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 Weekly Email Archive [April-July 2007] [ Father Downing is on vacation in July, so we will not be posting any weekly messages here. ] June 21, 2007 Dearly beloved, With joy in my heart I write today in anticipation of our Sunday worship in union with our dear neighbors from St. Monica's. As I have said before I believe that St. Monica's approach to us was a gift from God and that it is meant to strength our ministry, broaden our mission, and open our hearts to give and receive love in new ways. While I was reading the lessons appointed for this Sunday I noticed what an important message they have for us. First, we have the confession of St. Peter that Jesus is "The Messiah of God." What Peter is saying is that the promised deliverer of Israel has been sent by God to all of humankind. Sent in a form and with a teaching that was completely unexpected, even contrary to what the people wanted. Nevertheless, we believe he is what we need, and his teaching is the means God has chosen to make us whole. This provides the context within in which we can cultivate and live into a full relationship with God. What Jesus went on to say, after Peter identified him was this, "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." We all know that Peter had difficulty accepting this statement, but we know that it is true. It also echoes the first reading for this Sunday which is taken from the Book of the Prophet Zechariah where he says, "… when they look on the one whom they have pierced… on that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity." Those of you who worship here on Good Friday will recognize that quotation from the Gospel reading for that day. In the passion of the Lord we gaze upon the one who was pierced, wounded, and crucified on our behalf. But we know that a great fountain of mercy, forgiveness, and love flow from his wounded side, making peace and the whole created order new. That newness of the creation is what Paul speaks of in the Letter to the Galatians when he speaks of the water of Baptism and what its powers accomplishes. This is what he says, "… As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus…" Our identity, who we are in our essence, is that we are clothed with the being of God. Because of this identity we cannot allow ourselves to indulge in anything that separates us from one another; whether it be our fear, our adherence to tradition, our busy lives, our anger, or our unwillingness to sacrifice for each other and for what we love. For what God calls us to do is live into and out of his own identity. This has been an ongoing challenge to Christians since the beginning, and it is a problem that Paul was addressing with the early church in Galatia. You will hear read at the end of the Gospel reading this Sunday these words, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. It behooves us all to overcome the things that cause separation among us. We have choices, if we wish St. James' to have a vigorous mission then we have to decide to pick up our cross daily and do what must be done to make this parish the vibrant, inclusive, worshipping, life transforming community that we all yearn for. I have no doubt we need the boost that St. Monica's people, and their energy and heritage, can provide us. We in turn can allow for their identity and mission to continue, both of which compliment our identity and mission extremely well. It is my fervent prayer that you will see this as well and that you will come to express your support for the merger process to continue on July 1st. I hope that you have had an opportunity to read the mailings from earlier this week. Two names were inadvertently left of the list of pledgers, Father Macfarlane and Emily Zehmer. We thank them and all of you for your sacrificial giving. I will be leaving with my dear wife to take our summer vacation on Monday, June 25th and will return in time for St. James day which we will be celebrated on July 29th. I will be present to preach and celebrate on July 1st and to attend our parish meeting following the 10 AM service. During my absence Father Darko, Father Connor, and Mother Henry will provide your pastoral care. I will include phone numbers where they can be reached at the end of this email. Of course this comes to you with my love. May the peace of the Lord be with you, Father Downing June 14, 2007 Dearly beloved, With joy in my heart I write to you on the Feast of Saint Basil the Great, and on the 37th anniversary of my ordination to the Sacred Order of Priests. Some of the best years of my life I have spent serving this congregation as its rector. I have learned to love every one of you just as I know you have learned to love me. It has been my privilege to walk with you through a number of life changes, transitions, crises, and joys. It has been a blessing to be your priest as I strive to be an agent of God's blessing and grace in your lives. We have been together a long time, and during this time our congregation has made its way through major societal and neighborhood changes. We have adapted to these new situations and have responded to God's call by opening our hearts and doors to many people with varying spiritual and personal needs, and we have always planted our roots firmly and deeply in the worship of God. This pattern has always been a part of our community's life, and I pray that it will continue. Lately, we have