Sunday: stay at home, and at 9am, visit www.facebook.com/trinityfolsom for our Sunday service 

Monday: stay at home

Tuesday: stay at home, 5:30pm Qi Gong on Zoom

Wednesday: stay at home, 11am Bible Study on Zoom; 8pm Compline on Facebook

Thursday: stay at home

Friday: stay at home, 5pm Social Hour on Zoom

Saturday: stay at home

Prayer List - to submit a prayer request click here.

Altar Flowers - if you would like to dedicate Altar Flowers click here.

The parish office is closed. If you need to be in touch with any of us, e-mail us or call us (Fr. Todd’s mobile: 916.367.9281) or call the church office (916.985.2495), which has been rerouted to go to Barbara’s mobile phone. Barbara and I are on e-mail for most of the day, so if you e-mail us ( Fr. Todd [tbruce@trinityfolsom.org]; Barbara [trinity@trinityfolsom.org]), we will get back to you as soon as we can. Barbara and I will be in on Sundays to take care of mail, finances, and other essential work to keep the parish running. By the way, if you can, please continue to send in your pledge; our expenses don’t change much, and we have committed to continue to pay our non-salaried folks like the nursery workers and choir section leaders. We are also completely committed to continuing to make our monthly grants to our outreach partners like Twin Lakes Food Bank, non-profits that are already seeing increased need and are relying more than ever on consistent support. 

Worship at 9am on Sunday morning will continue to be broadcast on our Facebook page. The Sunday bulletin, with the lessons, responses, and hymns, is posted each week here by Friday morning so that you can print it out if you like, or just read it on a device as you watch the service. Have questions about how to access the service online? E-mail me or Barbara and we will help you out. You do not have to have a Facebook account to access our page and watch the broadcast, and we save it to our videos section so that if you miss it in the morning, you can tune in and watch it later. It is fun to watch it live with everyone else, though; this past Sunday, by the time the liturgy had ended, there were almost 300 comments on the video, with y’all greeting one another, offering prayers, making prayer requests, helping one another with technical issues, and just interacting like we would if we were all together in the church building. 

While I had originally hoped to be able to offer Communion to y’all in some way at home, the more we’ve learned about this virus and how it is transmitted, I don’t think that is a good idea – there’s just too much potential for transmission, and many of the folks who will want it the most are folks who are vulnerable. Believe me, I want you to have Communion, so as soon as it is safe to do so, you will have it. Until then, when you watch the celebration of the Eucharist on our Facebook page, pray a prayer for spiritual communion. I’ve included two prayers for spiritual communion at the bottom of this e-mail, and we’re also posting them on our website here.

I encourage you to call one another, text one another, send Facebook messages and e-mails, schedule Facetime and Zoom chats, whatever works to check in on one another and to make sure our most isolated and most vulnerable parishioners have some social interaction. I know that the Thrift Shop and the St. Martha’s Guild are scheduling Zoom meetings, just to keep in touch. If you would like to schedule a Zoom meeting for your ministry group, please e-mail Barbara and she can set it up! We are beginning to resume some programming by web meetings (Wednesday morning Bible study has started back up already, Qi Gong starts up this coming Tuesday, and the Children’s Choir is going to start having virtual meetings, too!), and will resume others once we have time to adjust. Tune in Sunday morning at 9am, keep praying, keep washing those hands, and for the love of God and neighbor, stay at home! Faithfully, and with much love, Fr. Todd+

Compline is the name of the Church’s bedtime prayers. If you have ever attended the Sunday 7pm service, you might recognize some prayers in the Compline service, particularly the prayer “Keep watch, dear Lord.” It’s one of my favorite services in the Prayer Book, and when I was in seminary, my dormmates and I often gathered at night to say Compline together; I always found that no matter how I was feeling when we began, by the time Compline was over, I felt a deep sense of serenity and peace. Given our current situation, I think it would be nice for us to gather for Compline. I’ll lead it from my living room on Wednesday evenings at 8pm, and we’ll broadcast it on our Facebook page here. You have responses to say, so each week we’ll post the bulletin here. Like we’re doing with the Sunday service, we’ll save it in the video section of our Facebook page so that you can watch it later, or if 8pm is too late for your kids, you can watch it (and teach them the responses) on another night. Compline doesn’t really change, but we’ll post the new one each week. Or even better, after you’ve done it once, use the bulletin to say Compline on your own or to lead Compline with your family many nights a week. You can also find the liturgy on page 127 of the Book of Common Prayer; there are some different lessons and prayers you can use to mix it up if you are doing it frequently. If you don’t have one at home, it’s online here in the Daily Office section of the Prayer Book.

