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.

2024 Sun Aug 11

Schools to begin, Mon., Aug. 12, 2024

Local schools begin on Aug 12, 2024

School supplies are thought of a pencils, pens, paper and the like but prayers and blessings should be part of the supplies as well. From BuildFaith:

“Blessings and prayers are practices that help ground and guide us. Prayer reminds us that our community extends beyond what we see in front of us, connecting us to something bigger than ourselves. Blessing reminds us of God’s love in our lives. During times of transition and change, establishing a pattern of prayer and blessing can offer space to express worries and joys, hopes and dreams, and a time to both accept God’s love and peace, and extend it to someone else.”

Here are two prayers from Buildfaith:

A Prayer for the New School Year

“God of all wisdom, we praise you for gifting us with curiosity and learning. Give to all students, teachers, and caregivers a clear sense of your love. May they feel your presence throughout this school year. Guide their choices, their quest for knowledge, and their relationships. Use their successes and failures as opportunities to grow in understanding of who you would have them to be. Continue to shape them, that they may walk in the way of Christ, grow strong in Spirit’s love for all people, and know the complete joy of life in you. In the name of Christ our Great Teacher, we pray. Amen.” Linda Witte Henke, adapted, “From the Vine,” in Marking Time: Christian Rituals for All Our Days, Moorehouse Publishing 2001, p. 63.

A Prayer for Parents

“Loving God, We confess some days the worries of parenthood are as abundant as the joys. Guide us through the valleys, so we may be present for our children in their valleys, until we are all brought again to the the mountaintop. We ask you to bless our children with hearts of compassion and courage, and keep them safe from harm. Fill them with the knowledge that they are loved and beloved. And may we always remember to pray: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.” Meg Bucher, adapted, www.sunnyand80.org; Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Serenity Prayer”

A downloadable resource

C.S.Lewis, Watchman of his generation

Psalm 130 – "My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1965), commonly referred to as C. S. was a British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist.According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of friend J. R. Tolkien and others, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England". His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim. Biography

“Love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will…The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love your neighbor; act as if you did."

– C. S. Lewis

"Look for yourself & you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, & decay… …look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in

– C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity  

“Remember He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can’t see it. So quietly submit to be painted"

– C. S. Lewis

“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him & bad when it turns from Him.”

– C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce

 "We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito  

– C. S. Lewis

 "Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose." 

– C. S. Lewis

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

– C. S. Lewis

“Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.”

– C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity  

Read more thoughts

Virgin Mary, Aug. 15

We celebrate her saint day on August 15. 

Mary lived circa 18 BCE- 41 CE. She was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, the daughter of Joachim and Anne and the wife of Joseph, the carpenter. Little is known of her life except when it relates to Jesus life. She remained faithful to him through his death (when his disciples denied, betrayed, and fled), and even after his death, continued life in ministry with the apostles.

The New Testament records many incidents from the life of the Virgin which shows her to be present at most of the chief events of her Son’s life:

  • her betrothal to Joseph [Luke 1:27]
  • the Annunciation by the angel Gabriel that she was to bear the Messiah [Luke 1:26-38]
  • her Visitation to Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist [Luke 1:39-56]
  • the Nativity of our Lord [Luke 2:20]
  • the visits of the shepherds [Luke 2:8-20] and the magi [Matthew 2:1-12]
  • the Presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple at the age of forty days [Luke 2:22, 2:41]
  • the flight into Egypt, the Passover visit to the Temple when Jesus was twelve, [Matthew 1:16,18-25; 2; Luke 1:26-56; 2];
  • the wedding at Cana in Galilee [John 2:1-11]
  • and the performance of her Son’s first miracle at her intercession [John 2:1-11],
  • the occasions when observers said, "How can this man be special? We know his family!" [Matthew 13:54-56, Mark 6:1-3, Luke 4:22; also John 6:42],
  • an occasion when she came with others to see him while he was preaching [Matthew 12:46-50,Mark 3:31-35, Luke 8:19-21],
  • her presence at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus commends her to the care of the Beloved Disciple [John 19:25-27],
  • her presence with the apostles in the upper room after the Ascension, waiting for the promised Spirit [Acts 1:14].   

Besides Jesus himself, only two humans are mentioned by name in the Creeds. One is Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator of Judea from 26 to 36 AD and the other is Mary. There are more feast days in The Episcopal Church honoring Mary than anyone else.

There have been many appearances of Mary over the centuries. Tradition says that in 39 CE, the Virgin Mary appeared in a vision to Saint James the Great in Zaragoza, Spain. Over the centuries, there have been dozens of additional reports of appearances of the Virgin Mary in different times and places. Two of the most influential visions of the Virgin Mary are the Virgin of Walsingham and the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Her story was carried by National Geographic in December, 2015 –"How the Virgin Mary Became the World’s Most Powerful Woman"

Her message to us was simple – "Listen to Him. Listen to my Son. Do what He tells you."