A pastor in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Rev. Rona Tyndall, has penned a thoughtful op-ed piece for the local paper about preaching with more than just words:

St. Francis is quoted as having once said, “Preach the gospel continuously, using words if necessary.” What gift has the Holy Spirit bestowed upon you, to enable you to be a co-worker with God? You have a gift. We need it. Preach the Gospel with it. Use words if necessary. Let your deeds be your word; the word of God alive and at work among us.

In these days of war and destruction, these days of poverty and hunger, these days of loneliness and grief, these days of violence and oppression, these days of such desperate, aching need, the world counts upon you and me and we together to put God’s word into deed, to be our own truth in action.

Gloucester is renowned for fishing — and, like another fishing village in another part of the world, it appears to have been blessed with at least one disciple eager to put out into the deep.