March 23, The Third Sunday in Lent
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at 1:58PM Altar Guild Meeting
The Altar Guild will meet Saturday, March 22, 9:00 a.m. in the Parish Hall to finalize plans for Holy Week and Easter. We’d love to have the help of parishioners who are not on the Altar Guild to assist with these tasks. Please talk to Pam Irwin or Fr. Bob
Hands of the Angels March 22,
The Hands of the Angels Knitting group meets on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays 10:00 a.m. in the Parish Hall Living Room. Everyone is welcome to join and if you’d like, learn how to knit. The next meeting will be Saturday March 22, 10:00 a.m. Parish Hall Living Room
Episcopal Relief and Development, Episcopal Federal Credit Union
During Lent we bring before us the work of both Episcopal Relief and Development, which is an outreach of the national Episcopal Church, and the Episcopal Federal Credit Union which is an outreach of the Diocese of Los Angeles. There are opportunities to participate in both of these either by making donations to ERD and/or signing up for an account at the Credit Union. There is material on both things on the table outside Church. ERD also has a booklet of meditations for Lent. Please pick these up on Sunday.
Lenten Meditation Class: Sundays in Lent 9:00 a.m. in the Parish Hall
We have now left ordinary time and are on our journey through the season of Lent. The journey is an invitation to reflect on what it means to be in community with one another and with God. In asking the deeper question: "what is God asking of me at this time in my life?," we are responding to the invitation to step out of our daily patterns to take time to listen to the “still small voice” (I Kings 19:11-13) On the Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday at 9am in the Parish Hall you are invited as a community to a time of intentional reflection on sacred texts (Lectio Divina). We will listen to the text. We will respond and react through conversation and creative expression. Finally, in response to that which we have received we will practice sitting in silent meditation.
O Lord, our Lord, you have created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
The prayer of St. Augustine
Emmaus Road Monday Evenings 7:00 p.m. Parish Hall Living Room
Emmaus Road begins a new book: Iscariot by Tosca Lee. This is a novel portraying the life of Judas Iscariot. A novelist’s take on this mysterious figure in the Gospels should be interesting and give us a lot to think about. The book is available from Amazon. Everyone is welcome to participate. For Monday March 24 we will complete the book
Music with the Angels March 30, 3 p.m. - Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale: by the Metric Ensemble, led by George Ramirez. Stravinsky’s evocative music underlines this cautionary (and so appropriate for Lent) tale of temptation and greed. This un-staged production features actors in the roles of Narrator, the Devil and the Soldier.
Holy Week Heads Up
Reflective Dinners in Holy Week
The reflective dinners began many years ago from an idea that came to Fr. Bob on one of his Annual Long Retreats. The idea that came to him was, “wouldn’t it be interesting to hear back to back, reflections on the Song of Songs and the Last Supper discourses in the Gospel of St. John. The Song of Songs is the most commented upon book in the Bible by both Jews and Christians and while on the surface it sounds like a love poem between a husband and wife, it has been taken by both Jews and Christians to describe the intimacy between God and Israel (In the case of the Jews) and God and the Church, or the individual human soul (In the case of the Christians.
The Last Supper discourses in the Gospel of St. John take up three chapters and end with a fourth chapter where Jesus prays for the disciples. This chapter, Chapter 17 has become known as “The High Priestly Prayer.” In Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the account of the Last Supper focuses on the institution of the Holy Eucharist. In St. John it is a dialogue between Jesus and the disciples about what their life will be in the light of his Passion and Resurrection. And for St. John, he understands this conversation not as something that happened back then, but a conversation that is always happening right now.
The combination of the Song of Songs with it’s intimacy with God and the soul, and St. John’s reflections on living in the light of the resurrection not only went together but produced some very thought provoking reflections.
The first year it was done, a former parishioner who has since moved away, Phil Holmes pulled some wonderful things together for us. In the years that followed, he, along with others have brought in other voices from the Christian tradition so we have this experience of Jesus speaking to us through the Gospel and in the lives of Christian people since then.
The logistics work like this. The dinners are held Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Holy Week in the Parish Hall. We start around 6:00 p.m. The Parish Hall is set up with tables in a U shape. We use only the light of candles. People gather and have some wine before dinner and when we’re ready we sit down to the meal that a team of parishioners has prepared. The presenter reads the material they’ve prepared while we eat in silence. After they’re done they read one of the chapters of the Last Supper discourse. Following that, Fr. Bob comes up and reads one third of the High Priestly Prayer. He then does the Eucharist with bread and wine from the meal and we pass it to one another. Finally at the end there is the last prayer. People then have dessert and visit. Depending on Day Light Savings Time, the Parish Hall get’s darker and the candles grow brighter. We’re usually finished by 7:15-7:30.
Our Presenter this year will be Kelly Russell.
Everyone is welcome to participate in the Reflective Dinners in Holy Week.
Each evening has a team preparing the meal.
This Sunday we will have sign up sheets for each evening. Please sign up after Church.
Food For Thought
Continuing with our serious readings for Lent we have two articles on some both interesting and difficult subjects. These are subjects most people would rather not consider, but it’s really worth our time.
1. From the current issue of Theological Studies, Hell: The Mystery of Eternal Love and Eternal Obduracy Theological reflection on the concept of Hell has come a long way since Dante’s Divine Comedy. This article gives an overview of Christian reflection Hell from the early Church to what contemporary theology has to say.
2. From The New York Review of Books, On Breaking One’s Neck. This is an article by a medical doctor reflecting on his own experience of being in a hospital with a life threatening injury and what he learned by being in the bed rather than beside it. He came to have a new appreciation for what patients experience and where the medical profession does well, and where it needs improvement. It can us a sense of what to expect should this happen to us, and how to prepare for it.
3. From The Christian Century, Another Grief Observed. This is a review of Julian Barnes latest book Levels of Life. As in his earlier books, Nothing to be Frightened Of, and A Sense of an Ending, Mr. Barnes reflects on death from the perspective of a non-believer. Unlike the Four Horseman of Atheism, he is not hostile to faith, but rather sad that it is not real. We have a chance to reflect on our beliefs and hopes through the eyes of one who does not share them.