Mary Aronen to Receive the Bishop's Cross

Good Shepherd's own Mary McClellan Aronen will receive the Bishop's Cross this Saturday, October 26, at Diocesan Convention for her many years of faithful service in God's Church.

Please join us to cheer for Mary! The award will be presented during the proceedings of the Diocesan Convention around 1:00 p.m. that day. The Greater Tacoma Convention Center is located at 1500 Commerce St, Tacoma, WA 98402. Parking information can be found here.

Since 1953, a small number of Bishop’s Cross Awards have been given each year to those whose very lives embody the spirit of Christ. The criteria cannot be summed up better than by the bishop who instituted them, Bishop Stephen Bayne, who wrote on the inception of the award:

Ever since I came to our diocese I have thought that we needed some special way to recognize and identify the fine qualities of service and leadership which are so often manifest among our people. Many dioceses have awards of one kind or another — medals or crosses or certificates — which are given to members of the clergy and laity for unusual service to the church. In this centennial year I want to institute an annual recognition, in the form of a simple Bishop’s Cross, which I should like to give to certain individuals in token of our pride in what they stood for in their ministry among us, and of our thanksgiving for fine and imaginative Christian discipleship which, through their lives, they have helped us see more clearly. They will not, nor will we I hope, think of these crosses as either a prize or a pension. They are not rewards to those who have been especially good children. They will simply be this an expression on our part of our thankfulness for the virtues and graces which God gives to his disciples as those blessings have been signally illustrated in the lives of these church people.

Past Bishop's Cross recipients from Good Shepherd include Wanda Manseau, Mary O. Haller, and the Rev. Ken Grabinski.