+Andrew: Conversations with the Primate

Once again welcome to Conversations with the Primate. Again we are in our home in central Toronto, and this is the third segment and a rather important one because we are coming up to Christmas, the New Year and my first six months as your Primate.

I want to thank you once again for the responses to the last webcast. Those of you who watched it will remember it was about the Windsor Report. We have had some wonderful responses to the report already and I hope those will keep coming. There are one or two email that we have received that I’d like to refer to.

First of all Jason Mitchell, we heard from you in Napanee, Ontario and I thank you very much for your message. You’ve said in part “I just finished watching your latest web cast regarding the Windsor Report. I have to say that I like your style.” Thank you. “Also I think that using the Internet to engage us – I’m speaking as a youngish member of the laity, I am 34 – is an excellent idea. I also wanted to say that I haven’t been to church for a few years. I was confirmed an Anglican about five years ago. I came over from the United Church. Regardless of my reasons for staying away I think I am finally ready to come back now. I should mention that we had the debate over same-sex issues in the United Church a few years ago. Although that issue hasn’t entirely settled down yet, perhaps my experiences back then will somehow prove useful to my adopted church. I intend to formulate a detailed response to the Windsor Report as you requested. Again, I like your style. Asking for submissions was a very respectful, very humble, very Christian thing for you to do. May God bless you in your work and Merry Christmas.”

Thank you Jason very much and a very Merry Christmas to you as well. We look forward to your response to the Windsor Report and indeed to responses from many more of you out there.

As a matter of interest following the last webcast we produced in VHS the first two webcasts including the one on the Windsor Report and we have sent those to every diocese so should you wish to see it in that format, perhaps with a group in your parish church please be in touch with your diocesan office and I am sure they will be able to help you.

I thank you for your many, many messages and I’ll mention only one other from the cathedral in Hamilton and it’s from Canon Sterling. ”Thanks again, it’s been good to have your presence and your message heard in our home.” Signed Charles.

I really appreciate those responses. We call this Conversations with the Primate and conversations must go both ways so we do look forward to your email as it comes.

I thought it might be interesting if I told you just a few of the things that had been happening since the last webcast. It’s been a very busy few months.

My first few months as Primate were taken up largely with visiting the whole range of new committees, councils and boards as they met for the first time in the triennium in various parts of the country. And I have tried to appear at all of those meetings for at least some of them.

Since I last spoke with you we have been off to the synod in Calgary where I was privileged to lead the opening service and speak to the synod during the evening. I attended the Anglican/Roman Catholic Bishops dialogue in Ottawa. That’s a dialogue that has the longest standing national dialogue I think in the world. For some 27 years now our bishops have been in regular dialogue.

Following that we were in the diocese of Ontario for a few days for the clergy conference and then a visit to New York where we spent time with the presiding bishop and with the Bishop of New York, the Right Reverend Mark Sisk and had opportunity as well to drop in to the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

Since then the Council of General Synod has met and this was my first occasion of meeting with that council and I can assure all of you that you’ve chosen well the membership of your council for this triennium. It was a most positive meeting and I think we can look forward to some very good things in the triennium as a result.

The Canadian Council for Christians and Jews held an enormous awards dinner in Toronto. Eleven hundred people attending and it was my privilege to be a part of that. Then the next day a brief interview with the BBC concerning the Windsor Report. Believe it or not in England they are most interested in our responses here in Canada.

And that evening off to Wycliffe College where we had a wonderful Eucharistic celebration and dinner with the students.

Just last night I returned from an intensive and wonderful visit to the west coast. Three days in the diocese of New Westwinster and then on to Vancouver Island where I had a wonderful celebration at St. Peter’s Church in Quamichan. The Vancouver visit was especially important in terms of the concept of conversation. We began with a wonderful cathedral service, every seat in the cathedral filled and following that a coffee hour and then a cathedral forum, a kind of town house meeting with the Primate; 85 cathedral members stayed for that forum. Then following a lovely lunch with Bishop David Somerville, whom some of you will remember, I returned to the cathedral where I met with the executive of Integrity and several of their partners.

The following day I met with representatives of the parishes that have now left the diocese of New Westminster and call themselves the Anglican Communion in New Westminster. That, although a difficult meeting, I think was a very positive exchange as we met in the St. John’s Church, Shaughnessy and I hope that we now have the basis for some further conversation. That evening I had the privilege of meeting with all of the diocesan leadership, the archdeacons, the chairs of all the standing committees, hearing about the work of the diocese and then following that I was asked to give a public lecture on the nature of Anglicanism as St. Mary’s Church in Kerrisdale. And once again the church was very full, we had a wonderful time together.

And then the following day we began with a meeting with a refugee claimant who is in sanctuary in St. Michael’s Church and what a very important meeting that was and I’ll come back to that in a little bit later.

Another very worthwhile meeting was at the Vancouver School of Theology where we met with all the Anglican students and their faculty. And that was a most impressive meeting to me for a number of reasons. First of all, the sheer number of students now involved in the program in VST. Second the age of the students. Some years ago it was thought that the average age of seminarians was about 47. Well obviously VST has brought that number way down and the room was full of young eager, committed, involved students.

Later on in the visit we went to the city of New Westminster and there, more than 100 clergy of the diocese gathered for a full morning with me. And again what a very positive expression of commitment to the church and its ministry that was. I want to say a sincere thanks to all of you in New Westminster for your hospitality, your welcome, your commitment to the life and ministry of this church. Indeed it was a very important element in our continuing conversation in that it brought into play a number of different voices from both sides of a very difficult issue that is upon us.

This now brings us to Christmas and our preparations for that wonderful annual celebration, very much a family celebration as once more the world looks in hope to the coming of the Prince of Peace.

I am painfully aware however that Christmas is a very difficult time for many people. I mentioned a refugee a moment ago and we met with Amir at St. Michael’s Church in New Westminster. And I was profoundly reminded that almost from the moment of his birth the Lord Jesus became a refugee and he and his family had to flee to Egypt for their very lives. So many people in our modern world are in exactly that situation and the comfort of this season is knowing that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the one who brings in the kingdom of God’s justice and peace is very much with them every step of the way and Amir was enormously aware of that in our meeting with him. I’m very pleased to say that we have since had another meeting with the Minister of Immigration and of the four sanctuary cases that were before us at that meeting, two have already been released and two received the ministerial permit and two more cases, Amir being one of them, are still under study and our hope and our prayer is that Christmas will bring some very good news for them.

Many of you will be attending magnificent celebrations this Christmas time. Wonderful services in the church undoubtedly in many situations brass will be added, it will be a glorious celebration but do remember that this is a celebration of the very simple. It was Francis of Assisi in the year 1223 who brought that home to us and in the face of all the splendour of the Christmas celebrations Francis put on the very first Christmas pageant and it was in the simplicity of a stable with the animals standing by. Do remember that Jesus came among us in absolute simplicity. He came among us as a refugee. He came among us as poor yet making many rich.

And may this Christmas season stir your heart to follow the one who is here to serve and to lead us in joy to his kingdom of justice and peace. May the God of Peace who comes to us as Christmas in Jesus Christ bless you and your home and your heart with his love now and always.

And please join me again for Conversations with the Primate.

You may respond to the Primate by writing him at [email protected]. The webcast is financially assisted by the Anglican Foundation.