Blog – Page 27 – St. Edward's Episcopal Church

Lenten Message from Bishop Scanlan

February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 administrator

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word…

(BCP pp 264-5)

21 February 2020

Dear Members of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania,

In just a few short days, we will gather in churches across our diocese on Ash Wednesday to hear words from our Book of Common Prayer inviting us to the observance of a holy Lent.

We will transition from the season of light and glory- Epiphany- in to the season of prayer, fasting, and reflection- Lent- and, working through a process of discipline, study and introspection, reconcile ourselves before the Lord and prepare for the paschal feast of Easter.

Lent offers us a time for deep soul work: We are given the opportunity to look with compassion at parts of us that are broken, to seek understanding, and to ask God to give us the tools to make us whole again; we are given the grace of time to focus on changes that we would like to make in order to live more harmoniously with our creation, each other, and our Creator; we are invited to draw from the well of Holy Scripture to find ancient wisdom for our modern lives; and we are really blessed to have this “time apart” to dwell on the gifts that God has given us and to pray for new insights for how to best use them.

Adopting new spiritual disciplines or refreshing old spiritual practices are important features of Lent. We may take on a new prayer practice, choose to read a book of the Bible that is new to us, give up a favorite food or activity, devote ourselves to service or mission- but these are not ends in themselves. The spiritual practices that we take on at Lent are vehicles of devotion for us to attain a deeper understanding of God and our relationship with God and each other.

This Lent, I will devote myself to fasting on one day of the week answering the call of our Presiding Bishop to join him in this spiritual practice as we pray for the “soul of our nation” https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/lent-2020-call-prayer-fasting-and-repentance-leading-action , I will shift my morning spiritual practice from reading Morning Prayer to engage a period of Contemplative Prayer, and I will study in two areas: I will investigate the work of the Poor People’s Campaign, a revival of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that is moving across our country and sounding a “national call for moral revival” https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/,

and I will participate in the study group offered by Mrs. Lisa Work and The Rev. Deacon Marsha Roscoe on the book by Mary Bea Sullivan, Living the Way of Love. For more information on the virtual group that is forming, click on this link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/WayOfLoveLentenBookGroup/

An additional resource that we are offering this year through our diocesan leadership is a daily reflection on the themes of our diocesan wide initiative Shaped by Faith: Change, Discovery, Experimentation, Collaboration, Creativity, and Faith. These reflections will be posted daily on our diocesan Facebook page and on our diocesan website.

As we continue in our diocese to discern how we are “Shaped by Faith,” working with our convocations to explore our vitality and to search for new ways that God is calling us to be Church, I pray that our own inner journeys during Lent will bring up in us the boldness and courage that we need to do this important work of re-shaping our diocese. I pray that our spiritual walk in the desert of Lent will yield an Eastertide for our diocese that is wildly abundant, fresh, and brimming with new life.

Join me. Join our diocese in a holy, holy Lent. Commit to a practice that will lead you into deep soul work, and allow God’s loving hand to shape you- shape us- by faith.

In the Way of Love,

The Rt. Rev. Audrey C. Scanlan

XI Bishop

Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday

February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 administrator

Join us for our annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper!

Tuesday, February 25^th 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Free-will offering

This is always a fun event and a great way to enter the season of Lent.

** We are looking for volunteers to set up, serve, make pancakes, clean up! Please sign up in the parish hall.

Our Ash Wednesday Service offerings are as follows:

7:00 AM – Ash Wednesday Service- St. Edward’s

12 Noon – Ash Wednesday Service – St. Edward’s

Evening Service – 7:30 PM, St. John’s 321 W. Chestnut Street, Lancaster

Discernment Prayer – February 2020

February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 administrator

Gracious Father, from whom comes all good and perfect gifts, as we continue in our search for our next rector,continue to bestow your love and spiritual strength to our Search Committee, and to the parish of St. Edward’s during our time of reflection, self revelation and strengthened community. Send down your love to the Search Committee as they continue on their journey entrusted to them by St. Edward’s. Keep us unified on our course, imbue us with the spiritual strength to stand strong and discern well, give us wisdom as we continue our work to bring a new Rector to lead us forward in our mission. We pray for God’s continued blessing upon our Community, that the endurance he has given to all of us during our time of transition may lead us to a happy conclusion as we seek to do His will in all that we undertake, or do, or say.

