Holy Cross Episcopal Church

Jeremiah 1:4-10                                                                  

1 Corinthians 13:1-13                                                      

Luke 4:21-30

 One of the wonderful things that can happen sometimes at church is that something that had grown old is made new. A reading, for instance, a prayer, a hymn, an idea – that had seemingly lost its life through overuse is suddenly resurrected, given new currency. Those of us who were here last Sunday, when Canon Charles LaFond was our preacher and followed up in the afternoon with the retreat on discernment, experienced I think one of those “made new” moments.

It centered around what Charles said about saying “yes” to God. You remember that he started out by talking about how epiphany – this season of the Church year – is like a light going on. The star in the sky that the Magi followed to the Savior’s birth – a light going on. Jesus coming up out of the waters of baptism and hearing the voice of God pronounce him the Beloved – a light going on. Jesus turning the water into wine at the Wedding at Cana – another light. When God reveals himself, we experience it as a light going on. What had been unclear, confused, without purpose or direction – suddenly the light goes on, something clicks, and we see the way forward. These are epiphanies; this is how God calls to us. Continue reading ‘Epiphany 4 January 31, 2010′

Isaiah 62:1-5                                                                       

I Corinthians 12:1-11                                                        

John 2:1-11

 It is said that the purpose of a sermon or homily is to relate the readings from Holy Scripture to our lives and the world around us. As the theologian Karl Barth said, the preacher goes into the pulpit with the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. My usual technique in doing this is to start with the daily newspaper, with our lives, our situations – an incident, a person, a situation we all know about or can relate to. We aren’t very familiar with the Bible, we don’t most of us read it at home, and to start with it always seems to me to turn people off.

But St. John’s gospel is hard to preach on that way. It doesn’t have neat little parables, interesting characters, “morals” or “messages” that can easily be related to everyday life. St. John’s is a mystical gospel. It was written late, by the only disciple of Jesus who did not meet a martyr’s death but lived into extreme old age, reflecting and meditating and polishing his thoughts about the Lord he had known and who loved him especially. John’s gospel is poetic, symbolic, every word heavy with meaning, often coded meaning. Continue reading ‘Epiphany 2 January 17, 2010′

WOMEN’S LENTEN DAY OF REFLECTION

based on the critically acclaimed book

 LIFTING WOMEN’S VOICES

Prayers to Change the World

 Saturday, March 13, 2010

Holy Cross Church

Center Road, Weare, NH

(between routes 77 and 114)

Registration and coffee from 9:30am

Program begins at 10:00am and will conclude at 3:00pm

A simple luncheon of soup, bread and fruit will be served.

A free will offering will be taken to cover costs.

Lifting Women’s Voices is a collection of prayers written by women and girls throughout the Anglican Communion.  The prayers reveal the depth and power of faith and the belief, that collectively, those voices can be transformative and change the world.

 The day is set in the context of the Eucharist and Stations of the Cross using prayers from the book.  The prayers in the book are organized according to themes of the Millennium Development Goals.  

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says, “These prayers claim the special gift it is to be a woman, the holiness God gave us in being born of woman, the apostolic vocation of another Mary, first to witness resurrection.  These prayers remind us that we most often meet God in the daily work of feeding, healing, nurturing, cleaning, listening, encouraging – blessings all!”

The Diocese of New Hampshire claims three authors of prayers in the book, Johanna Young, Church of the Epiphany, Newport; Dawn Formica, Church of Our Saviour, Milford; and Marjorie Burke, Holy Cross, Weare.   They will be present to read their prayers and sign books.

All women of the diocese are invited to attend.  Books will be available for purchase at $25.00. 

WOMEN’S LENTEN DAY OF REFLECTION

based on the critically acclaimed book

LIFTING WOMEN’S VOICES

Prayers to Change the World

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Holy Cross Church

Center, Road, Weare, NH

(between routes 77 and 114)

Registration and coffee from 9:30am

Program begins at 10:00am and will conclude at 3:00pm

A simple luncheon of soup, bread and fruit will be served.

A free will offering will be taken to cover costs.

Lifting Women’s Voices is a collection of prayers written by women and girls throughout the Anglican Communion.  The prayers reveal the depth and power of faith and the belief, that collectively, those voices can be transformative and change the world.

The day is set in the context of the Eucharist and Stations of the Cross using prayers from the book.  The prayers in the book are organized according to themes of the Millennium Development Goals.  

