Woman becomes head bishop of Episcopal Church

[angli_fan]

[from CNN]

Katharine Jefferts Schori took office Saturday as the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States -- a first not only for her country but also for the global Anglican Communion, which has never before had a female priest leading one of its provinces.

In a ceremony at the cavernous Washington National Cathedral, filled by more than 3,000 well-wishers, Jefferts Schori took leadership of the U.S. church, which is a member of the Anglican Communion. Her appointment takes place as the Anglican rift over the Bible and sexuality threatens to tear the church apart.

Jefferts Schori, 52, was bishop of Nevada when she was the surprise winner of the election for presiding bishop at the Episcopal General Convention in June.

Worshippers stood and faced the doors of the cathedral as Jefferts Schori knocked and entered, wearing a multicolored robe and miter.

www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/04/woman.bishop.ap/index.html

[angli_fan]

More resources on the investiture of our new Presiding Bishop:

NPR reports on the service here:

(about 5 min, available for RP and WMP)

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6437596

Pictures of ++Schori Investiture at:

www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_79210_ENG_HTM.htm

A Transcript of ++Schori's 1st Sunday sermon as Pr. Bishop can be found here:

...We might say that saints are those who find a home "on the way," in the course of following Jesus. And sometimes the encounter is very much like being seized by the throat. It must have seemed that way to Lazarus, and probably to the people standing around as he emerged from the tomb: "unbind him, and let him go!" Jesus' own experience was no less shocking, even though the words in translation seem a bit tame: Jesus was deeply moved. He was greatly disturbed. He began to weep. In the Greek it says something more like he was "gut-wrenched." Jesus was in breath-stopping agony at the death of his friend and the grief of his sisters.

Saints are those who are vulnerable to the gut-wrenching pain of this world. Some of us have to be seized by the throat or thrown into the tomb before we can begin to find that depth of compassion. And perhaps unless we are, we won't leave our comfortable narrow lives - or our remarkably nasty ones - to wake up and begin to answer that pain.

In the early church, baptism was meant to be that kind of life-altering encounter. New saints spent three years in the readying, and then were taken in the dead of night into the crypt, stripped naked, and drowned - only to emerge filled with new breath, doused with sweet-smelling oil, and given a new white robe. What you and I do on Sunday mornings today sometimes seems a pale imitation, yet it can have every bit the same effect. Two weeks ago I met a 40-something man I baptized and confirmed two years ago whose life has taken a remarkable turn - from ordinary daily dullness toward meaning and deep compassion and an awareness of God in every part of his life, and the willingness to change his community into something that looks a good deal more like the dream of God.

When we remember our baptisms in the sprinkling in a few minutes most of us will probably cringe. We don't like to get wet. But I hope and pray that you and I can welcome those surprising drops as a tiny reminder of what is meant to happen to us, over and over again, day after day after day. Die to the old, be unbound, come out into abundant life in service to the world. Wake up, and notice the suffering around us.

www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_79270_ENG_HTM.htm