Fr. Harrison's Letter for March 26, 2017

Dear Hearts,

"Helping Hands for Haiti" describes our Sunday School's Pancake Breakfast, a benefit for Holy Trinity School this Sunday.  "Helping Hands" also describes the decorations which the children have been preparing for weeks!

Instead of the usual Coffee Hour following the 10 a.m. service, we will move to the Parish Hall for pancakes and sausage hot off the grill!  Your free-will gifts will support the educational ministry of Holy Trinity School Primary School on the campus of the Cathedral in Port au Prince, Haiti.
 
With seminary-intern Andrew Doss's return from Yale's Spring Break, the pace of our reading of  Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door is likely to pick up.  Several of us noted that in chapter 3, the surprises come quickly.  If you have a copy, please bring it with you.  Ordered copies are now overdue!  In any case, the text will be available; so please feel free to join the reading and conversation.  See the calendar for times and places.  No reservations or homework required!

In this week's reflection on "Our Holy Land," Bishop Laura Ahrens talks about where she saw signs of hope during her pilgrimage there.  She saw hope being created as Muslim, Jewish and Christian women worked together in making goods for fair trade markets.  She also saw hope in the Princess Basma Center for Diasbled Children, an inclusive ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.  Bishop Laura asks us to be looking for, and supporting signs of hope in Our Holy Land and in our own communities. You can find her reflection here.

The voting in Lent Madness seems to favor lesser known saints this year.  Thus, Fanny Crosby defeated G.F. Handel!   Recognized as a prolific author of Gospel songs and hymns, she appears to have not been limited in the least by her blindness.  LEVASII has six hymns written by "Aunt Fanny," as she was known, but I only recognized "Blessed Assurance."  As with that hymn, her others in LEVASII also have a "Jesus-is-mine" piety.  For people whose faith provided a refuge from the discrimination and oppression they experience(d) in daily life, her hymns gave/give voice to "this is my story, this is my song."  A song and a story to sustain them.  To learn more about "Aunt Fanny," and 31 other saints, you can go to www.lentmadness.org. 

I look forward to sharing pancakes, and the other adventures and insights, of this Lent with you.
​
In faith and hope,
Harrison+
YFNR