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.

2025 Sun March 9

Arts and Faith, Lent 1, Year C

This scene of the temptation of Christ comes from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a 15th-century book of hours, or personal devotional book created especially for Duke Jean de Berry. The book offered meditations based on the time of day, as well as the feasts and seasons of the liturgical calendar. As the Latin text on the bottom tells us, this scene comes from the Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent.

The illuminated scene shows Christ resisting the temptations of the devil atop an ornately detailed Gothic castle. This castle was modeled after a real one, the Duke’s own castle at Mehun-sur-Yevre. Christ standing on top of this castle in the context of his temptation is an image that must have been deeply challenging for the Duke and meant to recall him to humility and conversion.

The scene is a conflation of the three temptations Jesus experienced in the desert. On top of the castle’s tower, he is experiencing the heights the devil asked him to jump from, and seeing all the riches of the world that might entice him. The devil completes the narrative by handing Jesus a stone to turn into bread. Alluding to all three temptations atop of the castle shows the Duke that he is in danger of succumbing to all of these. But rather than casting the Duke into despair and shame, the image offers hope and encouragement: we spot on the bottom right a mighty lion that has treed an ape-like adversary, a metaphor perhaps of the Duke conquering his personal temptations.

The three swans swimming in the moat further connect this scene to the Duke. An often-used symbol for de Berry, the swan was an homage to a woman for whom de Berry’s love was unrequited. To spot the swans in this image connects sin and temptation to one’s own hurts and woundedness. Our own suffering and pain can lead us to grasp tightly at our own reality, sometimes to the point of tearing our wounds even deeper. Conversion of heart means letting go and trusting in God’s healing love to mend the brokenness of our lives.

Remembering Harriet Tubman, March 10, 2025

Today March 10, 2023 the Episcopal Church recognizes Harriet Tubman on her own day from the day she died in 1913

Links
  1. Cleo Coleman as Harriet Tubman video
  1. Catherine’s sermon on Harriet Tubman and St. Patrick

St. Peter’s Episcopal in Port Royal, VA has a unique connection to Tubman through Port Royal resident Cleo Coleman. Coleman is a Baptist but visits our church and is a member of our Wed. Bible study

Cleo has also dramatized Harriet Tubman for years. We have a video of a performance on July 4, 2018. The video is introduced by Cookie Davis who has worked with Coleman. Coleman talks about her dramatization. We have selections of her performance only edited by a malfunctioning camera.

Then there is a sermon Catherine did on March 17, 2019, which pays tribute to both Harriet Tubman and St. Patrick. March 17 is St. Peter’s Day. From the sermon

“In today’s gospel Luke 13:31-35, Jesus is standing firm in the Lord as he heads toward Jerusalem. The Pharisees say to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

“Not bad advice—Jesus has been healing and teaching on his way to Jerusalem. So many people have benefited from his presence and his ministry with them. Certainly, a spiritual comfort zone for Jesus, and his disciples, would be to continue his work not so close to Herod’s interference. He could go back to Galilee and do his thing, and probably worry less about being killed.

“But Jesus knows that God wants him to press on, to Jerusalem, and Jesus knows that Jerusalem will be full of danger for him, because after all, Jerusalem is the city that kills the prophets and kills those who are sent to it!

“When she was about 24, Harriet (Tubman) managed to make it to Canada and escaped slavery. Finally, she was free!

“But like Patrick, Harriet could not rest in this spiritual comfort zone. She could not forget her parents and others who were still enslaved. She had a deep love for her people, so deep that she could not rest in her own freedom and forget them.

“So with the help of the Quakers, she made at least 19 trips back to Maryland, at the risk of her own life, to lead others to freedom.

“Harriet Tubman, saint, stood firm in the Lord, and pressed on, throughout her life, in pursuit of freedom not just for herself, but for her people.

At the conclusion of the sermon, Catherine asks the congregation “How is God calling us, the people of God, St Peter’s, out of our own spiritual comfort zone as this church? Where does God want us to stand firm, with love, and in that strength borne of love to press on? “

Lent from Ashes to Alleluias

The ashes symbolize both death and repentance. God has given us a way out of our plight of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” It is the way of the cross. The death of Jesus was God’s way of placing a sign of infinite value upon that which would otherwise be worthless.

