From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

As of this Sunday, I will have been Rector here for 3,317 days.

So many of those days have been full of joy. Celebrations of all kinds from baptisms to weddings and more were among those days.

So many of them have been full of heartaches too. Hands held for last breaths, goodbyes said too soon, relationships and homes lost have been part of those days too. Breakdowns and broken hearts, too many, have been among the numbers.

I have said Mass here around 500 times. I have preached around 300 times. I have said last rites. I have blessed newborns, houses, rings, rosaries, and more.

I have taken many of you on pilgrimage and been part of choir residencies too.

We have been through a pandemic, three presidential elections, and much more in our national life. We have traveled far together in so many ways.

I have been blessed to have many of you challenge my decisions at times. I have been privileged to have you tell me the truth when you thought I wasn’t seeing clearly. I have benefited from hearing your stories when I imagined only mine was true.

For nine years my family has sung and prayed here. Like many of you we have struggled here too. We have tried to smile, as so many of you have, when people asked us how it’s going.

That’s not anything more than an acknowledgment that each and every one of us walks with Christ through so much that we hope to avoid talking about and wish would pass us over altogether.

But that is not life. It is not Christian community.

For 3,317 days it will have been my humbling privilege to have watched you struggle.

The Christian journey is just that. We struggle together. I’ve watched as you’ve carried one another’s burdens, borne one another’s griefs, and tended one another’s great, gasping aches.

I’ve also seen you rejoice with one another. I’ve seen you teary-eyed when you heard news of a fellow parishioner’s recovery. I’ve seen the light in the eyes when you heard a new baby’s name. I’ve watched you share in one another’s joy. I’ve seen you bear one another’s hope.

That is Christian life too—that one another’s joys are ours too.

For 3,317 days it will have been my joy to have seen you be fully alive with one another. That is the delight of God—that we are fully alive and for Christians that means living as Christ for one another.

We need community for that work. We were made for it. We were baptized for it. We were given one another, by God, for it.

In a time when it is so much easier to look away from one another out of anger, I thank God that you have dared to be gathered in love. In a time when we’re all so content to remain fixed and firm, I thank God that you have been willing to be transformed by grace. And I have seen, again and again, your commitment to heed God’s call to serve.

When I arrived here, someone outside the community said to me, sort of wistfully and with a slight air of condescension, “Saint Philip’s has so much potential…” They trailed off as if they had some wise insight they wanted me to beg them for. I didn’t beg them for it but I didn’t know you yet either, really.

I suspect that if I heard it again, I might give them a bit of…correction…in a Christian way!

Because God knows we all have potential—and because I know you now.

It has been a humbling gift to have watched you reach for it—to reach for that potential.

It’s has been my immense joy to have seen so many of you discover and re-discover your faith here.

It has been my deepest privilege to have been welcomed alongside so many as you have sought what it means to be fully alive.

For 3,317 days you have been a blessing to me.

Be a blessing to the next Rector.

Be a blessing and know that you are deeply loved wherever your journey takes you and no matter how many or how few days are ahead.

Know that you are loved deeply by God no matter the hardships to come.

Know that you are loved in joy, in sorrow, in confusion, and with confidence.

Know that you are loved.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert