We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Videos

Videos, Easter 7, May 21, 2023

1. Gospel and Sermon – The Rev. Thomas Hughes

Some of Tom’s themes in his sermon follow. Life is a process. Jesus leaves this before us and we are called to become one of the people to glorify God because we are one of God’s people. This means we are called to a deeper conscious awareness of God in our lives, sorting out God’s presense in my life and God’s presents to me.

We begin to have a deeper awareness of the meaning of things and presence of God. This is how we glorify God in how we live. People see God moving through our lives, we show it and this is how they come to know God as well.

We live a life where evil doesn’t dominate our lives since it has no ultimate power. We live in the love of God which is the ultimate power that is permanent and that all will be well. Presence of God in your life opens up of understanding of God and gives you a sense of purpose and direction in life that the world can’t give you. We should live a life process of becoming more we were. The purposes of God that are already within us will be unfolded

2. Prayers of the People

3 UTO Introduction

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Videos, Easter 2, April 16, 2023

Complete service

1. Prelude – “O sons and daughters” – Choir

2. Gospel

3. Sermon

4. Prayers of the People

5. Offertory – “With the Voice of Singing”

6. Closing Hymn – “Jesus is Lord of all the earth”

Best of Holy Week – Words

Palm Sunday

1. Choir “Let the same mind be you”

The choir performs this beautiful, unpublished piece almost every Palm Sunday. Bill Roberts wrote this for the Phillipians class at Virginia Theological Seminary a decade ago.

2. Palm Sunday Passion Reading

Jan Saylor recruited and did a fine job to direct the members of the congregation to read this extended passage

3. Palm Sunday Sermon – Rev. Catherine Hicks

From the ending – “How often we come before God in this life with the events of our lives, with all of our sins and weaknesses interwoven into a thick tapestry of our own creation, a barrier that we believe blocks our way to God forever.

“But if we remember this story of all that happened the day Jesus died, we can recall that as Jesus breathed his last, God ripped the curtain of the temple in two, and destroyed every barrier that has ever blocked our way to God. ”

Maundy Thursday

4. “When you prayed beneath the trees” – Denise Gregory, Mary Peterman

Vocal duet that is appropriate for Maundy Thursday with Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane combining the ‘tree’ theme found in many Scriptures about the cross.

Good Friday

5. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord” – Helmut linne von Berg, Larry Saylor

First male duet at St. Peter’s, acappella!

6. “O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded”- Denise Gregory, Mary Peterman

Both the arrangement and the performance of this well known melody make this memorable. Mary’s flute is ethereal.

Easter Sunday

6. Offertory-“God’s Right Hand and Holy Arm”

An ambitious piece for Easter. Kudos to Denise Gregory for her direction of this piece. The glockenspiel was purchased for this performance.

7. Sermon- Rev. Thomas Hughes

Easter is the culmination of the three key events in Christ’s life – Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, important for this church and Christians. Resurrection which is celebrated on Easter Sunday is a state of life in which we are living now in our bodies.

Good Friday videos, April 7, 2023

The service has 6 parts 1.  an entrance in silence,  2. readings which include the John 18:1-19:42 Passion reading, 3  the Solemn Collects, 4 The Entrance of the Cross, the Veneration of the Cross, 5 Musical Meditations and 6 Conclusion. 

The first reading is from Isaiah, the ever present Psalm 22, and Hebrews. John’s Passion Gospel reading, John 18:1-19:42.

Entire service

Selections from the service:

1. Opening Acclamation

2 “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” – Larry Saylor, Helmut Linne von Berg

3. Passion Reading

4. Sermon – The Rev. Catherine Hicks

5. “O sacred head, sore wounded”- Denise Gregory, piano. Mary Peterman, flute

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Tenebrae Returned! April 5, 2023,

1. Background of the service Tenebrae is the opening of the Holy Week services for the church.

Unlike the other Easter services, Tenebrae doesn’t relate to a specific Holy Week event as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.

