November 3, The Sunday of All Saints

Thursday October 31 

Eve of All Hallows  Halloween 

All Hallows is the full name for Halloween.  It means All Hallows Eve, the day before All Saints Day.  The fun of Halloween is an expression of the Christian faith’s conviction that Christ has vanquished all the powers of evil through his death and resurrection.  You can read references to this in St. Paul’s Letters to the Ephesians and Colossians.  He talks about Christ conquering all the “principalities and powers” and subduing them to the rule of the Father.  So things that used to frighten people to death, ghosts etc. have been reduced by Christ’s victory to clowns and playthings.  Christians have nothing to fear.   

Friday November 1, 2013 

All Saints Day

Day Of 

From its earliest days, the Church has recognized as its foundation stones those heroes of the faith whose lives have excited others to holiness and have assumed a communion with the Church on earth and the Church in heaven.  Celebrating the Feast of All Saints began in the fourth century.  At first it was observed on the Sunday after the Feast of Pentecost; this was to link the disciples who received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the foundation of the Church, with those who were martyrs, giving their lives as witnesses for the faith.  In the eighth century, a pope dedicated a chapel to All Saints in St. Peters at Rome on November 1 and within a century this day was being observed in England and Ireland as "All Saints Day."   

Saturday November 2 

All the Faithful Departed 

All Souls' Day

Day Of 

The commemoration of all the faithful departed (commonly known as All Souls' Day) on the day following All Saints' Day began as a monastic custom at the great abbey of Cluny.  Under the influence of Abbot Odilo, who in 998 ordered its observance in Cluniac houses, the custom gradually spread until by the 13th Century it was universal throughout the Western Church.  The medieval rite contained the famous sequence Dies Irae.  Althought the observance did not survive the liturgical changes of the Reformation, it was restored in the proposed English 1928 Book of Common Prayer, largely in response to the huge weight of grief following the First World War.  In recent years it has become increasingly customary to hold a service (either this day or at this season) for all the bereaved.  In a society that has largely abandoned traditional patterns of mourning, the opportunity to express grief continues to have a valued place in the ministry of the Church in order to acknowledge the hard and painful reality of death, but "in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  In the words of the  Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission: "The believer's pilgrimage of faith is lived out with the mutual support of all the people of God.  In Christ all the faithful, both living and departed are bound together in a communion of prayer. 

Our custom at COA is to combine both All Saints and All Souls on the First Sunday of November when celebrate the Sunday of All Saints

The Feast of All Saints:

Stories of the Saints, Prayers for deceased loved ones. 

Sunday, November 3

Day Light Savings Time Ends:  Set clocks back 1 hour Saturday evening

We will celebrate the Feast of All Saints on Sunday, November 3.  Once again we will have two “Saints Stories,” one presented by Roger Law and the other by Melissa Stanley. 

 We will also recite the names of those who have been buried from our parish since last All Saints Day, and as is our tradition, we will recite the names of our loved ones who have gone before us, all within the context of the Eucharistic Prayer.  In the reciting of the names embedded in the Eucharistic Prayer, we not only remember those we love who’ve gone before us, but affirm our hope in their living in our Lord’s Risen life which the Eucharist makes present to us.  All Saints is a profound event, of the most moving liturgies of the Church Year. 

If you missed signing up on the last several Sundays you can email names in to the Church Office.  Please specify whether you want them read at the 7:45 or 10:15 a.m. service. 

Bible Walk Through:  Sundays at 9:00 a.m.

This Weeks’ sections from the Children’s Bible are:  The Main Born Blind:  St. John 9:”1-28,  Mercy and the Law  St. John 8:1-11,  Lazarus Raised  St. John 11,  Day of Joy   St. Matthew 21:1-9,; St. Mark 11:1-10, St. Luke 19: 28-38;  St. John 12:12-19   

Year of Grace Calendars for 2014 Now Available

The New Year of Grace Calendar for the Christian year that begins on the First Sunday of Advent will be on sale after Church the next several Sundays.   They come in three sizes:  Laminated Poster, 26 x 26, Laminated Notebook  11 x 17,  Paper Notebook  11x17.  The Laminated Poster size fits nicely on a refrigerator door. 

 Laminated Poster:  $15.00 each.  There are two available but we can order more

Laminated Notebook:  $5.00 each

Paper Notebook  $.50  each.   

Choose which one you’d like and place your check or money in the envelope at the table. 

The Financial Page 

Annual Giving for 2014 now begins

With All Saints we begin our Annual Giving Pledge drive for 2014.  We ask parishioners and friends to make a pledge to support the parish financially for the year to come.  Annual Giving Pledges fund the operation of the Parish.   With a  parish this size it is imperative that everyone participate.  Everyone’s gift matters.  There will be a short presentation on the parish’s finances at the Announcements on Sunday.  Annual Giving Letters will go out next week.

 Third Quarter Statements of Giving go out

Statements of people’s giving to Church of the Angels go out in the mail this week.  The statements reflect giving through the end of the Third Quarter, September 30.  Our Treasurer Leigh Torgerson does a good job entering people’s contributions into the computer, but with the amount of data to enter, it is possible to miss something.  If there is an error on your statement, we will happily correct it.   

The Statements enable you to track your Annual Giving and possibly Flower fund pledge.  If necessary, please catch up. 

Back By Popular Demand!  Mid-Week Eucharist Returns:  Wednesday mornings 7:00 a.m.

But not this week due to a film shoot on Wednesday, November 6 

Emmaus Road  Mondays 7:00 p.m.

Beginning Monday, October 21 the Emmaus Road Group begins a new book, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography, by Alan Jacobs This book will look at the composition of the first Book of Common  Prayer 1549 and trace its development down through the centuries.  For Monday’s meeting we’ll discuss the Chapters 2 & 3 and look at the structure of the Eucharistic Prayer.. 

Food For Thought

On the Food For Thought Table this Sunday an article from a recent edition of The New York Review of Books entitled, Physics: What We Do and Don’t Know.  This article reviews the current state of knowledge and lack thereof in the physics of the very large, Cosmology, and the very small, Quantum Theory.  Something in the article might jump out at you.  This was not entirely as surprise.  There would have to have been such ripples cause by small lumps of matter that are needed to serve as seeds for the later gravitational condensations of matter into galaxies.  These lumps and ripples are due to chaotic sound waves in the matter of the universe.  Sound Waves????!!!!   Sound waves in the matter of the universe?  Hmm!  In the Beginning was the Word?