Knightly News

As a child, like so many of us, I was captivated by the beloved Christmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. To this day it ranks highly among the parts of the Christmas season as an indispensable element of its celebration for me.

In this little story Charlie Brown, the beleaguered everyman of Charles Schultz’s beloved comic strip, is searching for the real meaning of Christmas. His cartoon character was confronted with materialism, consumerism, and all the shallow pretenders to that title. It finally falls to his friend, Linus, who constantly clings to his security blanket, to explain the true meaning of Christmas for him.

Standing on stage like an omniscient Shakespearian chorus, Linus recites from memory the birth of Jesus from the second chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke. Tellingly, at the very moment the Christ child’s birth is proclaimed by the angel in the narrative, something wonderfully happens in the cartoon. Linus, who could never be separated from his security blanket, drops it to the stage. He no longer needs his futile excuse for security once Christ’s coming into the world is announced.

Each year in churches, communities, and homes around the world the message of the coming of the redeemer of the world is proclaimed, and it is in this message that, as the beloved carol Oh Little Town of Bethlehem says, “The hopes and fears of all the years, Are met in thee tonight.”  Whatever hopes and fears we cling to in our lives for security pales into insignificance in light of the proclamation of the angels that night.

The message of the Angel is not merely for information alone but is also an invitation for the shepherds to come and see and worship this Redeemer. The angel tells them, “This will be a sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.” With this description he invites and directs them to go and seek Him out in His humble crib, and they go to find Him who is their Savior.

All of us among the close and interwoven community of the Episcopal School, regardless of our religious or nonreligious beliefs, will go amidst our own unique, personal pilgrimages, seeking to find our own answers to questions like the one that haunted Charlie Brown. For each of us, it will boil down to, “What is the real meaning of it all?” 

The Episcopal School of Baton Rouge is a place of learning, loving, service, and growth for our students and their families. Every part of our lives together is infused with our mission to nurture and develop the spiritual, intellectual, moral, physical, and artistic lives of each other as we prepare our graduates for lives of purpose.

Behind all this still lies the question for each of us, “What is the real meaning of it all?” The answer is found in that pilgrimage of life. We all seek to discard in the discovery of that apotheosis all the meaningless, ersatz security blankets we have accumulated across the way, and then to go and find Him who comes to save us.

In this proclamation of the coming of the Christ along with the honoring of all our pilgrimages for meaning and God made here, is also an invitation to come and join us in our pilgrimage of learning and life that is the Episcopal School of Baton Rouge. Our community life together is rich in opportunities to learn, love, serve, and grow together.

As a part of this invitation to our community to come together and see and worship I want to announce weekly, early morning Eucharists for our families to worship together with their students in the Lewis Family Memorial Chapel of the Good Shepherd on Fridays at 7:00 am. We will also begin an adult Bible Study for our parents and faculty to learn together on Thursday mornings at 7:00 am. Details will follow after New Year.

The real meaning of Christmas is that the babe, born that night in Bethlehem, is alive and still waiting to receive us and give us the security of His coming into the world. My prayer for each of us will be that your own angels and prophets will proclaim and direct us to God, where He meets us face-to-face. The meaning of it all is, after all, Him, the means and end of creation itself; the omega point of the Universe.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Father Patrick Edwards brings more than two decades of pastoral care experience to his role as Episcopal Head Chaplain. He previously served as an Episcopal faculty member in the school’s religion department from 2011 to 2016. He developed curricula and taught History of Religion in America, History of World Religions and Biblical Studies. He also provided pastoral care and counseling to students and faculty. While in this role, Father Edwards also served as the Priest in Charge at Saint Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge. Most recently, Father Edwards was the Rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church and Vicar at St. Andrew’s Dune Church in Southampton, New York. Father Edwards and his wife Deborah have four children – John Harris ’17, Will, Sefton and Emily. 

The Episcopal School of Baton Rouge 2025-2026 application is now available! ​For more information on the application process, to schedule a tour, or learn more about the private school, contact us at [email protected] or 225-755-2685.