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Dear Faithful of St. Alban’s,
In the First Letter of St. Peter, our first Pope exhorts us:
Beloved: Rejoice, in so far as, you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:13)
These words from St. Peter have echoed in my head as I have prepared for this Sunday’s homily, as we all continue to struggle through this current pandemic, and as I prepare to share with you the news of my reassignment.
Effective July 1 st, 2020, my time as your Parochial Administrator will come to an end.
This painful news has been difficult for me to process, but it has also caused me to look, with hope, for the glory that is to be revealed in you. Ever since I first received my assignment to the Fellowship of St. Alban in July of 2017, I have treasured all the ways that God has been at work in our midst. God has produced great joy and rejoicing in my life with this assignment, but he has also enabled me to grow spiritually in the sufferings I have endured. My sufferings are not a result of any of you or of this assignment, but my sufferings have come through my own failures as I have continued to grow and mature as a young priest. I am sorry to any of you who have had to suffered because of my immaturity, inexperience, or young priesthood.
But as St. Peter tells us, rejoice in these sufferings because God is empowering us to grow through these trials “in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” (1 Peter 1:2) In this way, as we continue to acquire the knowledge of God, we continue to discover the glory that he is revealing in us.
Over these three short years, God has been producing in you the glory of genuine Christian discipleship. Certainly, over these years we have seen an increase in the numbers, but even more essential than numbers is the growth of maturity that God has been producing in you as you become his disciples. Ever since the moment I have arrived, I have been perpetually blown away by the responsibility within this congregation to take your baptismal vows seriously. Repeatedly, you have proven to me that the grace of the Holy Spirit has taken deep root in your souls. Your zeal for the mission of the Ordinariate has enabled us to evangelize and enrich our local Rochester community with reverence and charity.
Your commitment to your baptismal vows has enabled God to make a real impact on your individual souls, on this congregation, and in this area of Rochester. Your priestly identity has allowed us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. You have become a prophetic congregation as we have witnessed to the local area through our orthodoxy, genuine Christian community, and defense for life. And we have become a royal people as we had led the way to share this ecumenical mission of Pope Benedict XVI through our Ordinariate; not the least of which was on full display through our Meet the Ordinariate Night.
As we now begin to step into this next stage of St. Alban’s development, I want to encourage and exhort all of you. Do not let the struggles of this world, or of this present situation, keep you from pursuing the task and mission that God has given you. Our pastor, Bishop Lopes, has chosen to assign a young Deacon, Rev. Mr. Nathan Davis, who will be ordained to the Priesthood on June 29 th, to become your new Parochial Administrator. This new assignment, reminds me, and all of us, of the true value of Christian humility in pursuing our vocation. My vocation in being assigned to St. Alban’s, or any of the grow that we have experienced, is not about me, or about any one of us, it is about our faithfulness to the mission of God and entrusting ourselves to the sufficient grace of the Holy Spirit to accomplish it.
One of the most radical and countercultural aspects of the Catholic priesthood is that, for as much power as God gives to his Church and to his priests, the truly faithful priest never allows his ministry to become a cult of personality. I rejoice in these sufferings and these changes to our community life because it truly shows me the way that we are ultimately under the authority of Christ. Even as we go through this transition, God shows us that the glory to be revealed in us, is his work, it is his mission, and it is God fully alive in us.
I am eternally grateful to God for this opportunity to serve you. As I am reassigned to Irvine, California and to St. John Henry Newman I humbly ask that you keep me in your prayers.
Rejoice, beloved, in so far as, you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (cf. 1 Peter 4:13)
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Father Evan Simington
