Weekly Sunday service information and parish news. |
|
The Reverend Benjamin Hankinson, Celebrant
In light of the recent State of Illinois indoor mask mandate, all worshippers are asked to wear masks when attending church, including those who are fully vaccinated. We pray that through compassionate fidelity to the common good, we will see the present surge subside.
|
|
February 27 - The Last Sunday After Epiphany
Holy Eucharist | Rite I 8 a.m. | Rite II 10 a.m. (Sung)
9:15 - Children's Sunday School in Lower Level
9:15 - Adults - Morning Prayer and conversation in Pearson Hall
Masks required for in person attendance. | 10 a.m. service streamed via Facebook Live. | Coffee hour follows the 10 a.m. service.
|
|
Readings for Sunday, February 27
- Exodus 34:29-35
- Psalm 99
- 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
- Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]
|
|
Make Your Offering!
Mail: Send your check to St. Andrew's Treasurer, at 406 Hillsboro Avenue, Edwardsville 62025.
|
|
Ash Wednesday services, March 2
12:00 p.m. (spoken) and 5:30 p.m. (sung)
Stations of the Cross will follow the Ash Wednesday service. The usual Wednesday evening class at 6 p.m. will become a communal devotion as parishioners walk the Stations of the Cross together throughout the Lenten season.
The season of Lent orignated in the fourth century of the church and spans 40 weekdays beginning on Ash Wednesday and climaxing during Holy Week with Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday), Good Friday, and Easter Vigil occurring before Easter Sunday. The number 40 is connected with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for His ministry. Christians today use this period of time for introspection, self examination, and repentance.
|
|
The Week of February 27
- Wednesday, March 2, Ash Wednesday service, 12 Noon
- Wednesday, March 2, Ash Wednesday service, 5:30 p.m.
- Wednesday, March 2, 6:10 p.m., Stations of the Cross
Looking Ahead
- Sunday, March 6, First Sunday in Lent
- Sunday, April 10, Palm Sunday
- Sunday, April 17, Easter Day
|
|
In light of Governor Pritzker’s lifting of the mask mandate at the end of the month, we will be lifting the requirement for masking as well, effecting on March 1.
Recognizing that not everyone is ready or able to do so, we will continue to offer seating with social distancing and masking on the Gospel (left) side of the church. Those on the Epistle (right) side of the church are welcome to continue wearing masks but are not required to do so.
In all things, we are mindful of our communal life together, and I invite us to be full of grace and charity as we walk with one another through yet another transition in this pandemic journey.
+ + +
We will soon make ashes of palms that have withered since they were waived on high for Palm Sunday. Here at the beginning, we call to mind the end of the journey ahead.
On Ash Wednesday, we look to the example of Scripture, where ashes are a sign of new beginnings, an act of contrition and repentance. Likewise, the ashes we will don are a sign of the first step along the way to new life in reconciliation with God and neighbor.
We also begin a journey of fasting and abstinence that we might die to ourselves bit by bit, daily putting off the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We take on disciplines, particularly prayer and reading Scripture, to grow closer to God by walking in the way of the cross.
We strive towards Good Friday where, by God’s grace at work in us, we hope to follow the example of the Lord and freely lay down our lives at the foot of the cross whereon our sins were crucified. And having done so, we are bidden to take up the life of Christ to live here and now the life of the resurrection, an Easter people for all the world to see.
Note: Those wishing to bring in last year’s palms for making ashes, may do so at church Sunday or by leaving them at the basement ramp under the mailbox. Fr. Ben will livestream the prayers and process in connection with Tuesday’s Noonday Prayer service, weather permitting.,
+ + +
In the coming weeks, the Wednesday evening class will morph into a communal devotion. As our guide, we will walk the Stations of the Cross together through the Lenten season.
We start off with a simple offering of the Stations on March 2 after the 5:30 p.m. Ash Wednesday liturgy. On March 9, we will begin a series of instructed devotions at 6 p.m. following Evening Prayer. We hope to see you there as we contemplate together the Passion of our Lord, pausing week by week, station by station to reflect upon the cross of Christ.
-Fr. Ben
|
|
Highlights of the Sunday, February 20 Meeting
- Fr. Ben opened the meeting at 11:30 a.m. with prayer.
