Anglican hermit to visit Maine churches

BANGOR – An Anglican hermit will lead Bread and Silence, a day of contemplation and worship, Saturday at the Church of Our Father, Route 3, in Hulls Cove.

Maggie Ross, a self-professed solitary, or hermit, will repeat the retreat Saturday, March 8, in Portland.

Solitary Christians live outside traditional Christian communities to explore their personal relationships with God.

Ross also will preach Sunday at St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor and Sunday, March 9, at St. Luke’s Cathedral in Portland.

Bread and Silence will be an extended meditation on the Eucharist, emphasizing the “priesthood” of baptism, according to the Rev. George Swanson of Manset, who is organizing the event.

“This is an opportunity to go deeply into the heart of Christianity,” he said in a press release issued earlier this month. “There is nothing else like it available in the church, and many people have found it to be a life-changing experience.”

Ross’ visit to Maine is sponsored by Katrina’s Dream, founded in memory of the Rev. Katrina Swanson of Manset. She was one of the “Irregular 11,” the first women priests ordained by the Episcopal Church in 1974 in Philadelphia.

Swanson died peacefully at her Manset home on Aug. 27, 2005, of colon cancer at the age of 70.

Katrina and George Swanson were married for 47 years.

Bread and Silence and Ross’ visit are the first events sponsored by Katrina’s Dream.

Ross lives much of the year in Alaska, where she fishes for salmon. During the winter months, she travels, studies and preaches in Europe.

She has written many books published by Seabury Press, the official publishing house of the Episcopal Church. Her book “Pillars of Flame: Power Priesthood, and Spiritual Maturity” was reissued last year.

“[Ross] argues cogently and persuasively,” Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in his introduction to the book, “that we should provide the world with the paradigm of the self-emptying leadership of Christ – not self-serving, nor self-aggrandizing, but poured out in selfless service of others.”

Earlier this month at the Conference on Climate Change in Reading, England, Ross challenged the Church of England to stop talking and rediscover silence. She described the effects climate change has had on the indigenous Alaskan people and wildlife where she makes her home.

“The elders [of the church] would much prefer me to spend the rest of my time telling you what they understand as the root cause of climate change, which is that we have lost our core silence, inherent in our evolution, essential to our survival,” she said. “If the people making the rules and writing the doctrines do not practice the silence from which these doctrines arise, then religion get bent out of shape.”

For information on the retreat, call 244-0759 or visit www.katrinasdream.org.

For information on Ross, visit http://ravenwilderness.blogspot.com.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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