Sergius of Russia, Abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery

Today the Church remembers the life and ministry of Sergius of Russia, Abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery.  James Kiefer writes:

 

To the people of Russia, Sergius is a national hero and an example of Russian spiritual life at its best.

 

Sergius was born around 1314, the son of a farmer. When he was twenty, he and his brother began to live as hermits in a forest near Moscow. Others joined them in what became the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, a center for the renewal of Russian Christianity. Pilgrims came from all Russia to worship and to receive spiritual instruction, advice, and encouragement. The Russians were at the time largely subservient to the neighboring (non-Christian) Tatar (or Tartar) people. Sergius rallied the people behind Prince Dimitri Donskoi, who defeated the Tatars in 1380 and established an independent Russia.

 

Sergius was a gentle man, of winning personality. Stories told of him resemble those of Francis of Assisi, including some that show that animals tended to trust him. He had the ability to inspire in men an intense awareness of the love of God, and a readiness to respond in love and obedience. He remained close to his peasant roots. One contemporary said of him, "He has about him the smell of fir forests." To this day, the effect of his personality on Russian devotion remains considerable.

 

Let us pray:  O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Sergius of Moscow, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

  

TOMORROW: Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 9 AM to 11 AM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

This Sunday we continue Adult Christian Education with Focus on Islam.  Given all of the recent activities in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, we will examine Islam in order to better understand the situation and our Muslim brothers and sisters.

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Free mammograms on Sunday, 16 November from 8:30 AM to 2 PM at St. Augustine’s provided by UTMB.  Please pass the word along to anyone who does not have health insurance and especially for women above the age of 40.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

"Keep your mouth shut, or speak out?"

The appointed Gospel reading for the Daily Prayer of the Church is taken from the Gospel according to Luke:

 

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

 

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

 

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ (Lk. 3:15-22).

 

John speaks truth to power.  Herod is not pleased with John because John has called Herod out.  How does Herod deal with John?  He puts him into prison, and soon we will see John pay for it with his life.   

 

One could take two different views on this: (1) John should have kept his mouth shut and his head attached to the rest of his body, or (2) John was courageous for speaking truth to power.  Which view do you take?  How many times when we see an injustice being done do we speak out?  How many times do we opt for the “keep my mouth shut” route?  No matter what period of history is may be, the options are always the same: keep your mouth shut, or speak out.  What does the Gospel call us to do?  The Gospel calls us to speak out.

 

Let us pray:  Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

  

This Sunday we continue Adult Christian Education with Focus on Islam.  Given all of the recent activities in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, we will examine Islam in order to better understand the situation and our Muslim brothers and sisters.

  

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 9 AM to 11 AM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Free monograms on 15 November from 8:30 AM to 2 PM at St. Augustine’s provided by UTMB.  Please pass the word along to anyone who does not have health insurance and especially for women above the age of 40.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury

​

Today the Church remembers the life and ministry of Theodore of Tarsus, who was born around and died in 690.  James Kiefer writes:

 

When the pagan Anglo-Saxons invaded England, they drove the native Celtic inhabitants north into Scotland and west into Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall. The Anglo-Saxons were subsequently converted to Christianity by Celtic missionaries from the north and west, and Roman and Gallic missionaries from the south and east. As a result, they ended up with two different “flavors” of Christianity. The difference was expressed mainly in the form of a disagreement about the proper method for calculating the date of Easter, a disagreement which we may suspect was a stand-in for other disagreements a little more difficult to articulate. In 663, a council was called to settle the dispute, the Synod of Whitby. It decided in favor of the Roman or continental way of doing things. 

 

Soon after, the Archbishop of Canterbury died, and the English elected a successor, Wighard, and sent him to Rome to be consecrated by the Pope. Wighard died in Rome before he could be consecrated, and the Vitalian took it upon himself to choose a man to fill the vacancy. He consecrated Theodore of Tarsus (the native city of the Apostle Paul), a learned monk (not a priest) from the East then living in Rome, 65 years old. This surprising choice turned out to be a very good one. Theodore was (as Bede put it in his Ecclesiastical History) “the first archbishop whom all the English obeyed.” Having made a tour of his charge, Theodore filled the vacant bishoprics and in 672 presided over the first council of the entire English Church, at Hertford. He established definite territorial boundaries for the various dioceses, and founded new dioceses where needed. He found the Church of England an unorganized missionary body, and left it a fully ordered province of the universal Church. The body of canon law drawn up under his supervision, and his structure of dioceses and parishes, survived the turmoil of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and are substantially intact today. 

