Sunday, June 20, 2021

The Vicar continues his weekly exposition of the Catechism, found in the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 845-862.

Q. What is our duty to God?

A. Our duty is to believe and trust in God;

I. To love and obey God and to bring others to know him;

II. To put nothing in the place of God;

III. To show God respect in thought, word, and deed;

IV. And to set aside regular times for worship, prayer, and the study of God's ways.

The first four commandments cover the knowledge of God, idolatry, blasphemy, and sabbath-keeping.

I. To know God is to know Him as the God who saves, from slavery in Egypt, from slavery to sin. II. To ascribe ultimacy (the power to determine the final outcome) to any person or thing besides God is idolatry. III. To think, speak, or act as if God does not save or does not order all things is blasphemy. IV. Jesus famously said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). By not keeping the Sabbath, we rob ourselves of the knowledge of God, and risk turning to idols and committing blasphemy.

From Nancy Vanderlee:

It is time to prepare for the return to in-person choral singing at St. Peter's!

To that end, I am offering a series of short summer rehearsal/workshop sessions, beginning mid-July, in the old parish hall. All participants, from high school age and up may attend as their schedule allows; there is no minimum rehearsal commitment. The intent of these sessions is to refresh and renew vocal skills while beginning to learn anthems for inclusion in the liturgy in November and December. Happy All-Saints, Advent, and Christmas in July! And, what a joy it will be to sing with others!

Here is the schedule; note the rotation of days and times. Please feel free to attend as little as one session, or all eight, if you are able. No prior choral singing experience is required, just the ability to carry a tune. I do ask that you contact me via email the Sunday prior to each rehearsal, if you plan to attend, so that I can be sure to have enough music on hand. navanderlee@gmail.com

Sunday, August 29, 11:00-11:45         

The floral guild is always grateful for donations. If you are interested in dedicating flowers in memoriam or for a special occasion, such as a birthday or anniversary, please send an email to stpeterschurch@optonline.net with the date and the name(s) to whom you would like to dedicate the arrangements.

Highlights from Henry Chadwick's The Early Church (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), selected by the Vicar. Chadwick was the sometime Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

"As the Jews outside of Palestine needed the Bible in Greek, a number of translations came into existence. One of these, the Septuagint, or version of the Seventy translators, became the authorized version of the early Gentile churches. This version had been produced at Alexandria in the third century B.C., according to the tradition (which there is no very good reason to doubt) under the sponsorship of king Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt. For the Alexandrian Jews the translation had become surrounded by an aura... Philo believed that the version had been granted divine assistance... enjoying an authority that no other translation possessed. Only after Christian appeals to its text became embarrassing to the Jews were alternative, more literal translations favoured by the Greek synagogue... and some Rabbis, almost as hostile to liberal or hellenized Judaism as to Christianity, regretted that the Bible had ever been translated into Greek and denounced the making of the Septuagint as a sin like the worship of the golden calf" (p. 11-12).

O Almighty God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through the same Jesus

Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

To remember St. Peter's in your estate plans, please consider joining The Lithgow Society. To find out more, click here.