We celebrated Maundy Thursday in a different way this year. At times it felt odd not to be together, not to share a Bible Foods Dinner, not to wash each other’s feet, not to celebrate the Eucharist together. And yet, God showed up and brought the holiness of this special night into our hearts.
We created our agape meals in our own homes, prayed, sang, and found a new way to lean into the servant heart Jesus showed us at that last supper with his disciples.
Here is a photo of someone’s Agape meal at her home It looks perfect, doesn’t it?
Many of us gathered in our hearts through a guided meditation on the hymn, Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love. We were blessed with the music offered to us by Kevin Gorman as we walked into the holy space, always available to us through our loving God.
Tomorrow we walk toward the cross with Jesus. Please join us.
We celebrated Palm Sunday in a very different way, but it was not a “less than” experience, and in many ways, it became a “more than” experience.
Some of the responses I heard to the Palm Sunday pre-recorded service were, “I felt like I was with my whole parish family”, “It was wonderful!”, “BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL. Hearing you say the Palm Sunday service is the woods was wonderful. I felt like I was there with you”, “It brought tears to my eyes”.
It is our hope that you are worshiping with us, not merely “watching” the service, but allowing your heart to be changed through it. This may take some time for you to make that adjustment — but one thing that can help is for you to be involved in the pre-recorded service. There are many opportunities for you to be one of the lectors, or offer your musical gifts, or lead part of the service. If you are interested, please email me at rector@standrewsship.org.
We encouraged everyone to discover something from their own yard or context that they would use for palms and to process through their house or in their woods, and offer a litany of blessing of their spaces, so we can expand our understanding that our space which we live in is holy space, just like the space in our sanctuary. Here are some photos of doors or mailboxes decorated with the expression of palms on Palm Sunday that worked best for them.
Proclaiming “Hosanna in the highest” in a new way.
To engage in the worship of Palm Sunday, please click here.
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
We gathered by Zoom this past Wednesday — and it was WONDERFUL to finally see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices. Gathering back into community, even after a break of just a few weeks felt holy and true.
We focused our attention around the spiritual practice of blessing, as part of our Lenten exploration of the series of Life Transformed: The Way of Love for Lent.
We tied the spiritual act of blessing one another with the Christian ritual of turning away from and then adhering ourselves toward something else. This pattern begins in our baptismal vows (renouncing the forces of evil before proclaiming our faith and trust in Jesus) and is a part of our regular lives. Much of our conversation then connecting this Christian ritual with our current situation of living with the pandemic of COVID-19.
It was a good time of being connected with one another in thoughtful discussions about our faith and life.
We were blessed by the presence of The Rev. Canon Chris Streeter this past Sunday. Chris serves on the bishop’s staff as our Canon for Mission Formation and innovation and is leading the Diocesan initiative of Shaped by Faith. It was a joy to have Chris as our Celebrant and Preacher as he led us in an exploration of “love as the great Christian disrupter” of our lives. Chris was able to visit with our members during coffee hour and then to meet with the vestry as he shared more information on Shaped by Faith and how we may engage with this initiative as we move forward as a parish. For more information on Shaped by Faith, please click here. https://diocesecpa.org/shapedbyfaith/
For over 93 years. the mission of TheEpiscopal Home has been to provide the elderly in Central Pennsylvania a safe, loving community, and a supported living environment where they can receive the care they need.
Through its long history, The Episcopal Home has been able to maintain the personal dignity of every resident and provide quality care for all those who have chosen to make their home with us. The support of the diocese through the years – both financial support and untold hours of service – has helped us to care for the residents’ physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Thank you for joining us so faithfully in this mission of compassion and care.
It is with saddened hearts that we inform you that The Episcopal Home is no longer financially sustainable as a care facility and will be closing effective September 30, 2020. While this is an immensely sad time for us all, the Board came to this decision after lengthy, prayerful and prudent discernment. In the past five years, the Board has explored new offorts in fundraising, marketing, and financial management with results that have been good, but not robust enough to allow for sustainability. The trends today in eldercare and healthcare in our Commonwealth do not favor independent personal care homes and the difficulties that we have been experiencing in maintaining our vitality are not uncommon. In the past, the diocese has been very generous in supporting the Home and we are grateful. The margin of loss is not one that even a strident mission effort in our diocese could sustain; an endowment with a principle of ten million dollars would be necessary to ensure a sustainable draw to meet the annual deficit of recent years.
We ask not only for your prayers during this period of transition, but for assistance where able. We are committed to ensuring excellent care for the residents as we work to assist their families and responsible parties to resettle them in alternative facilities and housing, work to alleviate distress, and provide spiritual guidance during this time. Any who are able to volunteer their time and services to ensure the residents are safe and cared for are greatly appreciated. If you would like to learn more about how you can help, please contact the Administrator of the Home, Ms. Mary Grace Shearer. In the Way of Love, The Rt. Reverend Audrey C. Scanlan, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania.
We gathered to discuss the spiritual practice of “Learn”. This series designed by The Episcopal Church ties each of the 7 spiritual practices to one of the readings during the Great Vigil of Easter. The one chosen for this week was Proverbs, which speaks about the force of wisdom present from before time with God the creator.