Two things I know about the people at Trinity is that we embrace things that are unconventional and that we don’t shy away from a good challenge. This Sunday, we invite anyone - kids, families, adults - to share a creative response to this Sunday’s 9:00am service. You can use whatever supplies you have at home - Legos, crayons, pipe cleaners, watercolors, video camera, you name it - and get your creativity flowing. This Sunday’s Gospel lesson is John 9:1-41, where we hear about Jesus healing a blind man. You can find the full reading here. You can create a response to the Gospel lesson, the other lessons, or anything else that moves you about the service; the Sunday bulletin, with all of the lessons and hymns, can be found here. On Sunday morning, we will put a post on our Facebook page asking you to share your creations in the comments. If you’re not feeling up to submitting your own artwork, you can still participate by checking the Facebook page and “liking” your favorite creations – the ones from last Sunday are diverse, from Lego creations and drawings from to kids to beautiful collage and painting from our adult members. If you are not a regular attendee at Trinity Folsom, lucky you - since we are worshipping virtually for the time being, you can join in no matter where you are! ~ Karen van Winkle, Director of Children’s Ministries

The coloring bulletins we provide for children on Sunday mornings are now available on our website here; if you can’t print them out at home, e-mail Karen and we will print out a few weeks and mail them to you as soon as we can. If you’re looking for another resource for your kids, Karen recommends ILLUSTRATED MINISTRIES; they are offering free art and activities each week for families and congregations. You can see an archive of past week’s offerings here, and sign up to receive your own copy emailed to you weekly here. These are thoughtful offerings designed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and by signing up, they promise not to add you to their permanent mailing list. Another free resource from Illustrated Ministries is these coloring pages with Prayers for When You Feel Anxious. Illustrated Ministries produces wonderful materials and normally charge for this content, but they are making these resources free in an attempt to support families during this time. 

The local medical community is already concerned about the possibility of running out of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) in the case of a surge of coronavirus patients. While public health authorities note that homemade masks are a last resort because they do not adequately protect healthcare workers, many hospitals around the nation are concerned that we may soon be at that point at which we turn to last resorts. We pray that the professional masks on backorder arrive in time, but we can prepare for the possibility that they don’t. Dr. Margaret Parsons has put together a guide for those of you who sew who might be able to make some masks; you can find the sewing guide here. The masks will be distributed by the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society to hospitals and clinics in need. Though they aren’t as good at filtering as professionally made masks, they are better than nothing. You don’t have to take them to the drop-off location; stop by the church office on your next trip to the grocery store, slide them through the mail slot in the front door, and we will collect them and a doctor in the parish will take them to the drop-off location. 

Our word of the week is a few words this week; the priesthood of all believers. While we have priests who are ordained to administer the sacraments, we also believe that all baptized Christians are called to ministry in the world. The Church is a “royal priesthood,” and the sacrifice we offer is our love and the work of our lives in obedience to Jesus Christ. Though we cannot at this time gather in our church building, we are still the Church, and we have ministry to do – for many of us at this time, our priestly sacrifice is staying at home for the good of others! And there is much ministry you can do at home, too; pray without ceasing, connect (by phone, e-mail, Facetime, or Zoom) with others and encourage one another, and as Fr. Charlie reminded us in his sermon last Sunday, be a voice of hope in a world full of anxieties! 

The Wednesday morning Bible study is resuming its meetings by Zoom. The Wednesday morning Bible study studies the lessons for the upcoming Sunday; you can find them here. To join the Bible study on Wednesday mornings at 11am, use this Zoom link.

One of our parishioners, Elizabeth Wescott, offered Qi Gong on our campus every Tuesday at 5:30pm. Qi Gong is a combination of meditation, movement, and breathing exercises; you can read more about it here. She’ll be offering it on Zoom on Tuesdays at 5:30pm; use this link to access it. 

Use this link to join Fr. Todd for a social hour. It will be a chance for us to see one another and chat and stay connected. We’ll do it every Friday at 5pm, using the same link, until we can meet again in person!

Help us give Easter baskets for children in need who are served by Twin Lakes Food Bank. You can sponsor one child’s basket, filled with treats, toys, and some things they really need, for only $15. You can mail us a donation or put it through the mail slot in the front door of the office – just make sure to include a note that says Easter Baskets if you’re giving cash, or write it on the memo line of the check.

We’re putting everything you need on Sunday morning in the bulletin that is being posted on our website, but some people might want a Prayer Book and Hymnal. We have some old Hymnals that we’re happy to give away for you to keep, and we can also loan you a Prayer Book. We can drop them off at your front door when we’re out running errands, just e-mail Fr. Todd and let him know you want one. Or maybe you’d rather order a new one for yourself – call your local independent bookseller, search Amazon, or buy directly from Church Publishing: the Prayer Books are here (the Chapel or Pew editions are perfect and not terribly expensive) and the Hymnals are here and if you want to shell out some big bucks, you can get a combined Prayer Book/Hymnal. If you’re searching on your own, you are looking for the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the Hymnal 1982. 

There are also a lot of digital resources to cultivate your prayer life. We surveyed the church staff at this week’s staff meeting, and here’s the run-down on digital resources. Church Publishing has an app called ECP (Electronic Common Prayer) based on the Prayer Book (but it isn’t the complete Prayer Book, it’s expensive, and frankly no one on staff recommended it). Brett and Libby recommend the My Daily Office app; Kathy recommends the Prayer app from the Mission St. Clare; Karen likes the d365 app for daily devotions; Libby and Karen both like the Pray As You Go app; and Anna likes St. Bede’s Breviary, a website, not an app. There’s also a Forward Day by Day app from Forward Movement, an Episcopal group that puts out great resources. Fr. Todd is a dinosaur who has never liked reading on a screen, so he just buys a new Prayer Book/Hymnal whenever the pages start falling out of the current one he’s using.  

