January 2017 message

JANUARY 2017 • Volume 19, Number 1

The 2016 Children’s Christmas Pageant “Brigid’s Cloak”

Worthy: 2 Jesus Loves the Little Children: 7 Meet Gaby: 8 VESTRY NOMINEES: 10 What is Patrick Reading Now?: 12 Photo Album: 15

FROM

In this issue: Music Ministry ...................... 5 Family Ministry..................... 6 Youth Ministry ...................... 8 Our Church Life ................... 9 Page Turners.......................12 Great Commission..............13 Calendar of Events.............14 Photo Album........................15

Sunday Services: 7:30 a.m.

Holy Eucharist, Rite 1 9:00 a.m.

Family-friendly Communion Service with Music 10:00 a.m.

Christian Education for Children, Youth, and Adults 11:00 a.m.

Choral Eucharist, Rite 2 6:00 p.m.

Holy Eucharist, Rite 2 Visit us on-line at www.cecsa.org

Cover photo by Susanna Kitayama Back cover photo by Jim Berg

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Worthy This is the eighth in a series of ten essays Patrick is writing on the lesser-known stained-glass windows in the nave of Christ Church.

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r m a virumque cano --I sing of arms and the man.

With those words, written PATRICK GAHAN Rector in a strange patrickg@cecsa.org ancient language, I was off on a far stranger yearlong voyage across the primal, roiling whitecaps of the Aegean.

I joined Aeneas and his dolorously defeated survivors as they departed the shores of Troy, the only home they had known, so that they might seek another. On their way, the wandering Trojans are buffeted by one storm after another and alight upon a procession of beguiling beaches, only to suffer at the capricious hands of deities, rulers, and furies. Finding a new home is fraught with as much terror as Achilles’ earlier savage assault on Priam’s palace walls.

At seventeen, I, also, had left my only home three years before. Now at the beginning of my senior year at St. Andrew’s School, I slowly translated Aeneas’ story as if to discover a shard of my own. A mere 150 miles away from Birmingham, the school might as well have been in Asia for the distance it had given me from my previous life. At only fourteen, I left my mother’s house as an uncertain, unconfident, apathetic, desperately poor boy to enter an altogether alien community, where in three year’s time, the faculty there believed I was worthy to translate the Aeneid in its entirety. I translated those first three words and realized how far I had sailed from that defeated Alabama boy.

Perceiving that seventeen-year-old from the expanse of forty-five years, I see him seated at the first desk on the far left row of Sister Frances’s tiny

classroom in the Simmonds Building, the same seat I had taken as a terrified freshman to study ancient history with her. Even then I marveled that this austere, temperate church school nestled in highland Appalachia demanded that I troop all over the Mediterranean’s cradle of civilization.

Straddling the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, I migrated across the 300 miles of Mesopotamia’s Fertile Crescent, the Eden of our world. In Sumeria, Sister had us deciphering the hen scratches of cuneiform from 8,000 BC. She insisted we marvel at the wonder of the Hanging Gardens

From Our Rector... of Babylon, yet, to this day, I still wonder just how they were hanging there at all. Sister took us to the edge of an archaeological dig in Iran to imagine the square-bearded Persians scrambling out of the dirt. Sailing west, we disembarked on the coast of Crete to encounter the bull leaping acrobats of the 3rd century Minoan civilization, which rivaled any notions I had of Wild Bill Hickok and Annie Oakley. Across the straits to mainland Greece, she had us sit at Plato’s feet to contemplate what it means to be human, yet I was drawn far more to the fierce Spartans to the north with their unyielding warrior credo. In the same way, the biological and philosophical genius of Aristotle gave way to my admiration of his tutoring Alexander of Macedon, who, by age 32, conquered twelve kingdoms as far to the east as the five rivers of the Punjab. The next stop on my freshman junket was stranger still, as we encountered the Jews, whom heretofore were only known to me in the personage of my sixth-grade classmate, Sandra Greenburg.

Jerusalem may be our “mother,” but “all roads lead to Rome.” Sister relished our arrival there amongst those seven hills. The Forum, the Colosseum, Trajan’s Market, and the Appian Way leapt off the flat one-dimensional page of our text and came to life on Sister’s lips. She spoke of those ruins – each one – as if they were sites of fervid romantic encounters and in so doing, led us into sort of a love affair with them, too. Sister kept those amatory fires burning within me, for she wrote me a Valentine’s Day card every year until she retired from her long academic life. In her small exacting script, she would write me a paragraph or two – every word in Latin. Never could I tell her that I had to entreat a professor at a local college to translate her greeting. I was really not worthy of her confidence in me, but she thought I was, and that is why I have maintained the voyage of discovery I began in the first desk of the far left

row in her tiny classroom.

Opening the Aenied again after four decades, I can readily see why Dante chose Virgil to be his guide into the underworld and Purgatory.

Virgil earlier led Aeneas into Hades to confront his past. Aeneas meets Queen Dido, his jilted lover, who

mornings a week, she scrupulously corrected my verb tense confusion, vocabulary faux pas, transliteration errors, and poetic mutilations. How she considered me worthy of four years of tedium and disappointment, I cannot fathom. Yet unbeknownst to me at the time, Virgil was slowly taking me inward so that I could be delivered upon another shore.

