Maryland Update: October 15, 2025

Christ: The Mother Hen by Kelly Latimore, drawn from Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:37. This image has been a source of comfort and inspiration to the Maryland congregation.

Dear Incarnation,

Believe it or not, as of September 2025, we have held nine fourth-Sunday services and potluck dinners in Hyattsville, MD! It’s been such a joy to see this little community grow, month by month, around prayer, worship, and good food.

And now we’re getting ready for an exciting next step — weekly Sunday services at 5 pm, starting in January 2025 when we’ll celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany together.

It feels especially meaningful to begin this new chapter in a church season that celebrates how “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, The Message). That’s exactly what we hope for our community in Hyattsville — that the light and love of Jesus would shine into the places we live and work. Our Epiphany house blessings this year will be a beautiful way to rededicate our homes and lives to God.

As we continue growing into a church for our neighbors in Hyattsville, we’ve also been praying and discerning what makes this community unique — what particular gifts and calling God has given us here. And we’re thrilled to share some exciting news: the bishop has officially approved a name for our new congregation!

We’ll be known as Holy Comforter Anglican Church.

Our name comes from John 14:16, where Jesus tells his troubled disciples that the Father will send them another Comforter — the Holy Spirit — to be with them forever. Our prayer is that the Spirit will strengthen and equip us to bring God’s comfort to our neighbors in and around Hyattsville. 

This fall, on days when I have felt doubtful and afraid, I have been praying through the following advice from Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest and paleontologist, and asking that God would help me to believe that he is leading me, us, and this work in Hyattsville while I accept the anxiety of feeling in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, 

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

Thanks for your continued prayers for Holy Comforter.

With much love,

Katie