November 30, The First Sunday of Advent
Wednesday, November 26, 2014 at 8:25AM Food For Thought: Video Version
Sundays, 9:00 a.m. Science & Religion DVD
This is the second to the last of the DVD’s. We continue the exploration of Evolution and its encounter with a particularly American religious expression: fundamentalism.
Advent Proclamation
2014
Dear sisters and brothers, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us and shall be ever manifest among us until the day of Christ's return.
Through the rhythms of time and the change of seasons let us call to mind and live the mysteries of our salvation.
The center of this Year of Grace is the Paschal Triduum of the Lord - crucified, buried and risen - celebrated between sunset of Maundy Thursday April 2, and sunset of Easter Day April 5.
Every Sunday, Holy Church makes present that great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.
From the Paschal Triduum there come forth and are reckoned the forty days of Lent, begun on Ash Wednesday the 18th of February and the fifty days of Easter completed on Pentecost the 24th of May.
In the winter the Church gives witness to the glorious Nativity and Epiphany of Christ and exults in the blessed hope of the Lord Jesus' advent at the end of time.
Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims Christ died, risen, and with us today in the mysteries of the Lord, in the feasts of the holy Mother of God, and of the apostles and saints, and in the commemoration of all the faithful departed.
To Christ who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and history be endless praise, for ever and ever Amen.
Outreach Committee: Mission Giving for Advent & Christmas
The Outreach Committee is excited to announce that Tracy Gaestel will be travelling to Uganda to give a seminar to the teachers at Suubi Children’s Center in Bukeka, Uganda. The seminar is scheduled for January 5-9, 2015, and will be entitled Using Children’s Literature Across the Curriculum. Bethany Ross from Normal, Illinois who travelled to Bukeka in July 2013 will join Tracy. They are planning a “hands-on” seminar for the teachers, which will include plenty of time to answer the teachers’ questions about teaching and classroom management (the teachers have only a high school education). Tracy and Bethany plan to teach using brain friendly structures and will use “Brain Breaks” to keep the participants actively engaged. Suubi Children’s Center was founded and is supported through Global Hands of Hope Uganda. You can read all about them by ‘liking’ them on Facebook or going to their website at www.globalhandsofhope.com.
The generosity of the people at Church of the Angels is truly astounding. Many of you have already supported this endeavor by buying Ugandan crafts with the proceeds going right back to the women making the crafts to support their children and grandchildren. You will have another opportunity to support these women and their families at the CoA Advent Event on Sunday, December 8th.
Another way to support the work in Uganda is to pick up an ornament from the Christmas Tree (on the patio during church) and buy a hardcover children’s book. We suggest supporting either the independent children’s bookstore “Once Upon A Time” in Montrose (located at 2207 Honolulu Avenue, La Crescenta-Montrose, CA 91020 – Phone: (818) 248-9668) or Vroman’s at 695 E. Colorado Boulevard Pasadena, CA 91101 - Phone: (626) 449-5320. If you would like to shop using Amazon.com, we have created a “Wish List.” Go to www.amazon.com, and click on “Wish List” at the far right. Navigate to “Find a Wish List or Registry” in the drop down menu. Enter “Global Hands of Hope Uganda” and you will see a wish list entitled Christmas 2014. If you need help with Amazon, contact Kelly at kellylcr@gmail.com or 626-665-6142.
Advent Event: Sunday December 7
Following the 10:15 Liturgy on Sunday December 7
The First Sunday of Advent is November 30. Since this is also the Thanksgiving Weekend, we’ll postpone the Advent Potluck to the Second Sunday of Advent, December 7
Hand’s of the Angels will have knitting crafts for sale
Annual Advent Parish Potluck in the Parish Hall
Make Advent Wreaths for use at home.
Make and Decorate Christmas Cookies to be served at the Late Christmas Eve Liturgy.
The Second Sunday of Advent
Sunday, December 7,
Following the 10:15 Liturgy.
The Advent Wreath
For those who don't know or who have never made or had one, The Advent Wreath is of German origin. It contains four candles, three are purple (The color of preparing, as we say to the children in the atrium) and one pink or rose. Each candle stands for one of the four weeks of the Season of Advent that precede Christmas. We have a large Advent Wreath in the Church, and there is a small one of the Prayer Table in all three Atriums.
Making your Advent Wreath is a fun activity and a way of bringing Church into the Home. You can place it on your dining room table and light the candles when you have dinner.
Why three purple and one pink you ask? That's because on the Third Sunday of Advent, the Traditional Old Testament Reading was from the prophet Isaiah where he says that "The desert shall rejoice and blossom. Like the Rose it shall blossom abundantly." That of course leads us into the Christmas Hymn "Lo How a Rose er'e Blooming." So it all goes together.
