Online Bible Meditation: Year-Over-Year Edition

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of December 27, 2015

December 27: Colossians 3: 12-17

December 28: Luke 2: 1-7

December 29: Luke 2: 8-20

December 30: Luke 2: 22-38

December 31 - New Year's Eve: 1 John 2: 7-11

January 1 - New Year's Day and the Naming of Jesus: 2 John 4-11

January 2 - Psalm 97

A Collect for January 1 -  The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus

Almighty God,
whose blessed Son was circumcised
in obedience to the law for our sake
and given the Name that is above every name:
give us grace faithfully to bear his Name,
to worship him in the freedom of the Spirit,
and to proclaim him as the Saviour of the world;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
AMEN.

Joy to the World!

Christmas Eve Family Worship

A celebration of Jesus' Birthday!

A candlelight service of Holy Eucharist

featuring

Glorious Music

and

Birthday Cake!

7:30 p.m.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Merry Christmas!

Online Bible Meditation: Advent IV Edition

The fourth candle is lit for Love

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of December 20, 2015

December 20: Psalm 71: 1-8

December 21: Hebrews 10: 5-10

December 22: Luke 1: 39-45

December 23: Psalm 67

December 24 - Christmas Eve: Luke 2: 1-20

December 25 - Christmas Day: John 1: 1-14

December 26 - St. Stephen's Day: Isaiah 9: 2-7

My soul doth magnify the LORD,

and holy is His name...

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them...

Apologies...a slightly blurry spontaneous photo taken of the even-more-spontaneous and impromptu Christmas Pageant that erupted during the Service of Lessons and Carols on December 13...

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

- Isaiah 11:6, KJV 

 

Online Bible Meditation: Advent III Edition

We light the Mary Candle...and find Joy

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of December 13, 2015

December 13: Psalm 13

December 14: Isaiah 40: 1-5

December 15: Zephaniah 3: 14- 20

December 16: Isaiah 12: 2-6

December 17: Luke 3: 7-18

December 18: Psalm 34: 1-10

December 19: Philippians 4: 4-7

Mary, did you know?

Prepare Ye the Way of the LORD: An Advent Homily

John the Baptist in the Woods (Wilderness)
Berner Nelkenmeister, ca. 1495

Mid-week between the second and third Sundays in Advent, here's a link to a recent sermon given by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber...the author of Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People.

This is posted both for the enjoyment and inspiration of those in the parish who are studying this book, and to inspire those who haven't joined us to consider taking it up.  :-)

To read and/or listen to this sermon, CLICK HERE.

On.ine Bible Meditation - Advent II Edition

Advent II - "Prepare Ye the Way of the LORD"

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of December 6, 2015

December 6: Luke 3: 1-6

December 7: Psalm 11

December 8: Philippians 1: 3-11

December 9: Mark 4: 21-25

December 10: Psalm 12

December 11: Mark 4: 26-29

December 12: Isaiah 38: 9-20

Online Bible Meditation - Advent I Edition

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 29, 2015

November 29 - The First Sunday in Advent: 1 Thessalonians 3: 9 - 13

November 30: Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle - Luke 21: 25-36

December 1: 1 Thessalonians 3: 9 - 13 (yes, this is a repeat!)

December 2: Psalm 19: 1-6

December 3: John 3: 1-21

December 4: Luke 10: 21-24

December 5: 2 Peter 3: 1-10

St. Andrew
- Artus Wolffort, 17th Century

Poetry - in the Last Week of Ordinary Time

Christ Calming the Storm - Eugene Delacroix

From Mary Oliver...

and 

Matthew 8:23-25

  Maybe

Sweet Jesus, talking

his melancholy madness,

   stood up in the boat

      and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry.

So everybody was saved

   that night.

      But you know how it is

when something

different crosses

   the threshold—the uncles

      mutter together,

the women walk away,

the young brother begins

   to sharpen his knife.

      Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes

like the wind over the water—

   sometimes, for days,

      you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,

after the multitude was fed,

   one or two of them felt

      the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight

before exhaustion,

   that wants to swallow everything,

      gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy,

as they are now, forgetting

   how the wind tore at the sails

      before he rose and talked to it—

tender and luminous and demanding

as he always was—

     a thousand times more frightening

         than the killer storm.

Online Bible Meditation: The Reign of Christ

Christ Pantocrater (Ruler Over All)
from the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 22, 2015

November 22 - The Reign of Christ/Christ the King: Ephesians 4: 11 - 16

November 23: Psalm 17: 1 - 8

November 24: Romans 15: 1 - 6

November 25: Romans 15: 7 - 13

November 26: Malachi 4

November 27: Matthew 5: 1 - 12

November 28: Psalm 67

More Poetry in Ordinary Time: Kindness

From Naomi Shihab Nye, via Parker Palmer on Facebook and the OnBeing blog:

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

"Kindness" - Naomi Shihab Nye 

Poetry in Ordinary Time...for Peace

This week...the Anglican priest, George Herbert:

Portrait by Robert White, 1674

Peace

Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,
Let me once know.
I sought thee in a secret cave,
And ask'd, if Peace were there,
A hollow wind did seem to answer, No:
Go seek elsewhere.

I did; and going did a rainbow note:
Surely, thought I,
This is the lace of Peace's coat:
I will search out the matter.
But while I looked the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.

Then went I to a garden and did spy
A gallant flower,
The crown-imperial: Sure, said I,
Peace at the root must dwell.
But when I digged, I saw a worm devour
What showed so well.

At length I met a rev'rend good old man;
Whom when for Peace

I did demand, he thus began:
There was a Prince of old
At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase
Of flock and fold.

He sweetly lived; yet sweetness did not save
His life from foes.
But after death out of his grave
There sprang twelve stalks of wheat;
Which many wond'ring at, got some of those
To plant and set.

It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse
Through all the earth:
For they that taste it do rehearse
That virtue lies therein;
A secret virtue, bringing peace and mirth
By flight of sin.

Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,
And grows for you;
Make bread of it: and that repose
And peace, which ev'ry where
With so much earnestness you do pursue,
Is only there. 

Online Bible Meditation: Light Edition, with Audio Divina

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 15, 2015

November 15: Luke 14: 15 - 24

November 16:  James 2: 14 - 26

November 17: 1 Samuel 2: 1 - 10

November 18: Hebrews 10: 19 - 25

November 19: Matthew 25: 31 - 36

November 20: Psalm 3: 3 - 5

November 21: Ephesians 4: 1 - 10

Audio divina selection -  from Canada's own

Leonard Cohen...

From a concert recording, 2009

"Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything;

that's how the light gets in."

- from Anthem - Leonard Cohen

Online Bible Meditation: Remembrance Edition

The National War Monument, Ottawa

Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 8, 2015

November 8: Romans 12: 9 - 21

November 9:  2 John: 4 - 11

November 10: Mark 12: 38 - 44

November 11: Remembrance Day - Psalm 34: 1 - 8

November 12: James 2: 1 - 13

November 13: Luke 14: 7 - 14

November 14: Hebrews 10: 11 - 18

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them.

- from "For the Fallen"

a poem by Laurence Binyon - September 1914

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"...