Daily Scripture Readings; bookofcommonprayer.net/daily_office.php
See the different options. There is full morning and evening prayer. There is also the option of the readings only. There is also an app for receiving the daily readings by email, or on a mobile device
Sunday Scripture Readings: bookofcommonprayer.net/lectionary.php
Set it for 1979 Contemporary, and the Bible version used in Church is Revised Standard Version
Epiphany 2016
Sunday January 3 is the Eve of the Eve of the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany means “manifestation.” Epiphany celebrates the revealing of the Incarnation to the entire world. This is symbolized by the Star and the coming of the Magi. It fulfills the promises we’ve heard in Advent about how the renewal of Israel and Jerusalem would draw all people to her to receive God’s blessings. Epiphany also shows the bestowal of the Incarnation to the Gentiles. That is, the Christian faith is universal. It is not confined to one specific people. Of the two feasts of the Incarnation, Christmas and Epiphany, Epiphany is the oldest. It was celebrated first by the Church in the East. Christmas developed later in the West and began to be celebrated around 400 or so AD. So things have evolved into something complete and comprehensive. While the secular calendar sees the Christmas or “Holiday” season beginning on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving and concluding either Christmas Day or New Years Day, the Church calendar has the four week preparation called Advent. Christmas begins at Midnight Christmas Eve and runs 12 days concluding on Epiphany, January 6.
Annual Epiphany Open House at the Rectory: 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Help close out Christmas by joining for the Annual Epiphany Open House at the Rectory. This is a chance for all of us to gather in a fun informal setting and enjoy each other’s company. Everyone in the parish is invited.
Newcomers to the Parish: This is a chance to get to know more parishioners in a setting with more time than is available at coffee hour.
Groups from the Summer Barbecues: We gather people together in the Summer to help connect and strengthen the bonds of friendship. Such groups have included:
Parents and Children (Children are welcome. They like playing in the back yard.)
Altar Guild & Hands of the Angels
Couples preparing for marriage
People caring for aging parents
Members of the Legacy Circle
People who have gone on the Parish Retreat
Please come to the Epiphany Open House. Check in with one another and keep connections strong.
Here’s how the Epiphany Open House works:
Fr. Bob and Tracy will have a ham and rolls for sandwiches along with spiced cider and mulled wine and her wonderful cream puffs. We also have a Christmas goodies that need to be eat up by someone one else!
Those coming, please bring something to share. It can be what remains of your Christmas cookies, and snacks and/or other snack type foods.
We hope you all will come by on Epiphany Afternoon.
After Church on Epiphany: Taking Down from Christmas
Thanks to everyone who helped to decorate the Church for Christmas. With Epiphany it is now time to take everything down and put it away.
After the 10:15 service we need people to help take down the decorations, especially the Christmas trees and ornaments. These all go in special plastic boxes and are stored in the Church basement. We’ll get them out again next year.
So after Church on Sunday, please grab your coffee and snack and come back into the Church for a quick dismantling. It doesn’t take very long.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Coffee Hour: January & February 2016
It is time to sign up for helping to host Coffee hour for the next two months. It is really quite easy. Fr. Bob makes the coffee down stairs and brings up the airpots. The coffee hour hosts bring snacks for people to share, and help with the clean up at the end. Since we’re starting afresh we need volunteers for all the Sundays of January and February. You can sign up at Church or email the Church office.
The Financial Page
Annual Giving 2016
We’re about 2/3 done with our Annual Giving drive for 2016. We are $60,000 short of what we need. If everyone’s pledge comes in, we’ll be able to make that. Reminder letters are going out this week. Please, if you haven’t sent in an Annual Giving Pledge for 2016, fill out and return a pledge card to us as soon as you can.
If you can pledge what you did last year, or increase it, that will be a big help. A parish our size depends financial support from all its members.
If you are new to the parish, or if you’ve not pledged before, please consider joining us in this way of supporting our parish.
Completing 2015 Pledges
It takes awhile for our Treasurer Leigh Torgerson to close out the computer for 2015 and reset it for the new year. That makes it possible for people who haven’t done so yet to complete their 2015 pledge. So please make every effort to do that as soon as possible.
Offering Envelopes for 2016
The Offering Envelopes for 2016 will be outside Church this coming Sunday, January 3. You can pick your up on the table on the patio.
2015 Giving Statements
As soon as the computer is closed for December, we will print send out statements of your giving to Church of the Angels for 2016. Leigh has made corrections from the last statement mailing, but if you find an error on your year end statement, we’ll be glad to fix it.
Level 4
The “Level 4” will resume its meeting with Fr. Bob between the services this coming Sunday, January 3. We continue our exploration of the Marriage Liturgy, focusing on the prayers of the couple which give us a guide, not how a marriage relationship can work, but also a way of reflecting on one’s friendships and the kinds of behaviors we both want to give and receive from people we care about.
News from the Outreach Committee
Thank you Church of the Angels parishioners! During Christmas, we collected 60 books (55 board books and 5 other books) to send to Suubi School in Bukeka, Uganda. These books will help stock the Baby (3 year old) and Middle (4 year old) classes with books that the students can learn to use in preparation for learning to read in the older grades. They will be stored in the bookcases we paid a carpenter to build and install in 2014.
In addition to the books, CoA is sending $500 to help build the elementary school which they hope to open in February, 2016. Global Hands of Hope is still collecting money to build the first five classrooms. If anyone would still like to contribute, a check made out to COA with Uganda in the memo will help us to help them to achieve this important goal.
Through your generous purchase of baskets, aprons and jewelry, CoA is also sending $300 to the artisans to help them to support their families. When you have no electricity and water is carried a long distance, the sales of these handmade items helps to give the artisans dignity and a much needed source of income.
If you are interested in learning more, talk to Tracy who went last year at this time to visit the village, the children and the school, and who was honored to teach a week-long seminar to the teachers of Suubi.
Emmaus Road Resumes: Monday, January 10 7:00 p.m.
Emmaus Road will resume its reading of Marylynne Robinson’s book, The Giveness of Things, on Monday, January 10, in the Parish Hall Living Room. Anyone is welcome to join in. The book is readily available at Vroman’s in Pasadena. We’ll announce the chapters next week. Each essay is self contained, so people can jump in anytime.
Food For Thought
On the Food For Thought table this weekend two articles to pull together our reflections on Christmas.
1. From The New York Times on Christmas Day, The Christmas Revolution. Fr. Bob used this article as a basis for his homily on the First Sunday after Christmas. It’s probably one of the best short pieces of writing on the meaning of the Incarnation and its impact on the world in terms of culture and thought, ever. For those who missed this last week, more copies will be on the table outside Church.
2. From the anthology Celebrating the Seasons, Daily Spiritual Readings for the Christian Year, a reading for December 29 being an excerpt from a sermon preached by John Henry Newman before the University of Oxford in 1843. This was while Newman was still Anglican. In this sermon, Newman asks us to consider what it means to say that “Mary pondered all these things in her heart.” This was something Tracy emphasized with the children at their Christmas Eve service after she gave the Nativity Presentation. As New man writes: “Thus St. Mary is our pattern of faith, both in the reception and in the study of divine truth. She does not think it enough to accept, she develops not enough to submit the reason, she reasons upon it, reasoning after believing. And thus she symbolizes to us not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the doctors of the Church