The Alleluia comes to us from Hebrew, and it means “praise Yahweh.” Traditionally, it has been seen as the chief term of praise of the choirs of angels, as they worship around the throne of God in Heaven. ‘Alleluia’ is an apt expression in the context of what we celebrate during Easter – it is simply to praise the lord for his triumph over death.

We move from death at the time of Ash Wednesday to a focus of life and hope at Easter 47 days later.

Season of Lent – Dennis Bratcher

The season of Lent has not been well observed in much of evangelical Christianity, largely because it was associated with "high church" liturgical worship that some churches were eager to reject. However, much of the background of evangelical Christianity, for example the heritage of John Wesley, was very "high church." Many of the churches that had originally rejected more formal and deliberate liturgy are now recovering aspects of a larger Christian tradition as a means to refocus on spirituality in a culture that is increasingly secular.

Originating in the fourth century of the church, the season of Lent spans 40 weekdays beginning on Ash Wednesday and climaxing during Holy Week with Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday), Good Friday, and concluding Saturday before Easter. Originally, Lent was the time of preparation for those who were to be baptized, a time of concentrated study and prayer before their baptism at the Easter Vigil, the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord early on Easter Sunday. But since these new members were to be received into a living community of Faith, the entire community was called to preparation. Also, this was the time when those who had been separated from the Church would prepare to rejoin the community.

Today, Lent is marked by a time of prayer and preparation to celebrate Easter. Since Sundays celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the six Sundays that occur during Lent are not counted as part of the 40 days of Lent, and are referred to as the Sundays in Lent. The number 40 is connected with many biblical events, but especially with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for His ministry by facing the temptations that could lead him to abandon his mission and calling. Christians today use this period of time for introspection, self examination, and repentance. This season of the year is equal only to the Season of Advent in importance in the Christian year, and is part of the second major grouping of Christian festivals and sacred time that includes Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost.

Lent has traditionally been marked by penitential prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Some churches today still observe a rigid schedule of fasting on certain days during Lent, especially the giving up of meat, alcohol, sweets, and other types of food. Other traditions do not place as great an emphasis on fasting, but focus on charitable deeds, especially helping those in physical need with food and clothing, or simply the giving of money to charities. Most Christian churches that observe Lent at all focus on it as a time of prayer, especially penance, repenting for failures and sin as a way to focus on the need for God’s grace. It is really a preparation to celebrate God’s marvelous redemption at Easter, and the resurrected life that we live, and hope for, as Christians.

Mardi Gras or Carnival

Carnival, which comes from a Latin phrase meaning "removal of meat," is the three day period preceding the beginning of Lent, the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday immediately before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of the Lenten Season (some traditions count Carnival as the entire period of time between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday). The three days before Ash Wednesday are also known as Shrovetide ("shrove" is an Old English word meaning "to repent"). The Tuesday just before Ash Wednesday is called Shrove Tuesday, or is more popularly known by the French term Mardi Gras, meaning "Fat Tuesday," contrasting to the fasting during Lent. The entire three day period has now come to be known in many areas as Mardi Gras.

Carnival or Mardi Gras is usually a period of celebration, originally a festival before the fasting during the season of Lent. Now it is celebrated in many places with parades, costumes, dancing, and music. Many Christians’ discomfort with Lent originates with a distaste for Mardi Gras. In some cultures, especially the Portuguese culture of Brazil, the French culture of Louisiana, and some of the Caribbean cultures such as Trinidad, it has tended to take on the excesses of wild and drunken revelry. There has been some attempt in recent years to change this aspect of the season, such as using Brazilian Carnival parades to focus on national and cultural history. Many churches now observe Mardi Gras with a church pancake breakfast or other church meal, eating together as a community before the symbolic fasting of Lent begins.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday, the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday, is the first day of the Season of Lent. Its name comes from the ancient practice of placing ashes on worshippers’ heads or foreheads as a sign of humility before God, a symbol of mourning and sorrow at the death that sin brings into the world. It not only prefigures the mourning at the death of Jesus, but also places the worshipper in a position to realize the consequences of sin.  (See Reflections on Ash Wednesday). Ash Wednesday is a somber day of reflection on what needs to change in our lives if we are to be fully Christian.

