First Sunday After Trinity June 2, 2024 – Bulletin

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

June 2, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS.

With the First Sunday after Trinity, we are launched on the second half/ semester of the church calendar! In our Epistle reading for today, St. John gives us a review of what we have seen and discovered in our worship and preaching in our first “semester” from Advent through Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” So what’s in store for us in the second semester? John writes, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” In our Gospel lesson todayJesus tells the parable of Dives ( the rich man) and Lazarus which comes to us a cautionary of tale of someone who did not receive and embody the love of God…with catastrophic results.

May 25, 2024

Trinity Sunday May 26 2024 Bulletin

TRINITY SUNDAY

May 26, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS.

Today we come to Trinity Sunday in the church calendar, which provides us with the answer to the all important question, “ In light of all that the Church has shown us concerning the Advent, the Birth, the Baptism, the preaching, the teaching, and miracles , the suffering, death and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit…Who is God?” God is the Father, who is always with His Son and always with His Holy Spirit. God is communion of love of the persons of the Trinity.

May 18, 2024May 18, 2024

The Feast of Pentecost 2024 Bulletin

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

May 19, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS

Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, and the presence, power, and work of the Holy Spirit in our lives in the special anointing for personal renewal that will take place at the beginning of today’s service. The Holy Spirit is the gift of God to those who align themselves with Jesus through obedience to His commandments. It is the Holy Spirit through whom we receive the spirit of sonship whereby we know ourselves deeply loved by God as our Father, even as we participate in the sufferings of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who also gives us peace in the midst of our troubles

THE PENTECOST READING: Acts of the Apostles: Acts 2. 1-21

May 11, 2024

The Sunday After The Ascension 2024 Bulletin

THE SUNDAY AFTER THE ASCENSION

May 12, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS.

In our church calendar today is the Sunday after the Ascension. Having celebrated the “elevation” of Jesus Christ to the place of supreme power and authority in the Universe ( “at the right hand of the Father” ), in our Gospel lesson today we take to heart Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit, the fulfillment of which we will celebrate next Sunday at the Feast of Pentecost. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to our hearts the truth of who Jesus is, and what He has said and done, in conformity with the witness of the apostles. Jesus also warns his disciples of the hostility, persecution, and martyrdom that will come their way. In the face of such opposition, how are we to live? The Epistle reading sets the agenda for us for a life of authentic Christian witness.

May 4, 2024

Rogation Sunday May 5 2024 Bulletin

ROGATION SUNDAY

TODAY AT ST. MARY’S

10:00 A.M. MORNING PRAYER and LITANY (Prayer book pp. 6-15. Psalm 11,12,13 Joel 2. 21-27, John 6. 22-40

10:30 A.M. HOLY COMMUNION (Prayer Book pp. 67- 85)

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

COLLECT

ALMIGHTY and merciful God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift: Bless, we beseech thee, the labours of thy people, and cause the earth to bring forth her fruits abundantly in their season, that we may with grateful hearts give thanks to thee for the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

April 26, 2024April 26, 2024

Easter 5 April 28 2024 Bulletin

THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

April 28, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS.

In our Gospel lesson today Jesus is speaking to His disciples about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, whose ‘ coming’ we will celebrate at Pentecost. It is the Holy Spirit working in and beyond the Church who takes the truth of Jesus Christ and applies it to our hearts, and overturns the false judgements of the world. In the face of the moral, spiritual, and theological confusion of our times, what is a Christian to do? Our Epistle lesson directs in the paths of thanksgiving for all God’s good gifts to us, being quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, and with meekness receive the implanted Word, Jesus Christ, who is able to save our souls.

April 19, 2024April 19, 2024

Easter 4 April 21, 2024 Bulletin

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

April 21, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS

The Gospel readings for these last three Sundays of Easter season all come from the 16^th Chapter of John’s Gospel, the co-called Farewell Discourse, where Jesus is preparing His disciples for death on the Cross, and the anguish to come. But this anguish and sadness will be transformed into joy. This is the promise and the joy faith in Christ’s resurrection. It sees beyond circumstances, and what is natural and inevitable. In place of resignation (“ it is what it is”), there is joy, and the hope and love that brings new things to birth.

In our Epistle lesson, St. Peter describes the moral and spiritual transformation Resurrection works in the lives of those who believe. They abstain from the “passions of the flesh” ( ie. gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, dejection, listlessness, pride etc.) and use their freedom to serve the common good.

April 6, 2024

Easter 2 April 7 2024 Bulletin

THE SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

April 7, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS

The Gospel lesson for this Sunday underlines for us a key element of our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ which is not to be understood as the escape of a disembodied soul into a place called “heaven,” ( free at last!) but a raising, that is to say a transformation of the soul and body of Jesus Christ, into the life of God. In the encounter between the Risen Christ and his frightened disciples we discover what Resurrection means for us in the here and now: peace, forgiveness of sins, and partaking of the Holy Spirit. In our Epistle lesson we see that through faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, and through participation in the sacramental life of the Church (water= baptism, blood= Holy Communion) we become partakers and participants in the life of God, and so overcome all the negativity of the world that has fallen away from God through sin.

March 30, 2024

Easter March 31, 2024 Bulletin

THE SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION

March 31, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia! Today we celebrate the Feast of Feasts: the resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ, who “by His death has trampled down death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!”

Our Gospel lesson for today tell us how it was that the initial reaction to the discovery of the empty tomb was not the occasion of joy and gladness for the first followers of Christ, but rather surprise and confusion, which eventually gave way to wonder and joy in the bodily encounter with the the Risen Lord, that then also eventually gave way to understanding through the Scripture. But the Resurrection of Christ is not simply something to be believed, but rather a Life and Experience to be shared and participated in, right here and right now. How does the resurrection become for us a personal reality? St. Paul points the way in our epistle reading from Colossians: by “setting our minds on things above”, and by “putting sin to death, practices which define our life in the Church.

THE LESSON: Colossians 3:1-11

March 16, 2024

Lent 5 March 17, 2024 Bulletin

THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Passion Sunday

March 17, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTION.
ALL HOLY TRINITY, GLORY TO THEE!

LIVE AUDIO STREAMING during today’s service is available on the Order of Service page. Recorded audio will be added following worship.

GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY: PREVIEW OF THE READINGS

Today marks the beginning of Passiontide in our church calendar, which comprises the final two weeks of Lent leading up to Easter. Our Scripture lessons for today set the “tone” for the season, setting forth something of what the sacrificial death of Christ on the Cross is, and how the Cross of Christ provides us with the model and pattern for our own lives. The Epistle lesson from Hebrews speaks to us of what Christ has done for us. He is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, we are set free from our sins, our consciences are purified by means of forgiveness, and we receive the promise of an eternal inheritance. Christ has done something for us, once and for all, which we could not do, but can only faithfully and thankfully receive. But the sacrifice of Christ is not just something that was done for us. It is something that must be done in us and through us, transforming our minds and hearts, and ultimately our lives, day by day. This is precisely the message of our Gospel lesson for today where in place of the pursuit of worldly ambition, power, and status, Christ calls his disciples to take His attitude of humble obedience, and make it their own.

Hebrews 9:11-16