I see now that I was as thickheaded as those fishermen on the shore of the Galilean lake and Sister as patient as Jesus who vied to teach them. We acclaim Jesus for the content of his liberating, revolutionary instruction, but we should marvel more at his choice of indolent, uninspired students. If ever there was an occasion to spin straw into gold, the disciples were the prime subjects.

commits suicide out of love for him; he sees the platoons of brave Trojan warriors, who died defending their city; but most importantly, Aeneas comes face to face with his noble father, Anchises, whom he could not save. Facing his past, Aeneas was unshackled and propelled in his quest to find home. Dante, for his part, is wounded by his unrequited love for Beatrice, who eventually leads him out of Purgatory to scale the sevenstory mountain into Paradise. The great medieval poet, like his Latin guide, cannot go forward until he has made peace with the dark chapters of his past.

A typical impetuous adolescent, testosterone-charged boy, I was not as eager to sedulously follow Virgil as Dante proved to be. Sister’s patience with my dilatory work was as heroic as Aeneas himself. Line by line, five

That fact crosses my mind when the morning sun shines through the Last Supper Window, which so often occurs during our 11 AM worship celebration. When the beams passing through the window are particularly bright, one of the lay readers will tap me on the shoulder and point at the light pouring across the table Jesus is sharing with the twelve. Occasionally, one will say, “It’s a sign.” I nod and agree. If nothing more, it is a sign of how “bright” our forebears were in 1957 when they chose the subjects and placement of the ten dazzling, lustrous windows to frame our congregation each time we worship. Their genius is especially evident in the exact placement of the Last Supper Window, which is in the direct path of the sunrise most of the year, thereby illuminating the deeper purpose of our Sunday gatherings.

Regardless of the radiant portent, my eyes always wander to the stainedglass panel to the right, which is most often eclipsed by the more effulgent center panel. This right panel depicts the same event, albeit an abrupt interruption in the twelve’s dinner party, when Jesus takes off his more formal attire, grabs a towel and a basin of water, kneels down,

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From Our Rector... and washes each disciple’s filthy feet. From Peter’s reaction, we can ascertain that the discomfort in the room was worse than when your mother shares your baby stories with the new in-laws or Uncle Hank offers his off-color jokes at the family reunion – again.

The disciples’ disquieting quotient is high because they’ve come to know during the past three years that Jesus’ object lessons always lead somewhere uncomfortable – for each of them. Scribbling in the dirt, the Teacher says to those wielding rocks, “Whoever among you is sinless, let loose with the first stone” (John 8:7).

Looking out at the famished, weary thousands, the Teacher orders the twelve, “You give them something to eat” (John 6:37). Celebrating into the wee hours with Capernaum’s most scandalous sinners, Jesus blasts his puritanical critics, “The sick need a doctor, not those who are well” (Mark 2:17). Each time Jesus metes out his earthy, homespun, real world adages, the disciples get a little queasy inside because they know the Teacher is speaking directly to them.

Surely the twelve must have steeled themselves as Jesus rounded the last corner of the table on his knees, put back on his outer cloak, and rejoined the dinner party. Not even a squeak of a breath could be heard around that table until the Teacher finally spoke:

like the Teacher is just too much to ask. Not one of the bunch has that much gospel in him. Before the water dried on their toes, Jesus issues the heartbreaking fact to Peter, the kingpin of the twelve, “Before you hear the rooster crow to herald the morning, you will have publically denied me, not once, but three times” (John 13:38). Peter does just that, and so do the other eleven.

‘Do you know what I’ve done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, for that is who I am. Well, if your Teacher and Lord has washed your feet, you must wash one another’s feet… A new commandment I give to you – love one another the way I have loved you.’

John 13:1215, 34

True, the fifth book of the Bible is known as the Acts of the Apostles, yet the first four could be renamed as the In-Action of the Apostles.

While Mark reports the disciples’ bumbling unfaithfulness the most overtly, the other three are hardly restrained on that accord. To put it mildly, the twelve, with their selfish, judgmental, opportunistic, and somnolent inaction, are profoundly disappointing. Worse still, these disciples look a lot like you and me.

Regardless, the Teacher considers them worthy, and against all bets, he considers you and me worthy to receive his divine instruction, as well.

Forgiving whores, keeping polite company with outcasts, and offering emergency food relief in the wilderness, all suddenly seem like grammar school fare compared to Jesus’ last demand. To give, to sacrifice, to become humble and love

The content of the Lord’s teaching borders on the unbelievable, for it gives us a picture window through which we comprehend his peaceable kingdom, a view of the world about which we have dared not dream since childhood. What extends beyond the

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unbelievable, however, is that the Teacher entrusts us with his dream for the world, and not only that, for he fully expects us to materially embody his heavenly instructions.

Others are to encounter you and me and actually experience the Teacher’s new commandment. Even with all our foibles, faults, and faithlessness, he considers us worthy to carry his dream within us. Not unlike Sister Frances pouring her classical wisdom into us rough hewn, most unlikely and ungrateful students, Jesus pours his new wine into our body fully trusting that we’ll grow enough to receive its expansive message (Matthew 9:1617). He trusts that when he returns he’ll find us “a mansion prepared for himself” (Collect for Advent 4, BCP, 212), and all those lives we touch will realize their own worthiness and stand upright again (Acts 3:1-9).

Thus, every February 14th when Sister’s Valentine’s Day card arrived, I would be consumed with the demands and diversions of my then current life. Training soldiers, coaching athletes, raising children, preparing sermons, and running parishes at one time or another have dominated my days. A letter would arrive in a pink or red envelope, addressed in her precise cursive, and I would drop my relentless machinations to realize this diminutive nun, not more than 130 pounds, habit and all, considered me worthy to receive her annual greeting, scripted in the language she loved and shared with me.

