The Emmanuel garage sale is planned for Friday, August 23rd  and Saturday, August 24th.  

We will be looking again for any donated items; if you have a neighbor who is moving - please pass on our information. 

We are using the nursery for the first part of the summer to store any donations, except for children's toys, clothes and small sports equipment, which we ask that you take downstairs to the swamp. The nursery will not be in use for the summer. 

 

We are looking forward to another successful sale this year, so please start saving items that you think will sell well. If you need help bringing large items or other donations to the church, please contact the office to arrange a pick up. 

 

Benedict was born at Nursia in Umbria, Italy, around 480 AD. He was sent to Rome for his studies, but was repelled by the dissolute life of most of the populace, and withdrew to a life at as an abbot at Subiaco. There he founded twelve communities over an interval of some years. His chief founding was Monte Cassino, an abbey which stands to this day as the mother house of the world-wide Benedictine order.

Totila the Goth visited Benedict, and was so awed by his presence that he fell on his face before him. Benedict raised him from the ground and rebuked him for his cruelty, telling him that it was time that his iniquities should cease. Totila asked Benedict to remember him in his prayers and departed, to exhibit from that time an astonishing clemency and chivalry in his treatment of conquered peoples.

Benedict drew up a rule of life for monastics, a rule which he calls "a school of the Lord's service, in which we hope to order nothing harsh or rigorous." The Rule gives instructions for how the monastic community is to be organized, and how the monks are to spend their time. A Benedictine monk takes vows of "obedience, stability, and conversion of life." That is, he vows to live in accordance with the Benedictine Rule, not to leave his community without grave cause, and to seek to follow the teaching and example of Christ in all things.

The effect of the monastic movement, both of the Benedictine order and of similar orders that grew out of it, has been enormous. We owe the preservation of the Holy Scriptures and other ancient writings in large measure to the patience and diligence of monastic scribes.

In purely secular terms, their contribution was considerable. In Benedict's time, the chief source of power was muscle, whether human or animal. But monks were both scholars and workers. A monk, after spending a few hours doing some laborious task by hand, was likely to think, "There must be a better way of doing this." The result was the systematic development of windmills and water wheels for grinding grain, sawing wood, pumping water, and so on. The rotation of crops (including legumes) and other agricultural advances were also originated or promoted by monastic farms. The monks, by their example, taught the dignity of labor and the importance of order and planning.