Worship – Page 8 – St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

Stringing beads for prayer

This evening we gathered for companionship along the way, for nourishment for our lives and souls, and we strung our beads, some of which we created last week out of clay, to create our own personalized Anglican Prayer Beads.

Oh, a little bit of fun, before we begin the hard work.

We all used olive wood beads from the Holy Land for our “Weeks beads” (the 7 between each cruciform beads). Seven is an important number in the Bible and symbolizes completion.

Lovely beads that complement the wooden beads

We also chose from a number of colors the spacer beads. It’s totally amazing how many different variations there were. No two were alike. Some used colors to represent the creation. Others picked colors which complemented their clay cruciform beads, while others chose colors which contrasted their clay cruciform beads. That’s part of the process of choosing and stringing your own beads – each string becomes your own and you see it as a way to express your identity and your particular way to interact with God.

Next week we will gather to pray the beads. Too often we come home from a bead making workshop with a beautiful set of beads and have no idea how to incorporate them into our prayer practice. We want to give everyone a chance to learn how to actually invite and allow them to make a difference in our lives.

We ended this evening with blessing our beads and sharing the Office of Compline together.

It was a wonderful and holy time together. Come and join us for our third session next Wednesday.

National Acolyte Festival

This past Saturday, our parish was represented at the National Acolyte Festival~ and it was so much fun! We joined many other young people at our beautiful National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

We brought our many beautiful banners along and proudly joined the procession.

Working hard on getting everything just right

We sat right up front so we could be a part of the grand service. We were honored by the message offered to us by The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson who was the presider and preacher.

His sermon was about “All I ever needed to know I learned from being an Acolyte” was about servanthood, kindness, and acceptance of all people.

We hope each year more and more of our young people can join us. It’s a fabulous experience!

To view more photos of this event, please click here.

Pet Blessing Service

Today we celebrated the Feast Day of St. Francis, who is known for his simple life of poverty and service and his deep reverence for God’s creation and all of God’s creatures.

We welcomed many pets, which added fun and liveliness to our worship service. We blessed cats, dogs, guinea pigs, and two adorable little bunny rabbits. We are blessed by the animal companions we share life with. It was a joy to be able to offer God’s blessings upon these animals and the families created by their presence.

Our children and youth choir also delighted us as they sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful”. We are a very blessed congregation.

Choir Party today

We are so blessed by our faithful music ministers here at St. Andrew’s. It is such joy that we have a number of members who offer their gift of music as part of our worship at 10 a.m. They are led by Organist and Choir Master Dr. Gerald Weale (Jerry), for whose leadership we are most grateful.

Our wonderful organist and choir master!

The choir sings from September through mid-June. They rehearse Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. in the PLC. New members are always welcome.

Today a luncheon was offered by Mother Barbara at her home to show her appreciation for their faithfulness and the many gifts they offer our parish. Please join her in expressing your thanksgiving for their ministry.

Book of Psalms: How they respond to our life

Tonight, we gathered for dinner, then for a conversation about how the psalms were used in the liturgy of the Jewish temple. We learned that the themes of the psalms connected with major festivals which celebrated pivotal events in the salvation story of the ancient Israelites, such as the Passover and the Day of Atonement. In addition, they were used during rituals of purification, entrance hymns, victory songs, King’s birthdays or wedding times. The psalms responded to and led people forward in their thinking to how the ancient Jews structured their worship lives.

We then looked at how we as Christians use the psalms in our worship — always as a response to the Old Testament Reading. A response mandates that we say the psalm together and also says that the sentiment, or wisdom, or thought process of the psalm offers something that leads us in responding to the Old Testament reading in a faithful manner. We looked at the reading and response for Sunday — the grumbling prophet Jeremiah and the psalmist response, in both the NIV (New International Version of the Bible) and Psalms for Praying by Nan Merrill.

After all this discussion, we looked at how St. Benedict, as he formed the Benedictine community 1500 years ago used the psalms to respond to life, to draw people through the week to a place of faithfulness of God. It’s fascinating how we can use the scriptures to remind us about God and God’s faithfulness and we can structure our practice of praying the psalms so that we use certain ones to offer the support, comfort or challenge we may need (predictably) at the moment throughout the week.

We ended by listening to the chanting of the psalms by SSJE (Society of St. John the Evangelist). Here’s the link to purchase the CD: https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Us-Sleeping-Compline-Prayers/dp/1561012556

In the still of the night, after a long day, by candlelight, we could have all fallen asleep at the moment, lulled by the melodic chanting of the psalms by the monastic community, but woke up to eat pie and ice cream and wish each other a good night.

Our next series of fellowship, conversation, and engagement will be making Anglican Prayer Beads, which will begin on October 5th. Please join us!

Commemoration of September 11th~ 15 years later

This morning at our 10 a.m. service we commemorated the 15th anniversary of September 11th. Each of us had our story to tell, where we were when we learned of the attack, the ensuing horror, and the changes it made in our lives. It was clear there is still a need of healing as we continue to grapple with understanding the complexity and complete depravity of humankind which allowed this attack to occur.

We were blessed with the presence of our Mayor, Bruce Hockensmith, and members of the West End Fire Company. It was a joy to recognize their dedication to our community and their union with the civic leaders and all those who serve our communities who are always willing to risk their lives for the common good.

One of our parishioners offered a display of newspapers and photos of the week following the attack as well as a book which showed the gift of the firefighters who fearlessly offered their services to help those in need.

Books highlighting the sacrifice of many

We offered a memorial Eucharist, dedicated to all those who lost their lives in the attack, which was moving and set the loss within the greatest gift of all, the sacrifice of Christ which enables us all to enter into an eternal life, where there is no sorrow or pain.

Two of our young members played taps, which was very moving. We entered then into a time of silence and then the tolling of the bell.

Play taps to honor the victims of this terror attack

All that we offer seems inadequate to address the loss that so many individuals suffered that day and the loss to our nation. However, our liturgy is rich and real and invites us to place our pain within the love of God which holds it all. Thanks be to God!

Crucifer Training

This past Saturday, our vergers, whose ministry is centered around hospitality and worship preparation, trained several young people to be crucifers. It is very important to us that our young people find their place within our worship leadership. Our Book of Common Prayer states that all baptized are full members of the Church and we honor that by involving our young people in as many roles as possible at St. Andrew’s.

Crucifers carry the cross and lead the procession into the church (symbolizing the awareness of Christ’s presence among us), carry the gospel book (symbolizing the proclamation of the good news of Christ among the people), bring the offering to the altar for blessing (symbolizing everyone’s offering of their whole self to God), help set the table (symbolizing the holy preparation of the Great Thanksgiving as being of and for the people of God) assist at the altar (ring the sanctus bells, symbolizing the especially holy moments of the Eucharist), fill the second chalice (symbolizing the distribution of the holy elements to the people), and carry the cross in the retiring processional (symbolizing our taking the cross of Christ into the world).

As you can see, crucifers do important and holy work!