I would study those lines to realize that I once could read them with ease because Sister Frances thought me worthy to join Caesar in his crucible of the Gallic Wars, laugh uproariously at Plautus’s farcical comedies, wince at the Ovid’s amorous verse, and to take the high seas with Virgil and realize that Aeneas’ voyage was my own.

Your brother,

Patrick U

MINISTRY Stop, Drop,

W

e have so many titles. For example, the majority of you simply know me as your music director and JOSH BENNINGER organist.

The Director of Music and Worship choir knows me joshb@cecsa.org as their leader and coach. My wife sees me as a loving husband and father. My eight-year-old daughter knows me as her daddy. My parents know me as their son. My two older sisters know me as their little brother.

To the other families living on my street, I am their quiet neighbor.

People familiar with my military service know me as a veteran.

Sounds pretty good, right? I have been bestowed all these great titles.

I should feel good about myself.

But what about people that don’t personally know me? How do people that only get a fleeting glance of my presence perceive me?

What does the beggar on the street corner that I avoid eye contact with call me? How does the cashier at the local HEB see me as I wait, visibly MUSICAL OFFERINGS CONCERT Sunday, January 29, 2017, 3:00 PM Musical Offerings collaborates with the CEC Friends of Music in a varied program of choral and instrumental masterpieces as part of the “2017 Mozart Festival.” The concert features soprano, Gail Wettstein, in Mozart’s joyous Exsultate Jubilate. The CEC choir will be featured as well, with performances of Mozart’s Ave verum corpus and Laudate Dominum.

The program includes works by Mozart, Beethoven and Fauré.

Admission: $15 at the door, $12 in advance at: http://www.musicalofferings.org

and

Roll

impatient and fidgeting behind a line of other customers? How does the driver who I cut off in traffic see me? How does the agent handling my trouble call with the phone company see me as I raise my voice while arguing a billing discrepancy?

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

--John 13: 34-35

God knows me better than anyone. So how does he see me?

I know I have a lot of work to do, as do all of us. In my prayers, I often find myself asking God’s help in breaking down the walls and barriers that I created. These obstructions keep me apart from God, at a distance and place where I fail to enjoy a full and fruitful relationship with him. And if I’m not in a right relationship with God, then how can I be in a right relationship with anybody else?

God sees me as his child. Imperfect?

Yes, of course. Stubborn, impatient?

Yes, again. Someone who continually reverts to the belief that they can take care of everything on their own without help from God? Yes. Inward living instead of outward living? Selfabsorbed from time to time perhaps?

Ding, ding, ding…we have a winner!

But the best part is I know it’s okay.

If you’re still reading this then I am confident you have personally identified with some or all of what I’ve written. None of us are perfect.

God doesn’t desire us to be perfect.

God loves us despite our faults and sins. None of us deserve his grace but we receive it anyway. He wants us to love him. But more than that, he desires most of all for us to love others in the same way he loves us.

If your clothes catch on fire, we have been taught to stop, drop and roll.

The same logic may be applied in our everyday lives. When the stress of life weighs us down, we typically lash out at innocent bystanders and those we love the most. Instead, let’s make an effort to stop, drop (turn away / repent) and roll (move towards God).

If we do this, then perhaps God will know us by a new title - his disciple.

Josh Benninger MARDI GRAS JAZZ MASS Sunday, February 26, 2017 11:00 AM Celebrate the Last Sunday of Epiphany with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band as they lead our 11:00 AM worship celebration with a Mardi Gras twist. Since 1962, Jim Cullum’s ensemble has been celebrated for playing the classic jazz music of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin.

Gumbo lunch served immediately after in the Parish Hall.

Laissez les bon temps rouler

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MINISTRY

The Miracle

of the

Imiracle t’s always a when, each year, our Children’s Christmas Pageant comes off successfully.

We have so HALLETA little time to HEINRICH practice, and Director of we never know Family Ministries who will show halletah@cecsa.org up on pageant day and if they will know their songs. We always trust in God on this and encourage all our Sunday School children to participate, even if they don’t know their songs. It’s a very inclusive event! Our “Brigid’s Cloak” pageant was a success and the children were beautiful as always. But an even greater miracle was that we had SO MANY KIDS!!!

The sanctuary church steps were overflowing with Irish Angels,

Christmas Pageant – So Many Kids!!!!

Stars, Villagers, and Shepherds, and the Manger was filled to the brim with preschool Sheep and Manger Animals. We have a very good problem in that we will need more space in the future for all of our children. Next year – risers for our growing population of children.

Praise the Lord!!!

This year’s pageant was dedicated

to our Rector, Patrick Gahan, not only because he is of Irish descent, as was St. Brigid on whom our pageant was based, but because he has been the catalyst for so much growth in the number of young families who have joined Christ Church as of late. We are grateful for the dynamic leadership of our own St. Patrick, who has brought renewal and a new sense of openness, welcome, and outreach to our community, all to the glory of Christ. This has made our beloved Christ Church even more attractive in drawing new members, young and old, to be part of our Church Family.

Thank you, Patrick!!!

Halleta

Children’s Communion Celebration

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ll first and second graders are eligible to participate in our Children’s Communion Preparation Class. This class has become a meaningful rite of passage for our children as they gather together each Sunday for eight weeks to understand this great gift Jesus offers to us in Holy Communion. Parents are asked to participate with their children in this class as class helpers, during our Communion Retreat, and at the Communion Celebration Service and Reception. It is a great intergenerational experience and an opportunity for parents to get to know their children’s peers and their parents.

