Last Sunday ( Last Epiphany, Feb. 15, 2015)
February 22- 9:00am, Morning Prayer, Rite I, Lent 1
February 22- 10:00am, Godly Play (preschool through 2nd grade)
February 22- 10:00am, Adult Education, "Praying with the Prayer Book"
February 22- 11:00am, Holy Eucharist, Rite I, Lent 1
February 25 – 10:00am, Ecumenical Bible Study
February 25 – 12:00pm, Noon Prayer
February 25 – 7:00pm, Evening Prayer
This Sunday at St. Peter’s – Servers, Readings
Lent Began February 18
Lent is:
• A time for looking at the things we do that are wrong or that tempt us, asking God’s and other people’s forgiveness;
• A time for giving up things that keep us from being loving people;
• A time for doing extra things that will help us grow closer to God;
• A time to be more aware of what it means to love as God loves us;
• A time to ask God to help us to be more loving, remembering
that God is always ready to strengthen us.
Our Lenten focus this year will be to deepen our life in God and with one another through scripture study and through prayer. We will be using The Book of Common Prayer and other prayer book resources to guide and strengthen our community Lenten disciplines.
We have a dedicated Lenten part of the website – Lent at St. Peter’s 2015 which has the events listed. Highlights include:
- Introduction to Lent
- Our own Lenten Calendar . This collects several resources (Daily office, ERD meditations, the Saints of the day, SSJE series on Time) in one place for individual study and reflection.
- Lenten Events at St. Peter’s. All of the events at St. Peter’s in one place, easily printed or viewed.
- Lenten Prayer Practices, Adult Ed – Sundays, Feb. 22, March 1,8,15,22 10am
- Noon prayer in Lent 12pm and Evening Prayer in Lent, 7pm – Feb 25, March 4, March 11, March 18.
- Annunciation service of the Lord to Mary – March 25, 7pm
- Lenten Quiet Day, sponsored by the ECW at Roslyn in Richmond, Thursday, March 26 with Bishop Gulick, 9:30am
- Holy Week, March 29-April 4
We have other links to various Lenten resources
A Lenten Reflection
As we begin the 40-day Lenten journey it is traditional to give up something during this penitential season, to fast from some thing or some behavior in our lives. As you contemplate your own Lenten discipline, here is a reflection adapted from: We Dare to Say: Praying for Justice and Peace, eds. Sylvia Skrepichuk & Michel Cote, Novalis.
Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ dwelling in them.
Fast from emphasis on difference; feast on the unity of life.
Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of light.
Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.
Fast from worry; feast on divine order.
Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives; feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressure; feast on unceasing prayers.
Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal truth.
Fast from discouragement; feast on hope.
Fast from laziness; feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion; feast on truth.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from idle gossip; feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that sustains life.
For your Father who sees the good you do in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:4)
Voices of Lent
1. Desmond Tutu from In God’s Hands
And humans were given dominion over all creation. That is why we were created to be God’s viceroys, to be God’s stand ins. We should love, we should bear rule over the rest of creation as God would. We are meant to be caring in how we deal with the rest of God’s creation. God wants everything to flourish. It gives us a huge responsibility – that we should not ravish and waste the natural resources which God places at our disposal for our wellbeing.
2. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schiori
That cross that comes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday is a reminder of the cross that’s put there at Baptism. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. The cross that comes at Ash Wednesday is a reminder that you are dust and to dust we shall return, that we share that dust with every other human being who has ever walked this planet, that we share that dust with the stars and the planets, that we share that dust with all that has been created. We are made for relationship with creator and creation.
Lent and cuaresma is a journey to walk toward that light. May it be a blessed one this year.
10am on Sundays
Lenten Prayer Practices
On Sunday mornings during Lent, at 10AM, we will be learning about various prayer practices. We’ll experiment with a different prayer practice each week.
Even if you have a favorite way to pray, trying out new ways of praying can enrich your prayer life, and bring more life and joy into your time with God. Make an effort to come to these sessions.
Sunday, February 22 Praying with the Prayer Book. The Book of Common Prayer is full of resources that can help us to grow, expand, and strengthen our ways of praying. We will learn more about our prayer traditions and how to use The Book of Common Prayer in our daily prayer disciplines.
Sunday, March 1 Lectio Divina is a way of praying by reading scripture prayerfully. Learning about this practice provides not only a new way to pray, but also a way to read scripture that can bring you into God’s presence to rest and to listen for what God is trying to say to you.
Sunday, March 8 We are hoping to have Bishop Goff speak to us about her own practice of prayer, and to answer questions we have about prayer.
