Trinity I
An Excerpt from a Sermon by The Most Reverend Mark Haverland,
Archbishop & Metropolitan, The Original Province of the Anglican Catholic Church
" ....Trinity Sunday is the conclusion of the first half of the Church year, as the mighty acts of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascentiontide, and Whitsunday are fulfilled in the feast of the Triunal God. But then you and I have to go on in this world, for we are not yet in heaven or in the immediate Presence of God the Holy Trinity.
So immediately after Trinity Sunday the Church gives us two observances which usher in the second half of the Church year. The first is Corpus Christi, the feast of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, which falls on the Thursday after Trinity and then is commemorated today. As you and I go about our lives in this world, our chief support and comfort is the Body of Christ, the ‘medicine of immortality’, by which God dwells in us, and we in him. As the long green season of Trinitytide begins, we are sustained by Holy Communion. Corpus Christi, then, is the feast that begins our shift into the second half of the Church year.
Then we come to today and its theme of practical love. God’s grace always comes first. You and I must begin, continue, and end by reliance on God’s grace, poured forth into our hearts from the Father by the merits of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit bestowed normally by the sacraments. But the Christian life, so rooted in grace and gift, nonetheless also requires our action and cooperation and effort. God does not invite us to be passive blobs, who sit around and wait for him to bless us with gift upon gift. No. God requires us to use his gifts, to cooperate with his love and the grace of the Sacrament, and to turn from his altar towards the world with his gifts in our hands. God calls us to show forth his love in the world. God requires us to serve as his hands and feet to bind up the wounds of those with whom we come into contact, to feed hungry Lazarus, to teach those who do not know him, and to show them by our practical service and love what the love of God is like. While we often fail – while we may feel that we fail more often than we succeed – still God requires us to use what he gives us and to do our best to serve those around us as our appropriate response of gratitude to him for his astonishing blessings.
So there is my basic idea about today in context. Our theme is practical Christian love. Practical love from us comes at the end of the process. We begin with the Father and prayer, the Son and his merits, the Holy Spirit and his gifts. These together show us the Holy Trinity. We are fed with the life of God and the Body of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar. And today we are shown the proper response we should make in the light of this unfolding revelation of God and the gifts from God that come to us. The appropriate response is love towards one another.
When human love is divorced from God’s revelation and when it is not fed and nourished with the sacraments and graces of God, it becomes twisted. Human love that does not begin with God quickly becomes sentimentality or obsession. Good works apart from God twist quickly into wickedness. The pattern of our calendar is the safe path. We begin with God, with understanding and loving him as best we can in the unfolding Trinitarian revelation of Scripture and tradition. Then we are fed and nourished by the sacramental system and the teaching of the Church. It is only after we receive that we are properly equipped to begin to serve poor Lazarus and one another. Again, we will often fail. God does not require perfection, as God does not promise unbroken success or worldly happiness. God asks us to try, to try to love one another, to show each other and ourselves that the love of God truly dwells in our hearts. That kind of love is, as Saint John says, ‘of God’, and to God it will brings us back.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee
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SERVICES & EVENTS
Sunday Services, 7:45 AM, 9:00 AM, & 11:15 AM (for online participation for the services go to: https://www.facebook.com/saintsofscotland/ )
Nursery in undercorft for 9:00 AM & 11:15 AM services
Sunday School, 10:30 AM
Monday, June 3, Vestry Meeting, 7:30 PM
Wednesday, 12 noon, Holy Communion and anointing for healing, (for online participation for the service go to: https://www.facebook.com/saintsofscotland/ )
On hiatus until Wednesday June 12 Bible study with Father Bragg, "The Gospel of Saint Mark in the World of Saint Mark"
MaRIH Center (crisis pregnancy center) Needs Our Help (Updated List)
MaRIH Center with its all volunteer staff provides help to mothers-to-be and mothers in need. Please provide some of the items that are needed.. (You can leave the donations where the food for the food bank is collected on the pew in the undercorft.)
Especially Needed
In Bold are a critical need.
Diapers (sizes newborn, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6)
Lovies
Baby wipes
Diaper rash ointment
Spring/Summer Clothing: 0-3 month 3-6 month, 2T
Baby shampoo
Baby blankets
Bibs
Formula: Simulac Advance Formula
Formula: other but not recalled
Wash clothes
Hooded towels
Grocery gift cards
Food Donations: Help Feed the Hungry
Please help this month with a food donation if you are able. Christ House is very thankful for the food we provide to them each month. Please also buy low sugar cereals (and not the kid's types that have lots of sugar). Current needs include the following:
• canned meats (chicken, corned beef, spam)
• peanut butter
• jelly
• tuna
• canned vegetables (corn, green beans - (regular and low sodium)
• individual fruit cups (low sugar)
• canned fruit (low sugar)
• boxed cereal (low sugar) and instant or old fashioned oatmeal (18 oz or 42 oz)
• pasta (regular and gluten-free)
• instant potatoes
• Macaroni & cheese kits
Soups: Chunky or Progresso; Chicken broth
• Coffee, cooking oil, flour, sugar
Diocesan Summer Camp – June 23-29, 2024, at Camp Hanover, near Richmond, Va – The camp is open to ALL children ages 8-16. Financial assistance is available for members of the Diocese. Applications may be found in the narthex, on the table in the undercroft, and on the DMAS website. The camp currently is in urgent need of female counselors. If you are interested in participating as a counselor in this important ministry, please contact Archdeacon Michael Weaver at revfrmichael@ascension-acc.org.
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