Questions considered in the class are: Who Is Jesus? What Is the Lord’s Supper? How Do We Celebrate the Lord’s Supper? How Do We Prepare Our Hearts to Receive Holy Communion?

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and Who Are We As the Church and As A Christian Community? We reference God’s Word and our own Book of Common Prayer to help us answer these vital questions.

At the class’s conclusion, children and parents participate in a Saturday Communion Retreat at the church which involves preparation for the Communion Celebration the following Sunday during the 11:00 service.

At this service, which is an instructed Eucharist, the children are gathered around the altar to observe and be part of the blessing and offering of the Eucharist. A Communion Celebration Reception honoring class participants and their families immediately follows the service.

Contact Halleta Heinrich at halletah@ cecsa.org or phone her at (210)7363132 for further information.

Children’s Communion Class Begins Sunday, February 12 Parent Orientation Sunday, February 5 Communion Retreat Saturday, April 22 Communion Celebration Sunday, April 23

Family Ministry...

Jesus

loves the little children of the world

W

e will be having a World Mission emphasis in Children’s Chapel during the Epiphany Season from January 15 – February 12 in cooperation with the Diocese of West Texas Missions Committee. The DWTX Missions Committee, under the leadership of our own Marthe Curry, has invited the Children’s Ministry at Christ Church to participate in a newly written unit on Missions for children.

Epiphany is the perfect time to expose our children to World Missions. The three Wise Kings who visited the

Children in a camp near Mosul

Christ Child represented the three corners of the world known at that time. They show us that Christ came for the World, not just for a few chosen ones. We are called to bring Christ and his love to the world. This is the mission of the church. We want our children to be aware of their own mission to carry the Light of Christ into the world.

Our Children’s Chapel will introduce Jesus’ call to go into all the world with Good News. Lessons will be interactive, laced with Scripture

stories and verses, and will acquaint our children with other children in Kurdistan, Mexico, and Kenya. Each lesson will be set in places where we actually do mission work and where children can learn about the lives and needs represented. Let’s take this opportunity to grow our children into disciples with a global outlook.

PLEASE SEND YOUR CHILD WITH A PASSPORT-SIZE PHOTO FOR THE FIRST SESSION IN JANUARY.

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MINISTRY Meet Gaby

P

arents Students,

and

It is our joy to announce that we have hired a new Associate Youth Minister, Gaby Berry, to serve our youth and work alongside

GAVIN ROGERS Youth Minister gavinr@cecsa.org

Gavin & Father Rob. Gaby is a Junior at Trinity University and was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Her main responsibilities will be co-leading Sunday Morning Sunday School in the Carriage House with Gavin, youth contact work with our students, and program planning

for the youth events she is assigned.

Currently a volunteer Young Life leader for A l a m o Heights High School, Gaby has completed a yearlong youth leader t r a i n i n g p r o g r a m under Young Life leader Daniel Player.

Gaby has twice attended our CEC Mission Trip to Guatemala (2014 & 2015) and got to know Gavin during his time at Trinity Baptist Church.

Growing up in San Antonio, she was a dedicated member of St. Pius Catholic Church in San Antonio and an active Young Life student at MacArthur High School where she graduated after spending two years at Incarnate Word High School. After college, Gaby will attend medical school and pursue her dream to become a medical doctor.

(Fun Fact: Just like our last youth associate, Gaby is fluent in Spanish!)

Gaby is very knowledgeable in the

UPCOMING EVENTS: Jan 13-15: HIGH SCHOOL RETREAT @ Gavin’s Ranch in Brenham, TX $50.00 (9-12th Grades & Friends!!!)

Jan. 29: Confirmation Classes Begin for 8th-Grade Students (and any student older who desires to be confirmed). 12:30pm with Lunch Provided.

Feb. 19: Service Project: Stop Hunger Now (meal packing) in Parish Hall. All ages are welcome to participate. 15,000 Meals will be pack in just a few hours!

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Bible and Christian spiritual life.

Father Patrick, Father Rob and I have full confidence that she will be able to lead our youth (and especially girls) into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. Gaby will work closely with staff, committees and church members to communicate and apply the mission of CECSA Youth so students can “encounter the love of God, participate in authentic community, grow to their full potential, and practice their hearts to live out the mission of Jesus Christ.”

Looking forward to a great 2017!

Gavin

A Full Year Ahead

C

BRIEN KOEHLER Associate Rector for Mission and Formation brienk@cecsa.org

ontinuing our long tradition of mission support, Christ Episcopal Church will be at work across the globe and near to home in 2017. A few of the highlights already planned:

1. Our support of missionaries will be expanded in the year ahead to include the Olson family in the Philippines, the Miller family (on leave from the field here in San Antonio, but planning to return to overseas duty in the year

@1010Sunday

“Books

of the

Month Club”

J

anuary and February will include the theology of St Paul as the Books of the Month series continues.

These studies are not verse by verse or chapter by chapter Bible study; rather, they are a look at the authors of the Bible books and the purposes of their writing. The goal is to make reading and study easier by providing a context from history and theology.

In March, our Book of the Month will be Esther.

After Easter, @1010Sunday will present “The Gospel and the End of Time”--a study of Biblical texts that give Christians a picture of our future hope.

