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, who are still here, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

2023 Sun Dec 3

The Shape of Advent in Scriptures, Year B

Each week in Advent has a specific theme:

Week 1- The End of Time / Remaining Awake
Week 2 – God promises for Peace and Justice / John the Baptism
Week 3 – Rejoice (Gaudete Sunday) / John the Baptist
Week 4 – The Messiah

Advent comes from a Latin word – “advenire” – which means to come to/ During Advent. There are three comings:

• The Coming of God to the world as a human baby
• The Coming of God to the world in His glory at the end of time where God’s purposes will be fulfilled. The second coming
• The Coming of God into the world today. Jesus comes to us now in word and sacrament, in prayer and praise, in his Body, the Church

Advent causes us to remember that we are a people who live “between.” We live between the incarnation and the parousia, the day of the Lord.

Advent is a journey, a pilgrimage of watching and waiting. We are not ready for the Christ Child as we have work to do.

Read more

St. Peter’s Endowment Fund – An end of the year gift to the Church

Consider a gift to the St. Peter’s Endowment Fund this year by Dec. 17. If you have not taken your IRA minimum distribution, this would be a good fund to consider. It’s tax deductible These funds, which are invested, will help assure financial security for St Peter’s for years to come. Money from the fund can be used for the future maintenance of the buildings in the future and also for outreach projects that the church may take on. On your check, just designate the “Endowment Fund” in the memo line.

Giving to the Endowment Fund also offers some tax advantages. You can donate stock which is sold by the church with the proceeds going into the Endowment Fund. There are no capital gains for you and you can get a deduction for the appreciated value of the stock. Supporting St Peter’s in this way can increase your tax deduction and not your tax bill.

You can also go further and add a percentage of your estate which is taken off the total estate when computing estate tax.

For details consult one of the trustees, Johnny Davis, Ken Pogue or Ben Hicks.

Advent Season Resources

An online Advent potpourri in 6 categories of things to do in Advent – Read, Watch, Learn, Listen, Pray and Reflect and Make. There is something for everyone!

An Advent Collection

Read includes key points of Advent, the beginning of Advent, and waiting

Under Watch there are  videos –Nativity: The Art and Spirit of the Creche and The Story of Silent Night .

The Learn tab has the classes we have had at St. Peter’s including Luke’s Canticles, Matthew’s Infancy Stories, Christmas Carols and Dickens.

Listen includes Lessons and Carols from National Cathedral as well as an exploration of Antiphons .

Pray and Reflect features Advent meditations  a workshop involving prayer, scripture, candlelight and an adaptation of the Way of Love for Advent.

Finally Make has all sorts of crafts from Advent calendars, cooking and wreath creation.

Advent Online Learning

Many of these courses were part of Christian education in earlier years before COVID classes were before church.-

https://www.news.churchsp.org/courses/

No login or password is needed. You can start and stop the courses as desired. 

  1. Dickens A Christmas Carol and the Bible A deep read into the Christmas classic for references to the Bible and Dickens’ religious beliefs.
  2. Handel’s Messiah, Prophecy and Birth of the Messiah. The story of the Christmas part of the Messiah together with the music.
  3. Luke Canticles – Based on a book which examines 4 canticles in the Gospel of Luke, including the infancy story. A favorite!
  4. Matthew’s Infancy stories – Comparable to Luke but with a decidedly Jewish character and an emphasis on Joseph.
  5. The Twelve Days of Christmas Carols – 15+ carols for the days leading to Christmas. The background and musical selections are included.
  6. The new one this year is Renaissance Art and the Christmas Story. The Renaissance was the first period where art came into its own depicting the stories we know and love. The study is divided by subject and includes about 15 art examples.

Advent Meditations – Living Compass

Living Compass produces a book of daily meditations for Advent- “Living Well through Advent which begins Dec. 3

https://shop.livingcompass.org/collections/advent-and-lent-resources   The printed copy is $1 and the download is free.  (We have purchased 20 copies.)

The Living Compass Model for Well-Being offers us guidance in four dimensions of our being: heart, soul, strength, and mind and focus on how they are interconnected. The goal is wellness and wholeness

The theme this year is “Practicing Wonder as we move toward Christmas.”  Each week has an example of it demonstrated by the lives of the author

Week 1 is the connection between wonder and love. Through time and space, adversity and divide, love remains. Love is a constant. Like love, wonder opens the heart and touches our soul.

Week 2 is the connection between wonder and stories. Stories so often help us remember the One whose love we are preparing to celebrate, and those who have taught us so much about wonder and love through the years. Think of the diverse family members in your family

Week 3 explores the connection between wonder and thin places, be they physical, spiritual, emotional, or relational.  . A thin place is a location where the distance between God and Heaven and the Earth is thin. It is a place where deep transformation can happen as we strengthen our personal connection to God.

Week 4   is  the wonder of  God as made manifest in Mary’s faith and courage described in Luke, the birth of Jesus, and the reverent response of the shepherd

Advent Compline

Join us online for the 20 minute service on Zoom , Dec. 7, 14, and 21 at 7PM.

Link Meeting ID: 863 3487 7905 Pass 868383

Compline was a service to close the day, an opportunity to give thanks for the joys and graces experienced, a chance to confess sins committed throughout the day, and the perfect moment to close the day the same way it started: in prayer. If Morning Prayer is designed to start the day off right then Compline is designed to end it well. It frames you for sleep and puts the day in perspective. It helps you recommit yourself to prayer during Advent. Give it a try!

Giving Tuesday 2023 results

W. T. Purkiser preacher, scholar, writer wrote a hundred years ago, “Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” His point in life was to lead an active faith and to share our blessings, often more than we realize.

The 2023 collection on Giving Tuesday of $1,205 was the highest Giving Tuesday figure since 2019. This should help to pay for about 5 months of the Village Harvest in 2023. We serve about 100 people a month. Wonderful! Many thanks to those who contributed

Advent 1, 2023

Advent

Advent in 2 minutes Check out this Youtube video

Advent in 1 minute– A 2015 video from St. Mary’s Cypress

Explore Advent, Part 1– Over the next 4 Sundays there will be a presentation each week focusing on that week’s scriptures, art and commentary and how they demonstrate the themes of advent. Let’s get started with Advent 1.

Advent is the time when we change to a different year in the Lectionary. This year we move from Year A to B and from a concentration on the Gospel of Matthew to Mark. &nbspThere are several articles which are a general introduction to Mark 1. Shortest from christianity.about.com 2. Longer from the Catholic Bishops 3. Longest from a catholic source

Interested in the Church calendar ? Matthew’s interest about time in First Advent lends itself to understand how we measure time.

There are several articles/presentations about the infancy narratives 1. Brief summary between Matthew and Luke  2. Longer comparison