Reflections from your Pastors

September 5, 2023

Season of Creation

For just one month, four Sundays, we are paying special attention to the Divine Spark in everything. Now that we have created, or have allowed our humanity to create, an environment that causes us harm we are being urged to come together to honor and commit to integral ecology.

It has been said, and we may believe, that the Industrial Revolution way of dominating nature, overuse, and abuse of natural resources, including humanity, without noticing the cost to our spirits, our psyche, and our home planet, leaves us in a complex and resistant dilemma that is life-threatening. Having a time to concentrate again on our ability to co-create with God, we may find motivation and some joy that we can and may regenerate and re-create with Christ.

As we perk up our ears and make space in our busy schedule, we hear Scripture, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also” (Matt 18:20). We are co-creatures with Divinity. With all Creation belonging to God, let’s raise our voices together and strengthen our cries to the One with whom we co-create. Let’s summon with all our might that which is within us and gives us faith enough to move mountains (Matt 17:19-21).

With Thomas Berry we can look to the future:

To preserve the natural world as

the primary revelation of the

divine must be the basic

concern of religion.

We might say that we are into a phase of midwifery,

that is a phase of birthing the new structure of

the planet earth.

We ourselves need to be reborn,

the earth needs to be reborn.

We are in the process.

It is our historical role.

Our primary concern must be to

restore the organic economy of

the entire planet.

There is reason to believe that

those mysterious forces that have

guided earthy events thus far

have not suddenly collapsed

under the great volume of

human affairs.

We might think of a viable future for the planet

less as the result of some scientific insight

or as dependent on some socioeconomic arrangement

than as participation in a symphony

or as a renewed presence

manifested in the world about us. (1)

And we pray: Come Holy Spirit, help us listen to what the earth tells us, to hear what Christ intends us to hear. Help us hear the answer the earth gives and do that so we all may heal with the Great Healer. Let our hearts be open. Amen.



1.     Raymond, June. 2021. Meditations with Thomas Berry, p 97-102.

Image by Ronald Plett from Pixabay

This week at Mary of Magdala

Make your Reservation this Week For September/October

Try this opportunity to get to know other members of Mary of Magdala in smaller groups.

To participate, select the RESERVE TABLE button or call 970 224-0297.

Participants are put into a group of 4 and they decide whether to go out to breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, drinks, etc.

Each Table will meet one time during the two month period. Table for 4 is open to singles and couples. Join when it fits into your schedule.

Please make Reservations TODAY

ICE CREAM SOCIAL - Next Sunday

September 10th🍦🍨

Please join us after Mass for an ice cream treat…. summer isn’t over yet!😊

Sweets & fellowship, come one, come all!

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

301 Faith Partners' Announcements

Trinity Readers

The Trinity Readers will meet on the second Monday to discuss: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us.

When: September 11 at 9:30 am

Where: Room 2 and on Zoom here-

The author is writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley, the creator of Black Liturgies.  In this debut book the author weaves stories from her family with contemplative reflections.   

Questions?  Call Nadine Hunt at 970-825-3730.

Spanish Classes - Two Levels Offered

Begins this Saturday

Spanish Classes will begin again for eight weeks

Two classes, beginning and intermediate/advanced levels, will be taught by Dr. Margaret Wicks and Lulu, our native speaker. 

• Starting Saturday September 9 through October 26.
• Beginners session at 3 pm: for those who want to learn conversational Spanish
• Intermediate/advanced speakers at 4pm: For those with basics or more knowledge.

We will meet in Room 2 and zoom will be available (will post Thursday)

All are welcome! Our group is easy-going and relaxed. Fun and learning are what we are all about! Bienvenidos a todos!

301 Quilters

This next Friday!!

We’ve set the date for our first meeting. It will be Friday, Sept. 8 at 10am until noon in Room 2.

We will continue to meet each Friday. All are welcome to come-male and female, any age, no experience is required. Come if you can only attend every other week or once a month. Bring a helping heart and your favorite coffee mug or water bottle

Request for Prayers

Please send prayer requests to marymagdalafc@gmail.com. Prayers will be listed for one month unless requested for longer. Prayers for the repose of souls will be listed for six months unless requested for a longer time.