Brien Koehler, Marthe Curry, and Scott Rose lead @1010Sunday, in the parish hall, not surprisingly “at 10:10 AM” Sunday mornings (unless otherwise announced).

for the

Missons Committee

ahead--watch for details), and new relationship with David and Sophia Browning in a ministry in Asia.

2. Mission trips to Honduras, Uganda and Guatemala (youth) plus dreams and ideas for at least two other destinations in Africa and Europe that are under consideration.

3. The annual Short FUSE (Family Urban Service Experience) in partnership with Mission Waco, which is a three day “long weekend” from Thursday-Sunday in July on location in neighborhood ministry in Waco. This is a great introduction for individuals or multi-generation family groups. The “Family” in the name is the team of diverse Christ Church people who work together.

4. Mission support for Threads of Blessing, an ecumenical ministry involving the Diocese of West Texas and others promoting microenterprise in Uganda, Haiti, and Honduras.

5. Other channels of support for projects related to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion around the world.

All of this is possible because of your generous and faithful support of the work of Christ Church. Call Brien Koehler at (830)200-1905 or email to brienk@cecsa.org for more info on any of the above.

Brien Koehler

Women’s Thursday Morning Bible Study Resumes

L

adies, don’t forget that the Women’s Thursday Morning Bible Study will resume on January 19, 2017. For the spring semester the group will tackle a five-week study of the book of James. Refreshments will be available at 9:45 in the Parish Hall foyer and the lecture by Patrick will begin at 10:00 AM. Following lecture, the ladies will split into small groups for discussion.

Those who participated in the fall semester of Bible study will be in the same study goups. If you were unable to attend in the fall, you are welcome and encouraged to join the ladies in January. Sign up by contacting Anna Jewell at (210)736-3132 or JoAnn Nussbaum at (210)452-8962.

Thursday Morning Bible Study provides a wonderful way to study God’s word and meet new friends.

Please join the Christ Church Women for the Spring Lunch and Speaker

Catherine Miller

“The Longest Journey: 18 inches from head to heart” Thursday, February 23 ✿ 11:30 am in the Parish Hall

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Our Church Life...

Meet

the

Slate

of

2017 Vestry Nominees

O

n January 22 at 10 AM we will meet for the Annual Parish Meeting in the Sanctuary. At this vitally important meeting, we will hear an update on plans for the campus, receive ministry and financial reports and elect four new members to the vestry for 2017. All parishioners 16-years and older are encouraged to attend the meeting.

Please prayerfully consider which of the following candidates you will vote for in the vestry election.

Andrew Barton I am from San Antonio and graduated from Clark High. I met my wife, Sarah, while attending Austin College in Sherman, TX, and we were married shortly after graduation in Houston in 1995. Also in that year, I began my career with the American Arbitration Association that took us here and there eventually landing back in SA. I admit that I am still learning about and growing in my relationship with Christ; and suspect I always will be.

When we moved back home, our family discovered Christ Church through John Boyce and immediately fell in love with everything about it. We have been embraced and comforted without condition and we are thankful beyond words. Sarah has been active in the greetings ministry and youth planning committee and our children, Emma & Olivia, are an active part of the Youth Group. I was involved in helping teach Sunday school for two years thanks to Halleta’s faith in me and you may have seen me in several CEC Players’ productions.

If called to serve, rest assured that I will do my very best. If not, I will continue to support the ministries of Christ Church in other ways for it is our home and I am humbled and honored just to have been nominated.

Linda Fugit Bill and I joined Christ Church after moving here in 2000. We bought a home in Monte Vista and began exploring for a church family. Upon entering the front doors, I knew immediately this was where we belonged. Architecturally, it was so similar to the church I grew up in that I immediately felt we had come home. I have loved it ever since. I have been involved in Women’s Bible study and have helped with the funeral committee. However, over the past few years, I have received so much more than I have been able to give.

At this point in my life, I would be grateful for the opportunity to do whatever God calls me to do to help and to support the wonderful ministry(s) of Christ Church.

I currently serve on the Governing Board of the Children’s Bereavement Center, but roll off in May. I served on the Vestry before moving to San Antonio and know it is both a privilege and a responsibility. I spent 25 years in private banking and have done professional design work for over 40. If any of these are talents I can share I would be honored to do so.

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Thomas Duesing After visiting nearly every Episcopal church in the St. Louis area, my wife Carrie and I were prepared for another thorough search when we moved back to San Antonio in 2012. We started with Christ Church because it was within walking distance of our new apartment. Immediately, we knew we had found our spiritual home. Since then, I have served in the choir, at both the 9:00 and 11:00 services, as a lay reader and as a lay eucharistic minister at Christ Church. Carrie and I are also founding members of The Well, our community for 20-40 year olds. Most recently, our son, Milo, was baptized at Christ Church in July.

My vision for Christ Church is to be an inclusive and welcoming faith-based community that supports its members as strongly as it supports its surrounding community.

A life-long Episcopalian, I was baptized, confirmed and married to Carrie at St. Mark’s in downtown San Antonio. Professionally, I’m a Product Manager on the public cloud team at Rackspace, managing a multi-million-dollar product portfolio, which is used by thousands of customers around the world.

If elected, I would be honored to serve this congregation on the Vestry.

Matt Markette What an honor it is to have been nominated to run for the vestry of Christ Episcopal Church. This church has meant a great deal to me since I became a member in 2002. My wife, Catherine, and I were married here and this is the place we have chosen to raise our two children, Matthew (14) and Natalie (10).

