In her musings on the patron of Ireland, the Rev. Susan Russell has put the only persuasive spiritual spin that I have read on the “fast” that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is urging on gays and lesbians in the Episcopal Church. She writes:
“On this particular St. Patrick’s Day I believe asking gay and lesbian Episcopalians to hang in there and continue to take the vision of a Body of Christ that fully includes all the baptized BACK to the church that still holds their vocations and relationships hostage is almost as hard to imagine as asking Patrick to go evangelize the Irish who enslaved him.
And yet that’s the vision we’ve been given – that’s the call we have received.”