been offered a wonderful opportunity to grow in the knowledge and love of God, to examine our own hearts, and to discover new ways in which God's grace is seeking to stretch our lives, our hearts, and our minds. Our near neighbor, St. Monica's has offered us this opportunity to engage with them in a process of learning and discovery. This could lead to the merger of our common lives. As I have said before, I believe that this opportunity is important for us to seize. We can use this opportunity to learn more about what type of parish we are, gauge our own personal sense of self-satisfaction and, perhaps our over-emphasis on the importance of our individual sense of comfort and ease. This process allows us to make new friends and places us in a situation where we can be open to the rich heritage and experience that St. Monica's has to offer. For me these last weeks of alternating worship have been filled with joy and learning. We share so much in common, our roots are deeply sunk in the Anglo-Catholic expression of worship, and our hearts share a common focus on the Gospel message of universal love, complete forgiveness, and passion for justice. One thing that will challenge our experience here at St. James' is the reality of the oppression suffered by African-Americans in our society and even in God's church. My sense is that our common next step in mission could be an expression of the Gospel value which requires that all human persons be treated the same, and which calls Christian people not only to "make no peace with oppression", but to fights its every manifestation in the name of the God who made all persons in his image. I urge you to worship with us this Sunday at 8 AM here at St. James', and at 10 AM at St. Monica's, and then on June 24th at 8 AM at St. Monica's and at 10 AM here at St. James'. Then on Sunday, July 1st both congregations will worship at their own churches. During each Mass on that day there will be an information gathering process related to the merger exploration. We will gather the thoughts and feelings of all our members. This information will then be used by the merger team, rector, and vestry in making future decisions. The open meeting, at the time of the coffee hour, will be lead by the rector and wardens. The information collected at during the Masses will be collated and made available in summary form at the meeting. We will be able to review it during the beginning of the coffee hour, then we will conduct the session in a discernment style that maintains a measured pace and allows each person an opportunity to speak and be heard. You will be invited to offer one brief comment on your feelings and thoughts about the possible merger. We will move from person to person going around a circle; each person may offer a brief comment. We will go around the circle several times if needed. You do not have to speak if you wish, but we will listen respectfully to what others offer and will avoid negatively reacting to what others say. We will offer our own feelings and thoughts in a non-reactive, positive, and productive manner. If anyone makes more than one comment or goes on too long the facilitator will ask the person to finish his or her comment. Please make it your highest priority to come to worship on July 1st, prepare your hearts to receive the Holy Communion, the very bread of life and cup of salvation, and then in your most Christian manner interact with your brothers and sisters who are sincerely seeking the best for our parish community and its mission. This comes to you with my love. The Lord be with you, Father Downing June 7, 2007 Dearly beloved,
With joy I write to remind you that today we will celebrate the Feast of the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus the Christ, commonly called
The gift that Jesus gave was combined with the promise that as we continue to offer and receive his sacrifice he will continue to be present. This promise of fidelity and of God’s constant eternal presence is the pledge, not only of his good will and love, but of a relationship that never ceases. Such an eternal relationship is the facet upon which I hope you will contemplate today. This pledge, of an eternal and unbreakable relationship, flies in the face of how relationships are so often conducted today, where love is given conditionally and then quickly withdrawn in time of crisis or misunderstanding. Relationships entered into solely for personal gratification, and not for service or growth, or even length of duration are more like the signs of this time then the relationships that God has called us to have with himself and with each other. What we believe is that in the person of Jesus the Christ, God chose to be eternally at one with human flesh and continues to offer that oneness to us every time we receive the Holy Communion.
Jesus, always and eternally present to you because of the nature of his love and the quality of his sacrifice, makes himself constantly present to you and to your neighbor. As we receive and follow the host today out the church door and onto the public sidewalk, we affirm to the world that God’s gift and presence are known and appreciated, valued and duly used by us. Let us then not forget that we come to that altar “not for solace only, but also for strength, and not for pardon only, but also for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body and one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.”
