By Mary W. Cox, editor
Trinity Cathedral’s Mardi Gras celebration this year was not just about pancakes and beads and king cake.
At its traditional pancake supper on Feb. 24 the cathedral also celebrated the ministry of Deacon Charles “Andy” Taylor, who has retired from fulltime diaconal ministry after serving as a deacon in three Miami-Dade congregations—his home parish, St. Stephen’s, Coconut Grove; Resurrection, Biscayne Park; and since 2002, Trinity—and as a chaplain at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
Taylor was ordained to the diaconate on Apr. 17, 1991. An experienced journalist, he was serving at that time as diocesan communications officer and editor of The Net, a position he held until his retirement from the diocesan staff in the summer of 1995.
But the ministry that the cathedral honored on Mardi Gras was his outreach to the poor and neglected, working with the cathedral’s feeding program and giving Trinity’s homeless neighbors a sense of self-worth.
“If there was ever someone who had a deacon’s heart, it is Andy Taylor,” cathedral Dean Douglas McCaleb told Trinity’s members and guests at the celebration. “He has given himself to those on the margins…in countless ways.”
Retired Bishop Calvin O. Schofield, Jr., who ordained Taylor, agreed with that description, saying that Taylor’s whole ministry has been about Jesus’ mandate in Matthew 25 to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and minister to those who are sick or imprisoned. “The diaconate is the heart and soul of the ministry of the Church,” Schofield said. “Andy represents for me the mind of Christ.”
He thanked Taylor for “what you have done in the church and in the community.”
On behalf of the Cathedral Chapter, the dean presented Taylor and his wife, Johnnie, with tickets for the Clergy and Clergy Spouses’ Cruise the week after Easter, and urged Johnnie to “make him go!”
Acknowledging the tributes, Taylor said, “the thing that has meant most to me is people—the people that have been in my life.”
No one ever completely retires from the diaconate, so he will continue to do some weekday deacon’s masses at Trinity and at St. Stephen’s, and “will be available when needed at the cathedral.”