Homily preached on the occcasion of the Secularization of the All Saints Chapel

Vicksburg, MS 
May 30, 2026

What we are about today is a very “churchy” thing.  I have no doubt that, for some who crossed the threshold of Green Hall in it’s 100+ years, the chapel – first on the ground floor of Green Hall and in 1957 constructed and consecrated in it’s current place – this building, this chapel was more than a place of worship although it was certainly that.  It was, for the Saints, a center of the body, a place of solid footing, a place where God could become a familiar companion in our young chaotic lives. We came to All Saints as teenagers.  We sang on the green bus and in the stairwell outside the dining hall till our throats were sore. Each night after study hall, we played bridge, listened to the Beetles, danced to “Sugar Shack” and learned to smoke on the deck of the Playhouse.  When the Playhouse was torn down to make way for the “new dorms” we moved to the Canterbury Room where Ms Wells kept an eye out for Sophomore smokers.   We were divided into two teams – Devils and Angels and we are loyal to our teams to this day.  Whenever we meet the conversation always includes something like… “Do you remember Bostick?…  She lived in 2^nd dorm.  I think she was a Devil.  We made posters for field day and we raked leaves – a lot of leaves when we had workcrew.  At least I raked a lot of leaves…  Downer not so much.  I mean how do you go four years without a demerit.  It boggles the mind….

 
For some this chapel was simply the place where you had to go in order to get in line for supper.  When I walk in here, I don’t see folding chairs and empty spaces.  I see a cruciform arrangement of pews with Ms Dial, Ms Caldwell and Ms Kent strategically placed in the crossing to count the chapel caps of the girls in attendance.  But when something important had happened – something that required more than cheering or clapping – this place – this chapel - was where the Saints gathered.  It was in this place that my classmates and I heard of the assassination of John Kennedy and then heard the Great Litany prayed for the first time.  It was in this place that we learned to chant the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis and actually called them that!!!…  It was in this place we sat when controversy or disciplinary matters racked the student body.  It was here that we learned that faith had more to do with how we lived than with what we believed.

Everything about school life blended in this place. I remember one sermon that Fr Jenkins preached on a poem, The Hound of Heaven. We were struggling with it in English class, but he helped us fine the theological implications for our lives in literature.  It was in this place where many of us were confirmed, where I made my first confession.  Where I railed at God for being absent in my time of need… or at least I thought God was absent at the time.  It is in this place where we will sing the All Saints’ Hymn and the Alma Mater one last time.  For administrators, support staff, teachers, coaches, and students this place provided a rhythm for the day.  The bells rang, the choirs sang, the preachers preached, the Saints prayed and God was with and in and about all of it.
 

Our lessons today remind us that even though the Trinity is not mentioned in Holy Scripture the early church was on to something when the theologians began struggling with the intimacy of how God moves in and about our lives with the mystery of God becoming one with us in Jesus,  of how we participate in the creation with God.  Here in this place we claimed our part in what Richard Rohr called the Divine Dance of the Trinity. 

For those of us who attended All Saints and then stood here when our school closed – we have been grieving for almost 20 years.  For those who trained here or worked here as Americorps, that closing of the school offered an opportunity to join with the Saints community for a common mission of making the world a better place in which to live.    But no matter if you are a long time Episcopalian in Vicksburg who remembers baccalaureate services at Trinity, or if you were a young man courting the “girls” in the parlor of Green Hall, a former teacher or administrator, or someone who experienced residential living and studying and worshipping here…  We are all of us saddened that what was, will not continue in the future.  Me too!  I am profoundly saddened that All Saints will not stand here.  But if that is where we remain when we leave this place then we will have missed out on what it was that we learned and experienced here. 
 
There is a traditional Irish Funeral Poem called Remembered Joy.  While the poem itself is definitely not a work of Yeats or Joyce or Heaney, it expresses a hope that I think we can carry away from this place.  We were formed here to be strong, intelligent, hard-working adults and taught that if we studied and worked together then one day we would walk down the steps of the Dell carrying roses and receive the diploma that I suspect every Saint still treasures.  The middle of that Irish poem goes like this
I could not stay another day,
To love, to laugh, to work or play;
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.

Remembered Joy encourages us to stay in touch, to continue to tell our stories, to let the laughter that rings thru the Dell continue to lift us up and call us to gather and to remember.  Remembered Joy reminds us that neither grief nor joy is ours alone – sorrow at loss and happiness at the possibility of new life tomorrow are not mutually exclusive.  It would be a disservice to this chapel for us to go from this place dwelling on loss and ignoring the hope for the future and the fertile field of young lives that our experiences here might inspire and enrich.  The final chapter for All Saints will not be written here unless we forget our responsibility to pass on the teachings we received and miss the opportunity to pass those teachings on the next generation.   
In this chapel we were taught that God walks with us and that there is no obstacle on earth that can stop our progress because God is with us in our work.  So this morning I want to challenge us to not let what we learned here be lost here. 

Bishop, I know that the weight of this responsibility is heavy for you.  I want you to know that the Saints have got your back.  The value of this place is not in the building – it is in the people who came to know God in this building and it is in the traditions learned here – honesty, integrity, excellence in academics, the importance of community, the expanse of the love of God for each and every one of us.  This morning I challenge all the Saints to use the skills, ideas, hopes, dreams, and ambitions we gained here to inspire the quest for academic excellence in a new generation of learners.  To manifest the ability to reason and to imagine beyond ourselves, to make sacrifices so that those who come after us will have a bright future.  I challenge the four dioceses represented in this institution to commit to continuing the legacy of forming thoughtful, honorable, faithful young adults from whatever resources our school might yield.  

In Ms Turner’s book called “For All the Saints” several of the rectors wrote tributes.  The Most Rev John M Allin wrote: “In time and space no human record can be complete, no human measure absolutely accurate.  There is more to the potential of any human being, more to the history of an institution than can be in one place recorded.  There is more to life than can be told, which means there is always room and place for a new entry, a bright reflection , especially when there is a bright well-placed reflector, and worthwhile life experiences about which to tell.”
 

My fellow Saints we are to be that well-placed reflector.  We are to engage in that “Divine Dance”.  We are to go from this place fed by Christ and loved by God to remember the joy we shared and to tell our stories to all we meet. 
“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven”
Today is not a time for what might have beens or I wish we hads, or isn’t it a shame.  Today is a time for Remembered Joy.  Because here in this place, in this chapel we encountered God in scripture and in song and in prayer.  Amen