Through the years, we have been blessed to participate in various programs in the church including helping with the youth ministries and SAMM Christmas programs.

Most recently, we served as speakers for the Stewardship Campaign and will be chairing it in 2017.

We have developed close relationships with the members, staff and clergy of this parish. We feel it is our duty to help serve the church as it continues to grow. It would be a tremendous privilege to be a part of the vestry at such an exciting time in the history of Christ Church. If elected, I will do my best to help the church continue to work towards spreading the grace and hope of God. Thank you for your consideration.

Our Church Life...

Annual General Meeting of the Parish Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10 am Who can vote at Parish Meetings?

• • •

Any adult member (16 years and older) of record who has: received communion at Christ Church at least three times in the previous year, attended regularly, and who has been faithful in working, praying and giving for the growth of the Kingdom of God through our mission

Paul McSween I joined Christ Church 30 years ago, after returning home from college. In 1989, Sarah and I were married here and have remained involved in the Church in many different capacities. We are proud parents of three wonderful children: Rett (25), Thomas (24), and Benjamin (20) who were all baptized, confirmed and raised in Christ Church.

Over the years, I have enjoyed participating in the Church as a Sunday School teacher for kids and our teenage youth ministry. I have served on the Investment Committee and served as an Usher through the years.

Most recently, I feel privileged to have served on the Consecration Sunday team for 2016 and I have committed to serve as Chairman of our Consecration Sunday program in 2018.

In my professional life, I serve as President of Jefferson Bank. In my personal life, I devote my attention to Sarah and our three boys and our faith-based walk with Christ. We have been blessed as a family to have grown up in the Church.

I am very proud of Christ Church and I feel blessed and honored to be nominated for the Vestry. I look forward to the continued growth and further involvement in our ministry.

Earl Stanley

My wife Suzanne and I have been members of Christ Church since 2013. We were initially brought to the church through the deaths of several friends. During these difficult times, the spirit of love and life expressed by the entire church immediately impressed us. We knew this is where we needed to be.

We have attended regularly and have been reaffirmed in the Episcopal Church. I have been Active on the Ministry Council and Men’s fellowship. I continue to serve as Lay Eucharistic Ministers and as a church greeter.

We have 3 children and 5 grandchildren who attend with us when in town. Now retired, I was a pediatric orthopedic surgeon for 35 years.

Additionally, I taught medical students, residents and orthopedists locally and internationally.

I participated as a member on a medical outreach team to Honduras for 10 years, going annually to assist local physicians in providing orthopedic care. I was elected and served on the board of that organization. Locally, I have served on or chaired committees at San Antonio’s hospitals for children. I was on faculty as Associate Professor. I also served in the United Stated Marine Corps during the Vietnam era.

I am excited about continued participation in the Christ Church ministry in any capacity but particularly as a member of the vestry.

Lou Miller

Attended Christ Church for past 5 years.

Served on Music Director Search committee and Choir while at St George’s. Licensed by Diocese of West Texas as Eucharistic Lay Minister over 30 years at St Philip’s, San Antonio. Baptized and confirmed at Church of the Epiphany, Dallas, Texas. Rotary International District Governor of District 5840 for 2015-16. Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Board of Directors Served as Director of Community Relations for the Mayor of San Antonio. Lou Miller State Farm Insurance Agency since 1983, vice president lending Texas Bank. City Public Service Headquarters Advisory Panel, American Public Transportation Association, Conference of Minority Transportation Officials.

President, African American Chamber of Commerce; Board Secretary, Via Metropolitan Transit Authority; Chief of Staff, Roy Jay Enterprises.

Founder, National Association of African American Chambers of Commerce; San Antonio Zoning Commission, founding president Texas State Sickle Cell Disease Association, founding president of The San Antonio Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians. Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, FBI Citizens Academy, Chair, Ella Austin Community Center; founder, San Antonio Sickle Cell Anemia Association; founder, Community Minority Business Advancement (MBA), College and Graduate School of Business, University of Texas at Austin; Cancer Therapy and Research Center.

Wade Vielock I was born and raised in San Antonio and have been an Episcopalian my entire life.

After graduating from Texas A&M I made roots in Houston and attended St. Martins where I served as one of the Head Ushers. I met and married Lauren Brownlee Vielock, a life time member of Christ Church. After our first child, Crayton was born in 2010 we moved back to San Antonio and found our Church home at Christ Episcopal Church.

When our second son Dos was born we had him baptized at Christ Church and the Church as served as our home since then. It has been Lauren’s and my mission to bring many young couples into the Christ Church family. We have found it to be a safe, loving and warm environment for our family and feel that it is important to share that with others.

If elected to the Vestry, I would work to ensure we are always looking to spread the good word to future members and are a welcoming home to them when they visit.

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Our Church Life..

PAGE TURNERS – From

M

ary Boone Irvin loaned me the book with no hint of fanfare, but I knew at once that I would be absorbed by every personality, every piece of artwork, and every ounce of orthodox and heterodox theology presented in the pages of Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World, by Thomas Cahill. I confess that Cahill is chattier in this volume than in the previous three I have read, How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, and Desire of the Everlasting Hills.

However, I did not know at the onset that Cahill was determined to speak his mind and heart through this seemingly endless procession of artists, writers, statesmen, generals, and preachers.

The book is so sated in personalities that I offer merely a sample of what I learned amidst its 310 pages. For example, I did not know that the 17th century Italian painter, Michelangelo Caravaggio, stepped away from his idealistic colleagues to paint, at first still life, and then a pageant of holy characters with open-eyed realism.

