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Posta is Holy Trinity's bi-monthly newsletter.
Dear
Parish Family,
2004 has been an exciting year at Holy Trinity. Energy and enthusiasm abound.
The Healing Shawl Ministry is off to a good start. Planning for the May celebration
focused on inviting others to worship with us is well underway. (You will find
more of this in another article. At Thursday's Vestry meeting, May 1 was set
as the target date for beginning to rent the rectory and Saturday, March 20
will be a clean up day to prepare for this. The Vestry also approved Abrahim
Kamaga and Matthew Potts to be licensed by Bishop Little to serve as Lay Eucharistic
Ministers and they and several others have volunteered to serve as readers.
Andrew Irving has offered to coordinate and schedule both these ministries.
I'm sure I have forgotten things, but those are the things that come to mind
as I sit down to write.
Already we are approaching the midpoint of Lent. It seems just yesterday, but
was January 10, that we had a planning day facilitated by the Rev. Carolyn Jones
and a follow up session ten days latter. Several times during those times together,
the word sacrifice came up and its meaning has been much on my mind.
Lent is time we particularly turn our attention to the sacrifice of Savior Jesus
Christ on the cross and as a Lenten discipline many choose to give up something.
Often, we think of sacrifice as giving up something or doing without. As I was
reflecting on this, I decided to turn to my trusty dictionary. It told me that
the root words for sacrifice are from the Latin and combine the word sacer meaning
‘sacred or holy’ and facere meaning ‘to make.’ So, the word sacrifice means
‘to make sacred or holy.’ It is not about doing without. It is about making
sacred. How is that done?
One of the ways is through sacraments. The root word is the same. Sacraments
are events that make the ordinary sacred. Birth, marriage, illness, and death
are among those ordinary events. Also among them is the ordinary experience
of failure, even sin. For that the sacrament of reconciliation is the means
to make those experiences sacred and restore unity with God, ourselves and others.
All the sacraments are means of experiencing God's grace and allowing God's
mercy and the care of the Christian community to heal and strengthen.
As we continue on our journey towards Easter may me enter more deeply into the
meaning of sacrifice and experience God's grace and healing.
Faithfully yours,
Tina+
Mother Tina wishes to
thank parishioners, co-workers at Memorial Hospital, and other friends for their
generous support in her recent Walk for Saint Margaret’s House. Through their
generous support, she was able to raise $1,017 for the women’s day shelter.
It is a great blessing
that the church provides for us the weekly lessons. They sometimes later gently
annoy me until I open the bible to find the context and the richer meaning.
So it was with the morsel of 1 Corinthians 15 we read a few weeks ago.
It seems that Paul had heard that some of the Christians at Corinth had marginalized
his teaching on the resurrection. Maybe it was hard for them to understand why
a freed soul would even want to return to a body. Maybe they thought that life
couldn’t get any better than the rebirth of baptism. Yet some of them must have
entertained speculation about an afterlife. Oddly, they underwent baptism on
behalf of the dead.
Paul says, ok folks, let me help you get it right. For a minute suppose there
is no resurrection. Then Christ is dead and all that has been preached to you
is a lie. Even the goodness that has come into your life is a lie and your witness
is a lie. And incidentally, all of your loved ones who have died are lost forever.
Paul assumed that these Corinthians, whose lives had been radically turned right
side up by the gospel, would recognize immediately that the initial supposition
was as wrong as its logical conclusion.
Paul shows the church that because we cannot deny our day to day experience
of God’s liberating will for us, we know also that death’s day of domination
is over. But Paul gives us even more good news: Every kind of human domination
is coming to an end. All the beautiful worlds established by God for our joy
and comfort will finally conform to God’s intent. The worlds of medicine, education,
finance, church and many others, once the advocates of the few, are becoming
the servants of the many. Thus God will be all in all. In the evening prayers
we affirm this amazing transformation with the hymn:
You are worthy
at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God,
O Giver of life,
and to be
glorified through all the worlds.
We may wonder what Holy Trinity will look like in the years to come but rest
assured that God will clothe us with the body of God’s choice. This very day
the warm Easter sunshine pours into Holy Trinity and clothes us all with shining
shawls of splendor imperishable. We can feel the glorious resurrection in our
own blood, bones, and flesh.
I asked God to take
away my pride. God said, “No. It is not for me to take away, but for you to
give it up.”
I asked God to make my handicapped child whole. God said, “No. Her spirit is
whole, her body is only temporary.”
