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A Very Productive Village Harvest, May 15, 2024
Below are some of the foods and workers on Tuesday, May 14 unboxing, sorting and bagging the distribution. Thanks to Cookie and Johnny for obtaining the food from the Healthy Harvest Food Bank as well as working with the food, assisted by Elizabeth, Andrea, Lin, Dave, and Catherine and Ben.
May was an explosion in both food provided and clients receiving! (A nice 188th birthday present for St. Peter’s, consecrated on this day in 1836.)The weather was drizzly but thankfully that didn’t affect the turnout. May featured the largest number of clients, 119 since Nov. 2020 when it was 135. (A year ago the number was 93). Elizabeth reports that “The 119 includes the people Catherine and Jan and Lin pick up for. This may have been more than usual, and we also seemed to have more people from Essex and from Port Royal itself than before.”
The pounds available in May was 1,400 the largest since Dec. 2022 at 1,468 (A year ago in May, 2023 1,143)
Year to date we have served 487 people compared to 415 last year representing a 17.3% increase. The client total also exceeds both 2022, 447 and 2021, 465. However, it would be under the pre-pandemic years of 2019, 593, and 2018, 501 (with one month cancelled). Still, it represents an important improvement over the last few years.
Sunday’s Thoughts, Pentecost, May 19, 2024
1 There were many “moving parts” during this service which remarkably moved together and created a memorable service. The only concern was the weather with the outdoor concert and reception. The weather held! The reception was divided up between the kitchen for people to get their food and to converse with the bishop with tables outside for people to enjoy the music.
2. Some parts of the service were the culmination of months of activity. Initially they moved at a slower pace but today they were up to speed. The three to be confirmed spent two months on Thursday nights to understand confirmation and to decide if they really wanted to go through with it. At the end they contributed to the process of organizing the procession. The choir spent months learning the prelude “Let the Whole Creation Cry”.
3. Those who were part of the reception had to be organized to decide who was bringing what. The choir had to prepare as well the “Tongues of Fire” on the last hymn. The “Little Falls Bluegrass band” had to be booked and coordinated when they were to appear. Cookie had to prepare the altar and outside flowers.
4. The Bishop has been in this position for 22 years. Going to a new church means going through a check list. And of course a special sermon for both Pentecost and the presentation. The presentation involving two churches had to be worked out. The priests involved have much to do leading up to the service. We made time for the Bishop an hour before the service for her to talk to the confirmands. One unique feature during the service was her conversing individually with each which made the process more meaningful to all at the end.
5. The bishop also contributed to her choir with her sonorous voice. She also gave an impromptu talk prior to the reception in the Parish House about General Convention coming up in June.
6. And then there was Pentecost. 50 days since Easter. As the Bishop says the second most important Sunday of the year (behind Easter). We had to make sure to extinguish the Paschal candle for the last time. “Hail Thee, Festival Day” is sung almost every Pentecost. It is a difficult hymn the way it is organized and requires practice. But there is nothing better for Pentecost!
6. It was both an enjoyable and meaningful day. 9 people between two churches, St Peter’s and St Paul’s, king George were confirmed or received.
Pentecost, an important Feast
Because of…
1. The arrival of the Holy Spirit. That will be symbolized by the “Tongues of Fire” resting on the disciples. Lots of red for the Holy Spirit will be worn tomorrow
2. The birthday of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament provides the account of that as well as the missionary journeys of Paul in several books of the New Testament
3. the Bishop visitation to St. Peter’s. 3 youth to be confirmed and 3 adults to be received
4. A luncheon afterward Food provided by parishioners and the Little Falls Bluegrass Band providing the music
5.A time to bring us together. Language was no barrier at Pentecost
the last stanza from Jan Richardson’s poem at Pentecost,
WHEN WE BREATHE TOGETHER
This is the blessing
that blazes among us
when we speak
the words
strange to our ears,
when we finally listen
into the chaos,
when we breathe together
at last.
Pentecost, Year B
I. Theme – The coming of the Holy Spirit
Window from St Aloysius’ church in Somers Town, London
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
First Reading – Acts 2:1-21
Old Testament – Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm – Psalm 104:25-35, 37 Page 736, BCP
Epistle –Romans 8:22-27
Gospel – John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Pentecost is a milestone in the story of salvation. It was on that day that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the believers in an upper room in Jerusalem as they awaited the baptism Jesus told them they would receive. Jesus had promised this event just before He ascended into heaven.
"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
The symbol of fire is important for Pentecost.Fire has long represented God and the presence of his Holy Spirit. Fire consumes but is its own energy force. hat energy is around action and for the church, mission. Acts is about mission, about speaking, proclaiming, the good news to people everywhere, in languages (and language) they can understand. This is the day in which the mission of the church was given birth.
Commentary by Rev. Mindi
The familiar passage of Ezekiel prophesying to the dry bones reminds us that breath, wind and Spirit are all connected. They are the same words in Hebrew, the same words in Greek. The wind from God comes over the waters and breathes life into creation. The breath of God breathes into the human being and the human being becomes alive in Genesis 2. And the Spirit gives new life, eternal life, beginning in Ezekiel and echoed in John 20 and Acts 2 and elsewhere in Scripture. The celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit is the recognition that the breath that gives us life also gives us eternal life, for breath, wind, and Spirit are from God. Ezekiel is given a task that seems impossible, but God is showing Ezekiel that even out of death new life can rise through the power of the Spirit.
