We want you to be able to be a part of our worshiping community in the safety of your own home. We are a gathered community in heart and spirit and we are grateful you are here with us. Click below for the Virtual Worship Service.
We invite you to download a bulletin so you can sing along with the hymns and share in the prayers. Click below for the bulletin for this service.
Click below for Mother Barbara’s Homily for this Service.
Click below for Mother Barbara’s Message to our Younger Ones
“A pilgrimage is a return to the place of your resurrection.” This is a common understanding among the Celtic tradition and also among modern theologians. This statement says to me that the pilgrimage I am about to embark upon, which will lead me toward my resurrection, begins not when I take my first step on the well-worn pilgrimage path of the Camino de Santiago, but with each turn of my heart and soul within me as I prepare for the spiritual and physical journey. For after all, resurrection means healing, new life, wholeness and abundance of life — and that means my soul is changed.
So my pilgrimage begins deep within my soul, within my own brokenness, vulnerability, needs, hopefulness, yearnings, and dreams. I invite you into this journey with me, my inward journey as I journey outward on The Way in Spain next week.
We understand that we are hard-wired to be in relationship with God and our theology tells us that God is active in our lives. Have you ever wondered how that happens? How God shows up? How we can be attentive to God’s presence? What helps us open ourselves to God?
These are all great questions and some which we explore in our book study on the book, The Mystic in You: Discovering a God-filled World. The author, Bruce Epperly defines a mystic as people who see holiness in everyday life. Wouldn’t you want to be one? Maybe you already are one?
Our conversation takes us into the world of people throughout the ages who have lived their lives this way and who can offer us insight and guidance. We looked at St. Francis of Assisi at our first session.
Here are the 4 practices offered for us to try, with St. Francis in mind —
Practice One: Finding God in the Nonhuman World
Recover reverence for life by meditating on Psalm 148, along with Francis’ Canticle to the Sun.
Breathe deeply the holiness of life. Let the air you breathe fill you with insight and energy and restore your sense of connection with all things. Take a beauty walk, opening your senses to God’s presence. Rejoice in the gifts of creation. Ask for God’s guidance in terms of how you might best respond to the crises of global climate change, species destruction, and economic and political upheaval.
Practice Two: A Gift to be Simple
Our faith calls us to simplify our lives so that others may simply live. Consider how to simplify your life. What do you need to pare away? In what ways can you live more simply? Where can you devote your resources to promote the well-being of the earth’s impoverished peoples? Consider the words from the Sermon on the Mount, along with Shaker hymn on a daily basis.
Practice Three: Welcoming People of Other Faiths
Observe your own and others’ prejudice toward persons of others faiths or no faith. In what ways do you show hospitality to the religious diversity in your community? What insights can you receive from persons of other faith traditions? Where can you contribute to reconciliation and healing among peoples of the earth? Take time to pray for people of other faith traditions, asking that they be blessed and you would discover your kinship with them.
Practice Four: Finding God in Unexpected Places
Make a commitment to reflect deeply on those who repel you. Ask God to help you see more deeply into their lives. Feast your eyes on humanity in all its variety. Look beyond appearances to see holiness in others. Listen to God speaking through their voices as you attune to god’s image within yourself and others. Pray the prayer attributed to St. Francis.
Please come to these sessions as we continue to explore and deepen our spirituality. The sessions are every other Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at Mother Barbara’s home. The evening includes dinner (6 p.m.) then discussion (7-8 p.m.).
Our young people are amazing and have the ability to see the holy around, among, and within them. We wanted them to have an opportunity to share all this with their bishop, Audrey Scanlan, during her visit with us on Sunday.
Using a format that involved sharing, silence, meditative chanting, and the ringing of a singing bowl, children and adults gathered together to share the sacred in their lives and in their church experience. Themes of finding God in comfort, love, peace, wholeness, and in nature came from our hearts. It was clear that the children find God often and in many places, including in our church, through their offering of their musical talents, through the people near them, through the support others have given them, through the safety of the community, through the proximity to the altar, through their service as acolytes, and through the hearts of others. One young person said that when she sings in front of the congregation, it is clear to her that God is looking back at her through all the people gathered.
How blessed we are that we have young people who are being formed well in their faith, with eyes opened to the presence of God within, around, and among them. Thank you to all who support our young people in their faith formation. I believe it’s making a big difference to them — and to us!