It is this aspect of our own community’s life and purpose that makes apparent the presence of Jesus the Christ in the Holy Communion and in our lives. The Holy Communion is meant to change our lives, to soften, broaden and deepen our hearts, and to strengthen them for the hard work of service, life and interacting with each other in the context of the Christian community. This communal life has been the hallmark of the Christian Church since the beginning. We belong to a particular community here on Capital Hill where we experience and share joy, love, sorrow, and loss; all the things that give a rich pattern to human life. Monday afternoon
Last Saturday, David Michaud was ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons in
The complicated nature of human communities and the straightforward nature of God’s love intersect daily in every parish community. I hope that you will come tonight at 7 PM to experience once again the beautiful celebration of Corpus Christi, raise your hearts and voices in songs of praise for our God, and look around you at the people God has brought together in this place, for as Saint James said, “if you cannot love the brother you can see, how can you say you love the God you cannot see?”
Speaking of our community, and the wonder of our Eucharistic life, many of us are constantly surprised and gratified that a congregation of our size is able sustain the worship life that we do. It is I am sure a direct consequence of our ability to believe and experience the presence of the risen Christ in the Holy Communion. As I said last week, that witness and experience have sustained this parish community for over 130 years.
We have had our ups and downs, and while we at the moment faced with the wonderful opportunity to talk with Saint Monica’s about combining our common lives, I hope that you will not forget our own parish trajectory. We have been in a pattern of gentle decline over these past few years. Darren has prepared some figure taken from the parochial report which he will include in this email.
These figures will show a continually faithful and generous response to God’s gifts to us. But what they also show is that our income is not sufficient to support a parish that is vigorous in its mission. The key of course is growth in numbers and giving, but this will only occur as we continue to grow in grace and faith. One thing I believe it is important to note is that parishes divided by conflict, as we have been in these last months, are not attractive places for new people to put down roots. My best advice, which others have given me, is that we let go of those judgments that separate us from one another, accept the grace and love offered us in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and decide to live at peace with each other.
This comes with my love.
The Lord be with you,
Father Downing.
St. James’ Pledge and Attendance Figures for 2002-2006
Dearly beloved,
It was a joy to see a full church on the Feast of Pentecost, a fact made even more astounding because it was a holiday weekend. I cannot begin to tell you how glad this made me, unfortunately it also made me all the more aware of the situation in which our parish finds itself today. For many reasons I have always been proud to be the rector of St. James’ Parish, but mostly because of the joyful, hopeful, trusting grasp our people have on the Gospel of Jesus the Christ and a willingness to trust and to work hard in response to God’s grace. I am the first to say that the committed core of St. James’ Parish is wonderfully dedicated, generous with time, talent, and treasure. In part I believe because their souls are fed through our worship, God’s presence in the Sacraments, and the love that we experience in this community.
Over these past few years we have seen steady decline in our Sunday attendance and in our income. There are, I am sure, good reasons for this. I will ask Darren to graph this pattern for you and to make it available to you in the upcoming weeks so that you can better see the downward slope this congregation has undergone in the past several years. This downward trend is apparent in both our average weekly attendance and in our pledged giving.
This pattern has more than one cause. Certainly, the deaths of several of our oldest members have made a big difference. They, by and large, came every Sunday, gave generously, and now have gone on to their reward, and in their passing our numbers and resources have diminished. Also, a few years ago financial constraints forced us to stop advertising in the Blade, the Hill Rag, and the Voice of the Hill. We also stopped our regular three times a year leafleting in the surrounding neighborhood. In regards to pledged giving where we find ourselves today is about where we were in 2003, and this is not an amount sufficient to fund our current needs.
What is happening now is that we are being offered an opportunity, in my opinion by God, to explore a merger with our near neighbor St. Monica’s. This requires us to open our hearts to a new influx of Christian souls. Of course this will mean change, but it will also mean that we will become accustomed to being welcoming, and that is the first and most important act required of us if we ever hope to grow to the degree that our grasp of the Gospel and our beautiful worship have in the past demonstrated we can.
