An Easter Message
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Hello to my beloved family in Christ. I want to take this opportunity, first of all, on behalf of my wife, Sharon, and our family, to thank you. To thank you for your prayers, to thank you for your well wishes, your expressions of support and kindness. We are equally thankful for the blessing of remarkable medical care and pastoral support. As you may know, I’ve been working a bit from home—at a reduced level, to be sure, but I’m gradually increasing that.
Just two weeks ago, my medical team approved me to drive locally and to resume short domestic flights. I can’t tell you how much your prayers have sustained me and my family through this medical journey. Prayer matters. We don’t always know how. We don’t always know or understand the outcome.
But prayer matters, and it makes a difference. Over the last several months, I have not known how this would all work out. But I’ve been very aware, and in some particular moments, consciously aware of being upheld in prayer by you. Without consciously deciding to do it, I actually found myself praying some words from Psalm 31, which says, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.”
Before surgeries and treatments, through some long nights, difficult days, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.” These words are part of a prayer that is Psalm 31 in the Hebrew scriptures. The late night service of Compline uses that psalm as a prayer before going to sleep at night.
Luke’s Gospel records Jesus praying these very words, that psalm, on the cross, when he had a sense of what lay before him, but could not know the outcome. He didn’t know with any certainty if and how God would act. He didn’t know, as the old preachers used to say, Good Friday’s always happened, but Sunday’s always coming. He didn’t know with any certainty that resurrection would become real and not a mere metaphor.
But as he died into the unknown, he did one thing: He threw himself completely into the hands of God. “Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit.”
And in that moment, after saying that, Luke’s Gospel says, he breathed his last. And though he died, death did not have the last word, though he did die. He died into the hands of God and slipped out of the grip of death.
And as we now know, on the third day he rose again, and he lives. As William Cowper said in a poem that later became a hymn, “God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, he plants his footstep in the sea and rides upon the storm.”
So God love you. God bless you. May the God who rides upon our storms and raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead hold us all, the entire human family and all of God’s grand and glorious creation in those almighty hands of love. Have a blessed Holy Week and Easter.
Presiding bishop joins global Christian leaders calling for Gaza cease-fire in Holy Week letter
Aleja Hertzler-McCain, Episcopal News Service
More than 140 global Christian leaders, including a Guatemalan Catholic cardinal and the presiding bishops of The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, called for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and for an end to foreign military support for Israel in a March 26 letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and other politicians.
“We, as global Christian leaders, stand with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Palestine and around the world and say the killing must stop, and the violence must be brought to an end,” they wrote. “The horrific actions Hamas committed on October 7th in no way justify the massive deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military.”
In separate text specifically addressed to Biden, the signatories wrote, “We implore you to have the moral courage to end U.S. complicity in the ongoing violence and, instead, do everything in your power to prevent the potential genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
The letter comes just one day after the United States abstained from a U.N. vote calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza during the month of Ramadan. The resolution passed with 14 votes in favor.
The organization Churches for Middle East Peace, which organized the effort, said it plans to send the letter to other world leaders.
In the letter, the leaders highlighted the high death toll in Gaza, the onset of famine and Israel’s genocide trial at the International Court of Justice. “As the ongoing devastation, bombing, and ground invasion in Gaza continue into their sixth month, Palestinians, including our Palestinian Christian siblings, cry out to the world, asking, ‘Where are you?’” the letter said.
“We repent of the ways we have not stood alongside our Palestinian siblings in faithful witness in the midst of their grief, agony, and sorrow,” the leaders wrote, highlighting the Christian tenets of “faithfulness to God, love of neighbor, and mercy toward those who are suffering and in need.”
More than 32,000 people have been killed and nearly 75,000 injured in Gaza, according to health officials there, since Israel began a military operation in Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which left an estimated 1,200 dead and more than 200 taken captive. Israel estimates 97 hostages still remain alive in Gaza, after 112 were freed.
