The Annunciation: God's Answer to Gnostics

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation which we read about in the Gospel according to Luke:

 

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.  (Lk. 1:26-38).

 

Gnosticism, the heresy which posited that “the material world was an inferior and dark place, evil in its very existence, but that within this world could be found certain people who were meant for something else” (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope at 90-91 (2008), is alive and well today.  There are many in our day, including many Christians, who have the sense that this world is a nasty place and they can’t wait to get out of it.  Today’s feast, and the reading which accompanies it, tells us exactly the opposite: the created order is indeed good; it matters, and God himself takes on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to restore all of creation, and that includes you and me.  Mary, a young woman, says “yes” to God’s view of the world, a world which God created and when he finished creating it, God said that it was good.  Yes, good.  The life stirring in Mary’s womb is God’s way of entering into his creation in a radical way, a way that puts God’s good housekeeping seal of approval on the created order. Salvation comes through the Incarnation, God made man, Jesus Christ, who was born of a woman.

 

Let us pray:  Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord; that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Nick @ Night on Wednesday, 26 March at Trinity at 6 PM.  The Rev. Canon Glenice Robinson-Como from Christ Church Cathedral will be our speaker.  She is a native Virginian and received her B.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University, her M.Div. from Perkins School of Theology at SMU and a Diploma of Theological Studies from the Seminary of the Southwest. She has worked as a Staff Ombudsman with the Houston-Galveston Area Agency on Aging for ten years, and in Contract Administration with the Department of Defense and with the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Southern California. She serves as Chaplain for the John Epps Chapter of United Black Episcopalians (UBE), is a member of the Commission on Black Ministry and a mentor for Kids Hope USA. Glenice is the author of a meditation in the book Yes!, Jesus Loves Me—31 Love Stories, by Kathy H. Culmer, and a prayer entitled, “The Least of These” in the book Lifting Women’s Voices, Prayers to Change the World, which addresses the themes of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Glenice is married to Paul L. Como and they have two children, Paulie and Dominique.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia and Evelyn.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Thomas Cranmer: Archbishop of Canterbury & Martyr

Today the Church remembers the life and ministry of a leader of the Reformation in England, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury and martyr, who was born on 2 July 1489 and died on this day in March of 1556 when he was burned at the stake under the orders of the Roman Catholic Queen of England, Mary I, as a heretic.

 

Cranmer was 14 when he went to Jesus College, Cambridge obtaining is Bachelor of Arts after studying logic, classical literature and philosophy. For his master’s degree, he took a different course of study, concentrating on the humanists, and after receiving his Master of Arts degree in 1515, he was elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College.

 

After he obtained his MA, Cranmer married Joan, and he was forced to forfeit his fellowship which resulted in the loss of his residence at Jesus College. He took a job as a reader at another college. Joan died during her first childbirth, and Cranmer began studying theology and by 1520 he was ordained.  Cambridge had named Cranmer as one of their preachers. He received his doctorate of divinity in 1526. 

 

Cranmer first began meeting with the Reformers on the Continent in 1531, specifically, Simon Grynaeus, Huldrych Zwingli and Johannes Oecolampadius.  In January 1532, Cranmer passed through the Lutheran city of Nuremberg and saw for the first time the effects of the Reformation. When the Imperial Diet was moved to Nuremberg in the summer, he met the leading architect of the Nuremberg reforms, Andreas Osiander. Cranmer had moved, however moderately at this stage, into identifying with certain Lutheran principles.

 

As a Reformer, Cranmer believed that the prayer of the Church should be understood by its people, and he was foremost in translating the worship of the Church into English and securing their use (the Book of Common Prayer).

 

James Kiefer writes that:

 

When Mary came to the throne, Cranmer was in a quandary. He had believed, with a fervor that many people today will find hard to understand, that it is the duty of every Christian to obey the monarch, and that "the powers that be are ordained of God" (Romans 13). As long as the monarch was ordering things that Cranmer thought good, it was easy for Cranmer to believe that the king was sent by God's providence to guide the people in the path of true religion, and that disobedience to the king was disobedience to God. Now Mary was Queen, and commanding him to return to the Roman obedience. Cranmer five times wrote a letter of submission to the Pope and to Roman Catholic doctrines, and four times he tore it up. In the end, he submitted. However, Mary was unwilling to believe that the submission was sincere, and he was ordered to be burned at Oxford on 21 March 1556. At the very end, he repudiated his final letter of submission, and announced that he died a Protestant. He said, "I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart. When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn." And when the fire was lit around his feet, he leaned forward and held his right hand in the fire until it was charred to a stump. Aside from this, he did not speak or move, except that once he raised his left hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

 

There is an excellent biography of Thomas Cranmer by Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (1996).  It is a bit lengthy at 692 pages; however, it is a very scholarly work on Cranmer’s life and the Reformation.

