Dear Friends,

What a week!

Saturday, many of us had the pleasure of attending the Rev’d Elizabeth Hazel Clarke’s priestly ordination at Saint Anthony on the Desert, Scottsdale. It was a moving and joyous occasion, and immediately afterwards, Mtr Beth gave her first blessings in their beautiful Chapel of Saint Luke the Physician. As we filed in, I thought with some fondness of my own seminary chapel which carries the same dedication.

Saturday evening, Mtr Beth, her friend (and the ordination preacher) Mtr Fran Gardner-Smith of St Thomas’ McLean, VA, Ayden Carrell, and I put all the prayerbooks and hymnals back in the pew racks as the cleaning crew filed out.

And with that simple task, several dozen different workstreams and a wildly complex sequence of operations all came to their conclusion. Truly, it could not have been accomplished but by the grace of God.

And Sunday morning was a triumph. What a joy to return to our beautiful house of worship after five months away. What a joy to welcome a new “priest in Christ’s holy catholic Church,” (BCP 526) as the Ordinal has it. What a joy to celebrate the Lord’s Day in this space that has bound up nearly a century worth of prayers and praise within its beams.

Last week, I thanked many of the parishioners, craftspeople, and firms who contributed to a huge slew of projects.

This week, I would like to thank all of you. Certainly, we must extend our special thanks to the many parishioners and friends whose generous gifts funded this work. But I would also like to thank each of you, the people of Saint Philip’s, for your faithfulness, your generosity, your flexibility, and—as was sometimes required—your forbearance. It is not an easy thing to manage such a breathtaking pace of change, and the disruption of work crews, scaffolding, and the occasional flood. You did so with humor and grace.

Thank you for coming so faithfully. Thank you for allowing one another and the clergy and staff a little extra grace. Thank you, most especially, for your continued prayers.

So now, let us allow ourselves a moment to catch our breath.

Work remains ahead—not just next projects, or building restorations, or capital campaigns.

The work of the Gospel, the work of teaching, the work of bringing the light of Christ out into the world, the work of serving the world in His name. But for a moment, let us be still and know that He is God.

Yours, faithfully,

—Fr Matthew