Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

For more than two decades, Tom Matchett has faithfully served as Palmer’s part-time Financial Manager. That makes him the longest serving member of the church staff. Although most people are familiar with his name and have probably sent to his attention a few checks through the years, many of those same people have never met Tom. Yet he has kept in order the financial underpinning of our ministries here.

This week you are invited to attend a reception in Tom’s honor on Thursday, June 30, which is his last day in the church office, in St. Bede’s Chapel from 4:00-6:00 p.m. You can also greet him today at the 10:00 a.m. Holy Eucharist, during which we will give thanks to God for Tom’s presence here and the new things that await him.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

Last Sunday, in the early morning hours, a gunman opened fire inside a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 men and women, ranging in age from 19 to 49, and injuring at least 53 others. Several hours later, the gunman was also killed in a firefight with a SWAT team. It was a scene filled with terror and blood and fear.

Last Wednesday, as the sun was setting, Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church and five other congregations co-sponsored a “Prayer Vigil of Lament and Hope” in response to the violence and senseless killing that took place in Orlando and that continues to take place across our nation. I led the prayers of the people that night, holding in the unconditional and unending love of Jesus those who needlessly lost their lives and “those in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, and . . . all who love, and all who grieve.” We prayed that they would find strength in that love to meet the days ahead. As commanded by Jesus, we prayed, too, for those who seek to do harm.

I’m grateful to serve as the Rector of a congregation that truly hopes to be a house of prayer for all people, including our LGBT brothers and sisters in Christ. So let us weep with those who weep, remembering the “old, old story” of the early hours of another Sunday when Jesus was raised from the dead and looking for a new dawn when the light dispels, once and for all, the darkness of this world and in our hearts.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

I like to describe myself as a theologian of grace. My short definition of grace or forgiveness or the gospel in a nutshell is God’s one-way love for us. That definition comes from an old friend of mine named Paul Zahl, who once said,

It’s a reality that most of us seem to dislike, initially, in theory. But an experience of grace can often make us able to embrace it, eventually, in practice. The late Robert Farrar Capon, in his book The Romance of the Word: One Man’s Love Affair with Theology, put it this way:

Grace is wildly irreligious stuff. It’s more than enough to get God kicked out of the God union that the theologians have formed to keep him on his divine toes so he won’t let the riffraff off scot-free. Sensible people, of course, should need only about thirty seconds of careful thought to realize that getting off scot-free is the only way any of us is going to get off at all. But if all we can think of is God as the Eternal Bookkeeper putting down black marks against sinners — or God as the Celestial Mother-in-Law giving a crystal vase as a present and then inspecting it for chips every time she comes for a visit  . . . well, any serious doctrine of grace is going to scare the rockers right off our little theological hobbyhorses.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector

Weekly thoughts from the Rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, where these words remind us that Jesus’ peace goes with us into the world.

Two years ago, my family and I began our journey from the North Star State to the Lone Star State. After the last time I stood at the Lord’s Table as the Rector of my previous congregation, I looked out the window of the Rector’s study at Minnehaha Creek as it flows toward the Mississippi River. That particular moment, both the view and the occasion, brought to mind the words of a poem by Wendell Berry from his book Leavings. It’s one of many poems that come from his Sunday morning walks and observations of the world, but this one had fitting last words: “Let others come.” So thank you for creating a space, surrounded by hope, for me and my family to come here. We are grateful for this new life in Houston and at Palmer, where our mission is to know and share the love of Jesus Christ. We’ve received that love too.

In time a man disappears
from his lifelong fields, from
the streams he has walked beside,
from the woods where he sat and waited.
Thinking of this, he seems to
miss himself in those places
as if always he has been there,
watching for himself to return.
But first he must disappear,
and this he foresees with hope,
with thanks. Let others come.

— The Rev. Neil Alan Willard, Rector