Sunday, March 15 The Jesus Prayer. Our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters find this practice of prayer particularly helpful. The simple practice of this prayer can structure our day by keeping us mindful of God’s constant presence with us. This prayer also opens the way into many physical ways of praying.
Sunday, March 22 Praying with Silence. Silence is hard to find in our culture, and yet it is essential to our spiritual well being and ability to feel God’s presence in our lives. Practicing contemplative prayer can help us to cultivate an inner silence that creates space for God to dwell in us and for us to dwell in God.
Here is Mary Oliver’s poem on prayer, "I happen to be standing":
I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.
While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.
A Lenten Study – "It’s time to Stop, Pray, Work, Play and Love" (Continuing from Feb. 18)
"In a series of short, daily videos over five weeks, the Brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist invite us to recapture time as a gift. Join the Brothers as they wrestle with questions of time and discover how to experience the joy of the present moment." Starting on Feb. 18 they consider time as a whole:
Feb. 18 – Time
Feb. 19 – Priorities
Feb. 20 – Sabbath
Feb. 21 – Purpose
Beginning on Feb. 22, their study considers STOPPING. Each day has a specific word in connection to the video.
Here was Brother Tristram beginning message:
"Most people are very familiar with the story of creation in book of Genesis, how God created the world in 7 days. I am always struck that at the end of act of creation, God stops and God rests on the sabbath. What particularly interesting that of all the things that God creates, the one thing he calls holy is the Sabbath. I think Stopping is an essential part of the way we mirror the divine nature, the divine life within us . If we don’t stop we are depriving ourselves of the blessings of the one thing God calls holy. So we should just stop. " He ends with a challenging question for us to answer:
Links
Sign up
Introductory Video
Workbook
Time: Redeeming the Gift
Reading the Daily Office: Noon Day and Evening Prayers (Wednesdays, beginning Feb. 25), Part 1
Beginning Feb. 25, we will be adding Noon Day Prayers and Evening Prayer to our services on Wednesdays. Here is a selection from the book Opening the Prayer Book by Jeffrey Lee about these services and about the Daily Office in general:
"If the heart of the prayer book is the celebration of the paschal mystery of Christ in baptism and eucharist, then its soul may be the daily office. Christian identity is given and renewed in the celebration of baptism and eucharist; it is lived out and shaped by daily prayer and the call to various ways of life in the world. The Book of Common Prayer gives liturgical voice to these realities in a section titled The Daily Office, with liturgies for prayer in the morning, noon, evening, and night, and suggestions for daily devotions.
"One of the principal gifts to Anglicanism in the first Book of Common Prayer was the simplification of the medieval monastic tradition of daily prayer and the restoration of a vision of daily prayer as the work of the whole church, not just the clergy or monastic elite. Having said that, it is true that versions of the daily office in all subsequent prayer books, including 1979, are still heavily influenced by the monastic tradition, though simplified and adapted for the use of groups and individuals living active lives in the world.
"In its plan for the systematic reading of scripture, called a lectionary, the 1979 prayer book offers more flexibility than previous prayer books. The Daily Office Lectionary is a two-year cycle, with Year One beginning in Advent preceding odd-numbered years. With a few seasonal exceptions, the psalms are designed to be read in a seven-week cycle. The Old Testament is largely read through once over the course of the two years, and the New Testament twice.
"Two additional offices with readings and hymns are provided by the 1979 prayer book to mark the course of the day: An Order of Service for Noonday and An Order for Compline. The noonday office follows the traditional monastic pattern for minor offices during the day: Terce, Sext, and None, as they are called, or the "little offices/’ The psalms are those traditionally associated with these offices, and the prayers speak of the mission of the church and to events such as Christ hanging on the cross at this hour.
…Also new to the 1979 prayer book is An Order of Worship for the Evening. This rich and variable form for prayer in the evening is a recovery of elements that can be traced to the third century, and thus represents a style of daily prayer that predates the development of the monastic type of office.
Read more about the Daily Office…
Changes in the Church during Lent
Lent brings not only a change in church seasons but visible changes to the service and content of the service. The most noticeable change is that of color. The use of purple symbolize both the pain and suffering leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus as well as being a color of Jesus’ royal kingship and of his royal priesthood. The altar, for instance, has hangings of purple.
We use different crosses in Lent. The “red” cross the Helmut made is a symbol of Jesus’ blood and suffering. A red cross is also called the St George’s Cross. He is the patron saint of England, and knights wore this distinctive emblem to display their allegiance.
There are no flowers or simple flowers on the altar during Lent, again reflecting the focus on repentance over celebration. Processional crosses and altar cross are often veiled in purple. Music tends to be more somber and used only as accompaniment and not as a solo instrument. Certainly objects are simpler. A pottery rather than a metal chalice is used for communion .
