This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. On this day, we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit given to each and every one of us. During this celebration we also will baptize six people into a life in Christ, into the shared baptismal waters of our faith. After the baptisms, we will commission our pilgrims as they prepare to head to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago. I hope that you will each have the opportunity to attend.

I pledge to try to be a part of a solution that saves lives, but like many of you, I feel helpless. I pledge to try to move from beneath the pall. I lament my anguish to God because I am angry. I pray that this time the voices of the victims will be heard, for it is only in that hearing that the stain of the sin of inaction can be washed away by the waters of our baptisms. Perhaps then the pall can be lifted and the vanity will be gone.

I want to take some time as we celebrate Youth Sunday to say thank you to our many, many youth volunteers. Thank you to our Godly Play teachers, Children's Chapel leaders, 4th and 5th grade Sunday school teachers, middle school and high school teachers, youth group volunteers, Royal School of Church Music volunteers, acolyte masters, and the many of you who work behind the scenes to ensure that we have a Christ-centered, safe, and fun environment for our youth. The youth are not the future of our church -- they are a part of our present.

Next Saturday the 14th we will have a chance to break bread together and have fun! We will celebrate our youth program with a parish party and dance. I hope that you will dress up and come. I hope that you will play and dance and enjoy. I also hope that you will come prepared to donate to the youth program! A parish can not be healthy without a healthy youth program. The two go hand and hand. Our commitment to our youth now is an investment in our church's future.

As a fundraiser for their Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, our youth are throwing us a parish-wide dance party. It will be a chance to simply come together, raise some money for the pilgrimage, and have fun doing it.

The St. Martin's pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago represents for us a step forward in our post-pandemic lives. It also represents our commitment to children and youth ministry. It is not a tourist trip; it is a pilgrimage -- one in which people will have an ample amount of time to walk and to pray. Time to be shaped by the roads that pilgrims have traveled for over a thousand years.

Thank you to all who worked so hard to make Easter and Holy Week happen. Thank you to our volunteers, our choir, our altar guild, our auxiliary altar guild, our readers, our staff, and our clergy. If I am missing someone, please know I am grateful. My heart is truly filled with gratitude. Thank you!