Greetings to you in the matchless Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
As the eyes of the nation turn toward Charleston we commend her to your prayers. Our hearts are crushed by this violent act. Our minds reel as we consider the pain of our brothers and sisters who have lost loved ones””mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, family and friends””as well as for those who have lost faith and hope from such a senseless act of hatred and insanity. Among those killed was one from our own Anglican family, Myra Thompson, the wife of The Rev’d Anthony Thompson, a priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church.
It is right that you feel sickened and angry. It is right that you struggle to know what to do. We all do. Scripture tells us that in the diminishment or suffering of one the whole church suffers. We are enjoined to weep with those who weep and to mourn with those who mourn. Today, we mourn and we weep with our brothers and sisters at Emmanuel Church and all of Charleston.
Together we shall seek God’s face on how he will have us respond as dioceses, as congregations, and as individual members of the Body of Christ””ambassadors of reconciliation””in this broken and fallen world for which His Son our Savior, Jesus Christ, has died that He might redeem.