The Psalm is a hymn of praise, offered in the course of Temple worship, probably at the Autumnal harvest festival, given its theme of creation. It is a poem praising God and celebrating the order, the balance and majesty of creation reflecting upon God’s mighty power. Psalm 104 speaks to the breath of creation and God’s wondrous work of breathing life into the world and all of creation. Not only do all things live and die, but God renews the face of the ground (vs. 30), breathing new life into the earth. We see this in the turning of the seasons year after year, but we also see this work in the re-creation after disaster. We see the waves reshape the beach after a hurricane; we see the forests regrow after fires and volcanic eruptions–life returns, new life is begun.
Acts 2:1-21 is the familiar Pentecost story by the author of Luke, where the disciples are gathered in Jerusalem, and the wind from God blows through the house they are gathered in. We all know the story. We use the color red to represent fire, the image of flames above their heads. But we really don’t know what the heck happened there. Why this happened in this place, at the spring harvest festival? What we do know is that this story opens the door for ministry outside of the disciples own people–God’s message is for all. And the vision of Joel is renewed–all people, young and old, slave or free, male or female–and as Paul will add, Jew or Gentile–have the opportunity to be filled with God’s spirit and participate in God’s reign and vision for new life.
Romans 8:22-27 reminds us that the Spirit helps us in the waiting time. Through our Lectionary cycle we relive the history of faith, and as we go into the season after Pentecost, we are in a great period of waiting. There are no more major church holidays until Advent. We have a long time of waiting, and in our lives and in the world, we are still waiting for Christ to return, for Christ to enter our lives in a new way. Through the presence of the Spirit–through the witness of God’s love by our love for one another, our work for God’s justice, and our work for peace–we live into God’s hope through the power of the Spirit. The Spirit helps us in this time of waiting, and continues to remind us God is not through with us, or the world, yet. God is continuing to do something new
John 15:26-16:15 explains the writer of John’s view that the Spirit’s work is not only to bring eternal life, but a newness of life now. We are called to testify to the light, as John shares in chapter 1, and our lives are to be that testimony, that living witness. How we live our lives shows whether we live with the Spirit within us. We are called to love one another, as Christ first loved us, and the witness of this love is our lives, which is full of the Spirit. If we do not love one another, we do not love God, and we do not live with the Spirit in our lives.
Visual Lectionary Vanderbilt, Day of Pentecost, May 19, 2024
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Chancellor Village Eucharist, May 14, 2024
The priests in the Rappahannock Region of the Diocese of Virginia hold a Eucharist service every Tuesday at 1pm for the retirement community of Chancellor Village, just west of Fredericksburg, VA. First, a few photos from May 14 and then the Gospel and sermon reflecting Gospel on Easter 7.
A. Photos
B. Gospel and Sermon
Pentecost – The Quick Versions
What about in 3 minutes ?
Pentecost, an Ancient Festival
Pentecost was the second of the three great annual festivals of Israel, the others being Passover and the feast of Tabernacles. The festival was often called the feast of Weeks because it took place seven complete weeks, or 50 days, after the Passover. Jews from all over the world came to Jerusalem for this festival, more than for any other. The day was one of solemn convocation when no work was to be done. The people offered the first loaves of fine flour made from the justharvested late grain crops. Other sacrifices were offered in the temple and a meal was prepared with freewill offerings from the people. To this meal the widows, orphans, the poor and the stranger were invited.
On this festive day, in the year of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit was bestowed upon the apostles. In Acts, Luke describes the sound of a mighty rushing wind and the sight of tongues of flame resting on the head of each apostle. What a transformation took place in these men and women! They were truly “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:29). Out into the crowd they went, boldly proclaiming the “mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11). One of the gifts of the Spirit— the gift of tongues—enabled the polyglot crowd to hear the apostles speaking, each in his or her own language.
Peter, no longer afraid, boldly proclaimed the event to be a fulfillment of the promise of God made through the prophet Joel: “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh… whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Acts 2:17a, 21). Then he preached the first Christian sermon, witnessing to the resurrection of the Messiah “this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). From the crowd of Jews and converts, three thousand heard his message, were baptized, and became followers of Jesus.
Acts, which is often called the gospel of the Holy Spirit, is full of stories that show the power of the Holy Spirit working in the early Church. It was the Spirit who gave life to the early Church; that same Spirit gives life to us in these latter days.
Pentecost is a time of renewal for Christian believers. Through studying the story of Pentecost, many seek and pray for spiritual gifts for the church during this time of holy celebration. There is a renewed focus on evangelism, empowerment from the Holy Spirit, deeper intimacy with God, and fellowship. For Christians, the celebration of Pentecost imparts faith, hope, a sharing of community, and an awareness of a purpose much greater than ourselves.
Special Pentecost videos
Pentecost represents the end of the Easter Season and a time of transition. Besides being the “Birthday of the church” and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, it is a feast day. Yes a day to have fun!
Over the years we have had special events on Pentecost such as Prayer Walks, picnics, receptions and special music. Some guests have appeared as well. We have also had some pictures and videos. Some videos just take stock of who are while others record part of the Pentecost services
Here are 5 videos through the years beginning in 2016
1. 2016 Church with with front piece replacement and 3 priests! A wild gathering at Pentecost!
3. “Sweet, Sweet, Spirit”, 2019
The Little Falls Bluegrass Band returns for Pentecost
The Little Falls Bluegrass Band from Stafford returns this Pentecost to entertain us as they did in 2023.
The gentlemen have played bluegrass music for many years in many bands, including this one. They have played for weddings, social and church services. They are tight both in music and friendship – and it shows! Several attend Community Baptist Church in Stafford.