TLDR: The Church’s Legacy (its heirloom) is composed of sacred biblical stories, practices, and an ethos of care for the poor, disenfranchised, marginalized, and hurting around the world. Leesa Lewis has been made a steward of that tradition. Read below for more.

On Saturday, June 24, Leesa Lewis, our new curate, was ordained a Deacon by Bishop Andy Doyle at Christ Church Cathedral in Houston. Alongside Leesa were fifteen (15) of her peers from the Seminary of the Southwest and other schools around the country. The large number of ordinands speaks of a healthy Diocese that has become a formation leader and a “sender” of ordained clergy to the rest of the nation. Of the sixteen ordinands, eight have become Curates in our Diocese, which means that we were able to retain one half of all the students we graduated and ordained in 2023. This is an incredible number, especially at a time when priests are becoming hard to find and churches often struggle to fill vacancies. Being a leader in the formation of clergy gives our Diocese an advantage over other places, as our pool of available future rectors and chaplains increases. This, in no small measure, is a testament to the ministry of our Bishop Diocesan Andy Doyle, and the bishops on his team: Kay Ryan, Jeff Fisher, and Hector Monterroso.

During an incredible sermon, Bishop Kay Ryan spoke about the importance and value of family heirlooms. Heirlooms are links between the past and the future. They contain the stories of our ancestors and carry those stories to our own context. It is our responsibility to steward these heirlooms during our time on this earth, and then to pass them on to the next generation. These links between our ancestors and our descendants are not truly ours. They are here for us to enjoy and for us to accept as part of the stories that have formed our identity, but our job then is to pass them down the line to those who come after us. The Bishop made a connection between these family heirlooms and the legacy passed on to the ordinands. That legacy is the Church’s heirloom, and it is composed of sacred biblical stories, sacred practices, and a sacred ethos of care for the poor, disenfranchised, marginalized, and hurting around our communities and around the world. This is the legacy entrusted to the ordinands, and it is their sacred duty to advance this legacy to the next generation. They don’t own the legacy, it is not for them to use and discard after use, but to tend, to care for, to embody, to transmit, and to pass forward to future generations. And this legacy will be made more relevant and vibrant because of their loving care.

I have been fascinated by what Bishop Ryan calls heirlooms, and we used to call in Roman Catholicism, “Holy Artifacts.” In my culture, families pass rosaries, medallions, scapulars, small statues, and other small recordatorios (memory holders) from one generation to the next. According to theologian Cole Arthur Riley, “An artifact (heirloom) grants memory a body, something physical that you can grab hold of… This makes it so that others can bear witness to the memory themselves, experience it in their own way.”  (This Here Flesh, 177.) Perhaps ministers are called to be memory holders. Our job is to lead God’s people into the sacred work of remembering. Memory is much more than a depository of events that happened in the past, which we never remember in quite the same way.  “The answers to the bigger questions we have about identity, story, and God can only be answered in relation to memory.” (Ibid, 171.)

Memory has more to do with identity than it has to do with events in the past. We are formed by the stories we hear and by our relationships with the people we encounter along the journey. Our sense of self, our view of God, how we see male-female power dynamics, the denomination or political affiliation we claim for ourselves, our relationship with our bodies, and how we see our place in the universe are uniquely shaped by memory. What has happened to us can have a powerful effect on what happens to us. History (the compendium of stories that reach back to the creation of the world) forms us and reminds us of who we are. I believe this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Do this in memory of me.” We are remembrance people. We gather in places that have become holy artifacts and memory holders. And week after week, we remember in community how we came to be who we are, where we have come from, to whom we belong, and our journey from creation to Jesus and from Jesus to today. And as we remember those ancient narratives, we look to our left and to our right, and we see the faces who were with us at birthing rooms and funerals, friends who have loved us through the ups and downs of life, brothers and sisters who have chosen to spend their lives with us in this community of faith. Sometimes we see those faces through the eyes of our heart, as they have left us to be with their Savior. In those faces, we remember years of laughter and teers, hugs and lengthy conversations, study and prayer, coffee hours and potluck suppers, and the multiple ministries that benefited the Church and formed our souls. And then, we remember who we are. We were created to live in community and we come to church to celebrate our identity in God. We come to re-member, to join others again, to celebrate our belonging to a body that is much larger than ourselves.

This is what pastors do for the Church, and this is what Leesa will do for us. She will become a memory holder for us, as she leads us into sacred celebrations that are centuries old and that have formed the soul and inspired the imagination of millions across the centuries. And she will lead us into new memories that will be added to that tradition. She will not be bringing the Gospel to us; the Gospel is already here. But she will lead us into the worship of the Triune God, and into the holy work of remembrance, through her preaching, stewardship of God’s people, the celebration of the sacraments, and the telling and retelling of sacred stories. She will be a recordatorio among us, a memory holder, a steward of a sacred tradition entrusted to her care.

Congratulations Deacon Lewis, we can’t wait to enter into your story and have you enter into our evolving, ever-changing story.

Blessings to all,

Fr. Roman+