The service reflects a change of seasons. Rite 1 is used over Rite II which is more traditional and has features that are closely related to the themes of Lent, such as sin and confession. The Rite 1 Eucharist includes two biddings to confession, the first of which dates to 1548. This bidding begins, "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins" (BCP, p. 330). The Rite 1 Eucharist allows one or more of four sentences of scripture to be said after the confession and absolution. These sentences, previously known as the "comfortable words," do not appear in the Rite 2 Eucharist.
Daily Readings in Lent
Lent prepares us for the observance of Jesus Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. It is a time of self-examination and based on this examination usually a time of personal housecleaning for what we have done or not done. Lent is both an opportunity and challenge to correct our path. The Collect from Last Epiphany puts it this way – "Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory."
One way to do this is to participate in personal or group Bible Study. We will have a group series on prayer on Sundays and have added noon and evening services on Wednesdays. All of this can be seen as part of developing spritual discipline, the development of our inner being. Spiritual disciplines provide a pathway through Lent.
While group study is certainly beneficial, daily study can easily be accomplished on your own, too. We have tried to make it easy gathering reading sources online. We have an online page which groups 5 different sources. 1. Collect 2. Daily Office 3. ERD Meditation 4. Saints 5. SSJE (Society of St. John the Evangelist) series on Time. The last one is new this year.
It can be found here.
Here is a part of the calendar for the first two weeks of Lent:
If you click on the 18th, Ash Wednesday the following screen pops up.
The collect prints out in its entirety but there are links to the Daily Office for that day, the daily meditation from the ERD, possibly a biography of a saint (Martin Luther in this case) and the daily video(s) from the Society of St. John the Evangelist series on time. The idea is put is all in one place that you can get to from one location rather than many. Making it easier may encourage you to embark upon the readings. Hope this furthers the journey!
The Lenten Gospel Readings- the Path Ahead
“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Ash Wednesday is about death, first of all, because this journey of being born anew to a living hope in Jesus Christ requires that we also die with him, “buried with him in baptism.” Starting with reminder of our mortality reminds of our work to open our lives to divine grace. We let go, trusting God to make us more holy.
We follow along with the readings of the lectionary and participate in services helping us learn again how to live the way of Jesus. We remember, we face up, and we fess up. We are mortal. We cannot save ourselves from death, or the second death. And we are sinners… in the hands of a compassionate God who seeks to save us, not leave us in the paths of destruction to which we are otherwise inevitably heading.
Here is an outline of the Gospel readings for Lent, year B, themes for each Sunday, and connections to the major verbs of the baptismal covenant to explore. The first and second Sundays retain the accounts of the Lord’s temptations and transfiguration.
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Lent 1 |
Wilderness |
Renounce, Reject, Repent
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Jesus Temptation in the wilderness |
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Lent 2 |
Expectation |
Accept, Resist
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Denying self and Taking up the cross |
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Lent 3 |
Cleansing |
Confess, Trust, Serve
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Jesus in Jerusalem throwing out the money changers and proclaiming a new temple |
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Lent 4 |
Believe INTO |
Join (in union with…)
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Part of the story of Nicodemus . God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved. |
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Lent 4 |
Called to Die |
Remain, Represent |
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Foreshadowing of Jesus Death with Andrew and Philip. Year B, a text from John about Christ’s coming glorification through his cross and resurrection |
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Palm/Passion Sunday |
The Passion |
Surround/Pray
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The Passion Story |
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Maundy Thursday |
Pre-Washing |
Surround/Pray |
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Last Supper |
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Good Friday |
Execution |
Surround/Pray |
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Garden of Gethesmene, arrest of Jesus, crucifixion |
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Easter |
Resurrection |
Baptism/Profession |
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He is raised. “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you” |
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Lent 1, Year B Lectionary Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015
I.Theme – Developing covenant relationships
"The Peaceable Kingdom" – Edward Hicks, 1834
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm – Psalm 25:1-9 Page 614, BCP
Epistle –1 Peter 3:18-22
Gospel – Mark 1:9-15
Connections between the readings – Noah enters the waters in the ark, sojourns for a time adrift, and emerges with a new covenant of co-creative transformation; In 1 Peter, the covenantal relationship of co-creative transformation that emerges from the Flood is now taken up and extended in the covenant of new life in Christ that is marked and sealed in baptism. The saving power of baptism lies in its role as “an appeal to God for a good conscience,” an active connection to God that brings an intensive and intimate knowing of God’s aims and intentions for our actions. In the Gospel reading, Jesus enters into John’s baptism, sojourns for a time in the wilderness, and emerges with a new proclamation of the reign of God.
