking for something that will make them whole, something that will lift then up—why not let it be Christ!”

He suggested putting “The Episcopal Church welcomes you” signs “everywhere—billboards, bus stops, malls, anywhere people will see them.”

“It’s time we leave the safety of the aquarium, and not just go out into the world, but dive into it and make a big splash!”

Evangelism should be like prayer, he said—“an ordinary, routine thing that is just part of being a Christian.”

Involving and keeping new members, especially youth, he said, depends upon “love and personal connection.”

He urged the bishops to “inspire us to share the Good News, lead us on our journey into the new frontier, empower us to be fishers of people. Listen to our call, keep youth as a priority in this church and step up our commitment to evangelize. Then I can promise you the future is brighter than ever. Help us not to be just keepers of the aquarium, but fishers of all people.”

The bishops responded to his presentation with an enthusiastic standing ovation.

In her presentation Aheron offered the bishops her “unique perspective” as an 18-year-old woman, and reminded them of the optimism that young people bring to the church.
“This is a generation of empowered young men and women,” she said. “I have seen the Holy Spirit transform teenagers into instruments of God’s grace.”

She invited the bishops to “come and worship God with reckless abandon.”

Deputies practice listening: Mission Conversation—Public Narrative

2009-07-10T20:38:00.001-04:00

Deputy Char Vinik in conversation about resolution B033

Yesterday morning the deputies had an opportunity to practice the art and technique of public narrative in the first of three sessions called Mission Conversation. This first session focused on the “Story of Self;” subsequent sessions will broaden the conversation to the “Story of Us” and finally “Linking Self and Us to Now.”

As others around the table listened, each participant told a personal story of the origins of his or her ministry, followed by feedback from the group. Then the group reflected together on what they had learned from and about each other and how these learnings might be taken back into the larger community.

In a late afternoon session the House of Deputies used a similar technique when it convened as a non-legislative Committee of the Whole to discuss possible action to repeal resolution B033 from General Convention 2006. (That resolution has been generally interpreted as a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops.) After a presentation by the Committee on World Mission on the history of the resolution and the options for dealing with it, the deputies were asked to spend the next half-hour in one-on-one conversation with someone they did not know, reflecting on three questions:
1. What is your story with respect to Resolution B033?
2. What is our story as a church with respect to B033?
3. What is God calling us to do now?

Our deputies Chip Stokes and Char Vinik have more about Mission Conversation and about the conversations in the House of Deputies on their blogs: http://chipstokesblog.blogspot.com/ and http://www.allsaintsfl.org/diary2009/deputy.htm

July 9, 2009

2009-07-10T11:27:00.001-04:00

July 9, 2009

This morning Bishop Frade and Bishop Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts were the bishops on the panel for the morning “media briefing.”

Our bishop spoke of having attended a hearing in support of resolution D038, which asks that the Episcopal Church allocate $3.5 million for implementation of “The Episcopal Church’s Strategic Vision for Reaching Latino/Hispanics.” He said that the resolution will plant churches and train clergy, both Latino/Hispanic and Anglo, for ministry to Latino/Hispanic communities. He said that this plan aims to insure that “Hispanics will be fully included in the life of the Church, the way we are.”

“We don’t want just the crumbs under the table—we want to be at the table.”

(The text of this resolution is at http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=953&type=Current.)

Inevitably, some of the reporters wanted to ask Frade about the story from our diocese that has been most publicized in the past month—the reception of Fr. Alberto Cutié from the Roman Catholic Church. Frade acknowledged that this event has caused some tension in relations with the Roman Catholic archdiocese, but said, “I am glad when someone becomes an Episcopalian.”

Fr. Cutié has been here in Anaheim for a few days; he was invited by Fr. Juan Jiménez, who served for several years in our diocese, to preach at a service last night in his church, St. Michael’s, Anaheim.

July 8, 2009

2009-07-08T20:12:00.003-04:00

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in the Exhibit Hall

July 8, 2009

Imagine a worshiping congregation of about 1000 people, all joining in joyous Gospel and African call-and-response music—that was today’s opening Eucharist. Only designated photographers are permitted to take pictures during worship; look for those on the Media Hub, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/gchub.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was celebrant and preacher for the service. In her sermon, based on the reading from Ezekiel that speaks of God’s gift of a “new heart,” she said, “Hearts renewed stay that way, living flesh not hardening into stone, when they continue to share that new life…”

“The heart of this body is mission,” she said, “domestic and foreign mission, in partnership with anyone who shares that passion.”

Her sermon will also be on the Media Hub.
***********************************************
A special guest arrived today at the convention center—Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The archbishop is meeting with various groups today and this evening will join with the Presiding Bishop for a forum on the global financial crisis.

One of our deputies, Char Vinik, had her picture taken with the archbishop—that’s on her blog, http://www.allsaintsfl.org/diary2009/deputy.htm.
***********************************************

Another of our deputies, Fr. Chip Stokes, is now blogging; look for his blog at http://chipstokesblog.blogspot.com/

***********************************************

Photos from General Convention are posted at http://www.diosef.org/tmp/catalog.php?offset=0&tq=General_Convention_2009. Watch for new photos to be added to this gallery each day.

