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A WORD FROM THE RECTOR
Ash Wednesday falls on 17
February this year. We will observe this
beginning of Lent with the imposition of ashes at noon (Ash Wednesday liturgy
only) and at 6
p.m. (Ash Wednesday liturgy and Holy Eucharist) that day. In Lent we call to mind how we have strayed
and how we must depend on God, beginning our liturgical observance of the
Sundays in Lent with the Great Litany (BCP 148) at the start of the
service of Holy Eucharist on 21 February.
Lent is a time of penitence, but it is also a time of reflection on our
faith, on all that God has done for us.
On Wednesdays, starting on 24 February, we’ll follow a schedule which
will begin with Holy Eucharist at 5:45 p.m. (moved up 15 minutes) and proceed
into a Lenten supper at 6:30, to be concluded with a teaching session from 7:15
until 8 p.m. Come for Eucharist, supper
and learning or any combination of the three.
Children are welcome, and nursery care will be available.
Lent is a time of discipline,
and one discipline we will observe is that of learning. We are reminded at 1 Peter 3.15 to “Always be
prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that
is in you …” It is to better equip
ourselves to give this account that we will focus in study on the so-called
“New Atheism”. In much of our society it
is now fashionable to be “devoutly undevout”. The most passionate opponents of
faith–Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, and others–have leading publishers
competing eagerly to market their various denunciations of religion,
monotheism, and the Christian and Jewish faiths. (Publishers have not competed to market any
denunciation of Islam, but this has less to do with being “devoutly undevout” and more to do with the fear of negative
reaction.) These writers and speakers
get a lot of free press as well. Faith
is under attack, and–as we have promised to do in our Baptismal Covenant–it is
up to us to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in
Christ”. So, we are going to focus on
better knowing the arguments made by those who attack faith.
In our Lenten supper series we
will explore the New Atheism. What are
the arguments and attacks being made?
Most importantly, what are the necessary assumptions contained in the
attacks on the faith? How accurate are
the characterizations of the history of faith, and the
effects of faith in the development of human society? What you will find in examining the New
Atheism is that the attacks are not based on any kind of dispassionate
rationalism. They are founded on many
assumptions that are factually wrong, and it is up to us to be able to defend
the faith by pointing out inaccuracies and distortions. Why mount a
defense? Won’t God just sort this out in
His own time? God will definitely
prevail in each and every one of His purposes, but He has charged us with His
work, and a vital aspect of this work lies in spreading the Good News. There are many, many people in our world who
have little or no real knowledge of the faith.
They hear attacks which sound high-minded and humanistic on the one
hand, and often only hear “defenses” of faith which present caricatures of real
belief; caricatures which present a God of judgment only, a God of rules only,
a faith of “thou shalt not’s” only, a life in faith
which is one of denial and exclusion only.
As people of Christ we are charged to invite all into the one Way, the
one Truth, and the one Life, that they may live and grow in the love which is
God’s purpose for all.
Our
Lenten supper series will focus on better equipping each of us to better
account for the hope that is in us. The
series will examine each attack, rationale, and defense, using schemata
from the books Atheist Delusions: The Christian
Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (David Bentley Hart, 2009) and The
Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Timothy Keller, 2008). The design is that we combine this
examination and exposition of the arguments against faith with our own
knowledge and experience of the faith, to better allow us to help others to
find their way in faith when their greatest temptation is to just “tune out”
the competing “noise” of the current debates between a “god” which is wholly
about “me” and a God who is wholly a stranger.
Allow me to end on a
personal note. I grew up outside of the
faith. I grew up and lived much of my
life in places where the practice of religion was and is not the default option,
and so when I became, finally, a worshipper of our Lord, I found that I was in
the minority; that being a worshipper involved being a member of an intentional
community. Here, in
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Vestry Highlights:
1. Operating account: $10,978.03 2.
Capital account: $7,439.45
3.
Rector’s Discretionary Fund: In
January 17 people have received help for necessary food, medical costs, and
utilities relief (to the cost of $955.95).
Bert Falkner
will serve as senior warden. Carolyn
Jane Hay has been elected as junior warden (to succeed to the senior warden’s
position in 2011). Newly elected members of the vestry are Kyle Chandler III,
Dwight Dyess, and Thomas Easterling.
Many thanks are due to
Attendance: The 2009 attendance figures increased by
8.2%. In the first month of 2010
attendance has remained stable
Episcopal
Youth Community: Kelsey Marx is back and EYC is back in gear. The group meets every Sunday at 9:15
a.m. In addition to using this time for
check-in about current topics, the group is working through Matthew’s Gospel
systematically. Outside of Sunday
mornings, we will be planning a number of activities more organized toward fun
and service, as well as times to just get together (e.g., at the
basketball tournament held recently at Oak Hill School). Kelsey and
Sarah Pryor will
represent Incarnation at Youth Lock-in (Council), 5 to 7 February.
Grace Notes
The
Season: Two important feasts (as
classified under the rules of the Calendar of the Church Year (BCP
pp. 15–33) fall in February. The first
is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the
The second important feast is
that of St. Matthias the Apostle (24 February).
