Author: Michelle Bentley

Dear parishioners,

The coronavirus pandemic has prevented us from gathering in Holy Week as we normally would. Some of us are still quite busy if we work in an essential job, work from home, or care for children. But for a group of us, we have more time on our hands than usual and more solitude as well.

These are ideal conditions for prayer, contemplation and spiritual reading. Those with extra time have an opportunity to connect to Holy Week in a deeper way than normal, and also to hold up in prayer those who are ill, who are poor, and those pouring out their lives in service working on the front lines of this crisis.

After the drama and intensity of Palm Sunday: the Sunday of the Passion, the church backs off and marks the early days of Holy Week quietly. On Monday and Tuesday are simple services that mark some of the moments from the Gospel of John during the final week of Jesus’ life while he is in Jerusalem. Monday’s story, which is both shocking and poignant, is of Mary (the sister of Lazarus) anointing Jesus’ feet with costly perfume and wiping them with her hair. Tuesday’s story is a classic about a group of Greeks (non-Jews) who would like to see Jesus.

Our diocese has provided an online service for each day of this Holy Week. The Monday service is being broadcast live at 7:00 pm on the diocesan Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/diocpa/. You don’t have to be a member of Facebook to view it. It will be led by youth and young adults from around the diocese. I’m not certain, but if you’re not able to watch this service live, it may be available afterwards as a recording you could view later.

The Tuesday service, which has already been recorded and is available to view any time, is one of Evening Prayer from St. John’s, Huntingdon, done in the traditional language of Rite I. The link — https://diocesecpa.org/holy-week-2020-tuesday-april-7/

— includes a service leaflet you can download as well.

I’ll have more to say and post later this week about the remaining days of Holy Week as they come up.

David +

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From the parish office:  We have experienced wonderful “gifts” from our parishioners and staff, and for that, we are grateful.  Here are some updates:

• Julie and Jerry Hoff were kind enough to come in when nobody else was in the church to set up the altar in preparation for our St. Edward’s Easter service filming this week.
• In preparation for Palm Sunday, we were able to source palms, and with the help of Father David, Father Rick was able to come in on Saturday and bless them and they were available to parishioners to come and pick up.  It was nice to see so many parishioners stop by and get their palms and a printed copy of the  Scepter.
• And speaking of Scepter. . . as usual, Mac Miller did a fantastic job with the Scepter this month, filled with great photos and stories.  There will be so much more to share in the May issue!
• The Wednesday Bible Study group has been holding wonderful weekly meetings via zoom and, as reported by Bill and Yvonne Gasperetti, they have 13 participants in the group, which is fantastic.  Their study will continue after Easter, as well, for 7 more sessions as they finish up their Blackaby, James bible study book.
• Christina and Joe McLaughlin launched the first “virtual coffee hour” on Zoom and it was a success with 8-10 families participating.  We will continue to give the details of that, for our parishioners to join, in our Thursday Daily Message, as it requires a join number and a passcode.  We share those only in the parish email (you can pass on to friends or interested parties) so as to protect meeting privacy.
• Social Outreach shares our Facebook posts with our Embrace community so that they have a liturgy that they can get in touch with for worship.
• Patrick Ishler, Karen Waddill, and Father Rick filmed the music portion of our planned Easter service on Sunday afternoon and by all accounts it sounds like it will be beautiful!
• Our organist, Karen Waddill has provided us with wonderful piano pieces she recorded for Holy Week.  Here is the post to listen to the pieces throughout the week:  https://sainteds.org/music-for-holy-week-from-our-organist-karen-waddill/
• Jamie Alton, choir member, reader, and stewardship committee member relayed that the choir had a virtual “meet up” and it was great to see so many faces and have the ability, through technology, to get together and chat face-to-face.  Jamie also recorded his Easter reading which will be part of our upcoming service. Leslie Arnold and Rosie Westgate will be our other technology-savvy recorded readers.
• People have been calling each other to say hello and check up on their fellow St. Edwardians, which is fantastic!
• The office receives wonderful tidbits to add as content for the Daily Message, and we are most grateful, including personal messages from members of the parish to each other.  Keep sending!!!
• Work on restoring the narthex ceiling continues and should be completed this week.  Our kitchen work may be a bit delayed due to some subcontractors unable to get waivers to do their work.
• The lawn just got cut for the first time last week!  It looks great.
• Our Vestry continues to communicate and plan the business of the church and will be holding their next vestry meeting, tomorrow, April 7th, virtually.
• Community Aid Bin:  Please DO NOT drop any items in the bin in our parking lot.  Community Aid is still working on getting their waivers to start making pick-ups and it is overflowing right now.  We will let you know when it is ready to be of service.
• Holy Week Resources:  Here is a link to some wonderful free resources provided by Church Publishing:
•   https://sainteds.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Holy-Week-Activities-for-Families_FINAL.pdf

Finally:  The Rector and Senior Warden are looking for interested parishioners to serve as our delegates to convention. The Diocesan Convention is one day, October 17, 2020, and is a wonderful opportunity to represent us and to be involved in the very important work and decisions that shape our diocese.  As per the by-laws, we are seeking confirmed or received Episcopalians who are over 18 years of age and who attend regularly, financially support the Church and who have been a member of St. Edward’s Church for at least 12 months.  It would be wonderful if parishioners who have not served as delegates in prior years would seek this as an opportunity to serve our parish community. We need you! Please prayerfully consider submitting your name(s) by Monday, April 13th to the parish office.

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LENTEN MEDITATION – APRIL 6, 2020

Will you cherish the wondrous works of God, and protect the beauty and integrity of all creation?*

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God created, and, indeed, it was very good.

My family has gone backpacking every summer since our daughter was four years old. This time together immersed in creation—even amidst the moans of blisters and heavy bags and who-got-the-last-packet- of-lemonade bickering—is one of my favorite times of the whole year. Being in the wilderness with nothing to plug in or answer brings us to our essential selves and reminds us of who we are together.

Creation, of course, is all around us, no less in rivers and mountains than the dandelions creeping up between gaps in the sidewalk. Being a person of faith is about learning to see God everywhere; the life force of a weed is as fearsome as the tallest mountain. To cherish God’s wondrous works and protect its beauty and creation is a twenty-four-hour-a-day proposition. It’s more complicated than just packing our trash in and out on a long hike; we are in a crisis of our own making, and time is short. True creation stewardship means being committed at every level, from how we shop to how we vote. Will you cherish the wondrous works of God, and protect the beauty and integrity of all creation? I will. With God’s help.

– Sarah Irwin is an Episcopal priest serving as pastor of St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, married to Noah Evans and mother of their two children.

 

*This sixth baptismal promise was authorized for trial use at the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church.