A part of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena will forever be my mother, Jean. She and my stepfather, Dick Lescoe, rest in the second floor columbarium, which she helped launch as a vestry member 40 years ago. With studied humility, although a founder, she chose waist-level niches. On Sundays she and Dick always sat in a back row in the north transept, which is church speak for while we can’t really see what’s going on around the altar, we don’t want to be a bother.
But she had a good view of the pulpit. As soon as she heard the Rev. Canon George Regas thunder from it in 1971, the year she arrived from Phoenix to work as a top editor at the Los Angeles Times, her lifetime covenant with the parish begin to take shape. Its ministers cared for her and Dick when they got sick and played host to her celebration of life in 2015.
Having raised me in The Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit, which baptized me on April Fools Day in 1961, at age six, she was proud to show off her new church in Pasadena when I visited from boarding school back east. Neither of us could’ve imagined that, as bishop, I would stand behind the invisible altar to preside at Holy Eucharist and preach from that pulpit. Because of life’s complexities, she never saw me do either as a priest. When I visit All Saints, it’s comforting to think that she can hear.
The exuberant, justice-driven priest in charge, the Rev. Canon Tim Rich, invited me because he had a class of 17 confirmation and reception candidates. I covered both services, 7:30 a.m. and 10 a.m., and met with the candidates and their families in between. There wasn’t much for me to add to their training, because the assistant rector, the Rev. Jonathan Timothy Stoner, and Amanda Baughman, director of children, youth, and families, had done such a magnificent job.
I did let the candidates know, not that they didn’t already, that, these days, standing up for our baptismal value of the dignity of every human being in its civic raiment, liberty and justice for all, has become especially dangerous. Nevertheless, the whole class decided to make the reckless promise, as indeed the whole congregation did at the second service. Among the candidates was a former speaker of the California Assembly, John Perez. We also lifted up thanks and praise for the 95th birthday of the legendary Alma Stokes.
Under the direction of music director and composer Weicheng Zhao, the Canterbury Choir was magnificent. Director Jenny Tisi led the Minisingers and Unidad, all youthful choristers, in the anthem “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin, who was formed at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Fullerton. The Rev. Canon Susan Russell, who divides her time between All Saints and the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, served as my volunteer chaplain while making sure that everything happened when it was supposed to, never a forgone conclusion at a church as big and complex as All Saints. The always gracious Eric Whitten was verger at both services.
After each, coffee hour was as joyful and fellowship filled as All Saints always is. Newcomers and veterans circulated among ministry tables, offered plenty of things to do in the name of the Risen Christ and for the sake of God’s people. I imagine there was a time when folks thought the famous All Saints action table, where people are invited to sign petitions and send messages to legislators, was edgy. These days, it is the essence of ministry in the spirit of the dignity of every human being, liberty and justice for all, in one nation under God.
