In this, its centenary year, St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hawthorne offered its final Sunday service last week. When its devoted priest in charge and an energetic prophet of peace and justice, the Rev. Canon Patricia O’Reilly, announced that, at long last, she was going to take another run at retirement, parish leaders decided they too had come to a turning point.
Faithful lay leaders will continue to make space for outreach ministries, including 12-step meetings and an adult day care program, until the end of May. It will then be up to the diocese to decide what to do with the beautiful church building on El Segundo Blvd., dedicated on Palm Sunday in 1977. No plans have been made in advance. It will be an opportunity for careful discernment, based on what is best for God’s glory and God’s people.
That’s the story in a nutshell. And yet Sunday didn’t feel like an ending. I was along to preside and preach in the bilingual service. Before beginning the words of Holy Eucharist, I said I couldn’t help thinking that they’d be said again from behind that altar. That was the emotion of the day speaking, of course. The church was full, which it hasn’t been most Sundays.
Members who had moved away and friends from other parishes in the neighborhood came to give thanks for St. George’s’ ministry. Elena Vazquez, widow of the Rev. Irineo Martir Vasquez, vicar from 2001-12, had come all the way from Guatemala. Karen Tobiason, baptized here in 1955 and present every since, served as verger and one–person Altar Guild.
The Rev. Canon Robert Cornner and the Rev. Dina McMullin Ferguson, priests who’d served at St. George’s, assisted in the service. The Rev. Canon Joanne Leslie, our former archdeacon, honoring her late husband, Walter, a former parish member, was deacon of the mass as well as my gracious chaplain. The wardens, Lou Duncan and Fredy Gordon, shared the prayers of the people. Organist Michael Adkins, pianist Yumi Hashimoto, and vocalist Eric Wolterding help the congregation sound like a mighty choir.
Canon O’Reilly carefully planned each detail, including certificates and gifts for longtime lay leaders and a delicious lunch. After which St. George’s people became the St. George’s diaspora. I did best to stress the wonderful choices they have in neighboring congregations and promised that, wherever they alight, they will be gleaming with possibility in everyone’s eyes, like Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
But the wisest words were Canon Pat’s. A couple of days before my visit, I asked what her people most needed to hear. I included what she said in my sermon word for word. It rolled off her tongue so smoothly that I assume she had already said it many times. But it’s good to hear the truth over and over again.
“God is calling them to a new ministry,” she said. “They are going to enrich other congregations. They are going to give new life and new gifts to other congregations. Yes, this is an end, but they are being called to a new beginning. It will be enriching for them and for those with whom they worship.” Amen, and Godspeed, St. George’s.