Opening Events

2009-07-08T02:41:00.003-04:00

July 7, 2009

At noon today the exhibit hall opened with the sound of drums as the Korean Drum Band of St. James' School, Los Angeles, paraded into the hall and wound its way between the display booths.
Exhibiters include ministries, institutions and vendors from around the church—and around the world. There are ample opportunities to learn about a variety of organizations and issues, support missions and ministries, explore educational programs—and to BUY: books (lots of books), vestments, altar vessels, jewelry, calligraphy and other original art and, of course, food.

************************************************************************
This afternoon Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson gave their opening addresses.

Bishop Katharine spoke of crisis and opportunity, telling the deputies that the crises that the Church faces at this General Convention—the environment, the world economic crisis, our continuing struggles about issues of inclusivity, and our diminished financial resources—provide “an opportunity to refocus on what is most essential.”

She also spoke of the convention theme of “ubuntu”—“I am because you are”—as a response to “the great Western heresy –that we can be saved as individuals.”

"If we want to be faithful we need to be continually rediscovering that my needs are not the only significant ones. We are our sibling’s keepers and their knowers, and we cannot be known without them -- we have no meaning, no true existence in isolation. We shall indeed die as we forget or ignore that reality."

She concluded, "This crisis is a decision point -- one which may involve suffering," she said. "But it is our opportunity to choose which direction we’ll go and what we will build.

"We will fail if we choose business as usual. There will be cross-shaped decisions in our work but if we look faithfully, there will be resurrection as well. This is our moment of judgment, our crisis. We can make our decisions in hope, and we can speak the love of God through this church. And we can do it together."

The full text of her address is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/070709_PBopeningaddress.pdf.

Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, also emphasized our interdependence and God’s call to all of us to the mission of working to eliminate poverty in the world.

“We are only effective in responding to God’s call to the extent that we fully grasp the reality that we cannot do this ministry alone, as individuals,” she said. “We must no longer be afraid to ask other people to join us in action.”

The full text of her address is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/POHDopeningaddress.pdf.

Ready for General Convention

2009-07-07T02:07:00.005-04:00

July 6, 2009

General Convention 2009 officially begins tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. (PT) with the Presiding Bishop’s address, and the first legislative sessions will be held Wednesday morning; but deputies have been arriving and committee meetings have already begun.

Information about General Convention, including legislation to be considered, can be found on the General Convention pages . Episcopal Life Media is providing news coverage.

The interactive Media Hub, which will provide multimedia converage of General Convention, including live streaming video, is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/gchub

Bishop Frade will be blogging during General Convention; you will be able to access his updates at the “Bishop Frade’s Blog” link on the homepage of our website.

One of our lay deputies, Char Vinik, has a blog at http://www.allsaintsfl.org/diary2009/deputy.htm

Blogs from other deputies will be linked here as they come online.

Diocesan Convention, November 7-8, 2008

2008-11-14T14:40:00.000-05:00

Our annual diocesan family gathering, the Diocesan Convention, was held Nov. 7-8 at St. Thomas, Coral Gables.

Guests included bishops from two of our companion dioceses—The Rt. Rev. Julio Holguin of the Dominican Republic and the Rt. Rev. Laish Boyd, bishop coadjutor of Nassau of the Bahamas. Another bishop from a neighboring Anglican diocese, The Rt. Rev. Robert Thompson, bishop of Kingston, Jamaica, was the preacher at the Convention Eucharist, which featured music by St. Thomas Parish Choir and the Chapel Choir of St. Thomas Episcopal School.

As part of the emphasis by the host deanery, South Dade, on the ministries of Episcopal Schools, the convention banquet was held at Palmer Trinity School, one of two Episcopal secondary schools in the diocese.

The convention approved a 2009 budget of $3,117, 454, with an increase of less than one percent over the revised 2008 budget in the total amount congregations will be assessed. As part of the budget presentation the diocesan budget committee included guidelines that will govern any adjustments to the approved budget in the coming months, “should adjustments be required, due to the current volatile financial environment.”

The convention passed five resolutions, including: That congregations and parishioners “reduce their carbon footprints by reducing their consumption of energy and other resources” and “act as role models to the wider community” for reduced energy consumption; that the convention approve the submission to General Convention in 2009 of a resolutions supporting the Clergy Letter Project “and its reconciliatory programs between religion and science;” and that Deanery Youth Coordinators be granted seat and voice in Diocesan Convention.

Resolutions, election results, the approved budget, the report of the Youth Commission, the full text of Bishop Robert Thompson’s sermon at the Eucharist, a photo gallery--and even a few video clips—are posted at http://www.diosef.org/news-events/diocesan-convention.shtml.

Photos from the Clergy Spouses’ Breakfast are posted at http://www.diosef.org/tmp/catalog.php?offset=0&tq=Clergy_Spouses_at_Conv_08.

The complete text of Bishop Leo Frade’s address to convention is on his blog page at http://blog.diosef.org/.

A podcast of the entire Convention Eucharist is at http://stthomasep.org/content/blogcategory/25/97/.

Welcome to the new diosef.org!

2008-11-06T11:51:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the new diosef.org, the redesigned website of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida!

As a website should be, this is a fluid and dynamic tool--like us, always a work in progress. As a new website, it will probably have some bugs and glitches. If you see a broken link or can't find what you're looking for, please hit the "contact us" button and let us know.

Our Diocesan Convention begins tomorrow, Nov. 7, at 1 p.m., at St. Thomas, Coral Gables. For a convention timeline and other convention information, go to http://www.diosef.org/news-events/diocesan-convention.shtml.

Come back to this blog on Saturday and Sunday for reports from convention.