 

Let us pray: Merciful God, through the work of Thomas Cranmer you renewed the worship of your Church by restoring the language of the people, and through his death you revealed your power in human weakness: Grant that by your grace we may always worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Nick @ Night on Wednesday, 26 March at Trinity at 6 PM.  The Rev. Canon Glenice Robinson-Como from Christ Church Cathedral will be our speaker.  She is a native Virginian and received her B.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University, her M.Div. from Perkins School of Theology at SMU and a Diploma of Theological Studies from the Seminary of the Southwest. She has worked as a Staff Ombudsman with the Houston-Galveston Area Agency on Aging for ten years, and in Contract Administration with the Department of Defense and with the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Southern California. She serves as Chaplain for the John Epps Chapter of United Black Episcopalians (UBE), is a member of the Commission on Black Ministry and a mentor for Kids Hope USA. Glenice is the author of a meditation in the book Yes!, Jesus Loves Me—31 Love Stories, by Kathy H. Culmer, and a prayer entitled, “The Least of These” in the book Lifting Women’s Voices, Prayers to Change the World, which addresses the themes of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Glenice is married to Paul L. Como and they have two children, Paulie and Dominique.

 

Jared Jackson will be made an Eagle Scout on Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 3 PM at Wortham Auditorium in Rosenberg Library.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia, Evelyn and Lee.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

St. Joseph: A Model of Fatherhood

Today the Church celebrates St. Joseph, a figure who appears only in the Gospels according to Luke, Matthew, and a few verses in John (1:45 [Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”]; 6:42 [They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”]).  Mark does not mention Joseph at all.

 

Joseph is often forgotten, being in the background.  Nevertheless, Joseph must have played a key role in Jesus’ life.  He was there when Jesus was born.  Joseph raised Jesus and cared for him.  Joseph would have taught Jesus his trade as a τεκτων (meaning a skilled worker).  Joseph, Mary and Jesus shared all of their meals together.  Joseph raised Jesus in the Jewish faith and traditions.  Joseph would have taken Jesus to the Temple and to the weekly worship in their local synagogue.  No doubt Jesus was there when Joseph breathed his last.  The Scriptures do not relate any of these events with the exception of the birth; nevertheless, we know that Joseph was there, in the background, being Jesus’ earthly father.  As James Kiefer writes: “When Jesus spoke of God as being like a loving Father, He was using a word that he had first learned as a child to apply to Joseph. Joseph stands as a testimony to the value of simple everyday human things, and especially that human thing called ‘fatherhood.’”

Those of us who have the privilege and responsibility of fatherhood should take notice of Joseph.

 

Let us pray: O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Wednesday, 19 March at 6 PM, the Lenten Series, Nick @ Night, continues at Grace.  The speaker will be the Rev. Wendy Wilkinson.  She came to the priesthood after decades as a professional orchestral trumpeter from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She received a graduate degree in Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio before attending Virginia Theological Seminary. Both she and her husband graduated from VTS in 2004. After graduation, the Rev. Wendy was the Director of the Spirituality Center at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans, Cape Cod. When her husband, Mark, was called to be Rector at St Aidan’s in Virginia Beach, she found her ministry as the Episcopal Chaplain to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. In January of 2013, she began her ministry as the Priest-in-Charge at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach. She continues to use her musical gifts and visit the Virginia Beach General Hospital with her therapy dog, Kuma. The Rev. Wendy and her husband, Mark, have two grown sons, Jeffrey who resides in Columbus, Ohio and James, who lives in Nagoya, Japan.

 

Thursday, 20 March at 11 AM, the Seaside Seniors meet in Sutton Hall at St. Augustine’s for lunch and fellowship.  The theme is St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Jared Jackson will be made an Eagle Scout on Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 3 PM at Wortham Auditorium in Rosenberg Library.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia, Evelyn and Lee.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem: Bishop & Theologian

Today the Church remembers the life and ministry of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, a bishop and a theologian who lived between 313 and 386.  Cyril exemplifies the importance of the role of the bishop.  A bishop is the chief teacher for the people entrusted to the bishop’s care.  The bishop is to ensure the handing down of the ancient faith as first taught by the Apostles.  Cyril achieved this, in part, by his Catechetical Lectures on the Christian Faith, which consists of an introductory lecture followed by 18 lectures on the Christian faith.  They were to be delivered during Lent to those who were going to be baptized at Easter.  After their baptisms, the new Christians were then instructed by 5 additional lectures on the Sacraments.  You can find all of the lectures at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3101.htm

 