 

He founded a school at Canterbury that trained Christians from both the Celtic and the Roman traditions, and did much to unite the two groups. The school was headed by Adrian, an abbot born in Africa but later resident in Italy, who had been the Pope's first choice for Archbishop, but who had refused and recommended Theodore instead. Adrian was learned in the Scriptures, a good administrator, and fluent in Latin and Greek. The school taught Bible, theology and sacred studies, Latin and Greek (Bede alleges that some of the students knew these languages as well as they knew English), poetry, astronomy, and calendar calculation (of some importance for political reasons, as stated above). Adrian died 9 January 710. Theodore died 19 September 690, being 88 years old.

 

Let us pray:  Almighty God, who called your servant Theodore of Tarsus from Rome to the See of Canterbury, and gave him gifts of grace and wisdom to establish unity where there had been division, and order where there had been chaos: Create in thy Church, we pray, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such godly union and concord that it may proclaim, both by word and example, the Gospel of the Prince of Peace; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. 

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

  

This Sunday we will begin a new Adult Christian Education series.  Given all of the recent activities in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, we will examine Islam in order to better understand the situation.

 

Invite Someone to Church Sunday is on the 21st of September 2014.  Please invite someone to Church to experience the joy of the Good News.

 

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 9 AM to 11 AM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Edward Bouverie Pusey

​

Today the Episcopal Church remembers the life and ministry of a reformer in the 1800s, and a founder of the Oxford Movement, Edward Bouverie Pusey, who was born in 1800 and died in 1882.  He was born in the village of Pusey in Berkshire. His father was Philip Bouverie, a younger son of the First Viscount of Folkestone.  Edward took the name of Pusey on succeeding to the manorial estates at that place. After attending Eton College, Edward went Christ Church in Oxford, and was elected in 1824 to a fellowship at Oriel College.

 

Between 1825 and 1827, he studied Oriental languages and German theology at the University of Göttingen. Pusey was competent in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic. 

 

In 1828, Pusey was appointed to the Regius professorship of Hebrew at Oxford which he kept until his death.

 

Pusey studied the Early Church Fathers and the Caroline Divines and within his heart was awaked the desire to get back to the traditional worship of the Church. To that end, he joined with Richard Hurrell Froude, John Keble, Pusey, and John Henry Newman, all fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, and they became the leaders of the Oxford Movement, which sought the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology.  The group wrote the Oxford Tracts to put their point of view across.

 

Pusey wrote two of the Oxford Tracts (on Fasting and on Baptism), and preached a sermon on the Eucharist that got him suspended from university preaching for two years. This episode gained publicity for the Oxford Movement, and greatly increased the sales of the Tracts. In 1845 he helped to found a convent in London, the first Anglican convent since the 1500s. His best-known books defend the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the inerrancy of Scripture (see his Daniel the Prophet, and The Minor Prophets). In the great cholera epidemic of 1866, he did outstanding work in caring for the sick. Two years after his death, his friends and admirers established Pusey House at Oxford, a library and study center. 

 

Today in Oxford, you can go to Pusey House/St. Gile’s Chapel where the worship is firmly rooted in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England.

Let us pray: Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know your presence and obey your will; that, following the examples of your servant Edward Bouverie Pusey, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what you give us to do, and endure what you give us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

  

This Sunday we will begin a new Adult Christian Education series.  Given all of the recent activities in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, we will examine Islam in order to better understand the situation.

 

Invite Someone to Church Sunday is on the 21st of September 2014.  Please invite someone to Church to experience the joy of the Good News.

 

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 11 AM to 1 PM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Hildegard of Bingen

Today the Church remembers the life and ministry of a women of remarkable talent, and certainly one that was well ahead of her time, Hildegard of Bingen, who lived from 1098 and died in 1179. 