“Tenebrae” is Latin for shadows. The purpose of the service is to recreate the emotional aspects of the passion story. This is an unusual service with its own Liturgy. There is no music – the readings carry the service. And it’s not from the traditional Gospel readings.

It sets a mood and brings you through the Holy Week story through a set of “shadows”. The shadows move through the agony of last week- Betrayal, Agony of the Spirit, Denial, Accusation, Crucifixion, Death and Burial – symbolized by the lighted candles.

Each shadow generally has a reading from Luke, a Psalm and a hymn. The readings range from Lamentations in the Old Testament to commentary from St Augustine, and at last a reading from Hebrews, in which the theology of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ is presented for our consideration. The Psalms dominate the service. 

This service makes use of the power of light and sound to emphasize the darkness of death.  15 candles are lit and extinguished gradually throughout the service until one is left.   The candles are snuffed out as Jesus life was.  The candle in the end, the Christ candle, is taken away seemingly saying that evil won. However, dramatically a noise is heard at the end denoting the events of Good Friday and the Christ candle is brought back,  a solitary light in the darkness for resurrection into which we depart, indicating that Christ has triumphed.

2. Bulletin

3. Photo gallery

4. Service (begins at 10:11)

2. Sermon – Rev. Catherine Hicks

3. Passion reading

4. Eucharistic Prayer and Communion for Palm Sunday

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Videos, March 5, 2023

1. Hymn- “How Firm a Foundation”

2. Gospel John 3:1-17

3. Sermon Lent 2, Rev. Catherine Hicks

4. Offertory

5. Communion Hymn

Videos from Lent 1, Feb. 26, 2022

1 Prelude- “Soul Adorn Yourself with Gladness”

2 Hymnal discussion

3 Hymn “Lord who throughout these forty days”

4 Gospel and Sermon – Rev. Tom Hughes

5 Announcements

6 Offertory “Chorale -Christ the Flower”

Art for Lent 1, Year A

This Sunday’s first reading from Genesis invites us back to the beginning—to the creation of man and woman, and their original fall, succumbing to the temptation of the serpent. Ivan Kramskoi’s Christ in the Desert returns Jesus to this same beginning to face his own temptations before heading out to engage in public ministry.

Christ is seated in a rocky, arid landscape. Seated in the dust from which we came, Christ is battling. His battle is intensely psychological. As the devil tempts him with thoughts of worldly satisfaction, power, and an easier way out, he recalls the original temptation, the one Adam and Eve could not resist. This time around, Christ knows what is at stake—the gravity of the difference between Paradise gained or lost is visible on his face.

In the stillness of this arid scene, we see heaven and earth clash. In the distance we see a sky that is dawning, a subtle sign of hope that this New Adam will bring humankind back to right relationship with God. The bottom half of the image, though, is the rocky earth— a symbol of the human struggle, of the toil man has endured after the Fall, and of the unforgiving realities of human suffering if separated from God’s life-giving grace. Christ faces downward; he is embedded in this struggle, committed to enter into the depths of it. On his right, where the sky touches the desert, the background is the darkest—evoking these depths. Yet on his left, the rocky terrain reaches up to the brightening sky, seeking the light of a graced existence. And in the middle, Kramskoi places Jesus. He is the bridge between this darkness and light.

But his bridge-building will not be easy. The burden of this process shows on his face, weighs down his shoulders, and pierces his bare feet. His resolve culminates in the center of the image, in his hands gripping one another, fused together in a gesture of prayer. Strength emanates from these hands, hands of prayer fusing heaven and earth together once again as he resists temptation and remains faithful to who he is and what he is called to do.

On this first Sunday of Lent, Jesus’ strength in prayer is a gift of encouragement for our journeys as well—a gift to take with us into our own wildernesses where the voice of temptation utters false words. These hands fused in prayer remind us to resist the isolation that the devil’s false words bring, and to remain in the grip of grace—joined to God.

Videos from Ash Wed., Feb. 22, 2023

1. Gospel from Matthew

2. Sermon -How the righteous live – storing up treasures in heaven and returning to God

3. Imposition of Ashes

4. Hymn – Communion

5. Hymn – Communion