Last week, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said Israel was responsible for a looming famine in Gaza, and Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, predicted that soon more than 200 people a day could die from starvation.
In January, the International Court of Justice found that it was “plausible” that Israel’s acts had violated the Genocide Convention and ordered that Israel ensure the access of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Earlier this month, 12 prominent Israeli human rights groups said their country was not complying with that order.
In their letter, the Christian leaders said they had consistently called for the release of Israeli hostages and they had been “clear in our condemnation” of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, calling it an “atrocious crime.”
They also called for the release of Palestinian political prisoners held without due process, “immediate and adequate humanitarian assistance” for Gaza and a negotiated settlement that addresses the root consequences of the conflict, including “security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Signatories of the letter came from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.
They represented a broad range of Christian groups, including Catholic bishops, Catholic sisters, Quakers, Mennonites, evangelicals, Antiochian Orthodox Christians and leaders from the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Church of England, The Episcopal Church, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, Lott Carey Foreign Baptist Mission Convention, United Reformed Church, Church of Scotland, African Presbyterian Bafolisi Church, Church of the Brethren, Community of Christ, Christian Reformed Church of North America and Armenian Church of America (Eastern).
Throughout the letter, the leaders make reference to Holy Week, where Christians commemorate Jesus Christ’s execution and resurrection. “We know that Jesus himself was among those who suffered, and he comforted the brokenhearted,” the leaders wrote.
“We hold onto the hope that peace is possible even in the midst of this darkest hour,” they concluded.
Episcopalians Participate in Interfaith March, Vigil Supporting Migrants in El Paso, Texas
Shireen Korkzan, Episcopal News Service
Some 15 Episcopalians joined Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn and the Rev. Lee Curtis, the diocese’s canon to the ordinary, in a march and vigil on March 21 in El Paso, Texas, to protest recent efforts to close a local network of migrant shelters and enforce a bill that allows law enforcement to arrest and detain anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally.
“The idea is to gather people of goodwill from all faith traditions together to have a march and a vigil calling for the humane treatment of everybody who comes to that border, and that includes, in my mind, to treat Border Patrol as human beings and not ask them to do inhumane things,” Hunn told Episcopal News Service before the march and vigil.
Recent threats to close the Catholic-affiliated nonprofit Annunciation House and enforcement of SB4 prompted the Catholic Diocese of El Paso to host the interfaith “‘Do Not Be Afraid’: A March & Vigil for Human Dignity.” The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande’s borderland ministries, Interfaith Immigration Interfaith Coalition, Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico, the Immigration Law & Justice Network and other organizations joined the Catholic diocese in sponsoring the event.
Read the rest of this article at https://trinity-greeceny.org/go/TexasVigilForMigrants
Apply Now for Episcopal Church 2024-2025 Educational Scholarships
Applications are being accepted for a wide variety of educational scholarships from The Episcopal Church for the 2024-2025 academic year. The deadline to apply online is April 15. All applicants must be Episcopalian.
The scholarships—derived from annual income of more than 45 trust funds established through bequests to The Episcopal Church—range from assistance for children of missionaries, bishops and clergy to individuals seeking theological education and training. The maximum award is $10,000 per student.
For the 2023-24 year, 131 educational scholarships were awarded—from 186 applications received—for $390,216 to students from 51 dioceses and overseas Anglican partners.
At least nine of the scholarships are designated for Native American youth; others are specific to Black, Asian American, Chinese, and Hispanic students, as well as seminarians, among other listings. Applicants are encouraged to read the scholarship trust fund list and identify in their application those funds that best fit their situation.
Only complete applications will be considered. All applicants must have the endorsement of their Episcopal bishop.
Applications are reviewed by a scholarship committee composed of representatives from the Episcopal Church Executive Council, the church-at-large, the Treasurer’s Office, and various other Episcopal Church ministries.
For more information, contact Ann Hercules, associate for grants and scholarships.
Go to https://trinity-greeceny.org/go/EpiscopalScholarships for information and links to apply.