My scrapbook from today’s ordination and consecration of Stacey, Tim, Ryan, Brian, and Susanne in the Sacred Order of Deacons at St. John’s Cathedral.
While ordinations are always the work of the Holy Spirit, she had many helpers: the new deacons’ family, friends, and church people; our colleagues on the Commission on Ministry (Lyn Cunninghame Crow and Jim White, co-chairs) and Standing Committee (Iván Gutiérrez Acosta, president); and my St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park colleagues Melissa McCarthy, Thomas Quijada-Discavage, and especially the empowerer of all new Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles ordained vocations, Norma Guerra.
This morning Archdeacon Laura Eustis Siriani and Dominique Nicolette Piper shared diaconal duties. John Charles Thies was minister of ceremonies. Under Stephen Salts’ direction, ten members of the cathedral choir sounded as 30. Kate Cress gave a terrific sermon, and we gave thanks for the this 30th (we surmised) ordination overseen by the cathedral’s co-deans and -rectors Daniel Ade and Mark Kowalewski, who retire this autumn.
COVID didn’t stop the Holy Spirit’s appointed work of two annual diocesan ordinations, but we had to scale them back. This was the first since January 2020 with deacons and priests from around the diocese feeling comfortable just being there for the sheer joy of it. Because there’s hardly a better way to spend a Saturday morning.