Commentary by Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell:
Our Lenten journey through the Old Testament takes us primarily through the covenants that God has made with the earth and with the people. We begin in Genesis with the covenant after the flood, that God will never again destroy the earth and all living things by flood. We are reminded that there is nothing we can do that will separate us from God’s love (Romans 8) because God loves the world so much. When we begin with this premise, we understand the role of Jesus more clearly, in that God’s intention from the beginning is to love and save the whole world, not destroy it.
Psalm 25:1-10 is a prayer for wisdom and guidance. As we begin the season of Lent this is an appropriate prayer to pray together. Seeking God’s guidance on the path of faith is the beginning prayer for all of us on this Lenten journey.
Mark 1:9-15 is Mark’s version of the baptism, temptation and beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Mark is short and to the point, not giving us many details at all. Traditionally we read the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, but Mark’s version is just so short, one verse (13). While Matthew and Luke go into elaborate detail of the temptations Jesus faced, Mark lets us know Jesus was tempted. We all face temptation in our lives to leave the way of faith–to seek our own success, to seek earthly wealth and fame–instead of seeking the path of God and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus has to go through this time of temptation before he freely proclaims the Gospel, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (vs. 15). We all have temptations we face, and struggles we go through. To repent means to turn back to God, to turn away from where we have gone astray. Repent, turn back to the path of God and believe in the Good News (the gospel). But always remember first and foremost that you are God’s beloved. There is nothing you can do, nothing you will face that will separate you from God’s love.
1 Peter 3:18-22 echoes back to the story of Noah, in that God’s intention is life and love for the world, not death and destruction. Christ’s death is/u the final death, for in Christ’s resurrection, we are all resurrected. We are given this promise at our baptiusm, a reminder of the new life in Christ.
As we enter Lent, we are reminded that as we journey to the cross of death that we are really turning towards the resurrection. We have this time to remind us yearly that our journey is not complete. We all have temptations we need to turn from, places where we need to repent and turn back to God. But rather than dwell on the darkness, on our sins, Jesus wants us instead to repent and believe in the Good News. Turn back and know that you are forgiven, you are loved, and you are given the promise of new life here on earth and the hope of resurrection.
Read more about the Lectionary…
Ember Days, Feb 25, Feb. 27, Feb 28 including the Ember Day Tart
From the Good Heart
For prospective priests, they are required by canon to report to the bishop four times a year, during the Ember Weeks. The report must be made in person or by letter, and must include reflection on the person’s academic experience as well as personal and spiritual development.
Ember days are four separate sets of three days within the same week — specifically, the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday — roughly equidistant in the circuit of the year, that were formerly set aside for fasting and prayer. The ones in Lent, 2015 are Feb. 25, Feb 27, 28.
It is often supposed that the ancient Christian church co-opted pagan feasts and reoriented them to Christian purposes, but that actually seems to be true in this instance. In pagan Rome offerings were made to various gods and goddesses of agriculture in the hope that the deities would provide a bountiful harvest. Others point to the Celtic custom of observing various festivals at three-month intervals: Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain.
The Christian observation of this seasonal observance of the Ember Days had its origin in Rome and from Rome the Ember Days gradually spread unevenly to Britain and the whole of Western Christendom. The English name for these days, ‘Ember’, derives from the Anglo-Saxon "ymbren", a circuit or revolution (from "ymb", "around", and "ryne", a course, running), clearly relating to the annual cycle of the year.
Ember Days are dutifully noted, four times a year, on our Episcopal liturgical calendars and in the Book of Common Prayer. But what is compelling is the purposes for which Ember Days remain in our calendar. They mark the ebb and flow of the seasons with a pause for gratitude to God – not just the transition from spring and summer’s bounty to autumn’s harvest and winter’s rest – but from our birth in baptism, to life in the Eucharist, to anointing and death.
Clergy are often ordained during Ember Weeks, to serve as the stewards of these sacramental mysteries. Priests and deacons are charged to help the people make the bridge from things temporal to things eternal. By that same token, Ember Days allow us all to remember that we live by a different calendar in the Christian Church than that of the secular world.
We celebrate Ember Days as a seasonal pause for thanksgiving for God’s gifts, whatever they may be. The Collects for the Ember Days are found in the Book of Common Prayer on pages 205-206 (Traditional) and pages 256-257 (Contemporary) and are titled For the Ministry (Ember Days). Here is a link
Having said your prayers, you may now want to slip into the kitchen and prepare this special Ember Day treat that comes down to us from the Middle Ages!