Let us all remember the words our Savior has taught us, and lift up our voices in His prayer: Our Father, who are in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, AMEN.

Your St. Edward’s Search Committee,

Dottie Gschwend, co-chair

Matthew Sternberg, co-chair

Seth Hake

Susan Landin

Beth Lynch

Bill Swiernik

Peter Weber

Cultural Events at St. Edward’s in 2020 with kick-off event – Swing Street Jazz Quartet on January 26th

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020 administrator

Patrick Ishler, Cultural Events chairperson, and the entire Cultural Events Committee invite you to a wonderful 2020 program at St. Edward’s.

Tell your friends! Invite your family and neighbors! We have a wonderful selection of events scheduled starting Janaury 26th at 3:00 PM with Swing Street Jazz Quartet and continuing throughout the year.

All events are a free-will offering and all events will have light refreshments.

Check out our 2020 schedule here.

Check out the event information for Swing Street here.

Christmas Services at St. Edward’s & Christmas Message From Bishop Scanlan – The Diocese of Central Pennsylvania

December 18, 2019January 10, 2020 administrator

Please join The Reverend David Bateman for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services at St. Edward’s. Our service schedule is as follows:

Christmas Eve

4:30 pm Family/Children’s Service with Holy Communion

Praise Band begins playing at 4:15 pm and nursery is available for ages infant – 4 years of age.

9:00 pm Festival Holy Eucharist with Choir

Nursery is available for ages infant – 4 years of age.

Christmas Day

10:00 am Holy Eucharist Rite II

We look forward to sharing Christmas with you at St. Edward’s!

III Advent 2019

Dear Members of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania,

I often speak and write about the Christian path as opening oneself to transformation. Transformation is the process by which we come to know, deeply, the love of God for us and all creation. We can put ourselves in the path to be transformed, but it is only the grace of God, in God’s good time, that affects our growing in holiness.

In a culture that prizes achievement, entrepreneurship, and “get up and go,” it feels counterintuitive to wait on God to fill us with grace. I think that God is moving and acting with grace all the time; we need to sharpen our focus to see God at work around us and in us.

Sometimes, God’s grace sneaks up on us, and we find ourselves awash in holiness as the Holy Spirit breaks in. Last Sunday afternoon, I experienced such a moment: I was sitting in a cavernous Roman Catholic church in Baltimore- St. Cyprian- attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah. Like many in the audience, I knew the music well, having sung it several times in choirs through the years. I knew what to expect. I enjoyed the choir, the orchestra, the exceptional soloists, the ornate sculptures and frescos decorating the church, the strong beam of sunlight reaching through the stained glass, landing in a colorful puddle in my pew. Everything felt good and fine- just as I had imagined it would. What I was not prepared for was the sudden breaking in of the Holy Spirit, bringing sharp tears to my eyes as the bass soloist sang his recitative from 1 Corinthians 15:

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

All at once, I recognized the power of God in my life, my absolute inability to push away or control such a deluge of love, the conviction that God’s dream for us is to be changed, and that this gift of being changed would make me- and all who have gone before- whole. It was certainty. It was mighty. It was about deep love, and it was for me. (It’s for you, too!)

It was grace.

I left, having had a good cry, filled with the glorious sounds of a time-tested musical masterpiece, and ever more certain of God’s love and power in my life. Much more than I’d bargained for with the price of my ticket.

God loves with grace in and through our lives all the time. Grace- and our faith that God will turn up- is what changes us; we are Shaped by Faith.