 

At a time when few women could read or write, Hildegard, a Benedictine nun, produced major works of theology and visionary writings. When few women were accorded respect, Hildegard was consulted by and advised bishops and kings. She worked in the natural sciences discovering medicinal uses of plants, animals and trees. She was a composer of music.  Hildegard founded a vibrant convent, where her musical plays were performed.  She was indeed a remarkable person.

 

“A human being is a vessel that God has built for himself and filled with his inspiration so that his works are perfected in it.” Hildegard of Bingen, letter to Elisabeth of Schönau, c. 1152.

 

Let us pray:  O God, by whose grace your servant Hildegard, kindled with the fire of your love, became a burning and shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Seaside Seniors, Thursday, 18 September 2014, starting at 11 AM.

 

This Sunday we will begin a new Adult Christian Education series.  Given all of the recent activities in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, we will examine Islam in order to better understand the situation.

 

Invite Someone to Church Sunday is on the 21st of September 2014.  Please invite someone to Church to experience the joy of the Good News.

 

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 11 AM to 1 PM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Feast of the Holy Cross

It was the perfect storm: the power and might of the Roman Empire, men who wanted to keep their own power and traditions, and an innocent man who came to free the world and to transform it.  Today is the Feast of the Holy Cross where we recall how God used a most unlikely instrument to show us His love for us in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

Throughout Christian history, the cross has been the universal image of Christian belief. To be sure, however, in the Early Church, crosses could be found outside the city walls as a reminder of the power of the Roman Empire and its dealings with those who opposed it.  Many early Christians lost their lives for their faith in Jesus on crosses, including Simon Peter. However, since that time, generations of artists have turned an instrument of torture into a thing of beauty symbolizing God’s faithful love for His people.

Every time that we make the sign of the cross, let us remember what Jesus did for us, and let us recall our own baptisms where we died with Christ and arose to a new life in him.

 

Let us pray:  O God, who by the passion of your blessed Son made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life and peace: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Seaside Seniors, Thursday, 18 September 2014 starting at 11 AM.

 

Invite Someone to Church Sunday is on the 21st of September 2014.  Please invite someone to Church to experience the joy of the Good News.

 

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 11 AM to 1 PM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Bishop John Henry Hobart: A Tireless Servant

​

Today the Episcopal Church remembers the life and ministry of John Henry Hobart.  He was short, nearsighted, melodramatic in the pulpit.  Hobart spoke rapidly and with emotion, and he was anything but reserved.  But above all, Hobart was a tireless worker for the Kingdom of God.

 

Hobart was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 14 September 1775 and he died on this day in 1830.  Hobart’s father, a ship’s captain, died when Hobart was just an infant.  He went to the University of Pennsylvania and in his third year he transferred to Princeton where he received his bachelor and master’s degrees.  While Hobart worked as a tutor at Princeton from 1797 to 1798, he studied theology under William White, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.  Hobart was ordained deacon by Bishop White in 1798 and as a priest in 1800.  After serving a few parishes, Hobart went to Trinity on Wall Street in New York as an associate in 1803.  By 1811, he became assistant Bishop of New York, with right of succession.  Hobart was tireless in his work.  He was one of the founders of General Theological Seminary and Geneva (later Hobart College). 

 

Hobart made sure he visited each parish annually within his diocese of 46,000 square miles and a wilderness.  He thought nothing of riding 2000 miles for winter visitations and 4000 miles when it was warmer.  Hobart knew the clergy of his Diocese; he knew their backgrounds and remembered their families.  Hobart forgave their frailties, and appreciated their strengths. He watched over candidates for Holy Orders with a paternal interest and he met with them weekly. He took 26 clergy at the beginning of his episcopate in 1811 and quintupled them to 133 by his death; watched the number of parishes increase from about 50 to almost 170; and he confirmed some 15,000 people.  Hobart was a supporter of missions to the Oneida Indians.