- Marty Cavanaugh, Clerk of the Vestry, presented the minutes of the January meeting which were approved.
- Fr. Ben indicated that changes will be announced regarding reopening once information from the State of Illinois is clear. He anticipated that we will probably be operating similar to last spring.
- Junior Warden, Carl Slaughter, indicated he has a possible alternative for upgrading our wi-fi which should improve streaming of Sunday services.
- Treasurer Maxine Callies described some issues with Aplos, the software vendor for maintaining parish financial records, as she was unable to provide a monthly report. After a lengthy discussion, it was determined that this issue needs timely resolution so that reports are available at every vestry meeting and issues with tracking deposits of special gifts are addressed.
- Pearson Hall project - Marian Smithson, project coordinator, indicated that CertaPro Painting will be scheduling painting of the parish hall (walls and ceiling), kitchen, pantry, and janitor closet for an appropriate time in March. [Date is now determined: week of March 21.] Painting will take five days and the work will be done Monday through Friday. Help from parishioners will be needed to prepare these areas for painting.
- Parking Lot Paving - Liz Edwards, project coordinator, indicated we may need the help of a civil engineer in order to get things moving on the parking lot project. Contact has already been made with two local contractors but no response has been received yet. [Appointment with Rickey Brothers, local contractor, is now set for Friday, March 4.]
- The next vestry meeting is set for Sunday, March 20, at 11:30.
|
|
Robert E. Lee, Episcopalian
by Jim Weingartner
Robert E. Lee was a gifted military commander who fought for Southern independence during our Civil War. Had he succeeded, slavery would have been perpetuated, which makes his memory anathema in the minds of many Americans. But he was also a life-long Episcopalian, raised in the evangelical “low” Episcopal Church of his native Virginia.
In his youth and young adulthood, Lee was a less than zealous communicant, to the dismay of his devout fiancé, Mary Custis. In response to Mary’s urging that he study a copy of the New Testament she had given him, he assured her that he had made the effort, but that his “eyes were running over verse after verse, while [his] mind was far otherwise engaged.” The results of his attendance at church on Christmas 1830 at her request were no more encouraging. He reported that he had “listened to the sermon,” but cautioned her “not to expect miracles in my case.”
It may not have been a miracle, but Lee was roused to a kind of fervor by his exposure to the high church Oxford Movement, whose ritualism offended his low church sensibilities. He expressed his distaste by applying the term “Pussyism” to high church worship. The reference was not to anything remotely feline, but to the English cleric Edward Bouverie Pusey, one of the founders of the Oxford Movement. “Beware,” Lee said to a friend, “of Pussyism. Pussyism is always bad and may lead to unchristian feeling.”
Lee brought into the Civil War what amounted to a simple Old Testament faith in the God of Hosts, to whom he prayed frequently. And although he fought to defend a society based on slavery, he regarded it as a moral evil, but one that God would abolish in His own time. That time was not long in coming.
Lee’s post-war years were spent as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. He was an active member of Lexington’s only Episcopal church, whose rector was William Nelson Pendleton, Lee’s former artillery commander (dare I suggest that he was well-versed in can[n]on law?). Grace Episcopal Church was a humble parish whose parishioners, Lee mourned, “were few in number and light in purse.” This probably made Lee’s service on Grace’s vestry as senior warden stressful. He muttered as he left for a long September 28, 1870 meeting that he wished “that he did not have to go and listen to all that powwow.” On returning home, he suffered a stroke and died two weeks later.
Did vestry service succeed where Yankee shells and bullets had failed? Vestry members, take heed!
|
|
New Directories Available for 2022!
Two new parish directories are available at the links below. We hope you will click on the buttons below, download and print, or save a copy in your phone, computer, or tablet for reference. Here is a description of the two directories or listings:
- Parish Directory - families who participate in parish worship
- Friends Directory - former members who have moved, former clergy, and other friends of the parish.
|
|
St. Andrew's Communications
Communications Coordinator and Newsletter Editor-in-Chief, Marian Smithson
Newsletter Editor, Jane Weingartner | Newsletter Editor, Marianne Cavanaugh
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