Hence, Daniel, Peter, Matthew, Mary, and John march off the pages of the Bible, onto his brush, and into our mind’s eye. I did not know that Martin Luther, while he was held captive for his own safety at lonely Wartburg Castle, began, out of boredom, to translate the Bible from the Greek and Latin into High German. In so doing, he not only gave his people the Holy Scriptures but gave them a unified language, as well. I did not know that William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the very same day, April 23, 1616. Literature and our more honest perceptions of humanity were gifts that did not die with these two masters.

The book’s characters surprised me on every other page, but nothing could have prepared me to the way Cahill

12

the

Rector’s Book Stack

decided to end his history. Stepping beyond the 14th to 17th centuries, he cited three modern heroes who have carried the exalted humanistic principles of the Renaissance and Reformation to us moderns – the German Protestant theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer; the heroic, open-hearted pope, John XXIII; and the longsuffering, and largely unknown American Episcopalian, Muriel Moore – who untied people of all faiths on two continents under the love of the Good Shepherd. Like I said, Cahill is determined to speak his mind and heart.

Building bridges between the world of science and faith is the theme of Dr. Christina H.M. Powell’s book, Questioning Your Doubts: A Harvard PhD Explores Challenges to Faith. Powell is an adept virologist, who is engaged in the critical study to combat cancer, while, at the same time, she is a devoted Christian leader and pastor.

She wears both mantles well, without diminishing her work in the scientific community or in the Church – quite a feat these days.

Early in the book, she shows her hand.

While convinced of the quest of her distinguished laboratory to conquer cancer and other diseases, she realizes the limits of scientific inquiry and the essential importance of a life of faith: Known unknowables should introduce a measure of humility to our quest for knowledge without lessening the importance of science.

Human reason is a powerful tool for learning about the natural world. However, human reason has limitations. Those who shun the life of the mind as incompatible with faith must remember that ideas are important. Ideas change the way we live our daily lives. Just as a basic understanding of the cell cycle gives rise to new targets for cancer

treatment, theology informs ministry practices, bioethics makes bedside decisions, and philosophy guides business practices. Loving God with all our hearts, all our souls and all our minds means building a bridge between faith and reason… Building bridges means daring to ask the questions while having faith to find the answers. In so doing, you glorify God who created you to think.

In August 1805, Meriwether Lewis and a small scouting party of the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the headwaters of the Missouri River at Lemhi Pass, situated just between present day Idaho and Montana.

They expected to find there the fabled Northwest Passage. What they discovered instead was row upon row of the highest, most foreboding, white-capped mountains they had ever surveyed. There was no clear path to the Pacific. For over 100 years, the geographers and cartographers had been dead wrong. They would have to ditch their canoes and find some horses. So begins the church leadership book, Canoeing the Mountains, by Tod Bolsinger. Throughout the book, Bolsinger, professor at Fuller Seminary, takes the reader back to Lemhi Pass.

Why? Because all of us in the Church, regardless of denomination, know the total landscape of our work has changed. Only “Ostrich Christians,” those burying their heads in the ground, believe otherwise.

Owning up to the new challenges before us, Bolsinger tutors his readers, clergy and parish leaders, to guide our churches over these high, foreboding mountains through adaptive change, which is to inaugurate change from within the people we serve as opposed to dictating change autocratically and dispassionately from above.

Bolsinger makes the poignant point that “Christian work is both ‘family’ and ‘business’ at the same time.”

So impressed have I been with this

Our Church Life... book, that I am leading a discussion of it amongst the Christ Church teaching staff. Relationships matter just as much as technical competence.

Finally, Bolsinger leaves the reader with a hopeful image embodied in the third President of the United States: For all his ambivalence about the Christian faith, Jefferson can serve as a model for those of us who are in leadership today as Christendom is fading away. We can and must inspire the next generation to go where we have not. We can and must create the kind of communities that encourage risk, humility, learning, and experimentation…We can remind them that maps change, that mental models are often incomplete, the leaders of the future are learners, not the experts, of today.

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres… is the first line of Julius Caesar’s, The Gallic Wars, and the first line I ever translated from Latin into English.

“All Gaul is divided into three parts,” so

the story goes of Caesar’s nine-year campaign against the Germanic and Celtic people who resisted Rome’s rule. I had not thought of that wellengendered line until Kay and I traveled up “the Mountain” to Sewanee for the rededication of my boarding school’s chapel in late September. I was then accosted by memories of Sister Frances burnishing those lines and others into my mind forever – obviously. While I can no longer quote from memory the first line of the Aeneid, Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris – “I sing of arms and a man, who was first from the shores of Troy” – I recall laboring over the epic for most of my senior year with Sister and Don Ashworth, my more able classmate. Overcome with my memories of grinding out translations with Sister and Don, I ordered the new release, Classical Literature: An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond, by Richard Jenkyns. I read and marked every page in a sort of tribute to those who took a poor kid from Birmingham and thought him worthy to study Caesar, Virgil, Plautus, and Ovid.

I will not belabor my few readers with Jenkyns’s careful, colorful, and occasionally ribald notations.

(Although, it is noteworthy that Fifty Shades of Gray is not a low water mark set by licentious modern western culture, for the Greeks and Romans have ventured to those bawdy shores before.) For purposes of this magazine, I must admit my surprise over Jenkyns’s high treatment of the New Testament, which is usually ignored by classicists. About Paul the apostle, Jenkyns admits: An obscure Jewish cultist and preacher, and only an occasional author, he had made his way circuitously to the capital (Rome) from his hometown in the eastern Mediterranean, arriving as a prisoner. His very existence was unknown to literati, who would have been surprised to learn that he was to become arguably the most influential of all classical authors.

