Mother Elisabeth
Jan 28, 2022
Dear Christ Church,
I don’t think I’ve told you lately how much I love being your rector and how much Bryan and I love living in Mexico City with you. It is a joy for us, and we cannot thank you enough for inviting us into your lives and into the Christ Church community.
This past Saturday, Bishop Sally Sue met with some of the leaders and lay members of the Spanish language service that meets at 1 p.m. every Sunday. We talked together about Christ Church’s unique nature as a bilingual and multi-cultural community. We are the only church of our diocese in Mexico City with those dynamics, which are incredible gifts from God. Bishop Sally Sue reminded us that although we tend to gather separately for worship, out of respect for our different language preferences, the English- and Spanish-speaking members of all three worship services together form one community of Jesus-followers, called Christ Church. She encouraged us to prioritize this one-ness as we form a renewed, pandemic-impacted identity and mission in 2022. We all have profound differences from each other, and between individuals, there may even be significant variance in belief (politics, worldview, social issues, etc.), but we are bound together in common love. We trust Jesus Christ as the “head” of our body, in the apostle Paul’s language, and we worship according to the order and discipline of the Anglican Communion.
Bishop Sally Sue’s message to us resonates with this week’s international and ecumenical emphasis of prayer for Christian unity. I hope you will join me in looking for ways to intentionally foster unity between the members of our three services, between us and the other churches in our diocese, and between us and our ecumenical Christian partners in Mexico City and around the world.
With love and gratitude,
Rev. Elisabeth