We are about to celebrate one of the moments in which God gave us a gift for all time- the gift of our Savior, Jesus. Jesus came as a small baby but filled with the grace of God- grace to teach, shape, and save us.

My Christmas prayer for each of you is that you will experience God’s love this season- in little ways that will continue to work on you, in you, to shape you in faithfulness, as God’s beloved.

A holy Christmas to you all as we welcome the babe Jesus, God’s gift of love for us.

+Audrey

The Rt. Rev. Audrey C. Scanlan

XI Bishop

Download Bishop Scanlan letter here.

Christmas Services at St. Edward’s & Presiding Bishop Curry Christmas Message 2019

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019 administrator

Please join The Reverend David Bateman for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services at St. Edward’s. Our service schedule is as follows:

Christmas Eve

4:30 pm Family/Children’s Service with Holy Communion

Praise Band begins playing at 4:15 pm and nursery is available for ages infant – 4 years of age.

9:00 pm Festival Holy Eucharist with Choir

Nursery is available for ages infant – 4 years of age.

Christmas Day

10:00 am Holy Eucharist Rite II

We look forward to sharing Christmas with you at St. Edward’s!

Presiding Bishop Curry’s Christmas Message 2019

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop and Primate Michael Curry said in his Christmas Message 2019.

The video of the Presiding Bishop’s message is here

The text of the Presiding Bishop’s message follows:

In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, sometimes referred to as the prologue to the Gospel, sometimes spoken of as the whole Gospel in miniature the Gospel writer says this. As he reflects on the coming of God into the world in the person of Jesus. As he reflects on Christmas. He says, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

I don’t think it’s an accident that long ago, followers of Jesus began to commemorate his coming into the world when the world seemed to be at its darkest.

It’s probably not an accident that we observe Christmas soon after December 21, the winter solstice. The winter solstice being in the Northern Hemisphere the darkest time of the year.

Undoubtedly, these ancient Christians who began to celebrate the coming of God into the world, they knew very well that this Jesus, his teachings, his message, his spirit, his example, his life points us to the way of life itself, a way of life, where we take care of each other. A way of life, where we care for God’s world. A way of life, where we are in a loving relationship with our God, and with each other as children of the one God, who has created us all.

They also knew John’s Gospel and John’s Christmas story. Now there are no angels in John’s Christmas story. There are no wise men coming from afar. There’s no baby lying in a manger. There’s no angel choir singing Gloria in excelsis Deo in the highest of the heavens. There are no shepherds tending their flocks by night. Matthew and Luke tell those stories. In John, it is the poetry of new possibility, born of the reality of God when God breaks into the world.

It’s not an accident that long ago, followers of Jesus began to commemorate his birth, his coming into the world. When the world seemed darkest. When hope seemed to be dashed on the altar of reality. It is not an accident that we too, commemorate his coming, when things do not always look right in this world.

But there is a God. And there is Jesus. And even in the darkest night. That light once shined and will shine still. His way of love is the way of life. It is the light of the world. And the light of that love shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not, cannot, and will not overcome it.

God love you. God bless you and may you have a Merry Christmas and may this world be blessed. Amen.

The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry

Presiding Bishop and Primate

The Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Church offers two digital Christmas Eve programs

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019 administrator

Perhaps your loved one or family member are home bound at Christmas but would like to experience a Christmas Eve service with The Episcopal Church. Below are links to two offerings presented via The Episcopal Church website on December 24th.

[December 17, 2019] The Episcopal Church is offering two, digital Christmas Eve programs on December 24. Available on both the Episcopal Church website and the Episcopal Church Facebook page, these programs makes Christmas Eve worship accessible to those not attending a service or program at a local church.

Both services will be available beginning on Christmas eve: St. Thomas’ at 4:00 pm and St. John the Baptist’s at 12:00 pm as well as at 6:00 pm (all times EST) and then available on demand.

Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue, New York, New York

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is one of the pivotal and most popular choral services of the year. For many, it marks the beginning of Christmas. The service follows a format designed by Edward White Benson, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, in which nine lessons are interspersed among 12 carols, motets and hymns. The lessons – which cover the fall of humanity, the promise of the Messiah, and the birth of Jesus – will be read by nine representatives of the Saint Thomas parish: a chorister, a member of the Sunday School, a gentleman of the choir, the director of music, the headmaster of the choir school, a member of the congregation, a warden of the parish, a priest of the parish, and finally the rector.

Saint Thomas is the only Episcopal church in the United States that operates a boarding school for its choristers. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Saint Thomas Choir School. The Choir of Saint Thomas is steeped in the Anglican choral tradition, offering at least five sung services a week, including weekday Choral Evensongs.

Christmas Eve liturgy

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington

This is a traditional Christmas Eve liturgy with Holy Eucharist and congregational singing of carols, including Silent Night by candlelight towards the end of the service. In an effort to intentionally create more space for silence and listening in the liturgy and worship, following the sermon the congregation will observe a full three minutes of silence and listening indicated by the pealing of bells. The liturgy will be conducted in the expansive language version of the Holy Eucharist Rite Two. This updated version of the liturgical text was approved for trial use at the Episcopal Church’s 2018 General Convention.

Click on link below and follow their calendar of events to December 24th.

The Episcopal Church offers two, digital Christmas Eve programs

The Advent Walk

November 29, 2019November 29, 2019 administrator

We hope these resources will help guide you in your journey through Advent.

Advent Calendar

Advent Devotions – to say as you light your Advent wreath each week

Advent 1 – Saying “Yes” to the Journey

Advent 2 – Journeying with Family & Friends

Advent 3 – Journeying with Community

Advent 4 – Journeying in the World

December 1st – Choral Evensong at St. Edward’s featuring The Lancaster Chamber Singers

November 29, 2019November 29, 2019 administrator

A service of choral evensong will be held at St. Edward’s Episcopal Church on Sunday, December 1st, at 4 PM. This event is free, but an offering will be received.

The service, which takes place on the First Sunday of Advent, with The Reverend David Bateman serving as Cantor and Officiant, will feature The Lancaster Chamber Singers.

The Lancaster Chamber Singers, directed by Jay W. Risser, has played a major role in quality performances of choral masterpieces in central Pennsylvania since the ensemble’s founding in 1978. From its inception, the mission of the Lancaster Chamber Singers has been to provide a rich choral opportunity for experienced voices in the greater Lancaster area and to bring to life for both audience and performer the great choral heritage of our culture. The select group consists of 35 to 40 auditioned vocalists from varied walks of life from central Pennsylvania.

Performing primarily in Lancaster County and its immediate surroundings, the Lancaster Chamber Singers has also appeared in numerous invitation-only settings such as the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and Longwood Gardens. In addition to performing a capella, the singers perform with Lancaster area instrumentalists and chamber ensembles.

Performances of note include Mozart’s Requiem with former Metropolitan Opera bass/baritone John Darrenkamp and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs with Met baritone Mark Oswald. LCS premiered Voices of Psalms, a unique work based on an Amish hymn, by Lancaster County composer Pomice Stoltzfus. The ensemble also presented the Pennsylvania premiere of James Bassi’s Harpsonnets, based on the works of Shakespeare and featuring New York City harpist Ray Pool. Several benefit concerts for victims of natural disasters have been sponsored and performed by the Lancaster Chamber Singers. LCS was invited to help celebrate the 400^th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown with a concert at Bruton Parish Church, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. In the spring of 2018, the Lancaster Chamber Singers marked its 40^th anniversary with a gala performance of Mozart’s Mass in C Major (Coronation Mass) with full orchestra.

The December program is the fourth event in The Rev. Canon Stephen C. Casey Cultural Event Series at St. Edward’s for 2019, showcasing the church’s fellowship outreach.