If you would like to make a donation towards the altar flowers for Easter Sunday, use the online form here and select Sunday, April 12th. You can dedicate the flowers for any reason, but Easter is a particularly appropriate day to donate altar flowers in memory of loved ones who have died, and in thanksgiving for loved ones who were recently born or baptized. The suggested donation is $50, but please don’t let that stop you from making a dedication; if you don’t have it, give whatever you can.

I apologize for forgetting to include it in last week’s Tidings, but Althea Hurley’s funeral has been postponed. A new date has not yet been chosen, but we will announce it when it is scheduled.

Louise saw this and sent it in for all of us to read and reflect. It’s by Laura Kelly Fanucci.

“When this is over, may we never again take for granted:

A handshake with a stranger

Full shelves at the store

Conversations with neighbors

A crowded theater

Friday nights out

The taste of communion

A routine checkup

The school rush each morning

Coffee with a friend

The stadium roaring

Each deep breath

A boring Tuesday

Life itself

When this ends:

May we find that we have become more like the people we wanted to be, we were called to be, we hoped to be and may we stay that way – better for each other because of the worst.”

While summer seems far off, it’s the time of year to begin registering for summer camp! Many of the children and youth from Trinity spend a week or two at one of the local Episcopal summer camps, in Tahoe, wine country, or the redwoods. 

Most Trinitarians attend Camp Galilee, the camp set right on the eastern shores of Lake Tahoe. Mikayla Knuth, Fr. Charlie’s wife, serves as the camp’s priest and program director. You can read more about Camp Galilee and its programs here.

The two other camps are operated by the Episcopal Diocese of California, but take children and youth from our diocese as well. St. Dorothy’s Rest is nestled in the redwoods near Occidental, while Bishop’s Ranch is just outside Healdsburg and offers the BREAD camp for children and youth.

Our older youth (finishing grades 7-12 in 2020) may be interested in attending the diocesan pilgrimage program, Pathways. This year’s pilgrimage will be to Butte County, where pilgrims will explore matters of social and ecological justice while visiting the local congregations and communities supporting those who have suffered in the wake of the Camp Fire. Young adults are also welcome to apply as adult chaperones. Read more about this opportunity here.

Camp is expensive, but well worth it! Children can get more spiritual formation in one week than they can in an entire year of Sunday School. Fr. Todd is able to offer financial assistance and does not want the cost of camp to prevent any children from attending. If you have any questions or concerns (or just want to let us know where your kids are registered), please contact Fr. Todd.

Attention teenagers and young adults: Camp Galilee, the Episcopal camp set on eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, is currently looking for camp counselors and residential staff to help facilitate a meaningful and adventurous summer program for youth between the ages of 8 and 16. This is a great way to spend a couple of weeks (or a whole summer!) playing in nature’s beauty.  

Counselors bunk with campers and lead adventure groups with two others. They must be 16 and will receive a stipend for a week of counselor training and 1 to 2 weeks at camp. As the name implies, residential staff live at the camp all summer long, providing support to counselors and leading activities like worship, improvisational theater, rock climbing/kayaking, and arts and crafts. All resident staff need to be 18 or older with a high school diploma.  

For more information about Camp Galilee, talk to Fr. Todd or click here.

St. Augustine’s Prayer Book is a devotional book used by many High Church and Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians, produced by an Episcopal order of monks, the Order of the Holy Cross. There’s a short liturgy in it for spiritual communion, which includes this prayer, called an “Act of Reception.” When you are watching the Sunday morning celebration of Communion, pray it during the time when you would normally be coming to the altar rail to receive Communion. 

Act of Reception

In union, blessed Jesus, with the faithful gathered at every altar of your Church where your blessed Body and Blood are offered this day, I long to offer praise and thanksgiving, for creation and all the blessings of this life, for the redemption won for us by your life, death, and resurrection, for the means of grace and the hope of glory. I believe that you are truly present in the Holy Sacrament, and, since I cannot at this time receive Communion, I pray you to come into my heart. I unite myself with you and embrace you with all my heart, my soul, and my mind. Let nothing separate me from you; let me serve you in this life until, by your grace, I come to your glorious kingdom and unending peace. Amen.  

A Prayer for Spiritual Communion from St. Alphonsus Liguori

St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Roman Catholic bishop, theologian, author, and the founder of the Redemptorists (an order of Roman Catholic missionary priests and brothers), recommended this prayer for those who wish to receive Communion but cannot.

Act of Spiritual Communion

My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things and I desire you in my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though you were already there, I embrace you and unite myself wholly to you; never permit me to be separated from you. Amen. 

Trinity Episcopal Church

 801 Figueroa Street

Folsom, CA 95630

(916) 985-2495 ~ www.trinityfolsom.org