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On Sunday November 1, 2020, the Most Reverend Mark MacDonald was the guest for All Saints Day at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver. Archbishop MacDonald is the Anglican Church of Canada's National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop. The Most Rev. Mark MacDonald became the Anglican Church of Canada's first National Indigenous Anglican Bishop in 2007, after serving as bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Diocese of Alaska for ten years. At General Synod in 2019, when the self-determining Indigenous Church was established within the Anglican Church of Canada as a Province, Bishop MacDonald became its Metropolitan with the honorific, Archbishop. 

Cathedral Vicar, the Reverend Helen Dunn was the Celebrant and Deacon, the Reverend Alisdair Smith, proclaimed the Gospel. While the congregation stood, Cathedral parishioner Hope Sealy, ODNW read aloud the Names of Remembrance followed by the singing of Rupert Lang’s Kontakian ("Give rest unto your servants with your saints, O God").  Organist and composer Rupert Lang with four members of Cathedral Choir played and sang the piece.  

At one point during the service, the Rev. Helen Dunn congratulated Cathedral parishioner Kerry Baisley ODNW (who was present at the service) on his recent appointment as Missioner for Indigenous Justice for the Diocese of New Westminster. Baisley succeeds Jerry Adams, ODNW in this diocesan ministry role. 

Some excerpts from Archbishop MacDonald's All Saints homily: 

"May God be with you. I greet you all as my relatives. It's very nice to be here on this very special and holy day

I used to think that this day was us looking from this world quite separate from the world to come, and looking forward to a day of blessedness. And thinking that those of us that were really, really, really, really good..., have a special place waiting for the rest of us to come. I saw the saints as being so far away from me that they were past fairy tales, they were far, far away. I think differently now because I understand Jesus differently. I believe that this day is not about us looking to the future, but about the future looking to us. This is not about an unattainable future far away, but it is about how that future is breaking in upon us now.

All Saints Day is not about a world that is far away from us, but it is how the world to come is breaking in upon us. Today I see the saints as doors to which the future begins to come to us. This world is alive with the power of the world to come...

We live in a time of spectacular fear. By the way, most of our prayer books used to have Prayers for Pandemics. They got rid of them starting in the early part of the Twentieth Century because 'we'll never get to see that again'. What silly things we human beings are! In this time of fear, in this time of extraordinary stress, it is precisely here that Jesus says 'God will make an appearance, a colossal appearance!"

PHOTOS

  • Cathedral Vicar Rev. Helen Dunn, Archbishop Mark MacDonald, Cathedral Deacon, Rev. Alisdair Smith and Crucifer, Dr. Megan Otton before the Procession
  • Procession into the Cathedral nave
  • Rev. Alisdair Smith proclaims the Gospel, Matthew 5:1-12
  • Archbishop Mark MacDonald preaching
  • Hope Sealy, ODNW reads the Names of Remembrance
  • The Eucharistic Prayer
  • "After supper he took the cup of wine, and gave it to them..."
  • Archbishop MacDonald offers a concluding prayer at the Dismissal
  • Kerry Baisley, ODNW and the Archbishop masked
  • Unmasked and physically distancing

Text and Photos: Jane Dittrich