St. Matthew's Episcopal

For the Third Sunday in Advent, (Gaudate, or Rejoice! Sunday) I continue my practice of summarizing the sermon because in these turbulent times, it is important to keep the Good News ever before us. I don’t know about you, but today, of all days, I am feeling as if I want someone – anyone, really […]

For the second Sunday in Advent, I continue my practice of summarizing the sermon because in these turbulent times, it is important to keep the Good News ever before us. Isaiah’s words about the coming Messiah – the “shoot from the stump of Jesse [who] shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide […]

Welcome to Advent! In this special liturgical time of the year, I wanted to sum up the sermon for the first Sunday in Advent because in these turbulent times, it is important to keep the Good News ever before us. Yesterday’s Gospel tells us plainly that we must be vigilant and “keep awake,” or, as […]

Dealing with the demographics of the dwindling number of people in church on any given Sunday is a bit like climate change. We can see it happening, we know it’s a fact – but we just don’t want to admit it. As someone who has been a parish priest for more than a decade, I’ve […]

[This was finally published in the 4/25/2014 edition of the The Daily Item] I understand that recently a new parish of the American National Catholic Church now calls Lewisburg home.  As an Anglican Catholic (whose branch in the United States can sometimes be referred to as Episcopalian), I was delighted to discover that this branch […]

I’m delighted to post a homily Michael Nailor wrote for one of his assignments in the Diocesan School of Christian Studies for his “Exploring Your Ministry” class.  Please keep Michael, Mother Robin, and Michael’s St. Matthew’s Discernment Team (Mary Hollenbach, Nathan Blanchard, Charlie Schlegel, Taylor Fazzini)  in your prayers as we continue to support Michael […]

In a recent blog post on the Daily Kos, [Here] there is a quote by the writer’s father: My father told me with a sort of cold fury, “Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south.” On this day, April 4, 1968, my sister and I were wandering around the streets of Monroe, […]

You might expect that we who preach usually dread the ‘big’ days such as Christmas and Easter.  It’s partially true – possibly because we want to reward the very faithful who have parked themselves in a pew for most of liturgies during the year and certainly because we want to reach out to those who […]