2008 Pentecost - Summer

Table of Contents:

Pentecost
Get Well Wishes
Letter from the Rector
Notes from the Vestry
Church Calendar
Fun & Games
Updating Your Browser Favorites
Saint Facts
Stained Glass Window Renovation Campaign (see Donations)
Keep the Spirit Alive (see Donations)

If you would rather download the 6-page PDF of this newsletter (which prints better!), please click here.
Adobe Acrobat Reader is required for this format. Click here to download this free program.

Pentecost

This past Sunday we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost. The long church season we are now in – Pentecost-tide (formerly Trinity-tide) – is one of Christian discipleship. We celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit to the people of God by Jesus. No doubt the Apostles often found it difficult to either follow Jesus or even understand what was going on. In the Gospel lessons for this season we find many occasions when the apostles and the other followers of our Lord struggled to understand just what it was that Jesus was asking of them. Only after his crucifixion and resurrection did they come to understand the work they had been called to do – proclaim the Gospel and bear witness to the truth of God’s work of love in the person of God’s Son and Messiah.

There is a reason why the theme of this season of the Church Year is that of discipleship; it is because this is our work as well. The Holy Spirit is the power of God in Christ drawing out gifts from each of us for ministry in his name. We each have a gift – perhaps wisdom, teaching, faith, or healing. It may be the working of miracles, speaking out for justice and mercy, discernment, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. Most of us have the gift of speech or communication. We talk with or write to one another on a regular basis. In everything that we do we have an opportunity to bear witness to the truth of God’s work of love in the person of His Son Jesus Christ.

There will be more than a few times when this may seem like impossibility, but what we need to remember is that Christ does not call us to be successful; he calls us to be faithful. It is our striving that is most pleasing to God, our desire to seek and do God’s will. We only need to be faithful; God will take our efforts and bring about success, because as followers of Christ any success we might know belongs to God anyway.

Teach us, Good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward. Save that of knowing we do Thy Holy Will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
– St. Ignatius Loyola

Back to the top

Get Well Wishes

Spring is such a lovely time of the year in the Northeast. It’s unfortunate when people can’t get out and enjoy all that spring has to offer. We hear that several of our parishioners are in need of our spiritual support.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Marilyn Emerick, Roy Albertson, and Joy Griffin. May the good Lord watch over you, and may you get well soon.

Back to the top

Letter From the Rector

Imbedded deep in our minds is the sense that summer represents vacation time. It’s an unconscious response to this time of the year that has little to do with reality. That pattern was imbedded into our brains when we were children, and summer represented no school and more than two months of just fun, fun, fun.

As the warm months approach—rather slowly this year—there is that residual excitement from our childhood years: summer! Vacation! Fun! Fun! Fun! But of course, that isn’t the reality for many of us. For those of us who go to work almost every day it’s remote from reality—and studies indicate that employed people in the highly competitive society of today have far less lime off than they did twenty or thirty years ago. At the same time, the standard vacation for clergy is still a month off in summer, and all the clergy I know still take that month—it’s something I only experienced for a very few years at the beginning of my ministry. But after that, in addition to being a parish priest, I was involved in a school, and my school roles have always meant summer school and administrative duties when I wasn’t teaching. At the same time, I have to add that though being involved with kids can be stressful and tiring, it isn’t something I really want to be relieved of for a month or more, so it means that with my school responsibilities I am usually away for only a Sunday and sometimes two (at different times).

However, we are so very fortunate to live in an area which is a major vacation destination for America, with the Adirondacks and Saratoga Springs, and the racing and so much else. After my summer school day, things are so near that I have time to take advantage of our area with nearby hikes, kayaking in the river, swimming in Moreau Lake, things I love to do, the things people do on vacation, and I am grateful to God for that. I think that whatever the limitations of our lives, by our circumstances, our health, whatever it may be, we need to discover hours, or maybe only minutes, when we can take a vacation from all that—through simple recreation, to relax, to enjoy, letting God’s grace and peace fill us in a special way—a sacramental way—to renew our spirits and strengthen our souls.

Father John Kettlewell
Rector

Back to the top

Notes from the Vestry

It’s that time of year again. The Monument View chicken barbecue will be held this coming Sunday, May 18th at the Monument. The Vestry of St. Stephen’s Church will supply a ½ chicken (1¼lbs. approx.) from 12:00-2:00pm rain or shine.

