This Week from Mitch

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings from Greenwood, SC. I'm with a team of volunteers from St. Martin's and St. John's helping with hurricane cleanup at the Church of the Resurrection. On Monday we have another opportunity to help in Simpsonville, SC at Holy Cross Episcopal Church. I am happy to be able to lend a hand and if you can volunteer, please join the Disaster Relief Ministry Team in the St. Martin's App. I will do my best to keep that page updated.

This Sunday at our 5 PM service we will celebrate our annual Blessing of the Animals. Come play, sit, shake, and speak! St. Francis cared for all creatures with the understanding that all living things share a kinship in the family of God. On this day, and in the wake of Hurricane Helene, I am choosing to remember my call to be a good steward of creation, of the environment, and of all the resources God has given me.

We have been blessed with "this fragile Earth, our island home" as Eucharistic Prayer C says. How we care for our home and all of God's people matters. St Francis believed that the beauty of nature mirrored the beauty of God. He believed that by caring for nature and caring for others, we were also caring for God – God in the form of a hurricane victim, God in the form of an animal put up for adoption, God in the form of the woodlands and the sea. Francis reminds us that part of our faith depends on us caring and that caring matters.

May we take after St. Francis by caring for the world around us.

In Christ,

Mitch