From across the Ordinariate

What makes ministries like the Red Door Café so important is not simply the food placed on a table, but the reminder that every person is worthy of care, conversation, and compassion. In a world often marked by division and isolation, these moments of shared service become small but powerful signs of the Kingdom of God.

We are deeply grateful to the people of Saint John's for their continued friendship and witness, and we are proud of the members of the Anglican Mission of Lake Erie who gave their time and energy in service to others.

As Anglicans, we believe the Church is called not only to worship within sanctuary walls, but also to serve Christ in our neighbors. Ministries like the Red Door Café embody that calling beautifully.

"Let us not love in word or speech, but in truth and action." — 1 John 3:18

Today the Church stands once more in the upper room.

We gather again at the great feast of Pentecost, not merely to remember a moment in history, but to proclaim a living reality: the Holy Ghost still moves among the people of God. The same Spirit who descended upon the Apostles with wind and fire continues to breathe life into the Church, strengthen the weary, comfort the brokenhearted, and send ordinary men and women into extraordinary places bearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pentecost reminds us that Christianity was never meant to be timid, performative, or hidden safely behind walls. The Church was born in public proclamation. She was born in courage. She was born in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yet we live in an age of exhaustion.

Many are tired of shallow religion that confuses the Kingdom of God with political ideology. Others have grown weary of a world that offers endless outrage, endless noise, and no lasting hope. We see institutions crumbling, loneliness increasing, families struggling, and many wondering whether truth itself can still be trusted.

Into this confusion, Pentecost speaks clearly.

The answer to the chaos of the modern world is not a louder ideology. It is not retreat into bitterness. It is not surrender to every passing cultural current. The answer is the same today as it was in Jerusalem two thousand years ago: the presence of the Holy Spirit drawing humanity back to Jesus Christ.

The Spirit does not erase truth. The Spirit illuminates it.

The Spirit does not destroy the Church. The Spirit renews her.

The Spirit does not lead us away from Christ, but ever deeper into Him.

As Anglicans, we stand within that ancient and sacramental stream of the Christian faith — rooted in Scripture, shaped by the Creeds, nourished by Word and Sacrament, and called to be present among those who suffer, serve, and seek.

This is especially true for our chaplains, clergy, and ministers who stand daily at hospital bedsides, in military units, in prisons, shelters, schools, funeral homes, hospice rooms, and places of tragedy. Pentecost reminds us that ministry is not ultimately sustained by our own strength. It is sustained by the Spirit of God.

The world does not need chaplains who arrive with rehearsed slogans or partisan talking points. The world needs ministers filled with the Holy Ghost — ministers who can stand calmly in moments of chaos, speak truth with compassion, and embody the presence of Christ among the wounded.

In the Book of Acts, people from every nation heard the Gospel proclaimed in their own language. Pentecost is therefore not a celebration of division, but of unity through Christ. The Spirit gathers what sin has scattered. The Spirit makes one Body from many people.

In a fractured age, the Church must again become a place where human dignity is defended, where mercy is practiced, where repentance is proclaimed, and where Christ remains at the center.

My prayer for this Province, and for all entrusted to our care, is simple:

May we never become captive to the spirit of the age.

May we never mistake activism for holiness.

May we never lose the beauty of reverence, the courage of truth, or the tenderness of pastoral care.

And may the fire of Pentecost burn again within the Church.

Come, Holy Ghost.

Renew Your Church.

Strengthen Your people.

Send us again into the world.

Given under my hand this Feast of Pentecost, in the Year of Our Lord 2026.

Throughout the history of the Church, the people of God have remembered those whose lives bore witness to sacrificial love, courageous faith, and steadfast service in the face of death. Such remembrance is not merely historical reflection, but a sacred act by which the Church gives thanks to Almighty God for lives lived in profound imitation of Christ.

Therefore, with gratitude for their witness and mindful of the sacred vocation of chaplaincy, we hereby declare that February 3 shall be observed within the Ordinariate of Saint George for Chaplaincy as the Feast of the Four Chaplains.

On the night of February 3, 1943, the troop transport USAT Dorchester was struck by a German torpedo in the icy waters of the North Atlantic during the Second World War. Amid panic, darkness, and certain death, four United States Army chaplains — Lt. George L. Fox (Methodist), Lt. Alexander D. Goode (Jewish Rabbi), Lt. John P. Washington (Roman Catholic Priest), and Lt. Clark V. Poling (Dutch Reformed Minister) — moved calmly among the frightened soldiers, offering prayers, comfort, guidance, and hope. When the supply of life jackets was exhausted, each of the chaplains removed his own and gave it to another man. Survivors later testified that the four were last seen standing arm in arm in prayer as the ship slipped beneath the waters.

