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THE FISHERMAN’S LOG
St. Andrew’s Anglican Church’s Newsletter
November, 2010Vol. I, No. 2
For more information call the office at 403-292-3234 or go to
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May the Star of Bethlehem guide you home to your family this Christmas.
Alternatively, may you find your family right here at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church.
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a bon mot from jo+– Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! The holiday season is nearly upon us, and for those planning to be with family this year, I would like to comment on family.
St. Andrew’s is blessed with many families that include multiple generations. It was my honour this past year to baptize the 4th generation of Catleys. People at St. Andrew’s have longevity, and St Andrew’s is only in its 6th decade.
The church is very like a family. We are a community who live together, yes, even if only on most Sundays. We live together under the same roof, for many of us more than just on Sundays. We eat together. We help clothe and feed one another. We share our stories with one another, our highs and our lows. We pray for one another. We are a family.
In first century Christendom, church was held in people’s homes. A family would invite other believers to worship in their home, and so they would have church. I saw one such home from the 1st century when I visited England. There on the grounds of Littlecote, the Popham castle, they have unearthed a Roman home. It had been excavated and the archeological ruins reveal that at some point it had been renovated by its wealthy family to add a mosaic tile floor with Christian symbols and the bath had been changed into a baptistery where new Christians were initiated into the faith by baptism. Imagine my joy at seeing such a home church. Inside the castle itself, although dated many centuries later, there was a Cromwellian chapel. I stood in the high pulpit and imagined how the family and servants would have worship together.
We at St. Andrew’s have many opportunities to gather as a family and worship and celebrate our community in the next few months. If you know of anyone in our church family who will be alone this Christmas season, please, contact the church office so that we can gather them into the family. Calendar these dates, but watch for updates in the bulletin and “At a Glance.”Regular services on Sundays (*) are at 8:00am and 10:30 am.
• Saturday, November 20th Bazaar & Tea, 1-3pm
• Sunday, November 21st Jubilation! a celebration
of song and supper, 5:30pm
• Sunday, November 28th 1st Sunday in Advent*
Wreath workshop 11:30am
Angel tree in Narthex
Blessing of the Tartans
• Wednesday, December 1st Corporate Communion
service at the Col. Belcher
• Sunday, December 5th2nd Sunday in Advent*
Greening the church 11:30am
• Monday, December 6th Women’s Group Christmas
Potluck and Adventa benefit
• Tuesday, December 7thChapter&Verse Study 7pm
• Wednesday, December 8th Vestry Meeting, 7:00pm
• Sunday, December 12th3rd Sunday in Advent*
Pageant & Lessons & Carols
Christmas cookie party
• Sunday, December 19th4th Sunday in Advent*
Christmas decorating
Jubilation! a celebration
of song and supper, 5:30pm
• Friday, December 24thFamily Service, 5:00pm
Midnight Mass, 10:00pm
• Saturday, December 25th Christmas service, 10:00am
Note only one service.
• Sunday, December 26th1st Sunday in Christmas*
• Sunday, January 2nd2nd Sunday in Christmas*
• Tuesday, January 4th Chapter&Verse Study, 7pm
• Thursday, January 6thEpiphany, 6:30pm
• Sunday, January 9thBaptism and Confirmation*
May we as a family enjoy one another throughout the holidays. The Rev’d Jo Popham
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St. Andrew’s Log - a retrospective look at the life of the parish
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The season of Pentecost was marked with many comings and goings at St. Andrew’s.
•The Klingers left for their dream home on Parkers Island. Nancy has served as our librarian at the church for many years. She has delighted us with two beautiful dogs who came to worship with us as part of the Alberta Guide Dog program. Tucker graduated with honours and is back in Calgary serving as the helpmate of a young blind teen. Finn moved west with them and now is living with his new family. And Chalmers who was only 12 weeks old when the Klingers returned for a visit, is charming and very well mannered, although given his huge yawn, he thinks about the sermon in his sleep as did Finn. Dave has found other fish to catch at his new home, but we miss his music. He has been our resident composer and coordinator of our Jazz Vespers. He will continue to write the music for our weekly Psalms and send them along via email. We miss them so.
•The choir ended the school year with a barbeque at the home of the choir director, Bryon Seeley. A good time was had by all.
•Jeanette Man-Sung-Hing also moved her home to overlook the waters of western Canada. She has served in various ministries at the church for 40+years. And we sorely miss her.
•We celebrated many birthdays in the parish. Two among us marked 90 years of life over the summer and fall.
•Our prayer circle has been busy praying for the many illnesses and accidents that have touched the parishioners lives. We commend them for their faithfulness.
