Hymns:
           525   The Church's one foundation
           458   My song is love unknown
              518   Christ is made the sure foundation

              

St. Paul's is responsible for helping to staff the Dedham Food Pantry on the third Saturday of each month.  We currently need a few volunteers for Saturday, June 18.  Please contact Don Elmore ([email protected]) if you are able to help out on this day.

 

Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.

 

A week ago I joined a neighborhood Peace Walk in Boston's South End with Boston Police Commissioner William Evans and members of his department, children and adults of the neighborhood, and participants in our diocesan B-PEACE effort.  We walked local streets proclaiming our determination to reduce gun violence and other violations of communal safety.

 

"Of course," I told the gathering, "marching around the neighborhood or wearing orange (as we'd recently done for Gun Violence Awareness Day) will not, in and of itself, stop the violence.  We do this to proclaim to others and remind ourselves that together there is hard work to be done."

 

The very next day a 17-year-old student was shot and killed outside his high school in Dorchester.  Six days later 50 people have died in Orlando in what is being termed the worst mass shooting in our nation's history.  Within hours of my own grateful participation in Boston's Pride Parade, I find myself grieving and extending compassionate prayers and heartfelt support to the wider LGBT community as the latest target of hatred and violence.

 

I struggle to sort out the tangled web of motivations in this tragedy, as in others before it.  Each mass shooting and terror attack has had its own particular toxic combination of factors - individual alienation, hatred towards those who are different from us, religious extremism and more.  A common factor in virtually every case, however, has been the ready accessibility of lethal weapons.

 

With each successive, perverse milestone in our country's narrative of violence - now a school massacre, now a movie theater slaughter; now the most children murdered, now the greatest total number of victims - our initial determination to be galvanized fades into a higher threshold of tolerance and accommodation to apparent inevitability.

 

Our grief and anger, however, must continue to issue not only in compassion and prayer, but in continued advocacy for those measures which can turn the tide in this crescendo of death.  We do this with programs that build relationships across lines that divide us.  We do it also with common-sense legislation on access to weaponry.  (Bishops United Against Gun Violence, of which both I and Bishop Gayle Harris are members, provides links at www.bishopsagainstgunviolence.org, pull-down menu "The Evidence.")

 

Of course we know that none of these measures in isolation will prevent all murderous attacks.  Of course we know that combating terrorism requires different methods than combating household firearm accidents.  But a full spectrum of interconnected efforts must advance the cause of communal safety and peace.

 

Jesus told us that the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor.  It follows that the greatest sin is the failure to love, and we are told that the consequence of sin is death.  Too much are we witnessing this consequence.  Let us love one another.  Fervently, tangibly, relentlessly: let us love one another.

 

Faithfully in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Alan M. Gates

 

http://www.diomass.org/diocesan-news/hard-work-be-done-letter-bishop-gates-following-orlando-shootings 

 

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Find a developing list of local prayer services and vigils here.

 

 

If you enjoy the movies....this is the group for you. Once a month (late Sunday afternoon) we will venture to the Dedham Community Theater at 580 High Street to see a movie. No need to RSVP, simply arrive for the movie and look for Reverend McCarley. Following the movie we will adjourn to a local eating establishment to reflect on the themes, acting, directing of the movie. Join us for lively discussion and entertainment that supports our local community.

   

On Wed nesday, July 13, at 7:00 p.m., please join us for a rousing discussion of Paula Ha wkins The Girl on the Train . St. Paul's Book Group is open to everyone-and we welcome newcomers. Come, bring a friend. Copies of The Girl on the Train are available at a 20% discount at the Blue Bunny. If you have any questions, please call Jen Luszcz at 617-803-6504 or e-mail her at [email protected]

  

EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She's even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls the m. Their life-as she sees it-is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

 

Gardeners at St. Paul's-this summer we invite you to bring extra produce from your garden to church. Parishioners who do not possess a green thumb would enjoy the bounty of your efforts. We will collect the produce in the Parish Hall and those who would like a few extra tomatoes, zucchini, beans or zinnias may "purchase" them for a donation; the proceeds of which will be donated to our local Food Pantry.

 

 

HESSCO Elder Services is looking for volunteers interested in becoming drivers for their Meals on Wheels program. This program, which delivers prepared meals to homebound elders, is in search of volunteers to contribute approximately 1 hour per week to elders who would have difficulty getting their own meals otherwise.

 

Drivers spend approximately 1 hour a week delivering meals between 11:00 a.m. and 12 noon. You can choose which day of the week works best for you.

 

If interested, please contact Debbie Fradkin at 781-784-4944 or [email protected]

 

 

The restoration of our pipe organ is well under way. The organ, built by a Canadian company, Casavant Fr ères, was first heard at St. Paul's in 1959. As part of the restoration process, many of the pipes have been removed and are being refurbished off-site. Most of this work has proceeded without creating visual interruption. The reason for this is because the majority of the organ's pipes are out of view. This week, however, all the pipes that you are used to seeing in the chancel were removed.

There are 35 pipes over the organ console (in organ-speak "Positiv 4' Nachthorn") and the 38 pipes behind our choir (again, in organ-speak "Great 8' Principal).

These pipes will all return to St. Paul's by mid-August. Our contractor for this work is Foley-Baker, a Connecticut-based company that specializes in pipe organ restorations.

 

There remain a number of steps before restoration of our Casvant organ is complete. The project is very much on schedule and will be complete by late November.

Steve Herrick, Friend of Ernie & Barbie Greppin
Sophie Huntt, Niece of Erin & Brian Yorkgitis
Lyn Hurlock, Mother of Burt Hurlock 

Lee Culver Wallace, Daughter of Mary Lee Culver

Mark Williams, Friend of Sharyn Duncan
Kayla Whitlock, Niece of Charles & Nancy Eliot

 

We pray for those serving in our Armed Forces especially Luke Heier, nephew of Barbara Millen, who is serving in the Special Forces in the Philippines and James E. Corliss, who is serving in the the U.S. Army in Iraq.

We pray for our Bishops Alan Gates and Gayle Harris.