Notices for the Week of January 14th – 20th
Notices for the Week of January 14th – 20th
The Week at St. Helen’s
Parish Council Meets Tuesday, January 16th in the hall at 7pm
ACW meets Wednesday evening in the upper hall at 7pm
International Food Fair Saturday, February 3rd beginning at 5:30pm As you know St. Helen’s has a great representation of people from many cultural backgrounds. A food fair is a great way to celebrate our diversity, who we are as an Anglican faith community and at the same time raise some money. This is a ticketed event but the tickets are FREE. But we hope people will make a donation at the door to help defray the costs. We plan to serve traditional food from about a dozen countries. There will also be Raffle prizes, an Auction of services , and a 50/50 draw. Wine and beer will also be available for purchase. Our core team is made up of Simon Lee, Jean Robertson, Fil Sotana, and Jacquie Stinson. If you can help out in any way, please speak with one of them. Your hands would be very welcome.
Annual Vestry Meeting & Reports – The parish council has set the date for our annual meeting as February 25th, 2018 following the 10 am service. At this time we will receive reports for all our various groups in the parish and elect officers and parish council for 2018. Please get the report you are responsible for to the Rector or one of the wardens as a Word document no later than January 31st so the reports may be collated and distributed. Sending your report by email (at the parish email address) is the best way to get in. If you are unsure if you are to submit a report, here is a list of some of the reports we are expecting:
Warden’s Report Finance Report Property/Grounds Report/Building Maintenance Report Sunday School Report Anglican Church Women (ACW) Altar Guild Choir
Prayer Circle Report Cemetery Report RMIT -Tri-Parish Report
Men's Breakfast - 9am, Saturday, January 20th at the IHOP Corner of Scott Road (120th Street0 and 82nd Ave. This is a Tri-Parish event with St. Michael's and Epiphany. We come together for fellowship and we each buy our own breakfast.
For your Diary – Get the Dates in Now
Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper – Tuesday, February 13th 5:30pm
Ash Wednesday – February 14th – Services at 12 noon and 7pm.
Lenten Studies – Days and times to be set – more info next week
Lenten Gatherings at St. Helen’s Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John Have you ever wished to deepen your relationship with God? To experience a warm friendship with God? Maybe even fall in love with God – again – or for the very first time? Our Lenten gatherings will be using a beautiful prayer journal, one for each participant and the gatherings for conversation will be facilitated once each week during Lent. Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John is a six-week journey into deeper intimacy with God through praying with the words of John the Evangelist. This beautiful 60-page journal inspires meditation on a daily verse from John, encouraging participants to respond through words, images, or however the Spirit leads. You can also subscribe online to receive a daily short video in which a monastic brother from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist shares comments on the daily Gospel verse, having a relationship with Jesus, and possibilities for further reflection.
Readings for Next Sunday, January 21st – Epiphany 3
Jonah 3:1-5, 10;
Psalm 62:5-12;
1 Corinthians 7:29-31;
Mark 1:14-20
Don’t Forget! For updates on what is happening at St. Helen’s go to both our Facebook Page and our website. Current information is put up on these pages each week. The web addresses are: Parish Website: www.sthelensurrey.ca
Parish Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/sainthelensurrey
Reflections on a Hymn – I Am the Light of the World This hymn, based on John 8:12, was written by American United Methodist church musician, composer and performing artist Jim Strathdee (b 1941), and Howard Thurman (1900-1981). It was first published in 1969 by Strathdee's company, Desert Flower Music. The first verse is specifically for suitable for Epiphany or the first Sunday after Christmas when Christmas music is not used and the decorations have been taken down. The following verses have to do with spreading the light. They are about general social-awareness / justice themes, meaning the song can be used at other times of the year by simply leaving the first verse out. It is time to get on with the work that the Lord has given us to do.
Saints and Commemorations
Richard Meux Benson - 15 January Religious, Founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, 1915 Today we honour the memory of Richard Meux Benson, founder and first superior of the Society of St John the Evangelist, an Anglican religious community which began its life in 1866. Benson belonged to the second generation of the Oxford Movement, and he shared one of its great hopes, which was the revival of monastic life in the Anglican communion. A number of Anglican sisterhoods were successfully established during the 1850s. A few attempts were made to found monastic brotherhoods, but they failed because the communities lacked any connection with the ordinary life of the Church of England. Benson was determined to avoid this mistake when he and two other priests began their experiment of a monastic community. The group tested its vocation by acting as a pastoral team in the parish of Cowley, a working-class suburb of Oxford, where Benson himself was the vicar. On December twenty-seventh, 1866, they knelt in the church of Cowley St John and took vows as mission priests of the Society of St John the Evangelist. Benson remained vicar of Cowley for another twenty years, and he kept the Society firmly anchored in the life of the parish. But he was also quick to seize opportunities for work further afield, and when he resigned as superior in 1890 “the Cowley Fathers” had missions in the United States, India, and South Africa. Benson himself was once described as having “a heart of steel towards self, a heart of flesh towards man, and a heart of flame towards God.” Many who encountered him at a distance felt that he was caught up in a higher dimension, far beyond the reach of ordinary folk. But those who encountered him in more intimate settings, during retreats or while seeking spiritual nurture, discovered a passion and a tenderness which communicated the true light of God’s glory. This light continued to shine in Benson even into his ninety-first year when, blind and crippled by rheumatism, he died in the Society’s Mission House at Cowley.
Antony - 17 January Abbot in Egypt, 356 — Memorial Today we honour the memory of a holy man named Antony, who is often counted as the first true monk in the Christian tradition. He was born around the year 250, the son of a prosperous farmer in the dictrict of Middle Egypt. He probably never knew any but the Christian way, and grew up listening to the Gospels read out in the village church. But when he was twenty Antony suddenly heard with his heart these words of Christ: “Go, sell all you have, and give to the poor; and come, follow me.” Antony went and did just that: he renounced his inheritance and retired into the desert beyond his village. The desert remained Antony’s home for the rest of his life. In his solitude he gave himself to prayer and fasting, to daily recitation of the Psalter, and most of all to waging war against the forces of spiritual darkness. Antony did not dwell in the desert in order to avoid conflict, but to deal with his inner conflicts more effectively. He wished to teach his heart, as he himself said, “to hate all peace that comes from the flesh.” He succeeded in this purpose by performing extraordinary deeds of physical self-discipline. But before he died in the year 356, well over a hundred years old, Antony learned something still greater — to love God. It is for his love of God, wondrous and simple, that we remember Antony today.
Information about Saints and Commemorations are from the book For All the Saints published by the Anglican Church of Canada.