We are being offered the genuine opportunity to provide through our common life and worship the witness of a truly integrated parish in a city that still suffers from segregation in the lives of most religious communities. One of the hallmarks of St. James’ parish is that it has been a parish that welcomes all people who pass through our doors, no matter what their color, their sexual orientation , or family status. This is one of the most important ministries we can provide our society and city.
We could begin the process of revitalizing our life by accepting this opportunity offered us by God and our brothers and sisters at Saint Monica’s. They wish to learn how to love us and share with us their experience of God’s redemption and the struggles of African-Americans in this society. This can only occur if create in our own hearts an opening that is based upon the recognition that God’s love is the cement that binds all God’s people together. I fervently pray that St. James’ will change in the course of this process. I believe that the change will be for the better.
This weekend we will be worshipping at St. James’ at
These last few weeks I have been advertising for help in maintaining our Anglo-Catholic worship. Thank you to
As always, this comes to you with my love.
Peace be with you,
Father Downing
COMBINED WORSHIP SCHEDULE
June 3: 8 AM- St. James’ 10 AM- St. Monica’s
June 10: 8 AM- St. Monica’s 10 AM- St. James’
June 17: 8 AM- St. James’ 10 AM- St. Monica’s
June 24: 8 AM- St. Monica’s 10 AM- St. James’
Dearly Beloved,
With joy in my heart I write to congratulate all those who were able to join us yesterday morning at St. Monica’s Church for the
We will be celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, the end of the Great 50 Days of Easter. The seal which is placed within every Christian’s heart, God’s Holy Spirit, this mysterious gift is the very personal abiding presence of the loving God in our own hearts, put there to shape the way we live, the way we act, the things we say, and the choices we make each day. Come wear something red as an outward and visible sign of the warmth of God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in your heart and share that reality with our brothers and sisters from Saint Monica’s.
This message comes to you earlier this week because I will be away Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at the Bishop’s Annual Clergy Conference where the Reverend Doctor Margaret Guenther will be the featured speaker. Mother Guenther is well known as a spiritual director and a noted author on the subject of prayer, but she is first and foremost a praying person. Her theme will be encouraging the Reverend clergy to deepen their own lives of prayer. Due to my absence the need for weekday servers is particularly acute.
As you know we have a tradition here at St. James’ of over 130 years of offering daily worship and most of the time a daily celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the
This comes to you with my love.
Father Downing.
Dearly Beloved,
With Easter joy in my heart I write to you on the 40th day of the Great Feast of Easter which is also the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is a principal feast of the Christian year and true to our Anglo-Catholic heritage we celebrate it on the very day of its occurrence. This is not always a convenient day for people to observe. By the same token we understand that our tradition is one that makes claims of discipline upon those who profess it. As Anglo-Catholics we recognize that the faith we hold in our hearts must also, if it is genuine, issue in lives that are lived differently. So we continue to offer God’s people opportunities to make decisions which will direct their lives in pathways that will lead them in the direction of a deepening faith, a disciplined life, and hearts that are open to a deeper and fuller relationship with the living God and his community of faith which is known through the operation of the Holy Spirit, our Lord’s body on the earth.
This is very easy for us to say, and yet a continuing challenge for each of us every single day of our lives, lest we become guilty of that peculiarly Anglo-Catholic sin- an over emphasis on the way things are done rather than the loving acts our lives can accomplish. I offer you at
We have been hearing how much people love St. James’, its rich worship and witness, and its ongoing life of liturgical prayer. As you might well know, St. James’ parish was the first parish in the city of
In order to make this important part of our Anglo-Catholic heritage possible we are faced with a need for servers on alternating Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings. We also need to reinvigorate the Friday routine of Morning Prayer. The Tuesday Mass is celebrated at
This Sunday we begin our alternating worship schedule by visiting St. Monica’s at
This comes to you with my love.
