Julia Chester Emery

Today we observe the memory of Julia Chester Emery who was added to the calendar in 1994. Here's something James Kiefer says about her:

She visited every diocese in the United States, co-ordinating and encouraging work in support of missions. She traveled to London as a delegate to the Pan-AnglicanCongress. She traveled to Japan, inland China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines to advance missionary work there, and to be able to report on it to the Episcopal women in the United States.

It was Julia who invented the United Thank Offering (UTO). This works (or used to work -- my political instincts tell me that not everyone today would be comfortable with the original arrangement) by giving each woman a small box with a slit in the top (a cardboard piggy bank), and encouraging her to drop a small contribution into it whenever she feels thankful about something. Once a year, the women of the parish present these at the Sunday service, and the money is sent to national headquarters to be used for missions.

Here is something about thanksgiving that I thought I'd add:

Happiness is the realization of God in the heart.
Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving, of faith, of acceptance;
a quiet tranquil realization of the love of God.

-- White Eagle