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says, “These prayers claim the special gift it is to be a woman, the holiness God gave us in being born of woman, the apostolic, vocation of another Mary, first to witness resurrection.  These prayers remind us that we most often meet God in the daily work of feeding, healing, nurturing, cleaning, listening, encouraging – blessings all!”

The Diocese of New Hampshire claims three authors of prayers in the book, Johanna Young, Church of the Epiphany, Newport, Dawn Formica, Church of Our Saviour, Milford, and Marjorie Burke, Holy Cross, Weare.   They will be present to read their prayers and sign books.

All women of the diocese are invited to attend.  Books will be available for purchase at $25.00. 

————————————————————————————————–

            REGISTRATION FORM

 WOMEN’S LENTEN DAY OF REFLECTION

 LIFTING WOMEN’S VOICES

Prayers to Change the World

 SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 2010

 HOLY CROSS EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Center Road

(between routes 77 and 114)

Weare, NH 03281

Coffee and registration 9:30am

Program begins at 10:00am and will conclude at 3:00pm

A simple luncheon of soup, bread and fruit will be served.

A free will offering will be taken to cover the cost.

Name:_____________________________________________________

Address:___________________________________________________

Telephone:__________________email:__________________________

Parish:____________________________________________________

Please let us know you are coming by sending an email to dawn_richard @ charter.net

and put Day of Reflection in the Subject line.  Or mail the registration form to Marjorie Burke, 47 Merrill Road, Weare, NH 03281

The book Lifting Women’s Voices will be available for purchase at $25.00. 

Yes, I would like to purchase a book ___________.

Parking is available, however, carpooling is encouraged.

Isaiah 43:1-7                                                                       

Acts 8:14-17                                                                        

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

A friend writes to say he has “lost his faith.” This can mean different things for different people, but for him, he explains, he “can no longer believe in the doctrines of Christianity.” What doctrines? He doesn’t say. The Incarnation, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection? I don’t want to put him on the spot by asking, nor do I want to put myself in the position of doctrinal expositor.

But it does seem odd to me. Doctrines, I think, really come last rather than first in faith. First comes a sense of wonder, the asking of questions about the meaning of life, if life has meaning. And a close second comes some sort of personal contact, experience of a person of faith that makes one want to have what they have. I suppose it’s not coincidental that this friend of mine grew up as an only child, has never married, never had children, and has led a life sheltered from the ordinary interactions with other people – the daily ups and downs – that most of us enjoy (or suffer through). Continue reading ‘Baptism of Our Lord January 10, 2010′

Barbara in a photograph taken a month before her death.

As the year was slipping away, very quietly and without a fuss on December 22, Barbara Moody Kent died. She would have been 90 in a few months, our oldest member. We didn’t have her nearly long enough; she came to live with her daughter Linda, just a few doors down the road from Holy Cross, a year and a half before her death. Bent in body, having suffered some falls, plagued by minor ailments and set-backs that aren’t so minor when you’re 89, Barbara could no long live on her own. She died early in the evening at Concord Hospital, quite unexpectedly. That afternoon the Vicar had been in to see her, bringing Communion and anointing her in the Ministry to the Sick. They talked of her disappointment that she would miss the Christmas Eve service and her hope that she’d make it to church the following Sunday for the children’s pageant. Fr. John was invited to participate in the memorial service held for her January 2 at the Methodist church in Westport, New Hampshire that had been her home for 30 years.

Funerals can be terrible, but they can also be wonderful — some of the best and holiest things the Church does. Barbara’s service was in the latter category. The tiny country church held family, friends and parishioners, though the day was a very snowy one. There was organ music — Barbara herself had played the organ those 30 years, into her late 80s when she moved away. There was a little choir, handbells and chimes, there were some of the lovely old hymns that seemed to go with the place and the occasion — “How Great Thou Art” and “Blest Be the Tie that Binds” among them. There was a warm and appropriate sermon by the Pastor, Richard Sainsbury, on the Twenty-Third Psalm. And best of all, there were remembrances.

Barbara earlier in life, when she and her husband ran a berry and Christmas tree farm.

Barbara Kent and her late husband Donald (whom she had cared for in his last years as he struggled with dementia) had been pillars of Westport Church. When they moved to the village to take up farming (berries and Christmas trees), there were only half a dozen members of the congregation. There was a freshly minted new minister whom the Kents supported and guided. Barbara started a children’s choir. She organized church suppers. She baked her famous angel pie (recipe below). In everything, she praised, encouraged, thanked — never complained, never criticized.

