March 9, The First Sunday of Lent : Day Light Savings Time. Set your clocks ahead one hour on Saturday Night
Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at 7:52AM The First Sunday of Lent, Sunday March 9, also Day Light Savings Time. Set your clocks ahead one hour on Saturday Night
To Keep a True Lent
Is this a Fast, to keep
The Larder lean?
And clean
From fat of Veals and Sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
Of Flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with Fish?
Is it to fast an hour
Or rag’d to go
Or show
A downcast look, and sour?
No; ‘tis a Fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife
And old debate
And hate;
To circumcise thy life
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not Bin;
And that’s to keep thy Lent
Robert Herrick: priest: (1519-1674)
Opportunities for Lent
From this poem from Anglican priest Robert Herrick, and from the selections for Food For Thought this week, we can see that Lent is not just about giving up, but also taking on. There are a couple of things to consider for observing Lent this year.
Church of the Angels Choir
Our Choir Leader Jim Stanley is looking for people to come and sing in the Choir for Lent and Easter. The choir meets for rehearsal at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings and there will some other rehearsals scheduled for the different services for Holy Week and Easter. The Choir of Church of the Angles is all volunteer. Jim is wonderful teacher and you can learn that you can sing better than you think, and you’ll grow in your ability as well. You’ll also experience some wonderful music appropriate for the season. You’ll also be helping out your fellow parishioners. Speak to Jim after Church.
Daily Scripture Readings and Daily Office West
Both the Large Print Bulletin and the insert in the Small Print Bulletin have the Daily Scripture readings for each day of the week as assigned by the Book of Common Prayer. If you’ve never tried to have a daily practice of Scripture reading and reflection, this is a good time to try it out. It takes about 10 minutes all told.
You can also access Daily Morning and Evening Prayer on your Smart Phone or IPad or computer by going to dailyoffice.org Articles about doing this were in By Way of Reminder over the last couple of weeks. You might want to give this a try.
Shrove Tuesday Thank you
Thank you to Chris Askew along with Kelly Russell, Tim Down, and others who helped put on the Shrove Tuesday dinner last night. It was what it was supposed to be: fun.
“That they may truly and impartially administer Justice;. to the punishment of wickedness and vice and to the maintenance of thy try religion and virtue.” Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church: Book of Common Prayer
As By Way of Reminder goes to press, Fr. Bob continues on a jury in a case pending at the Courthouse in Pasadena. Fr. Bob’s jury service will take this week and possibly some time next. He’s available early mornings before 10 a.m. and after 4:30 p.m.
Hands of the Angels March 8,
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 8, 10:00 a.m. Parish Hall Living Room
Chitra Rao to Lead a New Class:
Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday at 9am in the Parish Hall
Very soon we will leave ordinary time to 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 10 we will read to page 87. It is a quick read
Food For Thought
On the Food For Thought table this weekend two articles on poverty and homelessness.
1. Homeless in the City is from the current issue of The American Scholar. It is a first person account of being homeless by someone who lived this way for eleven years. It is well written and articulate. What sets the author apart from other homeless people is that he has a laptop computer and is able to write. He wrote this article in a public library. It is very poignant.
2. From On the Love of the Poor a homily by St. Gregory of Nyssa. (330-394) This comes from an anthology entitled Celebrating the Seasons: Daily Spiritual Writings for the Christian Year. St Gregory of Nyssa was one of the Cappadocian Fathers, which included his brother St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nanzianzus who were important in development of the theology of the Trinity. Just in case we thought we were the first to struggle with the problem of the poor and homeless, we can see that no, as Jesus said, “The poor you always have with you.”
These are good articles to start off Lent, because one of the themes of Lent is compassion, God’s compassion to us in our needs, and therefore in response to this, our being compassionate to the needs of others.