•We have seen the return to health of a number of parishioners, for which we are thankful.
•Ginny Betty became our new librarian and has ambitious plans for the library catalogue system.
•There have been Baptisms and and funerals to mark the life passages of parishioners.
•There were beautiful weddings a St. Andrew’s including that of a grandchild of a long time member where the Bride wore her grandmother’s wedding gown. The Very Rev’d Fabian Hugh presided over his granddaughter’s wedding. And Jo raveled to Mount 7 just outside Golden, BC, to preside at the wedding of two 8 o’clock parishioners.
•The Rector’s Warden, Mathew Zachariah, and the People’s Warden, Bob Treherne, have kept the parish on an even keel, acting as the corporation to make decisions during the summer when there are no Vestry meetings.
•Our altar guild has been busy keeping the appointments in the church appropriate for the season and the many changes that occur throughout the church year. They have had two workshops to conform to the additional call upon their time and resources. We are so grateful for their ministry to the parish.
•Our Community Growth Committee has met and prayed and worshiped together. Through their discernment we have continued our Sunday evening family friendly service – Jubilation! a celebration of song and supper. And after a survey revealed interest in adult fellowship and study routinely rather than just during Lent and Advent, we have added “Togetherness Tuesdays” with a long-term books study called Chapter &Verse on 1st Tuesdays, A DVD study on 3rd Tuesdays called Popcorn Study, and Out-on –the-Town dinner group on 4th Tuesdays. A weekend dinner club has also been organized.
•Our extended community at the Colonel Belcher continues with the monthly celebrations of the Eucharist followed by fellowship time over tea and cookies. The group has grown to over 10 people gathering once a month at the Col. Belcher.
•Our parish secretary’s husband lost his long battle with cancer in August. The Anglican community from St. Andrew’s made up nearly one third of those at his funeral. His ashes were interred a few weeks later with Jo and her husband presiding.
•In September our Parish Breakfast series continued with a pictorial and narrative trip through the Holy Land by the Bryants. We look forward to many more breakfasts together as a parish family.
•Choir practice resumed with an evening of fellowship called “Holy Crepes” where the choir members brought the ingredients to fill desert crepes and gathered for fellowship before practicing for the Sunday worship service.
•Pat Kover became our recording secretary for the Vestry, and we thank her for her ministry.
•A Discernment Group has been formed for a young man who aspires to the priesthood. He is seeking to explore his calling to Holy Orders over the next several years.
•We all look forward to the annual Christmas Tea and Bazaar put on by the Women’s Group at the beginning of the holiday season.
The Fisherman’s Log is published bi-annually and is intended to capture the life of the St. Andrew’s community. If you would like to contribute an article, please, contact the Editor.
Editorial Staff
Editor...... Susan Chivers ()
Publisher...... David Hoskyn (davidhoskyn@hotmail,com)
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Parker’s Pen
I have to admit to being a bit uncomfortable with the Psalms. That said I really appreciate and get so much out of the selection and manner of presentation during the service on Sunday mornings.
But particularly those in the early numbers don't do much for the start of my day during my reading of the daily offices.
Calling upon God to,"make my enemies like tumbleweed, and pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm," is no way to face my All-Bran.
Fine when I get through to those like Psalm 108 that I recited today, "My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul," or those magnificent words of Psalm 100 that remind us, ".. the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations," I'm ready for anything.
It seems as though the Hebrews continually promise to maintain their love to him forever, mess up, get beaten by their enemies, and then beg for God to become their fortress again.
Yet the Psalms have been and continue to be read or chanted in monasteries every day for centuries; I must be really missing something.
Thank you Rev. Ted Clarke who in his sermon to us Oct. 17 suggested we read the Old Testament as Jews in history who had no idea of the new covenant that Christ would bring. That's a big help.
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And I continue to read Thomas Merton who is also somewhat difficult to understand at times; a very learned man but so humble and self-questioning. He has written so many words on contemplation yet I recently read a confession of his in The Sign of Jonas that said, "I spend the time looking for something to read about contemplation - something to satisfy my raffish spiritual appetites - instead of shutting up and emptying my mind and leaving the inner door open for the Holy Spirit to enter from the inside, all the doors being barred and all my blinds down."
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In chatting with some Lutheran friends who had moved out of the northwest I asked them if they had found another church. They told me they were happy to be back in the church they had attended for years after they had visited one a lot closer to their new home. Parishioners loved it because they sat at round tables in their shorts drinking their Starbucks they had brought with them.
Not for my friends - and certainly not for me.
I prefer Tranquillitas Ordinis, defined by Thomas Aquinas as The Quietness of Order.
