This month, as a parish, we continue through the season of Advent and prepare for the celebration of the Nativity of Christ. Our anticipation of Christ’s advent and our Christmas celebrations reminds us that our Lord’s physical presence on this earth is a gift from God. This reminder of God incarnate in Christ is also a call to connect with our fellow brothers and sisters who make up the Body of Christ, the Church. So this time of year, I like to look beyond our parish. I want to share with you a few excerpts from The Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech at the General Synod in London this year. May they inspire you for the holiday season:
“Anglicanism is incredibly diverse. … Within the Communion there are perhaps more than 2,000 languages and perhaps more than 500 distinct cultures and ways of looking at the world. Some of its churches sit in the middle of what are literally the richest parts of the globe, and have within them some of the richest people on earth. The vast majority are poor. Despite appearances here, we are a poor church for the poor. Many are in countries where change is at a rate that we cannot even begin to imagine. I think of the man I met in Papua New Guinea who is a civil engineer and whose grandfather was the first of his tribe to see a wheel as a small aircraft landed in a clearing in the forest. At the same time there is a profound unity in many ways. Not in all ways, but having said what I have about diversity, which includes diversity on all sorts of matters including sexuality, marriage and its nature, the use of money, the relations between men and women, the environment, war and peace, distribution of wealth and food, and a million other things, underpinning us is a unity imposed by the Spirit of God on those who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
This diversity is both gift and challenge, to be accepted and embraced, as we seek to witness in truth and love to the good news of Jesus Christ… In Christ we are held together. In Christ the barriers are broken, peace is held out to us as a gift established, which needs living. In Christ there is hope of a life that provides hope of peace.” May Christ indeed grant us His peace during this holy season.