St. Peter's News – Page 76 – St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Port Royal, VA

Although the imposition of ashes is not a sacrament like baptism or the Eucharist, receiving ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday is a valuable reminder of several things. Receiving ashes reminds us that we are created from the earth, and that God’s grace gives us life. Our life is linked to the earth from which we were created.

Receiving ashes reminds us that we are connected the rest of humanity and to all living things. We are ALL made from the earth. We ALL dwell in skin, bone, blood, and cartilage. And we will return to the earth at the end of our lives here on earth. Ashes on our forehead remind us to sit with our own mortality, an important exercise in humility.

Receiving ashes in the Old Testament is a sign of penitence of feeling sorry for our sins. Job repents “in dust and ashes,” and there are other associations of ashes and repentance in Esther, Samuel, Isaiah and Jeremiah.

During the Ash Wednesday service , we will impose ashes on the foreheads of others in our households or place the ashes on our own foreheads if we are alone.

3 Key Points about Ash Wednesday

July 5, 2024February 7, 2024

Sarah Bentley Allred at Virginia Theological Seminary recently identified 3 teaching points for Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of the season of Lent, the forty days set aside to prepare to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Before he began his public ministry, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan, and resisting those temptations. The forty day season of Lent gives us needed time and space to enter into our own wilderness spaces as we examine our lives, acknowledge the ways that evil has slipped into our lives, ask for forgiveness, and make needed course corrections in our lives so that we can whole heartedly follow Jesus. The Ash Wednesday service is our doorway into this Lenten time and space in which we come before God in repentance, praying that God will strengthen our faith.

1 The Call to A Holy Lent “Our liturgy directly invites us into a holy season of specific practices aimed at helping us reconnect with God in preparation for the celebration of Easter. “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 265)

The Ash Wednesday Service, Feb 14, 2024

July 5, 2024February 7, 2024

Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

We began our observation of Jesus’ death and resurrection by preparing for Easter with a season of penitence. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent.

The liturgy provides words about the purpose of Lent. “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

Conversation about Ash Wednesday

July 5, 2024February 7, 2024

Two priests from All Saints Episcopal Church in Frederick Maryland discuss the Ash Wednesday experience. (click the link below)

Conversation about Lent

Lent 2024: Vices & Virtues

July 5, 2024February 12, 2024

The Christian practice of listing vices and virtues has a long history, going back at least to the times of the very early desert monks in the fourth and fifth centuries. As they cultivated their little patches of land in order to sustain themselves, they also cultivated their bodies and souls to make them as fruitful as they could. Later, medieval Christian manuscripts featured the motif of the ‘virtue garden’, in which the virtues (usually seven) are shown as trees, being watered by prayer.

Christianity, like Judaism, likes having things in sevens. The sixth-century Pope Gregory the Great codified what he thought of as the seven ’capital’ sins—the vices from which all other wrongdoings flow—establishing what we still commonly refer to today as the seven ‘deadly’ sins. The list has varied a little over time. Some vices have dropped out and others have been dropped in. But overall, it has been remarkably consistent.

There has also been variety in the seven virtues Christians have listed for special consideration and imitation. Some lists are based on Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (‘the Beatitudes’); some were developed to describe specific antidotes to each of the capital vices; and one was a combination of four ‘cardinal’ virtues, celebrated in ancient classical philosophy as well as in Jewish and Christian tradition—Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude—with the three ‘theological’ virtues outlined by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13—Faith, Hope, and Love.

The Alleluia Banner, Feb. 11, 2024

July 5, 2024February 12, 2024

This is part 2 of the Alleluia Banner story. Last week Feb. 4, the banner was decorated and finished by “God’s Garden” (children ages 5-9) during Sunday School (10:15-11am) and hung on the altar in the church.

This week the box for the banner was decorated and taken to the church before the service. A discussion about Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday ensued. Later, in the church service the banner was taken off the altar during the last hymn and placed in the box to be ready for the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, Feb 14.

1. Finishing the Banner’s box and taking it to the church. Photos.

(full size gallery)

2. Christian Education discussion – Shrove Tuesday, Lent (Ash Wednesday).

3. Announcement in Church

4. Closing Hymn – “Alleluia, alleluia give thanks”. Alleluia placed in hiding

Souper Bowl Sunday – Food and card donations

July 5, 2024February 12, 2024

1. Prayer at Announcements

We collected food cans from parishioners today plus cards addressed to the recipients to provide additional connections to our Village Harvest food distribution, happening Wed Feb. 21, 3pm-5pm.

2. Results. We collected 41 cans of food and 33 cards donated plus $75 in monetary donations.

The goal was thirty cans and thirty cards for those who come to the distribution so we exceeded our goal. It was also above last year with 25 cans Thanks to all!

It was not just the donation that was important but also the symbolic bringing of the donation to the altar which we did today. This practice goes back to at least Exodus in the Old Testament when Moses encourages bringing donations forward to the Lord.

Discretionary fund donations, Feb. 11

July 5, 2024February 13, 2024

Thank you for your discretionary fund donations. A total of $270 was collected Feb 11, 2024.

The bulletin of the same day announced recent funding. “In January, $850 of our discretionary fund helped 9 families with internet access, rent, and electricity. Thank you for your ongoing generosity for this ministry.”

Sermon, Feb. 11, 2024, Last Epiphany – “…He was transfigured. He became fully the person he was created to be.”

July 5, 2024February 12, 2024

Video

A few minutes ago Catherine and I were standing outside and we were talking about preaching on the transfiguration Sunday and neither one of us could remember anything we’d ever preached before!

I just remembered a Transfiguration sermon. What I talked about was the fact that they were having this discussion about building tents there so they could stay on the Mountaintop and the thrust of the sermon was you can never stay there. You have these experiences and then life moves on. That’s actually that’s relevant for today because the theme is about life moving on. It’s changing all the time. None of us here are the same people we were last year, the year before, 20 years ago for some of us.

The point though is that we’re not the people we used to be. We are different people not necessarily better or worse.

I want to give you a quote from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3:18. “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

So what he is saying there is that the whole experience of change is a part of life because we don’t want to be stuck in one place and be that person. I don’t want to be the person when I was five or 10 years ago . I’m happy with life as it as it’s coming along each day now. The idea of being stuck in one place of course is I guess that’s what death is you.