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.

Story of a painting – Rembrandt’s “Presentation in the Temple”

Rembrandt returned to the subject, "Presentation of Jesus in the Temple" at least 5 times from 1627 to 1654, two paintings, three etchings.

The subject is the biblical story of Simeon. Jesus was still an infant when Joseph and Mary took him to the temple to be presented to God. There they were approached by Simeon, a devout old man who recognised the child as the Saviour and praised him to God.

The most famous of these works was in 1631 when he was about 25 and still living in Leiden. Later that year he moved to Amsterdam. This painting is the high point of Rembrandt’s Leiden years: it represents the sum total of his artistic abilities at that

Most of his paintings are in very dark tones out of which his figures seem to appear to the foreground. Rembrandt was the master of dark and light and most of his pictures are made in this style of struggle between dark and light, night and day, sorrow and joy.

The key to the picture is how carefully and delicate the figures are painted, even those in the darkest part of the painting. The beautiful contrast, between the light on the central group and the soft dimness of the remoter parts of the cathedral, illustrates a style of work for which Rembrandt was very famous.

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Sermon, Rev. Thomas Hughes, Jan. 28, 2024

Sermon is transcribed from the video.

The lessons today are all about spiritual considerations. If you spend a little time with them, the lessons are all about the spiritual nature of what it means to live in this world before God. So with that in mind there are really four things I want to talk about today. One is knowledge and kinds of knowledge . There are two kinds of knowledge – there’s spiritual knowledge, there’s intellectual knowledge and there’s also this basic drive that human beings have for wholeness. Then I want to talk a little bit about symbols and how they are an expression of our spiritual lives.

I’m sure we’re all aware that our culture is really starving spiritually. There’s no other way to describe it. You hear descriptions of  places where there is  a food desert.  I’ve heard that expression lately talking about places where there is food that is not available in the way that people need food. Jesus  said you did not live by bread alone. Jesus’ teaching is all about being fed spiritually even though he is very mindful of what it required to live in this world and what human beings  needed to do to survive. There’s no reason to think he wasn’t always respectful of people’s knowledge. Certainly growing up in the in the carpenter shop he knew how to build things; he understood how things in this world work so he was not naive about that. Yet his life was  all about something else altogether different. His life was all about teaching and revealing the spiritual nature of the world and of God and of the spiritual nature that we all have to all the people around him. 

Now, the idea that there are spiritual things at the heart of all goes to a little quote here in Jeremiah where it says I  created you as a strong vine with your roots firmly in the ground to produce for me. Why is it then you have produced wild grapes instead of those for which you were  created? Going all the way back some 700 years before Christ we had the great Prophet Jeremiah writing about the fact that what was coming up in our lives, what was coming up in civilization was not what God had intended. God had planted plants that were to give birth to a whole new kind of life of the spirit. Instead, something else was happening it’s still happening even though all these 2,000 years later. 

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Sunday’s Links, Jan. 28, 2024

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany Dealing with a spirit

  • Web site
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  • Facebook St. Peter’s Page
  • Location – 823 Water Street, P. O. Box 399, Port Royal, Virginia 22535
  • Servers, Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Morning Prayer, Jan 28
    Lector: Linda Kramer
    Altar Cleanup: Elizabeth Heimbach
  • Wed., Jan 24, Ecumenical Bible Study, Parish House, 10am-12pm  Reading Lectionary for Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
  • Thurs., Jan 18 -25, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
  • Thurs., Jan 25, Conversion of St. Paul

  • Wed., Jan 31, Ecumenical Bible Study, Parish House, 10am-12pm  Reading Lectionary for Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
  • Fri, Feb 2, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple
  • Jan., 2024 newsletter
  • All articles for Sunday, Jan 28, 2024
  • Recent Articles, Jan 28, 2024

    Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Jan. 28
    Photos
    Videos
    Flashback to 2015
    Sermon
    Bulletin
    Lectionary
    Commentary Fourth Sunday
    Healing narratives in Mark
    Possession in the Gospel of Mark
    Demons…in our time
    Visual Lectionary Vanderbilt
    God’s Calling to us – Discipleship Issues
    Following Jesus – David Lose
    The Season after the Epiphany – the Gospels

    A Case for Love
    Case for Love Journal
    “Love Board” – collective documentation
    Director interview – how the film came to be
    The Way of Love – a summary
    How can we walk in the Way of Love?

    Conversion of St. Paul, Jan. 25
    Conversion of Paul, Jan 25

    Candlemas, The Presentation, Feb. 2
    The Presentation and Candlemas
    Candlemas as celebrated
    Rembrandt – Story of a Painting
    Art interlude

    Ministries
    Village Harvest Jan., 2024
    Sacred Ground, Jan., 2024
    Sunday’s Thoughts

    “A Case for Love” – 30 day Journal

    The team that created the movie “A Case for Love” is beginning the “Month of Unselfish Love.” During the next month, everyone is invited to perform daily acts of selflessness and journal those moments.

    Two options to document your efforts:
    1. Download the 30 days journal
    2. Download the single page you can date and use in MSWord or Google docs for a particular day

    What to write?
    1. Describe the act of love.
    2. Describe how it impacted the recipient.
    3. Describe how it impacted you.
    Thank you!