Posterity knows him as St. Paul.

Patrick

SOCIETY

A Match Made In…Heaven!

Help us get more S

hazam! $100,000 became $200,000 all at once. No, it wasn’t a card trick, slight of hand, or a mirage. In 2016, every dollar that was given to the Christ Church Endowment for Buildings and Grounds was – Presto! – matched dollar-for-dollar by a generous family in our parish.

Guess what? The allure remains. The family wishes to match another $100,000 in 2017. If you have had some financial good fortune these past few years, we ask you to consider making a gift to meet this match. The family who made the challenge grant said, “We wanted to make part of our planned gift – our testamentary gift – while we are still living.”

Perhaps that is your desire, as well.

for your buck!

Call Patrick Gahan at 736-3132 or Tom Frost at 220-4411 for more information. Remember, the magic happens when you get involved.

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OF EVENTS January 6:

The Epiphany

January 7:

The Well Sidewalk Saturday, Carriage House, 9 AM

January 8:

Children’s Epiphany Celebration, Children’s Chapel, 10 AM

The Rev. Patrick Gahan, Rector patrickg@cecsa.org

January 11:

Dinner and Discipleship resumes, Parish Hall, 5:30 PM

The Rev. Scott Kitayama, Associate Rector, scottk@cecsa.org

January 13-16: High School Youth Retreat

Christ Church Staff:

The Rev. Brien Koehler, Associate Rector for Mission and Formation, brienk@cecsa.org

January 15:

Noisy Offering Children’s Epiphany Mission Chapel starts, FMC Chapel, 11 AM Third Sunday Lunch Bunch at Order Up, 12:30 PM

January 19:

Women’s Bible Study resumes, Parish Hall, 10 AM

January 21:

Community of Hope Class begins, contact Carol Miller

Carol Miller, Pastoral Care Administrator, carolm@cecsa.org

January 22:

Annual General Meeting of the Parish, 10 AM Children’s Movie Day, FMC Rooms 104 & 302, 10 AM CCF Lunch and a Movie: “The Woman in Gold”, Carriage House

Halleta Heinrich, Director of Family Ministry, halletah@cecsa.org

January 25: Life After Loss begins, Conference Room, 12:30 PM, contact Carol Miller

The Rev. Rob Harris, Associate Rector for Community Formation, robh@cecsa.org

Lily Fenton, Nursery Director lilyf@cecsa.org Gavin Rogers, Youth Minister gavinr@cecsa.org

January 29:

Confirmation Classes begin, Carriage House, 12:15 PM Musical Offerings & CEC Friends of Music Concert, 3 PM

February 1:

Safeguarding God’s Children training, 10 AM

February 4:

CCF Western Heritage Parade & Cattle Drive, contact Nita Shaver

February 12:

Children’s Communion Class begins, FMC, 10 AM

Ruth Berg, Director of Children’s Music, ruthb@cecsa.org

February 14:

St. Valentine’s Day

February 19:

Stop Hunger Now Service Project, Parish Hall, 12:30 - 4 PM

Robert Hanley, Parish Administrator parishadmin@cecsa.org

February 23:

Christ Church Women’s Spring Luncheon, 11:30 AM

Darla Nelson, Office Manager darlan@cecsa.org

February 26:

Mardi Gras Jazz Mass, 11 AM Gumbo Lunch, Parish Hall, 12:30 PM

Donna Shreve, Financial Manager donnas@cecsa.org

February 28:

Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, Parish Hall, 5:30 PM

March 1:

Ash Wednesday, Services at 7:30 AM, 12 PM and 6 PM

March 3:

Deadline for Ellison Scholarship applications

March 4:

Guest Speaker Nathan Jennings, Parish Hall, 10 AM - 2 PM

March 10 - 12: Community of Hope Retreat to Mustang Island

To have your CEC event (on or off campus) added to the Church Calendar please submit a CEC EVENT SCHEDULING FORM All church related activities, events, meetings, etc. MUST have a CEC EVENT SCHEDULING FORM submitted to the church receptionist, Donnis Carpenter.

EVEN events that take place off-campus must be submitted in order to be added to the church’s master calendar. Submission forms can be found on the Lucite racks outside the reception office.

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XXXXX, Assistant Youth Minister XXXXX@cecsa.org Joshua Benninger, Music Minister & Organist, joshb@cecsa.org

Gretchen Comuzzi Duggan, Director of Communications, gretchend@cecsa.org Anna Jewell, Executive Assistant to the Rector, annaj@cecsa.org Donnis Carpenter, Receptionist donnisc@cecsa.org Elizabeth Martinez, Kitchen Manager elizabethm@cecsa.org Robert Vallejo, Facilities Manager robertv@cecsa.org Rudy Segovia, Hospitality Manager rudys@cecsa.org Joe Garcia, Sexton joeg@cecsa.org

ALBUM

15

The Sanctuary Singers teen choir at Lessons and Carols

The Message (USPS 471-710) is published bi-monthly by Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Periodical postage paid in San Antonio, TX. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Volume 19, Number 1.

Periodical Postage PAID San Antonio, TX Christ Episcopal Church 510 Belknap Place San Antonio, TX 78212 www.cecsa.org