Also speaking of that time of the year, the Diocesan Convention is coming up June 6-8 at Camp of the Woods, Speculator, NY. The Vestry has appointed Helene and Brittany Patterson to represent St. Stephen’s Church at this year’s convention.

Bishop Love is scheduled to address the convention at 7:00pm on Friday June 6th.

The Most Reverend Ben A. Kwashi, Archbishop of Jos, Nigeria, will address the Convention on Saturday at 9:00am. The Reverend Dr. Russ Parker, director of ACORN Christian Foundation in Great Britain, will be guest preacher at the Saturday afternoon Eucharist.

At the Sunday morning services on June 9th the guest preacher will be the Rt. Reverend Harold Miller, Bishop of Down and Dromore.

Back to the top

Updating Your Browser Favorites

If you’d already added our website (www.episcopalchurch-schuylerville.org) to your browser favorites (called a bookmark in non-Microsoft browsers) here are steps to get rid of the old link and load the new one. Non-Internet Explorer (IE) directions are in brackets.

1. Click on Favorites [Bookmarks], then Organize Favorites [Organize or Manage Bookmarks] ...
2. Look down your list and find the Favorite [Bookmark]. Left single click on it.
3. Click the Delete button. Click Yes to delete. (NOTE for Non-IE browsers: when you click Delete, it may delete it immediately without confirming.)
4. Click Close.
5. Type “www.episcopalchurch-schuylerville.org”, without the quotes and with the hyphen, in the address bar and click the “Go” right arrow OR hit Enter.
6. Click on Favorites [Bookmarks], then Add to Favorites [Add to Bookmarks or Bookmark page]...
7. If you want to put the link in a folder, do so here, otherwise just click Add [OK].

You’re done! Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

You’re ready for the big leagues now. Next step, building a new computer!

Back to the top

St. Barnabas, the Apostle

Barnabas is one of those not-very-well-known people who had a huge affect on the church. He was a Jew of the Dispersion and had much in common with St. Paul. It was he who brought Paul to the Apostles after his conversion and vouched for him (Acts 9:27). The Antiochene Church sent them to carry their famine relief offering to the Jerusalem Church, and then sent them on their first missionary journey. At Lystra, the people took Paul and Barnabas to be gods. That Barnabas was identified with Jupiter says something about his commanding appearance. After attending the Council of Jerusalem together, they seemed to have gone separate ways. Tradition says that Barnabas was later martyred at Salamis.

Sts. Peter & Paul, Apostles

In conflict during much of their ministry, they were martyred in the year 64 in the city of Rome. The unity of the Church transcends time and space. St. Thomas More, reflecting on his conflict with the king, observed of Peter and Paul that now, “they twain be merry saints together in heaven.”

St. Mary Magdalene

She is called “the Penitent”. St. Mary was given the name ‘Magdalen’ because, though a Jewish girl she lived in a Gentile town called Magdale, in northern Galilee, and her culture and manners were those of a Gentile. St. Luke records that she was a notorious sinner, and had seven devils removed from her.

Mary Magdalene’s story is intimately linked with Jesus. She plays a starring role in one of the most powerful and important scenes in the Gospels.

When Jesus is crucified by the Romans, Mary Magdalene was there supporting Him in His final terrifying moments and mourning His death. She also discovers the empty tomb, and she’s a witness to the Resurrection. She was there at the beginning of a movement that was going to transform the West. But the Mary Magdalene that lives in our memories is quite different. In art, she’s often semi-naked, or an isolated hermit repenting for her sins in the wilderness: an outcast. Her primary link with Jesus is as the woman washing and anointing His feet but we know her best as a prostitute.

The whole story of Mary as a prostitute, who is fallen and redeemed, is a very powerful image of redemption, a signal that no matter how low one has fallen, one can be redeemed.

Powerful as this image may be, it is not the story of Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is mentioned in each of the four Gospels in the New Testament, but not once does it mention that she was a prostitute or a sinner. At some point, Mary Magdalene became confused with two other women in the Bible: Mary, the sister of Martha, and the unnamed sinner from Luke’s Gospel (7:36-50), both of whom wash Jesus’ feet with their hair. The Catholic Church did declare that Mary Magdalene was not the penitent sinner, but this was not until 1969.

Back to the top

Because Kids Corner wasn’t just for kids, we decided that we’d rename this section “Fun and Games”. We will be offering different types of games in addition to crossword puzzles.

If YOU have made a game or puzzle you’d like to see here, please send it to our editor, Jim Carbino.

Thanks, and have a great day!

Back to the top