A House Of Faith And Memories

This was a dream in someone’s mind in 1720. That’s the date the Virginia General Assembly of the Episcopal Church created St. George’s Parish, now located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Dreams really do come true, especially if the dreamer also has the courage, the resources, and the personal will to make it real. Walking around the sanctuary, sitting in one of the numbered pews with its little door on the end, standing in the pulpit, I felt the quiet presence of St. George’s saintly faithful. Churches have memories, this one three hundred years old. And they have histories.

So many remarkable people have knelt at the communion rail in this particular church. The list includes the family of George Washington. In the church’s adjacent graveyard are markers identifying William Paul Jones, the brother of John Paul Jones, and other recognizable names. James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States, had his law office a block away from the church and, as a life-long Episcopalian, was associated with the Parish. But churches are sustained over the years, the one over centuries, by common folk who faithfully guide the church with wisdom and courage. Perhaps in your prayers today
you could pray for your church and its leadership, for churches of all denominations as they speak to the world about faith. Whether your church is new or old, the message it brings to the world is universal and eternal. One other presence associated with this parish is the Holy Spirit of God, who is the insight, the will and the power to change the world through the famous and the unheralded alike. For that presence, the faithful bow in thanksgiving and trust, saying from their hearts: Thanks be to God.