Online Bible Meditation: All Saints Edition!

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 1, 2015

November 1 - All Saints' Day: Luke 10: 25 - 37

November 2 - All Souls's Day - Revelation 21: 1 - 6

November 3: 1 Corinthians 1: 1 - 8

November 4: 1 Peter 1: 1 - 9

November 5: Matthew 13: 36 - 43

November 6: Romans 12: 1 - 8

November 7: Psalm 130

Everybody, now...sing along!

Online Bible Meditation

At Cranna Lake, Lacombe - October 2015

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of October 25, 2015

October 25: Song of Solomon 2: 8 - 17

October 26: 1 Corinthians 15: 1 - 11

October 27: Hebrews 5: 1 - 10

October 28: Mark 10: 35 - 45

October 29: Psalm 91: 9 - 16

October 30: Job 42: 1 - 6

October 31: Psalm 34: 1 - 8

Poetry in Ordinary Time

This week, from Mary Oliver...

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – - – how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Online Bible Meditation: St. Luke's Day Edition

Detail of the St. Lucas (Luke) altarpiece
- Andrea Mantegna - 1454-1454
tempera on wood

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of October 18, 2015

October 18: Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist - 1 Corinthians 13: 1 - 3

October 19: Romans 2: 1 - 11

October 20: 1 Corinthians 13: 4 - 13

October 21: Luke 11: 33 - 36

October 22: Psalm 4

October 23: Romans 3: 21 - 31

October 24: John 14: 1 - 11

Poetry in Ordinary Time

This week, something from the late Peggy Freydberg (March 6, 1908 - March 27, 2015)...

Be Still, My Soul*

The rooms overlooking the pond

have enlarged with an ethereal light.

The sky fills them.

It is time to light a fire, 

to pour a glass of wine.

To sit,

and wait,

for all those satisfactions

that always fail to satisfy.

Instead,

restless, I start to wander

through the strange vast glowing of the rooms.

I tell myself

I want to see the hymn of the setting sun

along the old stone wall built centuries ago

to keep a farmer's sheep from wandering far afield.

By a window in the bedroom,

on an antique carved Italian chair,

I find my cat,

sitting with unfathomable stillness,

looking out.

At what?

I see no creature moving.

But, 

how can I see

what cats see?

How can I perceive a variation of existence

known only to a cat,

who watches the light on an old stone wall,

or the ghosts of sheep?

For my soul's sake,

I bend,

and,

carefully,

I place the palms of both my hands

along his sides,

finding a being without boundaries.

Sudden,

complete and sweet as truth,

his stillness

strikes me into stillness.

*From Poems from the Pond: 107 Years of Words and Wisdom - Peggy Freydberg, 2015.

Online Bible Meditation: Thanksgiving Edition

Cranna Lake, Lacombe - Sept. 27, 2015

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of October 11, 2015

October 11: Thanksgiving Sunday: Psalm 121

October 12: Luke 11: 1 - 4

October 13: 1 Corinthians 11: 23 - 34

October 14: Ezekiel 34: 17 - 31

October 15: Hebrews 1: 1 - 14

October 16: Mark 10: 17 - 31

October 17: Hebrews 4: 12 - 16

St. Cy's Celebrates Lacombe Harvest Festival - Part II: Treasured Memories

Saturday, September 26, St. Cyprian's opened its sanctuary to visitors from near and far for a glorious display of wedding memorabilia and harvest bounty, donated by parishioners.  Your intrepid blog reporter, however, was able to have a sneak preview the evening before the event, and snapped these photos...

The bounty of harvest,
the beauty of a bride

Long ago and far away...

A War-time Wedding...the Ronnes

Joan and Glen

Lois and Grant, 1965

Ron and Nila

Seventies Memories...

Sheila and Brian

Margaret and Howard, 1975

Sara and Tyler

Special days, treasured mementoes

The Community Celebrates
with
Angela and Patrick Douglas
June 13, 2015

"What therefore God hath joined together,
let no one put asunder."

-- Mark 10: 9, KJV (paraphrased)

I am now to be among you at the calling of your hearts;
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on My part.
The union of your spirits here has caused Me to remain,
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name
There is love,
There is love.

Well a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home;
They shall travel on to where the two shall be as one.
As it was in the beginning, is now and till the end,
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again...
And there is love.
There is love.

For then what`s to be reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it love that brings you here, or love that brings you life?
For if loving is the answer, then who`s the giving for? 
Do you believe in something that you`ve never seen before? 
Oh, there`s love,
Oh there`s love.

Yes, the marriage of your spirits here has caused Me to remain,
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name,
There is love...
There is love.

-- The Wedding Song - Paul Stookey

St. Cy's Celebrates the Lacombe Harvest Festival 2015 - Part I: Say YES to the Dress!

Saturday, September 26, St. Cyprian's opened its sanctuary to visitors from near and far for a glorious display of wedding memorabilia and harvest bounty, donated by parishioners.  Your intrepid blog reporter, however, was able to have a sneak preview the evening before the event, and snapped these photos...

Full view of the beauty from the entrance to the sanctuary

Say "YES!" to the Dress!

What a glorious array of gowns on view...

The late Dorothy Ronnes married her
Canadian soldier in Britain in 1942
when white fabric was in short supply.

This gown was made of peach silk,
and shortened for future use
on special occasions.

Collar lace/net detail of Dorothy's gown

This gown was worn by an unnamed parishioner
who was married at St. Cy's in 1969

A detail of the bodice...
and

A detail of the skirt and train...

Moving forward in time...

Could have been worn by Jane Austen?

A 'champagne' gown from Heather O.
and another from the seventies...

"Something old, something new,
 something borrowed, something blue..."

Glorious lace inset bodice
and head-piece with veil

And look at the lace inset in the sleeves!

Nila's hooded gown
early 'seventies...and very much in vogue!

Margaret B's gown
Vogue Pattern 1156 - constructed in 1975...
Off-white polyester, including the lace sleeves
Antique cuff buttons...
Cameo pin a gift from her mother-in-law

Detail of the bodice of the gown next to Margaret B's
Donor anonymous...but how beautiful she must have been in this gown!

When our Rev. Dr. Lee
married The Adorable,
she looked like a Queen...

Detail of the bodice of Rev. Lee's gown

The bodice of
Angela's glorious gown
June, 2015

And the waistline detail thereof...!!

But lest we forget...when one says "Yes!" to the dress...one says "Yes!" to the marriage.  Stay tuned for Part II: 'Say YES to the Memories"...

Online Bible Meditation: St. Francis Edition

Francis of Assisi
Image courtesy of
the "Studio of John the Baptist"

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of October 4, 2015

October 4: Francis of Assisi, Friar, 1226: Luke 10: 21 - 24

October 5: Mark 9: 42 - 50

October 6: Job 2: 1 - 10

October 7: Jonah 3: 1 - 10

October 8: Matthew 9: 1 - 8

October 9: 1 Thessalonians: 4: 13 - 5: 11

October 10: Ezekiel 34: 11 - 16

Lord, make us intruments of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let us sow love;

where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union;

where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light; where there is  sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

AMEN

"A Prayer of Christian Life" - Attributed to Francis of Assisi

(B.A.S., Anglican Church of Canada, Toronto, ON, 1985, p. 682)