In the early church, ashes were not offered to everyone but were only used to mark the forehead of worshippers who had made public confession of sin and sought to be restored to the fellowship of the community at the Easter celebration. However, over the years others began to show their humility and identification with the penitents by asking that they, too, be marked as sinners. Finally, the imposition of ashes was extended to the whole congregation in services similar to those that are now observed in many Christian churches on Ash Wednesday. Ashes became symbolic of that attitude of penitence reflected in the Lord’s prayer:  “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”  (Luke 11:4, NRSV).

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Voices of Lent

1.  Desmond Tutu   from In God’s Hands

And humans were given dominion over all creation. That is why we were created to be God’s viceroys, to be God’s stand ins. We should love, we should bear rule over the rest of creation as God would. We are meant to be caring in how we deal with the rest of God’s creation. God wants everything to flourish. It gives us a huge responsibility – that we should not ravish and waste the natural resources which God places at our disposal for our wellbeing.

 2. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

Lenten Message

Clarence Jorden of the Koinonia Movement many years ago wrote this: Jesus founded the most revolutionary movement in human history, a movement built on the unconditional love of God for the world, and the mandate to those who follow to live that love.

The season of Lent is upon us. It is a season of making a renewed commitment to participate and be a part of the movement of Jesus in this world. You can see some of that in the Gospel lesson for the first Sunday of Lent where Luke says that after the Baptism of Jesus he went into the wilderness, there to be tempted of Satan.

After the Baptism. Baptism is the sacrament of commitment to the Jesus Movement. It is to be washed, if you will, in the love and the reality of God, and to emerge from that great washing as one whose life is dedicated to living that love in the world.

In this season of Lent, we take some time to focus on what that means for our lives, whether it is as simple as giving up chocolate candy or as profound as taking on a commitment to serve the poor or to serve others in some new way. Whatever it is, let that something be something that helps you participate in the movement of God’s love in this world following in the footsteps of Jesus.

And the truth is, the fact that Jesus was baptized and began that movement in the world and immediately found himself tempted by the devil is an ever-present reminder that this movement is not without struggle. It is not easy. The truth is, this movement is difficult. It’s hard work. It’s work of following Jesus to the cross. And it’s work of following Jesus through the cross to the Resurrection. To new life. And new possibility. That is our calling. That is the work of the movement. To help this world move from what is often the nightmare of the world itself into the dream that God intends.

So I pray that this Lent, as they used to say many years ago, might be the first day of the rest of your life. It might be a new day for this world.

3. Pope Francis

God’s people, then, need this interior renewal, lest we become indifferent and withdraw into ourselves. To further this renewal, I would like to propose for our reflection three biblical texts.

1. “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor 12:26) – The Church

2. “Where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9) – Parishes and Communities

3. “Make your hearts firm!” (James 5:8) – Individual Christians

First, we can pray in communion with the Church on earth and in heaven. Let us not underestimate the power of so many voices united in prayer! The 24 Hours for the Lord initiative, which I hope will be observed on 13-14 March throughout the Church, also at the diocesan level, is meant to be a sign of this need for prayer.

Second, we can help by acts of charity, reaching out to both those near and far through the Church’s many charitable organizations. Lent is a favourable time for showing this concern for others by small yet concrete signs of our belonging to the one human family.

Third, the suffering of others is a call to conversion, since their need reminds me of the uncertainty of my own life and my dependence on God and my brothers and sisters. If we humbly implore God’s grace and accept our own limitations, we will trust in the infinite possibilities which God’s love holds out to us. We will also be able to resist the diabolical temptation of thinking that by our own efforts we can save the world and ourselves.

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Lent Begins March 5, 2025 with Ash Wednesday

Lent is a 40 day Christian festival beginning Ash Wednesday and concluding on Easter (Sundays are not counted).  The 40 day fast of Jesus in the wilderness was responsible for the number 40 being chosen .  It was said by Athanasius in 339 AD to be celebrated the world over.

