Dear parishioners,
Today’s message provides you with some new activities for this weekend, starting with Stations of the Cross, tomorrow. This is all new to many of us, being in community virtually, and can be challenging to “meet” with technology, but give it a try, if you can! Know that there are people we can connect you with to help, as well. If we keep the faith and keep our parish community bonds, virtually, imagine how strong we will be when we meet, in person, again! Please remember to give someone a call, text, or email today – friends, family, fellow parishioners. We need each other.
Michelle
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VIRTUAL COFFEE HOUR AT ST. EDWARD’S
Starting THIS SUNDAY, we are so fortunate to have Christina McLaughlin hosting a weekly “Virtual Coffee Hour” on Sunday’s from 10-10:45 AM. This is all new to us, so take a chance, set up zoom and see how it all goes! It will be fun to connect and whether you want to stay on for 5 minutes or the full session, grab your cup of coffee or tea, pull up a chair, and say hello to your fellow parishioners.
Here is a link of step-by-step instructions to set up zoom, that Christina put together.
https://sainteds.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/St-Eds-Coffee-Hour-Invite-and-How-To.pdf
And, if you have any questions, Christina has offered to please give her a call and she can help! Her number is 717-415-7043.
Each Thursday, we will include this message with the “join” code as we want to keep that within the parish. This join code will not be posted on the public website of Facebook.
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PALM SUNDAY ACTIVITY
This is a wonderful activity that Dina Ishler forwarded to us to participate in. Send your photos to parish office and we will post!
This is a lovely and easy idea to honor Palm Sunday from our homes- we could even take pictures of our own doors and share them in the Scepter, on Facebook, etc. Several of us have been sharing it on Facebook and thinking it’s such a neat idea.
https://thedeaconsbench.com/a-beautiful-idea-for-palm-sunday/
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Stations of the Cross, Friday, April 3rd
There will be a Live stream on the Way of the Cross (Stations of the Cross), Friday, April 3 at 6:30 pm . Please join us on Dina Ishler’s Facebook page or via Zoom as we take the journey of Jesus to the cross. All are so very welcome to join in and when we can’t be together physically we can use this gift of technology to pray with and for each other. For those who are not connected with Facebook and will use Zoom, use the following link:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/6463715689
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LENTEN MEDITATION – THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2020
Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
– Isaiah 1:17
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The first four words of this verse are simple: “Learn to do good.” I have found that this is a lot easier to say than it is to carry out.
In my life, I frequently find myself reading an article about a terrible injustice and then desiring to do good. When I went to seminary, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to do good. Because of my work, I’m oftentimes writing reflections on the importance of doing good. I’ve heard many sermons about doing good, have sung hymns about doing good and have been dismissed with a resounding call to “do good.” I’ve voted for people who I think will do good and, like many, I’ve posted a lot on social media about what I think it means to “do good.”
Nevertheless, as nice as all these things are, they are not enough. God insists that at some point we actually have to walk the talk and go do it. To my mind, the rest of this verse specifies what that means: to seek justice where there is none to be found, to rescue people who have no chance, to defend the welfare of children who have no one and to plead the case for marginalized women in society. Reflecting honestly, have you done any of these things lately?
– Miguel Escobar is the Director of Anglican Studies at Episcopal Divinity School at Union.