Dear Friends,
A visit from a bishop is nearly always a cause for celebration! Our bishops try to visit their parishes once a year, and during that time they perform functions reserved to bishops: consecrating an altar or a baptismal font, for example, or, more frequently, laying hands on those who are to be Confirmed or Received into The Episcopal Church, or who are renewing their baptismal vows. Bishops, of course, also do baptisms. One difference is that when a bishop baptizes an adult, the adult is also Confirmed.
Bishop Caldwell, our Bishop Provisional (in the interim between elected bishops), retired on December 31, sooner than he expected, because of family illness. Until we have another Bishop Provisional, other bishops will be called upon occasionally to fulfill the bishop’s duties so that life continues as normally as possible in the parishes of the diocese.
We will be blessed this coming Sunday with a visit from The Rt. Rev. Ken Price, retired from service in the Dioceses of Southern Ohio and Pittsburgh. I am delighted! Bishop Price was Suffragan Bishop (a second elected bishop) in Southern Ohio, my last diocese, when I served there, and he Confirmed me in the years before I went to seminary.
Bishop Price will preach and preside at Sunday’s Holy Eucharist, at the baptisms of Quinn Martin and Natalie Napier, and at the Reception of Linda Campbell. We’ll have a reception in honor of all four following the service. Don’t miss it!
Wishing you every blessing,
Mtr. TJ