It seemed appropriate that the gospel text for the day of the Bishop’s visit was on Jesus’ mountaintop experience which transfigured him and transformed the disciples in their understanding of Jesus’ identity and their shared mission. That’s what happened yesterday when Bishop Audrey Scanlan led us in worship, confirmed those ready to commit anew to their faith, blessed a parish member and resident of The Episcopal Home who wanted to reaffirm her faith, engaged in the sharing of stories and experiences of the sacred, and met with our vestry. It was a mountaintop experience for us all! We left, coming down from the mountain, changed and clearer of who we have become as a parish and what God has placed on our hearts to do. We all offered the depth and breath and best of ourselves to God and each other — and the Holy Spirit gathered us all together to bring God’s glory into our world.
We are so grateful for our bishop’s pastoral guidance and leadership and her ability to enter fully into our life as a parish and to enhance it.
We offer our congratulations and blessings upon the people who were confirmed or who reaffirmed their faith yesterday:
One of the very meaningful parts of our bishop’s visit was the time she spent with our younger members. We gathered in a circle and shared an object that is special to us and why and then shared where we each find God at St. Andrew’s. After each person’s sharing, we entered into a time of silence, then chanting, which seemed to draw us ever closer to each other and with God. What was remarkable and stunning to me was that all of our young people seemed to speak so naturally about finding God at St. Andrew’s. It was as though this is the most natural thing in the world. For many of us, it is. But for some, those two things, spirituality and the institutional church, don’t always come together. I feel blessed that we at St. Andrew’s are forming our young people to expect to discover God in what they do here at church and in the people gathered. One of the most touching responses for me was when one of our young people mentioned that when they stand up in front of the congregation to sing, they are aware of God looking back at them through the people in the pews.
The bishop spent time getting to know the vestry members and exploring what the term missional means. This word takes the more familiar concept of outreach and expands and extends it to speak of experiences where all those involved are changed and transformed. There is a mutuality of growth that happens when we move from doing something FOR someone to doing something WITH someone in such a way we are all changed and our lives are enhanced.
I know the bishop’s visit is one day which is etched in my heart, now and through all eternity. This is what church is all about. Many blessings, Mother Barbara
Today, in the glory of the sunshine and the beauty of God’s creation, 23 of us gathered together to spend the day enjoying each other’s company, learning something about God, and taking time to relax, breathe, put away our cell phones, and connect to something deeper within each one of us, and among us — a sense of family. We were expertly led by three guides: Joe, Jeremy, Kristin who not only instructed us on how to canoe, but also helped make the trip memorable, inviting our young people to refresh in the cool crisp water of the Conococheague, alerting us to the blue heron who seemed intent upon guiding us down the Creek, delighting with us at the large carp swimming among us, and bringing us to the perfect place to nourish our bodies and souls, when we needed a lunch break. It was a day of peace, calm, fun, and care for each other and God’s creation.
We ended the day reflecting upon the “best” of the day for each one of us. Answers varied from the wildlife we saw (such as a bald eagle, which was incredible!), to the varied nature of God’s creation, to the community easily formed, to the weather, to our safety, to our guides, to our sense of calm we found was finally ours to settle into.
Several of the comments offered made my heart smile– the sentiment offered was that even if they can’t get to church each Sunday, they are still welcomed, embraced, and engaged with as a part of our parish family on events like this. This is exactly the church I want us to be and live into. We say, in our mission statement, that we are an inclusive and welcoming community. This is one way we live it out: that we are not a closed club. We are not a group of people who demand a certain level of involvement or commitment to be “counted among us”. We always swing wide the door, always inviting people further into the mysterious place with God and within our parish family — and we also acknowledge and love people wherever they find themselves. Today we lived into this space. Thanks be to God!
These Youth Mini-Mission Events are designed to help us understand our relationship with our earth, and therefore, with God, the creator of the earth, and there were those among us who worked tirelessly today to help repair that relationship. One of our young people, Tom, was relentless in retrieving tires that others had foolishly and irreverently thrown into the creek. He quietly and purposefully went about his business of doing what was right, ridding the creek of pollution, finding a way to bring the tires out and then to dispose of them appropriately. It was very inspiring to see someone take this initiative to make a difference.
With care,
Mother Barbara