Of course, church was far from being the only part of Barbara Kent’s life. Her mother died when she was only 12 and a stepmother died a few years later, so Barbara helped raise her youngest half brother. To do this, she put aside the plans she had made for going away to college and instead attended a local college where she trained as a teacher. After stints in one-room schools in Massachusetts, she opened a kindergarten in her own home which she ran for many years. Children remained one of the loves of her life and they were one of the reasons she loved coming to Holy Cross.

This was the Barbara we knew, if so briefly, at Holy Cross. Coming to compose this memorial, we discovered we had no photographs of Barbara to go with it. She was just too quiet, too unassuming. Certainly the formalities of the Episcopal liturgy must have been strange to her after the Methodist church, the hymns mostly unfamiliar. But if they were, she never mentioned it. She was always just gracious about the welcome Holy Cross gave her. She was on a walker and parishioners Donald and Marge Burke drove her to church every Sunday. She sat on the aisle at the back, where it was easy for her to get in and out. We brought Communion back to her each week, not asking her to come forward to receive it. And when the Vicar came to her with those words, “The Body of Christ, the Bread of heaven,” he always felt that she was giving Jesus to him more than he to her.

Barbara Kent will be missed at Holy Cross, but remembered.

May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

Recipe for Angel Pie:

Crust                                                                             Filling

4 egg whites                                                               1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar                                          3 tbsps lemon juice

1 cup sugar                                                                  1 cup whipped cream

4 egg yokes

Beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff, gradually beating in the sugar. Spread in well-greased 9-inch pie plate. Bake 1 hour at 250-275 degrees.

Beat egg yokes until thick. Gradually beat in sugar and lemon juice. Cook over hot water until very thick.

Cool and spread lemon mixture on meringue crust. Cover with whipped cream. Enjoy — and thank Barbara Kent!

Isaiah 60:1-6                                                                       

Ephesians 3:1-12                                                                

Matthew 2:1-12

[At Holy Cross Church, we celebrate major feasts that fall on weekdays with informal evening house Masses. A congregation of a dozen or so gathers at the vicarage. The celebrations are followed by potluck desserts.]

Increasingly these major feasts in the Church calendar – All Saints’, Ascension, the Epiphany – can be celebrated on the nearest Sunday. That’s true with the Epiphany now in the Roman Catholic Church in North America, the Anglican Church of Canada, even the Church of England. The Sunday celebration allows the whole congregation to share in what are important liturgies of the Christian faith. But keeping the celebrations on weekdays does have the advantage of reminding us that the Church moves to a deeper and more ancient rhythm that the commercialized, secular world around us. We have lost a lot of the richness of a world that was oriented around the cycle of feasts and fasts, holy days with their rituals and stories.

Sometimes I come up to a Mass like the one tonight and I wonder what I can possibly find to say – to say that is fresh and new for this congregation of faithful house Mass attendees, who have all heard my thoughts many times before. But then, praying with the readings, they begin to open up and reveal new depths of richness, new allusions and insights. And these major feasts also are so much more than the readings appointed for them. They gather up thematically all sorts of strands that interweave in the great matrix of the Catholic faith. Continue reading ‘The Epiphany of the Lord January 6, 2010′

Jeremiah 31:7-13                                                                               

Ephesians 1:3-14                                                                

John 1:1-18

Theaters in Elizabethan times, in which Shakespeare produced his plays for instance, were multi-storied affairs. The stages were like doll’s houses, with two or three stories, each open to the audience. Seating for the audience was also banked in tiers, like a stadium or opera house today. The richer people sat up in the boxes; the poor people – known as groundlings – stood on the ground level. Shakespearean plays also tend to have stories or tiers of action: the high drama – royal battles, Hamlet’s soliloquies – took place on an upper story of the stage; but even Shakespeare’s most serious plays had scenes between “lowlife” characters, which took place at the ground level of the stage and were designed to entertain the groundlings in the audience.

 I thought of all this as I read again the gospel for today, which is the prologue to St. John’s gospel. John doesn’t start out with accounts of shepherds and wise men. Instead he gives us this high drama philosophy: Christ is the Logos, the Word, the structure of meaning through which God the Father created the universe. He was “from the beginning” and “all things were made through him.” He “came into the world” bringing life and light.

Like a Shakespeare play, however, this high drama is interwoven with a lowlife drama for the groundlings. Continue reading ‘Christmas 2 January 3, 2010′