Hello. Last week while we were all planning and trying to reorder our lives and adapt to the new reality that we are in, I was texting back and forth with the Reverend Gay Clark Jennings, President of the House of Deputies, as we often do. And in the course of our texts back and forth, she asked, “Have you ever thought about maybe doing a short meditation each week for the church while we’re in these days of the coronavirus?” I texted her back and said, “That’s a good idea.” And so this week we began what I think will be a weekly short meditation [Habits of Grace]. Just a word or a song, not sung by me, but a song, a poem, a prayer. Just something for the week in which we are living.
I keep a prayer list on my cell phone in the little note section of the iPad and I’ve noticed that that list is increasing. But the reality is while I often always say my prayer time early in the morning, there’s more time even during the rest of the day now. And so maybe the habit of prayer can increase a bit for me and maybe for us.
One of the things that I’m aware of is that consistent habits, what some have called habits of grace, can really be helpful especially in unsettling times. I was watching television and saw where in Milan and throughout Italy apparently, a movement has begun. Apparently at six o’clock every evening everyone who is in their apartment is socializing by coming out on the porch and at six o’clock they begin to applaud. They just start clapping. And everyone claps and applauds as a way of saying thank you to the medical folk who are working, the first responders who are working. Just a way of saying thank you. And then the applause moves into or morphs into a song. And they sometimes sing their national anthem or sing some other song, every day at six. A habit of grace. A way of centering the day. Whatever way you do it, find and keep that habit of grace or those habits of grace that center the day. Tomorrow, Tuesday, will be St. Patrick’s Day. There won’t be a parade, but maybe we can say a prayer attributed to St. Patrick.
I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Holy Trinity. Through belief in the three-ness, through confession of the oneness, the creator of all creation. So Christ be with me. Christ before me. Christ behind me. Christ within me. Christ beneath me. Christ above me. Christ on my right. Christ on my left. Christ when I lie down. Christ when I sit up. Christ when I arise. Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me. Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me. Christ in the eye of everyone who sees me. Christ in every ear that hears me. Christ in the heart of friend and stranger. *
God bless you. God keep you. And may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love.
—Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
*Used with permission of OurCatholicPrayers.com. Find the complete prayer.
The Most Rev. Michael Curry
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
The descendant of enslaved Africans brought to North America by way of the trans-Atlantic slave routes, Presiding Bishop Curry was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 13, 1953. Presiding Bishop Curry’s father was an Episcopal priest and his mother was a devout Episcopalian. She died at a young age, and Presiding Bishop Curry, along with his sister, was raised by his father and his grandmother. His father, mother, and grandmother grounded him in Christian beliefs and practices through their example and their teachings.
He attended public schools in Buffalo, New York, and, even at a young age, he learned about social activism through his father’s leadership and his own dedication to righting a broken world.
Presiding Bishop Curry was graduated with high honors from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, in 1975. He received a Master of Divinity degree in 1978 from Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. He has furthered his education with continued study at The College of Preachers, Princeton Theological Seminary, Wake Forest University, the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary, and the Institute of Christian Jewish Studies. He has received honorary degrees from Episcopal Divinity School; Sewanee: The University of the South; Virginia Theological Seminary; and Yale.
He is married to the former Sharon Clement, and they have two adult daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6210 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The Episcopal Church welcomes you.