Celebrating the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Celebrate with Father Teri Harroun presiding on September 3rd. You can view the video of the homily  here

Social Justice Reflection

Sunday September 3, 2023

Tom Moos, Chair Social Justice Ministry

Today’s Gospel is the familiar parable of the vineyard owner who hired workers at various times throughout the day and paid each one a typical skilled laborer’s daily wage regardless of how long they worked, to the distress of those who toiled all day.



The topic of a just wage remains a hot issue to this day.

Federally, the minimum wage has remained unchanged at $7.25/hr since 2009. The minimum wage in 20 predominantly “red” states matches the federal minimum wage though Wyoming and Georgia’s minimum wage is only $5.25/hr for industries not covered explicitly by federal minimum wage law. The other 30 states have higher minimum wages. Colorado’s minimum wage in 2023 is $13.65/hr. Tipped employees can be paid less, $10.63/hr, as long as tips bring their overall pay to at least the minimum wage level. While the federal minimum wage has not increased since 2009, the average cost of living has spiked almost 43%. As a result, families with minimum wage jobs have an increasingly difficult time making ends meet.  

A little internet research surfaces a plethora of horror stories. For example, a single mother of two teenage girls had to stop buying vital medicines because her daughters’ minimum wage jobs added enough family income to disqualify them from SNAP benefits, low-cost health insurance, and other needed government subsidies. Eventually the girls had to quit working because their minimum wage jobs were literally killing their mother. Imagine the lesson the girls learned from this! Such stories provide a clarifying lens helping us see how our country’s systems and policies sustain intergenerational poverty.

Because of the disconnect between minimum wage and the cost of living, we now talk about a “livable wage” – the hourly income necessary to meet basic needs, such as housing, food, healthcare, transportation, and other essential expenses. The national average livable wage is $17.46/hr. Not a single state’s minimum wage matches that. Colorado’s livable wage is estimated closer to $20/hr., due to inflation, predominantly in housing and rent.

Perhaps the vineyard owner in today’s Gospel reveals an extraordinary social justice consciousness: even those who worked only one hour at the day’s end still had families with the same basic needs as the families of those hired in the morning. Perhaps paying each worker a skilled laborer’s livable wage was not only generous but insightfully just. Perhaps?

Mass Schedule

Weekly Mass Wednesday, Sep 6 at

11:00 am

• Weekly mass in the Fireside Room
• No Zoom available

Sunday Sept. 10 at 12:30 pm

• Mother Rosean Amaral is presiding. In-person and with Zoom

Weekly Mass Wednesday, Sep 13 at

11:00 am

• Weekly mass in the Fireside Room
• No Zoom available

Sunday Sept. 17 at 12:30 pm

• Father Michael Nicosia is presiding. In-person and with Zoom

Did you miss an article or announcement?

Past e-bulletins posted here



• ECC House of Laity, NEWSLETTER, August 2023, read here

• Dedicating Altar Flowers? Contact Joan Stepleton at JoanStepleton@gmail.com or 864-650-2816. A $25 dollar donation is kindly requested.

• The purpose of the Mary Magdalene Society is to financially support aspiring and current priests and encourage the development of youth in their spiritual journeys. Read more here.

• The Summer newsletter from the Office of the Presiding Bishop of the Ecumenical Communion can be read here

• To read the recent ECC House of Pastors' Newsletter, click here

Mary of Magdala Parish Community

All are invited and ALL are welcome to join our parish community.

• Here is the webpage with more information on membership
• If you would like to contribute to Mary of Magdala, here are ways to schedule a single or recurring Sunday offertory.
• Need to view, update information or download a copy of the member directory? Just click here.



The ECC Regional Website is now live - View here.

Newsletters of Trinity Lutheran Church and the St. Paul's Episcopal  

Click here for the Trinity Lutheran Church monthly newsletter, "Tidings". And here is St Paul's weekly bulletin.