November 4, 2021
Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.
- From the Collect for the Feast of All Saints
Dear Doubters of Great Faith,
This Sunday we will once again celebrate the feast of All Saints, the time we gather up into our collective consciences those we love who have gone on before us, those upon whose shoulders we stand. I like to think that, in addition to Christmas and Easter, All Saints Sunday and Palm Sunday are “High Holy Days” of the Episcopal Church. Real Episcopalians make their way to church on those days because there is something about the draw of singing the familiar hymns and hearing the familiar readings that help us to feel the deeper sense of connection to those who have gone before, those who are, and those who will come after.
After over a year of not being able to do such things, we will once again bring out the thurible and process around the nave, singing “For all the saints, who from their labors rest,” reinforcing again that sense of connectivity to past, present, and future. We will renew our baptismal covenants, and process to the garden to “re-member” the many loved-ones who make up our very spirits!
In addition to all of this, we will welcome seven new members to the St. Thomas the Apostle family. Six folks will travel on Sunday with Fr. Stephen and Allen to St. Matthew’s Cathedral to be presented to Bishop George Sumner for confirmation or reception into the Episcopal Church! And again on Sunday, November 21, Fr. Stephen will take an additional confirmand to the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Irving, to receive confirmation with Bishop Michael Smith.
Those being confirmed or received are as follows:
- Rene Eduardo Aguirre
- Hank Cofield
- Maxine Goodwin
- Caroline Hofmann
- Michael Henry Jaimes
- Garrett Reinhardt
- Christopher Schilling
This is an exciting and joyous time in the life of a parish family. I hope you will actively hold each of these dear ones in your thoughts and prayers as they begin this part of their spiritual journey in, with, through, and beyond the Doubter community.
This is a church that is laden with saints, past, present, and by all appearances, well into the future!
Yours in faith,
Fr. Christopher+