Dearly Beloved,
Each year at this time, in the Easter feast, the Church celebrates what we in the Anglican Communion call the Rogationtide. This is the time when we acknowledge that the earth, the whole of the created order, belongs to God and is responsive to God’s will. We pray for fruitful seasons and bountiful harvests so that God’s people will have enough to eat to sustain their lives and to supply them with enough to share with others. This important message is combined with a humble attitude where we acknowledge that the earth itself has been entrusted to our care. In a very important way the Rogation Tide message is that we are individually and collectively responsible for the care of the earth. A message that is very important today, when no matter what our political beliefs happen to be, the increasing scientific evidence reveals that that earth is in trouble, and in large measure the trouble has its roots in human behavior, in our own individual demands for consumption, and in our collective negligence.
These next days can be important ones for those of us who remember this tradition. For those of us in the Anglo-Catholic heritage know that our worship is intended to change our lives, to redirect our hearts, to
Of course we will encounter this celebration as we usually do, in the context of the Holy sacrifice of the Mass, the place where heaven and earth, eternity and our mortal life intersect, the place where we receive the body and blood of Christ, having offered on the altar our own life and labor. What a wonderful and mysterious encounter we are given every time we gather in our church at God’s altar. This mystery, this powerful presence which we rely upon always and forever, we bear witness to it as we receive the Blessed Sacrament, as we proclaim our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed and in the Baptismal Covenant, and we will take this transforming faith out the door of the church into the beauty of the parish garden where we lift our hearts and voices in a song of praise to our God, sprinkling all the that the blessed Easter water reaches, to remind ourselves that the mission and purpose of God’s Church, and our own lives is to make real that life giving, life sustaining, loving transformation, that we seek for our own hearts and offer to everyone whose life we touch.
Our lives are filled with more and more choices and opportunities, here are some that you can make which will help continue the vigorous life of your parish church. We need a Tuesday night server every other Tuesday at
We also need some new servers at all of our Masses, daily and Sunday, but particularly as summer approaches, we need to expand those persons able to serve at the High Mass on Sunday and the Low Mass on 8 AM. Ian Smith will be away for the summer, and when he returns he will be leaving for college, and many of you will be enjoying your well deserved vacations as well, but the witness and work of your parish church continues. So examine your heart and come forward, offer your time and talent to keep our worship vigorous and beautiful.
Finally, let me remind you that those who proclaim their love for their parish church and its worship and witness, are called by God to support both those things not only by their attendance, but by their cheerful giving of treasure. The Episcopal Church has as its minimum standard of giving, the tithe- that is 10% of the treasure God bestows on us by giving us life, education, talent, and opportunity for meaningfully work that others pay us to do. If everyone in this congregation were to pledge the tithe we would have no financial worry or strain. This is simply the truth. Thank you all who have made your pledges up to now and thank you in advance those who have yet to do so but will.
In addition please remember to keep the sick and invalids in your prayer; especially
As you know, we are in the midst of our annual stewardship effort. This is the time of year when we reflect upon the Passion and Resurrection, upon the new life offered us by the Risen Christ as we contemplate the many blessings with which our lives are filled. One way to help deepen our own spiritual lives is to take seriously our Lord’s own words about money: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Our conversation last night shows clearly just how much our congregation loves its parish. Now is your opportunity to deepen that love and commitment by cultivating the Holy Habit of tithing. An easily achievable plan for cultivating this habit and practice was very thoughtfully developed by fellow parishioner and newest vestry member Beth Rogers who serves on the Stewardship Committee. I have attached it for you to prayerfully consider. This comes to you with my love. Dearly Beloved, With joy I write today following a wonderful vestry meeting last night that was devoted, in large measure, to further discussion of the merger exploration which we have undertaken with our near neighbor, St. Monica's Parish. We were able to identify among ourselves many possible positive outcomes right along with those things that are of concern and questions that will need to be answered. We expressed gratitude to God that our neighbors have the opinion of us that we would be open-hearted and open-minded, willing to engage in a process which could not only benefit both congregations but strengthen the witness that we have in common - a dedication to the Gospel