A 'yahrzeit' for Haynes

It's been one year since we lost our beloved leader

Fr. Cathie Caimano and St. Paul's Salisbury, NC

Dec 30, 2025

This coming week, it will be a year since Haynes Murdoch died. He was St. Paul’s Senior Warden, and beloved spiritual and community leader.

His great grandfather founded St. Paul’s in 1887. His children and most of his grandchildren were baptized at St. Paul’s. He and his wife Laura - well, the term ‘pillars of the community’ comes to mind. Which could seem old-fashioned or stuffy, but was neither in describing these warm and loving people.

St. Paul’s announcements:

St. Paul's announcements

Haynes made me a communion kit shortly before he left us. I treasure it more than I can say. And I think it perfectly describes him: an engineer and an artist, who made beautiful things. A husband, brother, father, and friend who loved his own deeply and generously. And someone with the deepest faith.

I was once doing an instructed Eucharist with St. Paul’s - walking everyone through what we do in church and why. I got to the Memorial Acclamation:

‘Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again’.

‘Do you know why we say this?’ I asked.

And Haynes said, ‘because it’s true’.

Exactly. It is the bedrock of our faith as Christians, and it was the bedrock of Haynes’ faith.

In the Jewish tradition, the year after someone has died there is a remembrance called a yahrzeit.

One element of the remembrance is acts of service in the name of the dead.

On Sunday, December 21st, Senior Warden Jerry Taylor and I set out to visit seven parishioners and bring them Christmas communion.

We used the communion kit that Haynes made as we went from home to home, facility to facility, bringing the Body and Blood of Christ to our brothers and sisters who can’t easily make it to church.

We were sharing Christian community - and hope - along with the transforming love of God.

And we knew Haynes was with us, too.