Washington D. C. has a new bishop

The Washington National Cathedral (the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul), closed since being damaged by an earthquake on August 23, reopened Saturday in time for the consecration and installation of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington’s newest bishop, the now Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde (pictured on right and below with her husband and one of her sons).

What a joyous event.

This cathedral has always meant a great deal to me. I had a summer job here when I was in high school. It was in the cathedral’s extensive bookshop that I first bought my first books on the Shroud of Turin. Just recently, I bought Pope Benedict XVI’s, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection, which I think should be mandatory reading for every thinking Christian.

Whenever I am in Washington D. C. I stop to visit the cathedral, explore the bookshop anew and sit for awhile in the Resurrection Chapel in the undercroft beneath the south transept.