Let us pray:  Strengthen, O Lord, the bishops of your Church in their special calling to be teachers and ministers of the Sacraments, so that they, like your servant Cyril of Jerusalem, may effectively instruct your people in Christian faith and practice; and that we, taught by them, may enter more fully into celebration of the Paschal mystery; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Wednesday, 19 March at 6 PM, the Lenten Series, Nick @ Night, continues at Grace.  The speaker will be the Rev. Wendy Wilkinson.  She came to the priesthood after decades as a professional orchestral trumpeter from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She received a graduate degree in Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio before attending Virginia Theological Seminary. Both she and her husband graduated from VTS in 2004. After graduation, the Rev. Wendy was the Director of the Spirituality Center at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans, Cape Cod. When her husband, Mark, was called to be Rector at St Aidan’s in Virginia Beach, she found her ministry as the Episcopal Chaplain to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. In January of 2013, she began her ministry as the Priest-in-Charge at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach. She continues to use her musical gifts and visit the Virginia Beach General Hospital with her therapy dog, Kuma. The Rev. Wendy and her husband, Mark, have two grown sons, Jeffrey who resides in Columbus, Ohio and James, who lives in Nagoya, Japan.

 

Thursday, 20 March at 11 AM, the Seaside Seniors meet in Sutton Hall at St. Augustine’s for lunch and fellowship.  The theme is St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Jared Jackson will be made an Eagle Scout on Saturday, 22 March 2014 at Wortham Auditorium in Rosenberg Library.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia, Evelyn and Lee.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

St. Patrick's Day: Everyone Is A Little Irish

Today everyone is just a little Irish as the Church remembers the life and ministry of St. Patrick, Bishop and Missionary.  James Kiefer writes:

 

Patrick was born about 390, in southwest Britain, somewhere between the Severn and the Clyde rivers, son of a deacon and grandson of a priest. When about sixteen years old, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. Until this time, he had, by his own account, cared nothing for God, but now he turned to God for help. After six years, he either escaped or was freed, made his way to a port 200 miles away, and there persuaded some sailors to take him onto their ship. He returned to his family much changed, and began to prepare for the priesthood, and to study the Bible. 

 

Around 435, Patrick was commissioned, perhaps by bishops in Gaul and perhaps by the Bishop of Rome, to go to Ireland as a bishop and missionary. Four years earlier another bishop, Palladius, had gone to Ireland to preach, but he was no longer there (my sources disagree on whether he had died, or had become discouraged and left Ireland to preach in Scotland). Patrick made his headquarters at Armagh in the North, where he built a school, and had the protection of the local monarch. From this base he made extensive missionary journeys, with considerable success. To say that he single-handedly turned Ireland from a pagan to a Christian country is an exaggeration, but is not far from the truth. 

 

Almost everything we know about him comes from his own writings, available in English in the Ancient Christian Writers series. He has left us an autobiography (called the Confessio), a Letter to Coroticus in which he denounces the slave trade and rebukes the British chieftain Coroticus for taking part in it, and the Lorica (or “Breastplate” a poem of disputed authorship traditionally attributed to Patrick), a work that has been called “part prayer, part anthem, and part incantation.” The Lorica is a truly magnificent hymn, found today in many hymnals. 

 

Legend has it that Patrick used the 3 leafed shamrock to teach about the Trinity, one leaf with 3 pedals, the 3 in 1 and the 1 in 3.

Let us pray:  Almighty God, who in your providence chose your servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of you: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

  

Wednesday, 19 March at 6 PM, the Lenten Series, Nick @ Night, continues at Grace.  The speaker will be the Rev. Wendy Wilkinson.  She came to the priesthood after decades as a professional orchestral trumpeter from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She received a graduate degree in Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio before attending Virginia Theological Seminary. Both she and her husband graduated from VTS in 2004. After graduation, the Rev. Wendy was the Director of the Spirituality Center at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans, Cape Cod. When her husband, Mark, was called to be Rector at St Aidan’s in Virginia Beach, she found her ministry as the Episcopal Chaplain to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. In January of 2013, she began her ministry as the Priest-in-Charge at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach. She continues to use her musical gifts and visit the Virginia Beach General Hospital with her therapy dog, Kuma. The Rev. Wendy and her husband, Mark, have two grown sons, Jeffrey who resides in Columbus, Ohio and James, who lives in Nagoya, Japan.

 

Thursday, 20 March at 11 AM, the Seaside Seniors meet in Sutton Hall at St. Augustine’s for lunch and fellowship.  The theme is St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia, Evelyn and Lee.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

All Things Belong to God

On this the first Friday in the first week of Lent, we hear from the Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth:

 

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

 

Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’, and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’ So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (1 Cor. 3:16-22).

 

God’s wisdom is not our wisdom.  God sees things from a different perspective.  Yet in the end, all things belong to Jesus, including you and me.