Their sacrifice transcended denominational boundaries and became a lasting witness to unity, courage, pastoral care, and selfless love. In a moment where fear might have overcome humanity, these chaplains chose instead to embody the words of Our Lord:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

For those called to chaplaincy ministry, the witness of the Four Chaplains remains especially sacred. They remind us that chaplains are called not merely to preach, but to stand in the midst of suffering; not merely to speak of hope, but to become instruments of hope in moments of terror, grief, loneliness, and death.

The Feast of the Four Chaplains shall therefore serve within the Ordinariate as a day of remembrance, prayer, and recommitment to the sacred ministry of presence. We encourage clergy and faithful alike to offer prayers on this day for military chaplains, healthcare chaplains, first responder chaplains, institutional chaplains, and all who minister in places of suffering and crisis.

May the memory of the Four Chaplains inspire us to lives of greater courage, deeper compassion, and unwavering devotion to Christ and His people.

Given under our hand and authority within the Ordinariate of Saint George for Chaplaincy.

It's not just poetry—it's a question every mariner, every chaplain, every mother standing by a silent phone has asked in the dark. It's the same question whispered at hospital bedsides, in waiting rooms, in sanctuaries half-lit by grief: Where is the love of God when the storm will not stop?

Fifty years ago, the Edmund Fitzgerald vanished beneath the furious gray of Lake Superior. No mayday. No survivors. Just silence, and the slow ache of minutes that turned into hours, and hours into half a century of wondering.

Those of us who serve along these inland seas—Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan—feel that story in our bones. Because the Great Lakes are not only deep in water; they are deep in memory. Every storm carries the echo of those 29 names. Every ship's whistle sounds a little like a prayer.

And yet—beneath all that loss, there is a truth the Church dares to proclaim: the love of God does not vanish in the storm. It is not capsized by tragedy. It does not drown in the depths.

When Lightfoot asked, Does anyone know where the love of God goes?—the answer, I think, is yes.

The love of God goes down with the ship. It is there in the final prayers of frightened men. It rides on the wind that carried their last breath home. It sits with the families who never got the call they prayed for. It weeps beside them, unseen but not absent.

The love of God goes to the bottom of the lake, to the bedside of the dying, to the lonely who wait for answers that will never come. It is the presence that abides even when there are no words left to speak.

Because the miracle of faith is not that God prevents every storm—it's that He joins us in the storm, and refuses to let the dark have the final word.

The same Christ who stilled the Sea of Galilee walks these waters still. He does not silence every wave, but He meets us amid them. And sometimes, faith means rowing on through the tempest, trusting that even when the compass spins, even when the radar fails, even when the shoreline disappears—God is not gone.

In the hours that feel like days, when grief stretches time beyond measure, the love of God does not go anywhere. It remains. It endures. It descends to the depths and rises again with the dawn.

So tonight, we toll the bells not only for the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew, but for every life that has been swallowed by silence, every family left waiting for the wind to break.

We remember that to live by these lakes—to serve by them—is to stand where the sacred meets the unpredictable. It is to preach resurrection in a place that remembers wreckage.

And we proclaim this truth: Even here, even now— when the waves turn the minutes to hours, when the night will not end, when the lake keeps her secrets— the love of God goes nowhere. It remains, steady as the shoreline of eternity.

Christus in Omnibus Locis, Per Viam Anglicanam. Christ in all places—yes, even on the waters that never give up their dead.

Over the course of 126 years, the Communion has grown into seven provinces with over 200 churches around the world. Today, as Bishop of the Anglican Vicariate of Saint George, I believe it is both fitting and necessary to remember those who helped forge the path we now walk. With gratitude and reverence, I am formally establishing November 2nd as a Feast Day of the Founders, commemorating the lives and ministries of Bishop Leon Checkemian, Bishop James Martin, and Bishop Andrew Albert MacLaglen.

Their legacy is more than institutional. Through their vision, perseverance, and pastoral witness, they gave rise to a Communion where many of us have found our spiritual home—a home where the via media is not merely a theological ideal, but a way of being: Anglican, open-hearted, and missionally grounded.

As a jurisdiction charged with accompanying chaplains into places of suffering, service, and seeking, we in the Anglican Vicariate of Saint George are uniquely positioned to carry forward the spirit of our founders—bringing the light of Christ to the margins, the frontlines, and the forgotten corners of the world.

I therefore direct that November 2nd be observed annually within our Vicariate as a solemn feast in honor of our founders. I encourage all chaplains, clergy, and lay ministers to mark this day in their prayers, devotions, or liturgies as a reminder that we stand on the shoulders of faithful witnesses who went before us.

Liturgical guidelines and prayers for this observance are enclosed with this letter.

In Christ who sends us,