July 2015 – A Seminarian’s Letters Home

To the membership of Circle of Faith Parish:

Greetings to you all from Evanston, IL! First of all, thanks to everyone who came and participated in launching the Mission on the Prairie series! To get 54 people, from churches all over the area, to come for Holden Evening Prayer and a meal on a summer weeknight is no small task. Thanks to everybody who worked to get us off to such a great start! Keep coming – there is more and better stuff to come throughout the summer! Best of all, the food is excellent, and it’s free!

Circle of Faith is trying something else very exciting this summer that involves free food. During late July and August, while the lectionary takes us through a long series of Jesus’ discourses where he calls himself   the bread of life, we’ll be celebrating Holy Communion every Sunday. That’s new to many of us, but there’s a good reason for doing it.

A while ago, I was complaining to one of my friends that there was no good news in the lectionary readings for a certain Sunday. My training in hospital chaplaincy taught me to always make sure people left church having heard some good news in case it was the last they ever heard. She asked me if there was going to be Communion at that service. I said yes, there was. She said, “Then don’t worry about it too much. They’ll   still hear the words ‘given and shed for you.’ If that’s not good news, I don’t know what is.”

We’ll celebrate Holy Communion every Sunday for those few weeks while we spend time with John’s Gospel. Absolutely we’ll hear good news when those discourses are read and our pastors preach on them.   But then we’ll get that good news placed right in our hands, and we’ll get to go out and letthat food and drink fuel what we learn about at Mission on the Prairie. And, best of all, this food, just like the food on those Wednesday nights, is free!

Heading on through a summer of learning, praying, singing and celebrating, we pray for God’s blessing, using these words:

O God, our life, our strength, our food, we give you thanks for sustaining us with the body and blood of your Son. By your Holy Spirit, enliven us to be his body in the world, that more and more we will give you praise and serve your earth and its many peoples, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen.       [ELW, Prayer After Communion]

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Your fellow member and pilgrim,     Carl P. Rabbe, M.Div.