Fall Eagle column - Rector's Rambling for 8/28/2022

     
A new season is almost upon us, as we head into Fall, and the beginning of the programming year. 

Society in the northern hemisphere tends toward an academic year calendar with a break from school and programs for the summer (or replaced by different ones for the summer).  The church also seems to follow that schedule as well, acknowledging travel and warm/hot weather these months.

Like the beginning of school around Labor Day, so too St. John’s is getting back into its busier activity!  Sunday School, the Alpha Course, Organization meetings, and other activities are now on the schedule or in planning stages.

Most importantly, if you got out of the habit of church attendance this summer (or since Covid shut downs for that matter) now is the time to get back into the habit!  Not only do we have worship on Sunday morning (7:30, 8 and 10) but also Sunday evening (5:30) and on 4 weekdays as well.  Pick one or two and make it an unshakable, unmovable item on your calendar for your week!  As Jesus said, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. I hope that your relationship with Jesus and His Church is something you treasure and that you will make attending worship a priority!

There are a couple of events coming up quickly in September for us to prepare for, so mark your calendars today.

On September 11th we will have a special coffee hour in the garden where we will dedicate the upgraded carillon with a concert of patriotic hymns and other hymns.  The week following  (September 15-18) will be our annual Trash to Treasure Sale.  We will be putting on the hard-press to invite our neighbors to both these events. 

Beginning Monday, September 26 and continuing Mondays until December 5 we will be offering The Alpha Course.  We would love to have all our parishioners who have not taken it yet to plan to do so!  This course is also aimed at our neighbors who may be curious about Christianity.

October 9th we will have our Homecoming Sunday where we will be also honoring Harriett Mottley for her retirement as Office Manager of St. John’s!

Be sure to mark your calendars today and plan on being present

Welcoming our guest preacher Cam Walker - Rector's Rambling for August 21, 2022

     We are now deep into August, which means that the fall programming year is almost upon us! 

Many are away on holiday this time of the year, and we always see attendance dip in August.  And yet the last few weeks, in addition to those who are away, we are getting a steady stream of visitors who are here from out of town, and even a few new neighbors who are ‘shopping’ for a parish church.  We are grateful for our parishioners who are here to welcome them! 

Speaking of welcome, today we welcome home our own Cam Walker!  Employed  for a time at St. John’s as our programming associate, Cam is now at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin, studying to be a priest.  He is a postulant (first officially recognized phase in the ordination process) in the Diocese of Long Island, NY.  Although he is ‘canonically resident’ there, and officially is a member of St. George’s Church in Brooklyn, NY, Cam continues to be ours in heart and financial support!  He has finished his first year of seminary, and worked on campus for the summer helping with seminary’s summer programming.  Today he will preach for us before heading back to Wisconsin to begin his middler year. 

There are a couple of events coming up quickly in September for us to prepare for, so mark your calendars today!

On September 11th we will have a special coffee hour in the garden where we will dedicate the upgraded carillon with a concert of patriotic hymns and other hymns.  The week following  (September 15-18) will be our annual Trash to Treasure Sale.  We will be putting on the hard-press to invite our neighbors to both these events. 

Beginning Monday, September 26 and continuing Mondays until December 5 we will be offering The Alpha Course.  We would love to have all our parishioners who have not taken it yet to plan to do so!  This course is also aimed at our neighbors who may be curious about Christianity.

And October 9th we will have our Homecoming Sunday where we will be also honoring Harriett Mottley for her retirement as Office Manager of St. John’s!

Mark your calendars today!!!

 

St. Mary the Virgin/Assumption/Dormition - Rector's Rambling for August 14, 2022

On Monday, August 15, the Episcopal Church celebrates the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin.  The Roman Church celebrates on the same day The Feast of the Assumption of our Lady, and the Orthodox celebrate the Feast of the Dormition (or falling asleep) of Mary.  No matter what the title, it is a major Holy Day of the Church Universal.

Pictured is the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham here at St. John’s.  It is located in the chapel, behind the grillwork and votive candle rack to the right of the altar.

St. Mary is an important part of the story of our Salvation.  It was her acquiescence to the Angel Gabriel’s announcement that set in motion Jesus’ Incarnation (taking flesh).  She was a dutiful mother and as a member of the original covenant helped to raise Jesus as keeper of God’s law.  She was present throughout his public ministry and one of a few of his followers who kept vigil at the foot of the cross where Jesus gave her to St. John for her keeping, and vice versa.  She was a witness of the Resurrection and present on Pentecost.  St. Mary was faithful from beginning to end of Jesus’ earthly life, and beyond.

On Monday we will remember all that and give thanks to God for her faithfulness.  And we will pray God to help us to be faithful like St. Mary.  Pray that we will be willing to follow Him, love Him, and do whatever He tells us (as St. Mary said to the servants at the Wedding Feast at Cana).

And just as we might ask our loved ones, fellow parishioners, or priest to pray for us in the time of trial and need, so too we ask St. Mary to pray for us to her Son Jesus Christ.  Just as we are concerned for each other in Love, so too St. Mary desires to pray for us to her Son that we may fully know His Love for us.

 
 

Carillon restoration at St. John's - Rector's Rambling for July 31, 2022

    God willing, by tomorrow afternoon a wonderful sound will be restored here on the corner of Woodward Avenue and the Fisher Freeway Service Drive.The crew from The Verdin Company will be at St. John’s to install the upgraded equipment for our Schulmerich electronic carillon.

We have real bells, and an electronic carillon.  Over the chapel entrance on the freeway side of the building we have our original bell, cast in 1859 (the year the building opened).  In 2001 it was taken down and a new rope-wheel installed, which was designed by former parishioner Paul Erlandson, and fabricated at the shop owned by Bruce Burton.  In the belltower there is also a bell, a very large one.  That one is dated 1861 and has two ways to be rung.  It can swing and be struck.  The swing is the more common way to ring it, pulling a rope and letting it go to let the bell swing back and forth as the interior hammer hits each side.  The tolling rope strikes the bell with each pull and is used at funerals and other somber occasions.  Both ropes are located on the 3rd floor of the belltower, the bell being located on the 5th floor.

In the 1980s the parish purchased an electronic carillon.  This includes 4 large speakers in the belltower, and a smaller one facing into the church from the back, that broadcasts the sound of bells.  The original unit, including a Digital Audio Tape player (when was the last time you saw something like that?) that played hymns. The last few years the old unit was lovingly cared for by the late Chris Sayers,  long after the company stopped supporting that type of unit, and parts became unavailable.  Summer of 2021 it stopped functioning at all.

The new unit is a state of the art digital device which will be programmed to play the Westminster Chimes (ringing every 15 minutes), the Angelus prayer ring sequence at Noon and 6 PM, and hymns appropriate to the season. 

Plans are in the works to have a dedication ‘concert’ of hymns on an evening at the end of the summer where we will welcome our neighbors to our garden to enjoy the new instrument.