The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett quietly got a new job title here on June 1. After two years as curate, she is now associate rector.
“I am so happy to be part of the community and ministry of Trinity and grateful for this invitation to stay on past my curacy,” she says. “The people of Trinity have been kind and welcoming from the beginning, and I’ve appreciated your compassion and prayers through my first two years in a new call, a new city and a new congregation.”
Rev. Cara’s curacy was supported by the diocese and parish. As part of that job, she traveled to smaller churches once a month to preach and celebrate.
Now she is a Trinity-only employee, continuing to oversee formation and share in teaching, preaching, pastoral care and liturgical duties.
Formerly a magazine editor, public radio producer/reporter and college English instructor based in Roanoke, Rev. Cara has years of experience as a professional writer and pianist. This year she wrote the Eucharistic liturgy for the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia’s annual convention. Here she has written liturgies and prayers, created and directed contemplative and dinner church Eucharists during Lent, and launched a weekly Noonday Prayer service on our Facebook page.
Rev. Cara grew up in a small, rural United Church of Christ, congregation where her mother was organist and her family had attended for generations. She came to the Episcopal Church about 15 years ago via St. Elizabeth’s in Roanoke, where she served as music director. (St. Elizabeth’s became her sending parish.)
“I fell in love with the liturgy, the sacramental life, the sense of community, the open and affirming theology and the sense of close-knit community I found there,” she says.
For the next 10 years, Rev. Cara worked in Episcopal parish and diocesan music and communications in Roanoke and Memphis and found that the deeper purpose she’d been seeking was in the Episcopal Church.
A Harrisonburg native, she was ordained a priest here at Trinity in January 2023. She holds undergraduate degrees in piano performance and English from James Madison University, an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College and a master’s of divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary.
Rev. Cara and her husband Phil Atkins plan to relocate fully from Roanoke to Staunton hopefully later this year.
We at Trinity are blessed and thrilled to share Rev. Cara’s path. Congratulations to her!!
(Photo by Tricia Lyons)