 

Let us pray:  Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness keep us, we pray, from all things that may hurt us, that we, being ready both in mind and body, may accomplish with free hearts those things which belong to your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Thursday, 20 March at 11 AM, the Seaside Seniors meet in Sutton Hall at St. Augustine’s for lunch and fellowship.  The theme is St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Wednesday, 19 March at 6 PM, the Lenten Series, Nick @ Night, continues at Grace.  The speaker will be the Rev. Wendy Wilkinson.  She came to the priesthood after decades as a professional orchestral trumpeter from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She received a graduate degree in Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio before attending Virginia Theological Seminary. Both she and her husband graduated from VTS in 2004. After graduation, the Rev. Wendy was the Director of the Spirituality Center at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans, Cape Cod. When her husband, Mark, was called to be Rector at St Aidan’s in Virginia Beach, she found her ministry as the Episcopal Chaplain to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. In January of 2013, she began her ministry as the Priest-in-Charge at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach. She continues to use her musical gifts and visit the Virginia Beach General Hospital with her therapy dog, Kuma. The Rev. Wendy and her husband, Mark, have two grown sons, Jeffrey who resides in Columbus, Ohio and James, who lives in Nagoya, Japan.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia, Evelyn and Lee.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

What Faith!

The appointed Gospel reading for the Church’s Daily Prayer is taken from Mark:

 

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’  (Mk. 2:1-12).

 

I have discussed this passage with a Church of the Nazarene friend of mine who lives in Boston on many occasions, and we always come away from this passage remarking, “What faith the paralyzed man’s friends had!”  Imagine the scene, Jesus is teaching.  The house is crowded.  You can’t even wedge yourself in, much less have 4 men carry in a man on a stretcher.  So what do the paralyzed man’s friends do?  They hoist their friend onto the roof, cut a hole in the roof and then lower him down. Imagine the reaction of the people inside when they heard and saw the roof being dismantled: “What in the --- is going on?”  Why do they do this?  So that their friend can come before Jesus.  Who are our friends?  How are we friend to others?  Is our relationship based in faith?  Is it based in Jesus?  Do we lift up our friends in prayer (or lower them down as the case may be)? There is forgiveness of sin out there; there is healing out there.  You and I are Jesus’ instruments to bring people before him.  All it takes is a little faith.

 

Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMIDNERS

 

Thursday, 20 March at 11 AM, the Seaside Seniors meet in Sutton Hall at St. Augustine’s for lunch and fellowship.  The theme is St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Wednesday, 19 March at 6 PM, the Lenten Series, Nick @ Night, continues at Grace.  The speaker will be the Rev. Wendy Wilkinson.  She came to the priesthood after decades as a professional orchestral trumpeter from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She received a graduate degree in Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio before attending Virginia Theological Seminary. Both she and her husband graduated from VTS in 2004. After graduation, the Rev. Wendy was the Director of the Spirituality Center at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans, Cape Cod. When her husband, Mark, was called to be Rector at St Aidan’s in Virginia Beach, she found her ministry as the Episcopal Chaplain to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. In January of 2013, she began her ministry as the Priest-in-Charge at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach. She continues to use her musical gifts and visit the Virginia Beach General Hospital with her therapy dog, Kuma. The Rev. Wendy and her husband, Mark, have two grown sons, Jeffrey who resides in Columbus, Ohio and James, who lives in Nagoya, Japan.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially, Pat, Karen, Patricia, Evelyn and Lee.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

A New Direction

The appointed Gospel reading for the Daily Office (the Daily Prayer of the Church) is taken from Mark:

 

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

 

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

 

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.  (Mk. 1:14-28).

 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  “Repent”, or in the Greek, μετανοεῖτε, “turn around 180 degrees; to think differently”—make an about face, stop going in the wrong direction.  That is how Jesus begins his public ministry in Mark, with Good News and a call for us to change course, to go in a new direction, God’s direction.

 

Lent is a time for you and for me to make a course change and to stop heading in the wrong direction and to start heading in God’s direction.  That course change may not be easy.  In fact, it can be painful.  In your heart of hearts, you know what wrong direction you are going in.  Use this time of Lent to go in God’s direction.

 

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

An excellent resource for your Daily Lenten Discipline is to pray the Daily Office (Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer).  As I said yesterday, I use my computer to do it.  Here is the website that has everything you need to pray the Daily Office of the Church (music, readings and all): http://www.missionstclare.com/english/

 

Wednesday at 6 PM, the 1^st in the Lenten Series Nick @ Night with Bishop Fisher at St. Augustine’s starting with Stations, Eucharist, light dinner and program.  Don’t miss it!

 

Seaside Seniors on Thursday, 20 March at 11 AM with a St. Patrick’s Day theme.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, especially Karen, Lee, Pat, Patricia and Evelyn.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550