When the apostles met and prayed in the nine days between Jesus’
ascension and the day of Pentecost, St. Matthias was selected to replace Judas
Iscariot. This story is found at Acts
1.21-22, which tells us nothing more about Matthias. Traditionally, Matthias is remembered as an
example to Christians of one whose faithful companionship with Jesus qualifies
him to be a suitable witness to the resurrection of our Lord, and one whose service
is unheralded and unsung.
Another Anglo-Saxon day that
has become associated with a Christian saint is 14 February, St. Valentine’s
day (which is not on the Church Calendar). St. Valentine was a third century martyr in
Lesser feasts in February
include that of Bl. Absalom Jones (13 February), the first African-American
ordained (1802) a priest in the Episcopal Church; and Simeon of Jerusalem,
whose words, as found at Luke 2.29-32, are prayed in the Nunc
dimittis (e.g., at BCP 66), and St.
Scholastica (d.543), the first Benedictine nun (10
February). To this day all Anglican
nunneries follow some form of the Benedictine Rule.
Music: Our
service of Holy Eucharist on 7 February will be at the close of Diocesan
Council in
A 20th century tone
will obtain when we return to the parish for worship on 14 February, with hymn
665, All my hope on God is founded, sung to words by the English poet
laureate under George V, the physician Robert Seymour Bridges, and no. 347, Go
forth for God, the latter coming from the 1975 publication of England’s
first viable new music hymnal, English Praise.
In Lent our service shifts to
Rite I, and we will revert to service music that many of you grew up with, from
the Missa Sancta Maria Magdalena of the
Canadian organist and composer, Healy Willan. Familiar Lenten hymns include 147, Now let
us all with one accord, sung to words from Pope St. Gregory the Great
(540–604), 150, Forty days and forty nights, and 675, Take up your
cross.
You are bound to have noticed
that choir offerings are expanding beyond hymns. Please consider whether you are called to
offer worship by singing in the choir, which rehearses on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.,
and on Sunday mornings at 9:30. Our
children’s choir will make a musical offering once a month, with our February
selection, O lord hear my prayer to be on the
28th.
Christian
Education:
Sunday School: Sunday School restarted on 17 January, with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd
for the youngest children and Catechesis of the True Vine in the intermediate
group. For our highschoolers,
EYC is now including bible study and apologetics. Sunday School meets each
week at 9:15 a.m.
Adult Bible Study:
The group meets Sunday morning at 9:15.
The lessons for Sunday are reviewed in detail, using the summary format
found in the Bible Study section of the parish website. Join us for coffee and discussion! In addition, adult education is featured on
the first Wednesday of each month, after the 6 p.m. Holy Eucharist and pot-luck
supper. We are working our way through
John Stott’s The Cross of Christ.
Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper:
The Shrove Tuesday pancake supper will take place beginning at 5:30
p.m., with our new vestrymen charged to organize this event. The tradition of Shrove Tuesday pancakes
began when the Lenten fast was observed most strictly, i.e., at a time
when cooking with fats could not take place during Lent. “Mardi gras” means
Fat Tuesday, the day when any remaining fats had to be used up (hence the
cooking of pancakes). The name “Shrove
Tuesday” comes from the Middle English term for confession, “to be shriven,”
from a time when it was traditional to hear confessions to allow for Lenten
penance.
Lenten Booklet: Please
sign up as soon as possible to provide a Lenten devotional reflection. (The sign-up sheet is on the hallway bulletin
board.) For each day in Lent you will
find a sheet that has the Gospel lesson and Collect for that day, together with
instruction. When we have received your
reflections (which can be submitted anonymously)
back, these will be combined with those of your fellow parishioners into one
booklet to be distributed on Ash Wednesday.
In the booklet we’ll be able to share together in a Lenten spiritual
journey. The deadline for your
submission is 5 February, and it will be very helpful is
you can submit your document electronically.
Lenten Discipline: We often
think of Lent as a time of renunciation; a time to give something up to allow
us to focus on our need for God. It can
also be a time to take something on, an additional duty assumed in God’s Name. One opportunity to do this is presented in
the Daily Office of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. Morning Prayer (on Fridays, the Great Litany)
is offered at the church Tuesday through Friday, at 7:45 a.m., and is completed
by 8:00. During Lent we will also
offer Evening Prayer at 5:15 p.m. On
Fridays, the Stations of the Cross will be observed at 5:15 p.m.
Reconciliation of a Penitent:
At Holy Eucharist every Sunday we offer the Confession of Sin (e.g.,
at BCP 360). Saying
the confession prayer is not the same as confessing sin; that’s why we maintain
a period of silence before saying the prayer, to allow time to call to mind
what it is that we are specifically repenting of.
In addition to the general
confession the Church provides a specific prayer office, The Reconciliation
of a Penitent (BCP 447), in which confession is made to and
absolution received from a priest. The
classic Anglican rule about confession is “All may; none must; some
should”. Individual “auricular” (said)
confession can be helpful. The content
of a confession is absolutely confidential, with the
priest liable to deposition and excommunication should the seal of confession
ever be broken. Fortunately for the
priest, a special grace obtains that means that what is heard is very quickly
forgotten.
If you believe individual confession
would be helpful as part of your Lenten journey, please contact Fr. Karl to
make an appointment.