 

As James Kiefer writes, “this lovable, indefatigable, type-A bishop went virtually nonstop from his ordination until his death. The only surprise was that he didn't die sooner. … Troubled for years with what was most likely a bleeding ulcer, with rest and medication he would generally rebound.  … At midnight, September 7, 1830, a young clergyman rode in a stage through Auburn on his way to Binghamton. Passing the rectory of St. Peter's Church, he was puzzled to see a light so late. He rapped for the stage to stop and soon learned from the rector, John Rudd, that Bishop Hobart was ill. Francis Cuming remained to assist in any way he could. … Amidst his pain, Hobart found time to offer advice to Cuming: "Be sure that in all your preaching the doctrines of the Cross be introduced: no preaching is good for anything without these." Cuming writes: "His pains were so severe he could not give his mind to them unless they were short, and when I had invoked our Heavenly Father to continue to be gracious to his suffering servant; and that whereas he had studied to approve himself to God upon earth, he might be permitted to stand approved by his Master in heaven, he interrupted me by saying, 'Amen: O yes, God grant it, but with all humility I ask it.' … Early Sunday morning, September 12, 1830, John Henry Hobart died, aged 55. The funeral took place in New York City on September 16. The mourners included the governor of the state and the mayor of New York City, and the procession was estimated at nearly 3,000.

 

Hobart is an example and an inspiration to clergy of what they are called to do; to live a life tirelessly dedicated in service to God and his people.

 

Let us pray: Revive your Church, Lord God of hosts, whenever it falls into complacency and sloth, by raising up devoted leaders, like your servant John Henry Hobart whom we remember this day; and grant that their faith and vigor of mind may awaken your people to your message and their mission; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Seaside Seniors, Thursday, 18 September 2014 starting at 11 AM.

 

Invite Someone to Church Sunday is on the 21st of September 2014.  Please invite someone to Church to experience the joy of the Good News.

 

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 11 AM to 1 PM.  Everyone is invited!

 

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

 

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550

Decision Making in the Church

One of the appointed readings for the Daily Prayer of the Church is taken from the Acts of the Apostles where we hear how disputes in the Church were (and are) resolved:

Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.’

 

The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.’  (Acts 15:1-11).

The Church was already changing.  This was no longer just a “Jewish” movement, but now the Gentiles were becoming believers.  How was this to be handled?  Did the incoming Gentiles have to subscribe to Jewish practice, for example, circumcision and the dietary laws?  There was a debate; the leaders discussion the issues.  Paul championed the cause of the Gentiles before the gathering.  No doubt, there were those who championed following the Mosaic laws.  Peter may very well have been one of them; after all, in Chapter 10 he was dealing with the dietary laws himself.  But here is what happens in the rest of the story; it is James who makes the decision:

The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, ‘My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.”

 

Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.’

 

Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: ‘The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.’ (Acts 15:12-29).

That is the way things should work in the Church when there are decisions to be made.  Counsel is taken.  Matters are discussed.  There is consideration for the other.  Essentials must be held to.  There is a clear pronouncement agreed upon by “the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church.” 

Let us pray: O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

WE REMEMBER TODAY ALL OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES 13 YEARS AGO DURING THE TERRORIST ATTACKS.  LET US PRAY: Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servantS WHO DIED ON 9-11. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, sheep of your own fold, lambS of your own flock,  sinnerS of your own redeeming. Receive THEM into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

CALENDAR REMINDERS

Invite Someone to Church Sunday is on the 21st of September 2014.  Please invite someone to Church to experience the joy of the Good News.

Church Women United: Human Rights Celebration: “We Are in God’s Hands and We Are God’s Hands”, Friday, 26 September 2014 from 11 AM to 1 PM.  Everyone is invited!

St. Vincent’s Feast Day and the 60th Anniversary of St. Vincent’s House will be celebrated the weekend of 27 and 28 September 2014.  We will have the installation of the new director of St. Vincent’s House, the Rev. Freda Marie Brown, on Saturday, 27 September 2014 starting at 10 AM, the Houston’s Hero Award and then on the 28th the Eucharist at St. Augustine’s at 9 AM with Bishop Jeff Fisher and then the dinner starting at 3 PM.  Don’t miss this!

The 6th Annual Art Show, “Let There Be Light,” will start on the 4th of October and last for 1 week.

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550