The word “Lent” comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word lengten, which means “springtime,” named so for the time of the year in which it occurs.   The five Lenten Sundays are followed by the Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday, which begins Holy Week, when we relive the events of Jesus Christ’s suffering and death.

What we now call Lent was originally a period of fasting and study for catechumens who were to be baptized on the Saturday before Easter.  The purpose of this extended fast was to practice self-denial and humility. This was to prepare oneself for receiving God’s grace and forgiveness in baptism, given on Easter Saturday or Easter Sunday.

Lent is:

• A time for looking at the things we do that are wrong or that tempt us, asking God’s and other people’s forgiveness;
• A time for giving up things that keep us from being loving people;
• A time for doing extra things that will help us grow closer to God;
• A time to be more aware of what it means to love as God loves us;
• A time to ask God to help us to be more loving, remembering that God is always ready to strengthen us.
• A time to let go of our normal routine, try a new spiritual practice, to step out of our box, to reflect on ourselves, to reflect on a relationship with God. It can be a very creative time. At a later time these practices may help us endure trying of challenging times. Lent gives us a chance to practice facing our fears, journeying in the wilderness, confronting the dangers and difficulties we find there, and reaching out for Jesus’ hand the entire trip.
•”The forty days of Lent serve as a time for Christians to return to the Sacred Presence, to the God who has never left us, even though at times we have been far away. Lent is a time to renew classic disciplines of prayer and reflection, as well as ancient practices such as fasting and Bible study. All of this is designed to renew a right spirit within us and to prepare us for the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection at Easter.” ‐The Rev. Gary Jones, St. Stephens, Richmond

The Ash Wednesday Service

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.”

The service started without music and opening readings and flowed into a collect and readings, followed by the sermon. Examine yourself to see what divides you from others, from the earth and from God, and repent from these divisive things. Prayer, fasting, and denying yourselves these divisive things will be helped by meditating on God’s holy Word.

There is the “Invitation to the Observance of a Holy Lent”. It states that Lent’s purpose over the 40 days is for preparing new members through Holy Baptism and to restore those “had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church.” In a sense it is for the restoration of the Body of Christ, uniting with the new and those who had fallen away.  

Shrove Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Pieter Aertszen’s The Pancake Bakery, circa 1508

Great weather in 2024 and 20 in attendance on this day before Lent begins:

Photos, Feb. 13, 2024


(full size gallery)

The word “shrove” is the past tense of “shrive”, which means to confess. In the Middle Ages, this day was a time for people to confess their sins and ask forgiveness for them. This allowed Christians to enter into the season of Lent and prepare for Easter with a clean spirit.

It is also a day for frolicking – several places schedule pancake races. (We had one in 2011.) They race down streets carrying a frying pan with a cooked pancake in it and flipping it as you race.

Other names for this day include Carnival (farewell to meat) and Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday of the French tradition). Ironically, masks play an important role in many celebrations of Carnival around the world. What a shame that we can’t gather in person in our masks for a real Carnival celebration!

It is believed that Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday started in 1445 in Olney. Olney is in Buckinghamshire, England. A lady was getting carried away with making pancakes when she heard the church bells for the Shrove Tuesday mass. She was late! The lady ran to the church with all of her pancakes and that’s where the pancake tradition started.

Shrove Tuesday was the day for consuming dairy products. By giving up dairy products, people marked Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the wilderness. This custom is a remnant of an earlier tradition in which people prepared for the Lenten fast by using up food in their homes that they would not be eating during the season of Lent. These ingredients were made into pancakes, a meal which came to symbolize preparation for the discipline of Lent. It is exactly 47 days before Easter.

St. Peter’s did have a King Cake for dessert.King Cake is a round cake decorated with different colored icing and sprinkles.It is said to have originated in Old World France and Spain was associated with Epiphany during the Middle Ages but evolved further to be extended to Mardi Gras, particularly as the tradition came to America. Our version is closer to the Spanish sweet bread rather than the French which is filled bread with almond creme.

Our King Cake did included a small plastic baby. A commercial bakery called McKenzie’s in New Orleans. popularized the baby trinket that was baked into cakes back in the 1950s; they were originally made of porcelain but later swapped out for an easier-to-find plastic version. Whoever gets the baby must host next year’s celebration