This Week from Mitch

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday in our Gospel reading, priests sent by the temple authorities go out to question a person they see as both a wild man and a threat, John the Baptist. The priests get to John and ask, "Who are you?" They were trying to ascertain if John the Baptist was the Messiah, Elijah, or a prophet. John's answer was that he simply was "a voice crying out in the wilderness."

Who are you? Who are you as a Christ-follower? Advent is a time of preparation. A time when we prepare for Christmas by opening in our hearts a place for the Christ-child to be born anew. It is a time of intentionally journeying to the manger, a time of pilgrimage. A part of the way each of us can prepare is by doing some work and prayer around some of life's essential questions, one of which is "who are you?"

I am a husband, a father, and a priest. At my core, I love my family and sharing the love of Christ with others. As a parish priest, I love worship, our community, our outreach, our pastoral care, our fellowship. I love many of the things that COVID has, for a time, taken away from us. As a parish priest, this has been hard. There, however, have also been blessings. Last year I never would have dreamed that St. Martin's would lead an international Bible study/advent program (our virtual pilgrimage), but we are. I never would have dreamed that we would need to develop the know-how in order to stream services online, but we have. In this, I have grown, and we as a church have sown the seeds of growth that I believe we will experience in the future.

Who am I? I am a part of the community of faith that calls itself St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and I give to St. Martin's out of faith and hope. I ask that you join me in this giving.

In Christ,

Mitch+