The Season of Hope
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello
“Greetings Episcopal Church and Connecticut. Bishop Laura and I are here at Camp Washington bringing you Epiphany greetings. We pray that you are preparing for a blessed Epiphany and have had a good Christmas season. As we thought about what we might offer to you, in this Epiphany reflection, we were thinking a lot about the Magi and how they make their way to the Christ child. And what they must have had to be tuned in for and listening in the night sky to be able to discern with their hope and their expectation that following that star, would lead them to where they needed to be and where God would be revealed to them in their lives. And I’ve thought about this over the Christmas season with the shepherds and now with the Magi about how many distractions they could have had and how many reasons they would have had not to go and not to follow that star or to think of some excuse to put it off or not do it at all. I’m so grateful that they had that yearning and that hope and that eagerness to seek God where God lay.”
The Rt. Rev. Laura Ahrens
“When Bishop Jeff was sharing with me some of his thoughts and ideas around the Magi and the shepherds and being open to that, that possibility of hope, that curiosity. I started thinking about that image of a of a young child in particular, tuning their radio, back in the days when folks were dialing into radio stations, and you’d hear lots of static, but then maybe you’d be hearing a voice and tune it in and ever so gently and ever so simply, you find just that station, just that moment, just that space, where you could hear that voice. It made me think about that’s how I think God, one of the ways God is inviting us to be open to hope. It’s all around us. And just how do we tune ourselves, not just our ears, but our eyes and all of our senses to be to be looking and listening and be open to that hope so that we hear that channel where God is speaking so clearly to us about his love and his message of forgiveness and new life. But sometimes what we need to just slow down a bit and tune our channel just a bit more to be open to hearing that grace and that gift.”
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello
“Love that. Thank you. Yeah. So we just wanted to say hello and wish you our blessings in this epiphany season. This season where we’ll hear week after week stories about how God was made known to the world. And we pray that you have those same experiences in your own lives where you seek God in unexpected places. Tuning as Bishop Laura invites us to listen with hope and joy and expectation. Blessings upon each one of you and know how grateful we both are for you and your ministry here and ECCT. God bless.”
Yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello, Bishop Diocesan
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens, Bishop Suffragan