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All those who were in church to listen to Ted Clarke preach were touched by his admission of the life changing experience of his time at St. Andrews. Every Sunday we recite that we believe in the Holy Catholic Church and we faithfully attend despite the fact that it has a history of manipulation of people and ideas and constantly recurring divisions. But it is the one place where we can come together to offer praise and thanksgiving, listen to the voice of the Lord, and eat his bread in communion with each other.
Henri Nouwen says we should be able to say, "I love the church, and I am glad to belong to it."
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Marion Parker can say that. I would believe that she finds so much love at St. Andrews and I was thrilled to be at her 90th birthday party to see her beaming at the full table of her parish well-wishers.
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I hardly expected to learn anything about the Christian faith from a Jewish author but Mort Rosenblum knows a bit about Christ. I'd enjoyed his book on Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light, so bought his Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit.
He writes that instead of starting his olive journey in Crete or the Anatolian Plain he decided on Jerusalem where history never slipped into the past tense, "where grizzled Arabs sell some of the world's best oil, green-gold nectar from the West Bank."
Rosenblum says, "no trees are better known than the gnarly ents in the Gethsemane churchyard, the backdrop for Jesus' bitter last night. In fact Gethsemane means oil press, and the famous meal may have been served under the vaulted stone of an olive mill at the grove." and goes on to say, "Hebrews planted that garden a very, very long time ago. Jesus sat under olive trees the night he was betrayed and Christianity was born."
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Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
ST. ANDREW'S ALTAR GUILD
When entering the church do you ever wonder about the preparation of the altar? Who? When? Why isitdifferenttoday?Perhaps festive, or subdued, or dare I say, ''formal''?What you see is thework of the Altar Guild dedicated to making every service special.
Altar Guild contributions to worship have always been a ''quiet'' or ''silent'' ministry. Members of the congregation are not, for themost part, aware of the work and commitment required to sustain parishioners' expectations. Forexample: parish traditions,ritual,
as seen in candles,flowers, linens, brass, church paramounts,and,the ''invisibility'' of variations, related to preferences ofvariouspriests.
The purpose of the Altar Guild is to assist the priest, with whomthere is consultation on a regular basis. Members are onscheduled 7 day rotations throughout theyear. Thus, there is always someone available for ''extra'' and ''unexpected'' events. Lent and Easter,
Advent and Christmas are probably our busiest times. Add baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc., at any time,and it is challenging,interesting and always rewarding.
Special days and seasonal times observed in both our ''secular'' and ''religious'' worldsprovidemany occasions for creativity.
We all love flowers. In our church home, it gives us pleasure to produce beauty for the eyes, and the soul.
The work of the Altar Guild, under the direction of Rev. Jo, is dedicated to the use, care, management and preparation of articles usedin our liturgies. Our ''office'' is the sacristy, a room adjacent to the sanctuary and east of the choir stalls. We perform our duties in thesacristy, sanctuary and chancel. The Guild shares responsibilityfor the chancel with the choir and organist.
Prior to Easter, and again before Christmas we have ''a cleaning''. At that time, we wash / polish /dust everythingin our designatedspaces, andshare some ''serious visiting''. Occasionally we combine a cleaning with a structured meeting. We have 2-3 meetings
yearly, as necessary.
Traditionally, St. Andrew's Altar Guild has been composed of parishwomen. Our priest, as ex officio head of the Altar Guild, assignsa coordinator, whose role is to organize / assign work tomembers, while considering talents, skills and interests. Those currently
serving on the Guild recruit new members. Prospective members [men, women, families] are approved and appointed by the priest.
We enjoy working together, and with Rev. Jo. Her guidance is always available and is given with patience and encouragement.She has taught us the historic significance of procedures that have been passed down, and at the same time, toappreciate moderninnovations that enhance, but do not change, tradition.
Serving as a member of the Altar Guild is a happy, fulfilling ministry, and a blessing to those who serve. I hope you have found this of interest and that some of your questions, known or just felt, have been answered.
Blessings All.
Kathryn Tulk,
Coordinator, St. Andrew's Altar Guild
The Cross in the Bullet
Poppies wild, a beauty
that reaches out to lost souls
Time passes, a tiny cross
is carved from a brass bullet, held tightly
day by day prayers whispered
In the trench, dirt and cold
cling to the flesh, while poppies dew
scarlet imprints the boot
Daybreaks, the spirit unites
Hope trumpets forth
encompassing our souls
with pure light
Remembrance, Lest We Forget
*I wish I could ask my Grandfather and Great Grandfather if the Lord was there with them in WWI and WWII. Sadly, I did not get that chance. But I already know the answer. The Lord takes the journey with me carrying me to whatever end.