We engaged with the idea that we are to take time each day to learn “about God” and to “learn God” — in other words, use both our mind and heart to learn about and engage with God in our daily lives. One of the riches of our evening was when we shared what we believe we have become wise in and how we have used our wisdom (grown through our love of God) in offering it to others and changing the world to become more Christ-like.
The Holy Spirit has drawn us into another extension of our desire to offer Christ’s healing to all people. We gather now as a group to knit prayer shawls, those wonderful, warm shawls that we create with prayer and yarn which become real manifestations of God’s love through our hands. We are so blessed to be able to offer someone in need, either in times of grief or health concerns, a prayer shawl. We all bless the shawls in church prior to giving them away, so they are from all of us at St. Andrew’s, and offered in and through the love of Christ.
All are welcome to join this ministry. We gather on the first Sunday of each month at 11:30 a.m. in the Parish Library for conversation, knitting advice, and prayer. If you are in need of a prayer shawl, please let Mother Barbara know so we can get knitting away for you!
We gathered at several times and in several different ways to answer the invitation to a holy Lent. Through the poignant and meaningful words of our service in the Book of Common Prayer and through the imposition of ashes at our healing service, downtown at our “Ashes to Go” station, and then this evening in the holiness of our sanctuary, we felt our hearts drawn to the hard and holy work of Lent. As always, our young people participate in the service at real depth, sharing the leadership of the service, imposing ashes, and opening their heart to the restoration God offers to all of us.
We begin this journey of Lent into the wilderness, that wild yet wholly alive place of transformation, so that when we shout our Alleluia’s on Easter morning, we can in truth and humility, that God has transformed our souls during this pilgrimage into healing and wholeness.
We took a trip to New Orleans (our PLC) for Mardi Gras, great food, great music and a whole lot of fun. Our local Town Jazz Band delighted us at this event which got us in the mood to celebrate, before we enter this time of inward reflection and repentance. We began at 5:30 p.m. with marvelous food, some real down-home Louisiana cooking with a Dixieland beat. When you think you can’t eat anymore, the Beignets, hot and loaded with sugar and Cafe’ Au Lait will come out of the Cafe Du St. Andrew’s.
Our “Wow” event!
We ended the evening with the burning of the palms from last year for ashes tomorrow. It was a holy and meaningful time, especially as we began this ceremony with this prayer —
These palm leaves represent the hopes and joys of Holy Week from last year. They will now become the ashes of remembrance and repentance from those places in the past year that we did not live up to being the people God calls us to be. Each year, each day, each minute, we have the opportunity to turn toward God, and begin again.
Our Bishop’s visit. We are blessed today with our
bishop’s presence among us. Although she is often here for other events or
meetings, today is her official bishop visit with us which happens every two
years. Our bishop is our shepherd and chief pastor so her visit with us is an
opportunity for us to get to know each other better, to experience worship together,
and for us to share our passions around God’s mission here in Shippensburg, and
to learn more about the diocese. We invite you all to a reception immediately
following the 10 a.m. service. After our fellowship time, Bishop Scanlan will
meet with Mother Barbara and your vestry members.
Confirmation of our Young People. We were blessed by our bishop as
she gave our young people two choices for confirmation this year: 1)
confirmation during her official episcopate visit (once every 2 years) and 2) a
service in the fall where our young people will assume integral liturgical
roles and the service will be an intimate celebration of their affirmation of
their adult faith. The second option allowed for continued formation of our
young people as they had not yet completed their more formal confirmation
preparation. That service will be on November 5th and we invite the
congregation to be a part of this special time.
We
celebrate with all our young people and acknowledge and affirm their walk in
faith. Today, our young people who will be prayed over and blessed in
preparation for their continued confirmation preparation are: Jonathan Luo, Julia Rhodes, Alexander
Smeltz, and James Williams. Our young people who will be confirmed today
are: Sarah Brooks and Neiley O’Donnell.
We give praise and thanksgiving to God for their presence here among us and
their faithful example of growing into the love of Christ.
Confirmation of our adults. We are incredibly blessed that
both Donna Harpster and Juanita Mills
are being confirmed in the Episcopal Church and becoming official members of
our parish. We are delighted to welcome them into our part of the Body of
Christ and rejoice of their presence and commitment to faithful living.
We gathered in candlelight, turned our hearts toward the holiness drawn near to us by the harpist, and settled into holy and sacred space. Through chanting, prayer, quiet, intimacy, and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we found a new expression of the love of God made real to us in community.
We offer these Taize Contemplative Eucharists on the first Saturday of every other month as a way to draw those of us who find God through contemplative practices in community as a pathway to wholeness.
We share a light supper afterwards so that we can continue the communion shared in the Eucharist.
Our Christmas Day Dinner was fabulous, full of friendship, abundant and delicious food, laughter, and joy. So many people came to enjoy a wonderful meal and spend Christmas with their friends. We also had bags of treats (freshly baked cookies, oranges) and a loaf of homemade bread for everyone to take home. A table filled with books and presents and activity bags was offered so all the young people could go home with a gift and it was wonderful to see the smiling faces of the children or of the parents or grandparents as they chose what they may like as a present.
We served the meal buffet style which worked out well, so people could feel more like they are at home, serving themselves what they liked and knowing they can always come back for seconds or more.
We were blessed to be able to offer this expression of Christ’s love to our friends and neighbors. Thank you to everyone who made this possible.
