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

March 9, 2024

Lent 4 March 10, 2024 Bulletin

THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

March 10, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTIOR.
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 the Sunday Eucharistic lections in The Book of Common Prayer, the season of Lent is understood as pilgrimage of the soul. It is a hazardous journey through a spiritual wilderness of demonic trials and temptations that separate us from the true and living God, and hold us in bondage and captivity. The first three Sundays of Lent have been all about how it is that Christ liberates us from the deceptions and power of the Evil One. On this the Fourth Sunday in Lent, the Church holds before us the goal and end of our journey. IN our Epistle reading from Galatians, St. Paul refers to “Jerusalem which is above is free and is the mother of us all.” In symbolic terms, Jerusalem is our spiritual home, a place of freedom and peace where we enjoy union and communion with God in a fellowship of love. Such also is the parish Church, the earthly counterpart of the heavenly city, which brings us to birth through the waters of baptism, and like a good mother, nourishes us through Word and Sacrament and guides us in our way. The Gospel lesson relates the story of Christ’s feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness with 5 loaves and two fish, which is for us an image of the Eucharist, where our “bodies and souls are preserved unto eternal life”, and where we are refreshed and given the strength we need to continue the journey home.

THE LESSON: Galatians 4:26-31

March 2, 2024

Lent 3 March 3, 2024 Bulletin

THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

March 3, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTIOR.
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

Lent is a season in which we are confronted with the reality of “ spiritual warfare,” that is our battle with “the demons”, which is to be interpreted not merely in a reductionist psychological sense, but in an actual spiritual sense of demons as actual “ malignant intelligences” and “ evil powers” that impact our lives and seek “to corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” ( Book of Alternative Services p. 154) Our Gospel lesson today portrays Christ as the one who through the finger (power) of God casts out demons and overpowers Satan. In baptism, when we renounced “ the world, the flesh, and the devil” and united ourselves to Jesus in His death and Resurrection, we became partakers of Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil, and the house of souls was swept clean. But as we see in the parable which Christ tells, unless we continue in repentance and acquire thevirtues, the house of our souls remain vulnerable to demonic attack. In our Epistle lesson St. Paul unpacks Christ’s teaching, warning us to be especially on guard against the demons of sexual sin, covetousness, and idolatry.

February 24, 2024

Lent 2 February 25, 2024 Bulletin

THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

February 25, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTIOR.
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 LESSON: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

February 17, 2024

Lent 1 February 18, 2024 Bulletin

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

February 18, 2024

THE FATHER IS MY HOPE; THE SON IS MY REFUGE;
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS MY PROTECTIOR.
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 First Sunday in Lent presents us with the story of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, which is of great importance for the pilgrimage of faith that is ours in the season of Lent, and extends throughout our lives. We are a party to and participants in a cosmic conflict between God and His Christ, on the one hand, and the devil, on the other. There are temptations to be faced, and choices to be made. The Good News is that Jesus Christ has unmasked, exposed and defeated the devil at the point of temptation, and shares His victory with us. It’s why in our Epistle lesson for today St. Paul exhorts us not to accept the grace of God in vain, but to see the rough and tumble of life as the occasion for the proving of our faith and the faithfulness of God.