Head of Episcopal Church visits Orlando Diocese

posted by jeff kunerth on March, 3 2013 5:24 PM



Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

Rev. Katharine Jefferts Shori, head of the Episcopal Church in the United States and 15 other countries, is visiting the Central Florida diocese for the first time since she became presiding bishop in 2006.

Shori is scheduled to visit St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church in Titusville this morning, where she will learn about the congregation’s ministry to laid-off Space Coast workers and its youth outreach program.

Lated in the day she will visit the Mary S. Harrell Black Heritage Museum in New Smyrna Beach, which is supported by the St. Peter the Fisherman Church.

From New Smyrna Beach, she will stop at Grace Church in Post Orange, which has a ministry for the homeless and a food pantry. Her tour of Episcopal churches conclued in the afternoon with St. James Episcopal Church in Leesburg, which assists in a medical ministry in Jamaica.

On Sunday, Shori preached the sermon at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Leesburg. In her sermon, Shori spoke on the significance of ash Wednesday and evangelism in the Episcopal church.

“Episcopalians all across this church has been taking ashes on Ash Wednesday out into the streets for the last several years. They’ve gone to the train station or the subway, bearing ashes and offering to share that sign of immortality to all comers,” Shori preached. “More than one person observed that this kind of evangelism makes sense to Episcopalians…Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”

She spoke of the parable of Jesus and the fig tree, whose roots needed to be pruned and manure applied to make sure that the tree born fruit and not just grow more branches and leaves.

“This fig tree needs manure — not ashes or fish meal or bone meal, but good old barnyard manure. It’s a reminder that the stuff we try hard to avoid, the messiness of incarnation, is absolutely essential to real life,” Shori said. “We will not bear fruit or find life abundant unless we are willing to encounter the smelly and the dirty and the lowly around us.”

Source

.