Nov 2010 - Diocese of the Rio Grande

4IN THEEPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF THE RIO GRANDEBishop-Elect Michael Vono’s Address to ConventionI have always felt that it was appropriate thatconventions are held in the time in which we movetowards Thanksgiving, because, in fact, in everydiocese, it is a time for people to rejoice and celebratethe many things that we have to be thankful for, andhaving the consecration, as well as this convention,close to Thanksgiving is a wonderful, wonderfulcontext in which both of us begin our new ministry.I am very grateful to all of you for the wonderfulgenerosity of spirit and outpouring of love that Ihave experienced in not only the time when we hadthe walk-abouts with my colleagues, but also in theparishes that I have visited, in the clergy that I haveseen. It is truly overwhelming, thestrength of hospitality and of love andwelcome that you all seem to have as aunique charisma in this part of the world.And mind you, this part of the world is anew part of the world for me.I want to begin by saying these wordsof thanks to you all, clergy and laity. Inmy pastoral letter I wrote to you in ourdiocesan newspaper, “Together,” someof you might have already read that Iquoted St. Augustine, who said on theday he was bishop, “Believe me, brothersand sisters, if what I am frightens me,what I am with you reassures me. Foryou, I am the bishop. With you, I am aChristian.”You and I will share a mutual ministryof all the baptized, carrying on Christ’smission and ministry in what I woulddescribe as our new challenging age,because I believe it is an age in which theworld and the church are moving fromfamiliar boundaries to new frontiers,God’s frontiers.Those of us who have recently movedto New Mexico know something aboutwhat this means. Walter Brueggemann,an Old Testament theologian and churchscholar, recently wrote, “The great crisisamong us is the crisis of the commongood, the sense of community, solidaritythat binds all people in common destiny.”The early church, he says, was bornout of the passionate conviction thatin Christ crucified and Christ risen, they, followers ofGod’s incarnate son, Jesus Christ, could welcome oneanother in all their unique differences and everyoneelse overcoming every superficial earthly challenge,just the way Jesus did.For the Church of Jesus Christ, I’d like to think thatPentecost is a daily experience. We learn in the NewTestament writings, particularly the Gospels, thatChristian unity never meant sameness. It always meanswholeness. Christ has come to make us whole, tomake us one with each other, one with God. Diversity,St. Thomas Aquinas says, is the perfection of theuniverse. Imagine that being said centuries ago. AndSt. Augustine concurred, and St. Paul makes the caseto the Corinthians. “My dear people, in Christ andby the grace of the Holy Spirit, I do believe we areempowered and poised to meet every single and allchallenges which resist the priority of the commongood, violate community solidarity, and inhibit thatwhich binds all in common destiny, the destiny weproclaim to the world redeemed by the blood andPhoto by Rev. Brian Wintercross of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”We are a special people, God’s people, God’s holypeople. And we as Episcopalians, as members of theAnglican communion, we as Episcopalians who elicitfrom others, people’s eyes to cross and to wonderabout us, we practice the presence of God in allpeople, because we truly believe that we are all madein the same image and likeness of God. There areno foreigners in the body of Christ, no strangers oroutcasts in the community of the Anglican church,especially in our Episcopalian church. We believe thatall people by the grace of God do seek to be holy asGod is holy.The Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori presents Bishop-Elect MichaelVono a gift with the following message: This is a gift. It has a quote fromDom Helder Camara, who was the Archbishop of Recife in Brazil in the 1960sand 1970s. It says, “The bishop belongs to all. Let no one be scandalized if Ifrequent those who are considered unworthy or sinful. Who is not a sinner?Let no one be alarmed if I am seen with compromised and dangerous peopleon the left or the right. Let no one bind me to a group. My door, my heart,must be open to everyone, absolutely everyone.”Now, I am sure you can tell by this time that I amvery happy to be in the Land of Enchantment. And, infact, I have been dreaming -- and some of you haveheard me say this -- I have been dreaming of a dioceseof enchantment in the American Episcopalian church.And by definition -- because one of my dear priestsasked me, “But what does that mean?” I know whatit means. My best definition is described in Psalm133. “Behold how good and pleasant it is for peopleto dwell together in unity.” It is what Christ prayed for,what the Holy Spirit inspires and calls all of us to.In your diocesan profile, you describe yourselves asa missionary people. Therefore, I will be a missionarybishop. I.e., my hat. A missionary bishop in NewMexico and Southwest Texas. And I will pray we willmake this our public presence that we are a visionarytransformational people in New Mexico, being inspiredby all scriptures, tradition, and reason and humanexperience as we live this experience in our newchallenging age. We will seek to be transformed inChrist into the likeness of Christ. You have heard mesay time and time again, our greatest challenges willbe, in time, our greatest blessings.I know you have high expectations of your new bishop.I have high expectations of you. What consoles me isthat God has higher expectations than both of us. Butpart of my expectation is my hope that our diocesanmission imperatives will include these things which Ihave been thinking about, praying about, in the twomonths that I have been here, in getting to knowyou, and in getting to see some of our wonderfulcongregations, a public presence of grass roots caringministry to all God’s people in every parish and everymission of this church in SouthwestTexas and New Mexico. It is already inall your parishes and missions. I havebeen carefully reading. Those of youwho have profiles, I read them whenI was still in Rome. But I pray for thatto be the single public presence thatemerges, that on the grass roots, we areso attentive to the people around us.And who are they? Our militaryveterans and their families certainly inthis part of the world, in the Dioceseof the Rio Grande. The poor who arearound us; the sick, those who areunchurched, struggling families, forcedeconomic migrants. It wasn’t only inRome that I was attentive to them.We need to be attentive to them here.Displaced and abandoned adults, aswell as youth. The Hispanic unchurched,of which there are many. And to oururban Native American brothers andsisters, which you are already soconscious of.I believe our future is bright becauseI believe our future is in God’s hands.I will conclude these reflections bygiving you two inspiring quotes. Theclergy have already heard them. I gavethese quotes to them at our clericusgathering. The first is from the ProphetIsaiah. “A voice crying out in thewilderness.” We’re in the wilderness.“Do not remember the former things orconsider the things of old. I am about todo a new thing. Now it springs forth. Doyou not perceive it? I will make a way in the wildernessand rivers in the desert.”Bishop Katharine remembered the words of JohnXXIII. The pronunciation is adjornamiento. Andadjornamiento means that the windows have beenbroken open, that the spirit of God has been flowingin and moving people and souls closer to Christ.Adjornamiento certainly is part of this diocese.The second quote I gave the clergy was from acontemporary mystic. “Life is not measured by thenumber of breaths we take, but by the moments thattake our breath away.”In this time of Thanksgiving, may we all beconsciously grateful to the Lord God, to his son, ourLord Jesus, to the grace of the Holy Spirit for the manyblessings bestowed upon us individually and uponthis diocese, whom the Lord God has been mindfulof always. Let us be conscious of those blessings nowwhich take our breath away. Grazie mille. Grazie ditutto. God bless all of you.