I asked God to grant me patience. God said, “No. Patience is a by-product of
tribulations. It isn’t granted, it is earned.”
I asked God to spare me pain. God said, “No. Suffering draws you apart from
worldly cares and brings you closer to me.”
I asked God to make my spirit grow. God said, “No. You must grow on your own,
but I will prune you to make you fruitful.”
I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life. God said, “No. I will give
you life that you might enjoy all things.”
I asked God to help me love others as much as God loves me. God said, “Ah! Finally
you have the idea!”
Someone accurately said that maturity in prayer occurs when we are able to move
from plea, “Give me.” to the deeper prayer, “Use me.”
- from Saint Gabriel’s
Episcopal Church, Philadelphia
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“Nothing
is so beautiful as spring -
when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush…” -Gerard Manly Hopkins
We have a lot to look forward
to this May! Your “hospitality team,” appointed at the Parish meeting (Pat Zanka,
Susan Adamek, Andrew Irving), has been busy imagining and planning for the month
of May, when we as a parish hope to fling wide as many doors as possible to
our Church and our God that we might extend the welcome we ourselves have received.
May is in Eastertide: when we are caught up in the mystery of the triumph of
life over death, when we, like the hesitant disciples on the road to Emmaus,
learn that Christ comes to us first as stranger, and we remember with the trembling
apostles in the Jerusalem upper room that Christ comes to us from beyond our
walls and says: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending
you, receive the Holy Spirit.” Let’s have our doors open wide to welcome Christ!
May is spring: when we are gladdened by freshness, and the exuberance of the
green shoot from the seed that gave it its life. And so with the same quiet
joy and expectation may we extend welcome to the tired as well as the jolly,
and defiantly grow in love here on the Westside of South Bend.
May is Mary’s month: “All things rising, all things sizing, Mary sees sympathizing”
(Hopkins). And thus we commit our prayers to her who knew what it meant to travel
alone while pregnant to her cousin Elizabeth and to be hosted by her. It seems
right that we focus on hospitality in the month at the end of which we celebrate
the Feast of the Visitation, May 31, the holy meeting of Elizabeth and Mary,
when John lept for joy in his mother’s womb, and when Mary broke into the triumphant
song, “Magnificat.”
And so, in keeping with this month, the team has come up with some plans to
help us work towards our goals, and asks that you help us, by offering us your
ideas, your support, and that during Lent you pray for the parish, and for the
people whom you want to welcome and invite here in May. Here is what we have
on the drawing board so far:
· Fifth Sunday of Easter & Mothers’ Day, May 9: A day when we give
thanks for the women who gave us birth, and also remember the struggles of motherhood,
especially for those without good support, or for those whose children have
died. We ask parishioners to start making baby afghans, bonnets for babies,
prayer shawls for mothers, etc., or collecting helpful gifts such as baby food,
diapers (also known as “nappies”), etc. We will bless these items on this Sunday
to distribute to needy mothers through local help agencies.
· Sixth Sunday of Easter & Rogation Sunday, May 16: A day when we
remember to pray for the earth, our role in tending it and conserving it, and
for a good harvest. We will bless the Parish Boundaries that we might be blessed
within them and that our local neighborhood might be blessed: more details to
follow.
· Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 23: A casual parish salad potluck luncheon.
A great opportunity to invite someone who is looking for a parish home!
· Pentecost, May 30: Multi-lingual readings in the Mass to celebrate
the diversity in our small parish community and larger world, and the unity
that we find in that diversity in Christ.
· Feast of the Visitation, Monday, May 31
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
· Rosary at the Mary altar on Saturdays: Reviving an old tradition in
the parish, we also want to extend new welcomes. So with that in mind, we intend
to say the rosary in Spanish and English to welcome our neighbors for whom English
is not their first language. Times and dates to be announced.
· Discussion groups: We are planning two weekday evening casual discussions
at the church sessions with soup and salad. Two ideas for topics that have come
up are Our Lady of Guadalupe for Anglicans, and Art and prayer. Ideas welcome.
Details dates and times to be announced in the near future.
As we celebrate each time
we pass the peace at Mass, we are all welcomed strangers in Christ. God give
us the grace to grow in love for one another and for our neighbors, and for
strangers in our midst. God grant us the courage to extend his welcome, that
we might welcome him.
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Please send questions or comments to our webmaster. Last updated December 15, 2004 .