85 pictures shot over 3 months emphasizing the interior of the church often in different light settings.
History
Annual Council, 2013 – Jan. 24-26, 2013
Annual Council is like a great medieval fair. There are vendors, contests, parades and events but like a fair a meeting place among those who assemble once a year. It is a cacophony of sights, sounds and talk. There is the business of council the morning session each morning on Friday and Sat and the workshops in the morning and various breakfast before the Sat. session. Just enough. Catherine and Eunice represented St. Peter’s. The pictures are a combination of the vendors and personalities of the council and some of the program.
175th Anniversary – May 15, 2011
78 pictures of the festivities of May 15, 2011. A lot of hard work by members of the Church led to this historic event
Aug 24 – The Feast Day of St. Bartholomew
Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and is usually identified as Nathaniel and was a doctor or architect. In Mark 3:18 he is one of the twelve Jesus calls to be with him. He was introduced to us as a friend of Philip, another of the twelve apostles as per (John 1:43-51), where the name Nathaniel first appears. He is also mentioned as “Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee” in (John 21:2).
As a Biblical figure, we know Bartholomew primarily through the Gospel of John, which calls him Nathanael. Philip introduces Nathanael (Bartholomew) to Jesus. Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” (John 1:48). Then Bartholomew make a powerful confessin of faith. “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel.” (John 1:49)
Here is the video from the Chosen on the event
He was characterized by Jesus on the first meeting as a man “in whom there was no guile.” The Catholic News Agency wrote this. “We are presented with the Apostle’s character in this brief and beautiful dialogue with the Lord Jesus. He is a good Jew, honest and innocent, a just man, who devotes much time to quiet reflection and prayer – “under the fig tree (1:48)” – and has been awaiting the Messiah, the Holy One of God.”
His day is remembered on August 24. After the Resurrection he was favored by becoming one of the few apostles who witnessed the appearance of the risen Savior on the sea of Galilee (John 21:2).
From Eusebius history, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, and Lycaonia.
Along with his fellow apostle Jude, Bartholomew is reputed to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Thus both saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He is said to have been martyred in in Armenia. According to one account, he was beheaded, but a more popular tradition holds that he was flayed alive and crucified, head downward. He is said to have converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. His brother consequently ordered Bartholomew’s execution. The 13th century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the site of the martyrdom of Apostle Bartholomew in what is today southeastern turkey
Clare of Assisi (1194-1253), Aug 11
Her day on our calendar is August 11
From Living Discipleship: Celebrating the Saints
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimickingof Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed throughtransformation. This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for others.” – Clare of Assisi
- Clare Offreduccio lived circa 1194-1253 in Assisi, Italy. She was born to the wealthy, noble Offreduccio family and was well-known for her beauty.
- At the age of eighteen, Clare heard Saint Francis of Assisi preach the Lenten sermons at her parish church. Inspired by his words, she decided to leave her life of wealth and privilege to join Francis and to follow the teachings of Jesus.
- Clare knew her family would not approve, so she left her home in the middle of the night and went to the monks, laying her rich, beautiful garments on the altar and exchanging them for the simple, rough habit of a monk. Francis reportedly cut off her beautiful hair as a mark of her commitment.
- She temporarily joined a Benedictine convent, from which her father tried a number of times to abduct her and bring her back home. Her father wanted her to be married, but Clare considered herself the Bride of Christ, and her commitment was to Jesus alone.
- Clare soon moved to a small dwelling in San Damiano. There she was joined by other women, including her sister Agnes. Clare became the abbess, or superior, of the order, which was called the “Poor Ladies of Saint Damian.”
- Clare was the first woman to write a rule of life for religious women. She based her rule on that of Saint Francis
- Clare and her nuns embraced the rule of absolute, yet joyous, poverty. They went barefoot, slept on the floor, and accepted no income, living only on the gifts of others. They lived their lives caring for the poor and devoting themselves to prayer
- Many, including a number of popes, resisted Clare’s rule of extreme poverty. They wanted her to change her order’s rule of life to be more in accordance with the Benedictine rule, which was not nearly so strict. Yet Clare stood firm, believing that the poverty she and her nuns observed was in imitation of the gospel and faithful to the teaching and call of Jesus
- Although she was the abbess, Clare insisted on caring for the sick sisters with her own hands and often reserved the most menial work for herself
- Clare was widely known for her dedication and wisdom. People, priests, and even popes were awed and inspired by her example. Saint Francis would come to her for comfort and encouragement. Many visited her, not only for her advice, but also to simply be in her presence
- Clare was particularly dedicated to the Holy Eucharist and understood the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood to have deep meaning but great power. In 1234, the army of Frederick II was preparing to assault the town of Assisi. In the middle of the night, they climbed the walls of San Damiano (where Clare and her nuns lived) and terrifyied the people. Clare was ill at the time. She reportedly arose from her bed, and retrieved the sacrament (described variously as being in a ciborium or in a monstrance) from the chapel. She went to the window and held the body of Christ uplifted before the invading army. It is said that, as she lifted it up, the soldiers fell to the ground, and the army began to flee in fear. 1 It is out of reference to this incident that Saint Clare is typically portrayed in art holding a monstrance or a ciborium.
- On her deathbed, Clare was heard to say: “Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he that created you has sanctified you, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.”
Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Aug 14
Who Was Jonathan Daniels ?
This week is the anniversary of the arrest of seminarian Jonathan Myrick Daniel in 1965 at the height of the racial strife in Selma in 1965. Daniel was killed when he took a shotgun blast that was intended for a black female, Ruby Sales. It killed him instantly. Daniels’ life showed a pattern of putting himself in the place of others who were defenseless and in need.
Describing the incident, Dr Martin Luther King said that “one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.”
What happened to Ruby Sales? Sales went on to attend Episcopal Theological School in Massachusetts which Daniels had attended (now Episcopal Divinity School). She has worked as a human rights advocate in Washington, D.C. She founded The SpiritHouse Project, a non-profit organization and inner-city mission dedicated to Daniels.
The Rev. Gillian Barr in an Evensong in honor of Daniel in Providence RI provides an apt summary of Daniels. “He was a young adult who wasn’t sure what he was meant to do with his life. He had academic gifts, a sense of compassion, and a faith which had wavered from strong to weak to strong. He was searching—searching for a way to live out his values of compassion and his faith rather than just studying them in a book. He was living in intentional community, first at VMI, then at EDS, and then finally with activists in Alabama. His studies, and his prayer life, and his community all led him to see more clearly the beauty and dignity in the faces of all around him, even those who looked very different and came from very different backgrounds than the quiet boy from Keene, NH.”