message of God's love for everyone lived out in communities where forgiveness is given and received, love is shared, joy is multiplied and the common witness to social transformation is strengthened. I cannot begin to say to you how much I believe that this process of merger exploration is a gift to us from God. It is no doubt a challenging one because it requires us to move outside our personal zone of comfort. We will encounter new things, new opportunities, new people with opinions and energy that we do not yet know and this can be a fearful thing. However, I believe we have been given this opportunity by God to encounter our own fear of change. What a wonderful time for us to pursue this merger conversation while we are celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ and our own Risen life in him. For this is the witness of our forebears in the faith after all the disciples forsook and fled. They were rewarded on Sunday night following with a visitation from the Risen Christ and his gift of the Holy Spirit which he breathed on them, thus giving every succeeding Christian person a part to play in making real, for the rest of history, transforming love. The great opportunity for us is that the breath of the Holy Spirit can be our own life force as individuals and as a community of faith here at St. James' in this discernment process. The process gives all of us an opportunity to open a place in our heart for new perspectives that would not only inform our own and invigorate our community life, but deepen our grasp of the Gospel message and our own life in Christ. This opportunity could be God's call to us. We know that we have been buried and raised with Christ and we know the gift of the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. We also know that the qualities of mission require stretching and growing and learning and discovering. It also requires a love that overcomes a multitude of sins and openness to possibility that God could be doing a new thing. This is the transforming part. We may not recognize it as such (much in the same way the disciples didn't on the night of the betrayal.) But they did after the Resurrection when Jesus appeared to them alive. That is what just happened for us. Holy Week came, Christ was laid in the tomb and at the Vigil, we celebrated the Truth of his being raised. The goal of our merger exploration is to get at the heart of the two communities, presumably creating a place where we can become friends. If we can't be friends of course we cannot merge but in order to establish a friendship we have to meet each other in real situations. The most real Anglican activity, is public worship. Worship is where we find, and live into our identity and our faith. We do not have large quantities of dogma in this church, we have genuine life changing worship. Worship is where we encounter and express what we believe. The most logical place for us to begin the conversation and building of friendship with our neighbor St. Monica's is in public worship. We will learn what is important to them, how they express their love for God and each other, and how their common life engages the mission on which Jesus sent them. They will discover the same about us when they come here. As a result, we will be privileged to discover and articulate the essence and identity of our own community, no matter the outcome of the merger discussion. This is sure to make a very positive difference in our own community life. Attached you find a series of questions and answers that have emerged throughout the course of our conversations so far. (They can also be viewed at http://www.sjec.org/site/1/docs/QA_1.F.pdf ). I hope you will take time to carefully read them in preparation for our next merger exploration discussion meeting that will be held Wednesday, April 25 at 7:30 in the upper parish hall. This meeting will be facilitated by Rev. Betty McWhorter of St. Patrick's. A second meeting will be held on Sunday, May 13th, after coffee hour from 12-2 pm. This comes to you with my love. The Lord be with you, Father Downing
“Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.” Isaiah 43: 16-21
As I was reading over the lessons for Sunday, I was struck by this passage taken from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Every year as we approach Holy Week and make our decisions about whether or not we will participate fully in its Rites, it would do very well for us to remember that these Rites are the way that we as Christian people can come close to actually participating in those events which occurred long ago in Jerusalem but which are, through God’s grace, made present to us today, here in our parish church.
We arrive each year at Holy Week a different person. We have a whole year of experiences behind us. We may have suffered some significant trauma or be embarking on some new phase in our lives. Our hearts may have been broken or our lives changed radically by an awareness of some new height of love or depth of commitment. We bring that new person to Holy Week, entering into these events, not as an observer but as a genuine participant. We are a part of the action and the action is not only what God in Christ does, it is how we respond and receive that love. This synergy expands our capacity, opens our hearts and minds, further deepens our understanding of God’s love in Christ and is a significant propellant in our spiritual growth.
