Pancake Day!

Shrove Tuesday is coming quickly, and with it, the end of Ordinary Time -- until after Easter, anyway.

Also known as "Pancake Day", Shrove Tuesday is the Tuesday immediately preceding Ash Wednesday.  For those countries celebrating Mardi Gras -- literally translated "Fat Tuesday" -- it's the final "carnival day", the last day for "fat eating" before the penitence, fasting and reflective forty days of Lent.

And while you're feasting -- or lying back, digesting! --  you're meant to pause to take stock, to do a self-examination of that one's wrongs, so that one can confess, repent and be shriven (absolved). 

Observed by many Christians -- but particularly in the practice of Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics -- Shrove Tuesday is a day of preparation for Lent, when believers are to consider their faith journeys, areas in which they want to grow spiritually, and then to ask God's help with this task.

Consuming pancakes is the ideal way to get rid of all that fat and sugar in one's larder -- and folks in the Lacombe area, including parishioners here at St. Cyprian's, are invited to join the community for these delectable delights

At the Annual Pancake Supper!

St. Andrew's United Church

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m.

Admission:

Adults: $7.00

Children 6 - 12: $6.00

Special Family Rate: MAX $20.00

Poetry in Ordinary Time: Mary Oliver - Part 4

This is the last of four parts -- poetry for your reflection, written by Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, Mary Oliver, who died in January at age 83.  Today's reflection consists of the fifth, sixth and seventh sections of her seven-section poem, At the River Clarion.*

Photo: A stretch of the Clarion River that runs
through Cook Forest Park.
Photographer: Zack (Zach) Zrudisin

At the River Clarion

5.

My dog Luke lies in a grave in the forest,

     she is given back.

But the river Clarion still flows

     from wherever it comes from

          to where it has been told to go.

I pray for the desperate earth.

I pray for the desperate world.

I do the little each person can do, it isn't much.

Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

6.

Along its shores were, may I say, very intense

     cardinal flowers.

And trees, and birds that have wings to uphold them,

     for heaven's sakes -- 

the lucky ones: they have such deep natures,

     they are so happily obedient.

While I sit here in a house filled with books,

     ideas, doubts, hesitations.

7.

And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river

     keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its

          long journey, its pale, infallible voice

               singing.

*From Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, New York, 2017.

To read the previous 3 sections, check these links: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Poetry in Ordinary Time: Mary Oliver - Part 3

This is the third of four parts -- poetry for your reflection, written by Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, Mary Oliver, who died in January at age 83.  Today's reflection consists of the third and fourth sections of her seven-section poem, At the River Clarion.*

Photo: a stretch of the Clarion River 
that runs through Cook Forest Park.
Photographer: Zack (Zach) Zrudisin

At the River Clarion

3. 

Of course for each of us, there is daily life.
Let us live it, gesture by gesture.
When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks?
And should we not thank the knife also?
We do not live in a simple world.

4.

There was someone I loved who grew old and ill.
One by one I watched the fires go out.
There was nothing I could do.

except to remember 
that we receive
then we give back.


*From Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, New York, 2017.


If you missed the second part, you can read it HERE; it has a link back to the first part of this series.

Poetry in Ordinary Time: Mary Oliver, Part 2

This is the second of four parts -- poetry for your reflection, written by Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, Mary Oliver, who died in January at age 83.

Photo: a stretch of the Clarion River 
that runs through Cook Forest Park.
Photographer: Zack (Zach) Zrudisin

At the River Clarion

2.

If God exists, he isn't just butter and good luck.
He's also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then
     keep on going.

Imagine how the lily (who may also be a part of God)
   would sing to you if it could sing, if
        you would pause to hear it.
And how are you so certain anyway that it doesn't sing?

If God exists he isn't just churches and mathematics.
He's the forest, He's the desert.
He's the ice caps, that are dying.
He's the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.

He's Van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert
     Motherwell.
He's the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing
     their weapons.
He's every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politician,
     the poet.
And if this is true, isn't it something very important?

Yes, it could be that I am a tiny piece of God, and
     each of you too, or at least
         of his intention and his hope.
Which is a delight beyond measure.
I don't know how you get to suspect such an idea.
     I only know that the river keeps singing.
It wasn't a persuasion, it was all the river's own
     constant joy,
which was better by far than a lecture, which was
    comfortable, exciting, unforgettable.


If you missed Part 1, you can read it HERE.

.

Anglican Journal Subscribers, Please Read!

 A message from Bev Murphy of the Anglican Journal:

As you are aware, Anglican Journal is in the process of asking parishioners to confirm their subscriptions in order to continue to receive the paper copy. There will be an ad in every issue of the Journal until the June 2019 issue asking Anglicans to contact us. After this time, subscriptions for people that have not contacted us will be cancelled. 

We now have a toll-free number where parishioners can phone to confirm their subscriptions. Since the phone number will not appear in the paper until the March issue, I would appreciate it if you could promote it in your diocesan parish email newsletters. Since your diocese does not currently have a diocesan editor, I am contacting you and hope you will be able to help promote this initiative. I have already had a few parishes ask for the number so that they can promote it in their parish newsletters.  

The toll free number is:                     1-866-333-0959 

In addition, parishioners can contact us at yes@national.anglican.ca or by mail at:

Anglican Journal, 80 Hayden St, Toronto, ON  M4Y 3G2 

Thank you for your help getting the word out. 

Bev Murphy,

Anglican Journal

Click HERE to see a copy of the ad that will appear in the March issue of Anglican Journal.  

Poetry in Ordinary Time: Mary Oliver

Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, Mary Oliver, died last month at the age of 83.  Her work is known for its affinity with the natural world, which reflects her own.  Though not a practitioner of any particular faith, many of her poems are introspective, prayer-like and often reference God, specifically as found in creation.

Ash Wednesday is March 6th this year, and thereafter we move into the Season of Lent.  For now, however, we are again in Ordinary Time.  For the next four weeks, offered here will be the sections of her poem "At the River Clarion", for your reading and reflection.  The source is her final book, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, New York, 2017.

Photo: a stretch of the Clarion River 
that runs through Cook Forest Park.
Photographer: Zack (Zach) Zrudisin

At the River Clarion

1.

I don't know who God is exactly.
But I'll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a
     water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices
     of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck the stone it had
     something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing
     under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me
     what they were saying.
Said the river: I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone.  And I too, whispered
     the moss beneath the water.

I'd been to the river before, a few times.
Don't blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don't hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don't hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.
And it's difficult to hear anything anyway, through
     all the traffic, and ambition.



Section 2 -- next week.  May your intervening days be blessed.