Our Parish Pledge 2026
22 October 2025
John Keats would remind us that “Four Seasons fill the measure of the year” and that “there are four seasons in the mind of Man.” So it is that we come once again with the fall to this “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” a time widely celebrated with harvest festivals in Britain, while here we have just enjoyed our own echo of the German Oktoberfest in the parish as a celebration that marked the opening of our annual Pledge renewal campaign.
As we look towards Thanksgiving, it is a fitting time to take stock and to think of both what we have done and achieved through the course of the last year, and what we can look forward to achieving in the year to come.
Here in the Parish of the Advent we have much cause to give thanks that our witness, which first began in 1844, continues unabated and resolute down to the present day. Indeed, that witness does far more than merely continue; rather it does so with a rising and renewed sense of purpose. This is reflected in the fact that our congregation has the youngest profile out of all 170 parishes in the Diocese.
The sense of energy and enterprise that our rising number of young families brings is all the more welcome and inspiring as we look to the challenge ahead. That challenge is nothing less than the renewal and revival of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, not only here in Beacon Hill and Boston but also in the Episcopal Church across America and in the wider Anglican Communion beyond.
J. G. Lockhart, the biographer of one of the nineteenth century’s greatest lay Anglo-Catholics in Britain, Lord Halifax, declared that two characteristics held the key to his constant fidelity to the Anglican church: namely his strong conviction that the Catholic Revival was destined ultimately to lead to the reunion of Christendom, and his strong sense of what he called pietas Anglicana. This left him “securely anchored” in a “sense of the grandeur and continuity of the Church of St Augustine, her lineage, her traditions, her inalienable position as the Catholic Church in England: whose Orders were valid, whose Sacraments were effective and possessed of a title which no dereliction or scandal could invalidate.”
It is in the confidence of this Anglo-Catholic vision that we go forward once again with a commitment to replicate our unique past achievement when this one parish — on its own — started a movement that refashioned the whole of the Episcopal Church, both in terms of sacramental and Eucharistic focus and its richness of liturgy.
Our emphasis on spirituality and a style of worship expressive of the beauty of holiness does not however end the story, for we are also committed to practical outreach and to giving help to those in need, as our weekly Community Dinner makes clear, and our growing work overseas does also in support of such initiatives as the Mama Karen school in Kenya — an area which it is also a priority to expand. In the times ahead we shall be expanding too:
– Our work in Education and in resourcing of the Anglo Catholic movement through the developing work of Grafton House, our Annual Conference and Entr’acte ministry as well as our educational courses and colloquia, not to mention the program of visiting Scholars and Fellows.
– We shall be sustaining and enhancing our already high standards of music and liturgical life, and we have just added a new Organ Scholarship and look forward to the hosting visiting guests artists and further recitals and events.
– We continue to expand our international work and connections, and we expect more visits in the steps of Archbishop Wabukala and Rhoda, as well as Bishop Felix Annancy and Barbara from Ghana.
– We also know that, on the practical side, we face major costs as we must urgently renew the wiring in the church along with the lighting and audio recording system. We also plan to install a new amplification system, as well as entirely renewing the Sacristy. This will follow upon the existing renovation of the flower room and the coming installation of full audio and video conference facilities in Moseley Hall.
We have thus an expanding (and costly) vision which it will take all of us working together to sustain and to implement. But we know we can do this with the confidence that faith in Christ alone can sustain. That faith is always individual to each and every one of us.
Each of us has been brought to the Advent through the workings of Providence in a unique spiritual journey. It is that personal faith that must inform what we each give of our personal resources for the advance of Christ’s Kingdom and the work of this parish in our pledge for the coming year.
In each case, we should think about that giving in the context, first, of everything for which we should give thanks to God, and secondly all that we can yet hope to accomplish by God’s grace.
We must remember always that this cause is not merely ours, but rather that of Christ our Saviour, who gave his very life itself for each and every one of us and that was a gift beyond measure.
Wishing you every blessing,
The Revd Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
XVIIth Rector of the Parish of the Advent