Our new self is now reliving the first celebration of the Holy Eucharist. We have our own feet washed just as the Disciples did. We hear the commandment “love one another as I have loved you”. We know the strength and power and depth of that commandment and the love of Jesus the Christ who washed the feet, who was content to be betrayed and given up into the hands of sinners and to suffer and die upon the cross, who defeated death and its power to rise again to live and reign in heaven and in your heart. This new thing every year is, yes, the same “old” thing but it is eternally new as we experience it with our new being. It is the risen gift of transformation playing out in our lives. It is the opportunity to respond to God’s self-giving love with our own, renewed self-giving love and life lived in a way that makes God’s presence real to those around us.
Holy Week is intense but it is lined with gold. I wish I could simply put this into 25 or fewer words but, you I cannot. The only way to truly know the power of Holy Week is to come to the Holy Week services and relive those events and action that have changed everything forever. Resolve now to commit to attend all of it: Maundy Thursday at
We still have some housekeeping items that will make Holy Week complete. In the upper parish hall this Sunday you will find sign up sheets for making Easter eggs, praying with the blessed sacrament for an hour, canopy carring for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, reading for the Great Vigil of Easter, and of course, a sign up sheet for the potluck brunch on Easter Day. In addition, as you know, we often have more children than usual on Easter Day. We need several volunteers to help with Sunday School and Nursery on that day as well as the Easter Egg hunt which we have, in the past, offered to all the children. Can you also supply some of Easter candy and those plastic eggs to fill? Please contact me in the office at 202-546-1746 or fatherdowning@covad.net if you can help.
Here are some opportunities to pray for your fellow parishioners:
This comes to you with my love. The Lord be with you, Father Downing
Dearly Beloved, Vestry Stewardship Statement March 14, 2007 We believe God's mission is in the world and needs our spiritual and worldly resources, which God gives us freely and wants us to share. We, the Vestry of St. James' Parish, commit joyfully to tithe our time, talent, and treasure, or adopt a plan to achieve the tithe, in order to affirm our response to God's call. We believe giving is both our responsibility and essential to our spiritual health. We invite everyone in our Parish family to join us in embracing these commitments, and to contemplate prayerfully your own responses to God's call. If everyone who worships here were to adopt the tithe as their own regular standard of giving, St. James' Parish would be set free from any number of impediments to its mission. Perhaps the most important being fear that we will not have enough to continue our life, or fear that we will over extend ourselves and not be able to keep our commitments, or fear that we are not doing God's important work in the world. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if instead of fear, our whole community could step out in joy and confidence knowing that we have the resources to be fair to our employees, give significantly to those in need, and maintain our beautiful parish spaces where we worship and where we learn how to be a community. But even more, if there were something beyond the minimum we need to carry on our life, we could be generous in ways that we haven't even imagined but we catch a glimmer of when we count our own blessings. Why not share some of those with your parish family and strengthen its life in some new way? You will be the direct beneficiary of your own generosity because you live in a parish that, in truth, is not afraid to confront its own internal problems and the world's as well. We are brave because more and more, we put our trust in God. Seize this opportunity in your own life to grow in your spiritual nature by giving beyond what you think you can. We have an opportunity to make our next stewardship witness by participating in the upcoming Easter leafleting effort. This is our invitation to our neighbors to come and share with us in the experience of Holy Week and Easter which are the means whereby we, every year, renew our own faith. We can share this with everyone who walks through our church door, confident that every year when we encounter these events, our own hearts are changed and our lives benefited in ways we cannot always explain but we can feel. This Sunday at the coffee hour, we will be stuffing our leaflets and next Sunday, March 25, we will hand them out. Plan now to help us in both endeavors. Speaking of sharing, we will need extra help in the Nursery and Sunday School on Palm Sunday and Easter Day as well as extra help organizing and overseeing the Egg Hunt on Easter Day when we have an influx of visitors to whom we owe the same welcome that we hope to receive when we approach the Pearly Gate of Heaven! Please contact me if you are able to help. Emily Zehmer was in the hospital last week but is now home and feeling much better. Jeremy Spruill remains in the hospital but hopes to go home at the end of this week. Jane Long had an initial surgery for breast cancer on March 5th and will have more surgery next week on March 22nd. Please remember them fervently in your prayers. This comes to you with my love. The Lord Be with you, Father Downing |
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