​From the Rector: This Joyful Eastertide

Dear friends,

We have journeyed through Holy Week. We have celebrated Christ’s resurrection. And now we are in the oldest and most joyful season of the church year: the Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Sometimes we pay a lot of attention to Lent in church life. We have special programs and devotions. Then we come to Easter Day and feel like that’s the end. But Easter Day is just the beginning! Easter isn’t a day but a season. I like to remind people that the church fasts for six weeks but feasts for seven. Lent’s purpose is to prepare us for Easter.

This Eastertide we have some special opportunities to rejoice and deepen our resurrection faith. Phina Borgeson and Paul Mallatt’s online “Living Sacramentally” course and Ellen Wondra’s Sunday Forum series on “Parables of Salvation” will help us go deeper into the meanings of baptism and scripture. At our Evensong service and Brahms concert on April 30 we will praise God in scripture, prayer, and music. You can read about these and many other events below.

I’m so grateful to everyone who made our Holy Week and Easter Day celebrations so special: liturgical leaders, altar guild, musicians, cooks, staff, children’s ministry leaders, and more. It was especially powerful to worship together with our siblings from St. Patrick’s, Kenwood, St. Paul’s, Healdsburg, and St. John’s, Petaluma, at the Great Vigil of Easter.

As for me, I came down with a pretty nasty post-Holy Week bronchitis last week and was very grateful to Ellen for taking over last Sunday so I could go home and rest. I’m much better and am in the office this week, then will be away again this weekend for a family trip. I’ll look forward to being back at Sunday services on April 30.

In Christ’s love,

Stephen