We will have wire frames that have four holders for candles and we'll have a variety of greens that you can weave into them and make something unique and personal. We'll have the candles for you as well.
We ask $10.00 for materials.
For the Potluck
We are in need of: Appetizers, Beverages, Salad/Vegetable Dish, Pasta Dish, Main Course, Dessert
The sign up sheet was outside Church last Sunday and will be out the next Sunday as well. You can sign up for the potluck by emailing back to the Church Office.
For the Cookie Making
It would be a help to know how many children would like to participate. Briony who is heading this up can know how many gingerbread figures to make and how much cookie dough to have.
Stuff to Buy
The Hands of the Angels Knitting and Handcraft Group meets the Second and Fourth Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. in the Parish Hall Living Room. They make all kinds of things. They even make baby blankets that they give to families who have a new baby. They will be selling their crafts and you are welcome to browse and buy something. You might find a good Christmas present.
The Outreach Committee will be selling crafts from Uganda which helps to support a small NGO named, Global Hands in Hope. There will also be an opportunity to contribute to the acquistion of reading books for the children at their school in Uganda.
So it's great fun. If you've been away for awhile, it's a good chance to reconnect. So mark your calendar. Email a potluck sign up. Sign up for an Advent Wreath or Cookie Making, or both!
Hope to see you there.
Emmaus Road Monday, December 1, 7:00 p.m.
Emmaus Road shifts gears and begins it’s traditional reflections on Advent. We will be reading selections from the Advent anthology Watch For the Light, something we’ve been doing for many years. The readings from the anthology will be selected by different participants. The readings will be available on the table outside Church on Sundays.
Feel free to join us. The readings are not sequential so you are more than welcome to come to any or all of the Emmaus Road gatherings
Feel free to read with us. If you are not able to join us, please feel free to pick the readings at Church and read them for yourself as a way to move through Advent and prepare for Christmas.
The readings for the First Monday in Advent will be: A Sky Full of Children by Madelein L’ Engle, The Light of the World, by Evelyn Underhill, and The Disarming Child, by Jurgan Moltmann.
Christmas Flowers and Decorations for the Church
We will begin taking sign up for donating toward the decorating of the Church for Christmas. People can sign up to decorate for the various flower arrangements.
Entrance Arrangement: $50.00
Window Arrangements $40.00 each. Need 7
Altar Arrangements $50.00 each Need 2
Greenery around the baptistery: $70.00
Poinsettias $10.00 each.
We’ll have some pictures so everyone can see what they are donating.
Along with the Sign Up there will be a place to write your memorial or offering. All those will be acknowledged in the Christmas bulletins.
Music with the Angels
We have two events in December for our continuing Music with the Angels concert series. One group is returning to us, and the other is something new.
The Salastina Society. This group was with us three times during our 125th Anniversary celebration. They will do a new series of concerts beginning December 6 with several others throughout 2015.
Saturday, December 6, 4 p.m. -- Salastina Society. Program features guest artist Adrienne Pardee, soprano, and includes Corelli's Christmas Concerto" Opus 6 No. 8 in G minor, Selections from Canatatas by J.S. Bach, Golijov's Lúa Descolorida for soprano and string quartet, Purcell's Fantasy on One Note and the Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043 by J.S. Bach. Tickets $28 online, $35 at the door; $10 students. Please visit the Salastina Music Society website for more information.
Saturday December 13, 6:00 p.m. & 9:00 p.m. The "Nicholas Plays”
On St. Nicholas Day (12/6) In traditional areas of Alpine Europe, families are visited by a costumed Bishop Nicholas bringing rewards to well-behaved children while the errant are threatened by a fearsome folkloric devil known as the Krampus. Over the last decade Americans have developed a fascination with this figure resulting in the establishment of costumed “Krampus runs” and events modeled on those in Europe. Tonight the artists and costume-makers of Krampus Los Angeles will perform excerpts from an original translation of a turn-of-the century Austrian “Nicholas Play” in which these figures are featured. The play, which is some ways resembles the Christmas Mummers plays of Great Britain, will be paired with the English-subtitled debut screening of the 1955 film, “Der Struwwelpeter” (“Slovenly Peter”). Based on a Victorian-era children’s book, this darkly campy film -- like the Krampus tradition -- is the product of an old-fashioned style of child-rearing the Germans call “gingerbread and whip” and tells the tales of misbehaving children and their dreadful fates. The church will also be visited by a steam-powered Krampus-driven car evocative of the period.
“St. Nicholas 1888: A Kinder-Horror Holiday” December 13, 6pm, 9pm. Tickets $20, advance online purchase highly recommended:
6pm show: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/933187.
9pm show: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/933194