The Rt. Rev. Craig Loya

Becoming an Advent People

From the Bishop

Beloved in Christ,

As I have often said, one of the great gifts of being your Bishop is visiting faith communities in every corner of Minnesota. Every week, whether I’m deep in the northwest woods or atop the Mississippi River bluffs, I meet faithful followers of Jesus, committed to one another and to the unique places you have been called to serve God’s people.

Last week, I was with Saints Martha and Mary in Eagan. When the pandemic shuttered their building, Saints Martha and Mary grieved what was lost, and then they, like so many of you, did what the faithful have always done in hard times: they became an Advent people, waiting and watching in hopeful expectation for where the light of God would show up next in their life together.

It turns out, the Holy Spirit was at work behind the closed doors of Saints Martha and Mary, making a way in the rough place that is the economic catastrophe caused by COVID. Since COVID hit, Saints Martha and Mary’s sanctuary has become a storage and staging venue for The Open Door food shelf. On the third week of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, Rejoicing Sunday, with the Open Door's executive director in attendance, I blessed the 12,500 pounds of food stacked between the pews, waiting to be broken and shared with God’s beloved in the south metro. Yes, you read that right: twelve thousand five hundred pounds of food.

The good news of this story is not just that, even in the midst of so much loss and death, there was life to be found for Saints Martha and Mary. The good news of this story is not even that the people of the south metro are being fed in lean times thanks to the generosity of their neighbors. The good news is that this is just one story. Every week, I visit Episcopal churches of every size, shape, tongue, age, and culture who are shining light in the darkness of these times, who are joining God’s project of healing the whole world, one Minnesota town at a time, with love.

Thanks be to God for you, and thanks be to God that together we are called to shine Jesus’ light of love in this weary, broken world.  

With joy and expectation,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop
Episcopal Church in Minnesota