Notices for the Week of September 3rd - 9th
Notices for the Week of September 3rd to 10th
Today We Say Goodbye to Mark Whitmore who has been our interim organist and choir director. We very much appreciate the music ministry he has shared with us since January of this year. We wish Mark every blessing in his continuing work in music. We will bless Mark at the end of the service today and have a cake at the fellowship after the service.
September Lunch Bunch will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 5th, in the Upper Hall, beginning with coffee & tea at 11:45am and lunch to follow at Noon. All are welcome. Cost is $6.00. Please join us for a good meal and plenty of fellowship. Confirmation you are coming would be appreciated. Please be in touch with Judy Nicholson.
A Choir Gathering will take place Tuesday, September 5th at 7pm in the church. This will be an opportunity for the choir to meet Matthew, have a short rehearsal, and for all of us, including the rector, to get all our signals straight for our Welcome back Sunday. We hope to see as many choir members as possible and if there is anyone out there who would like to join us, please do come along.
Welcome Back Sunday The time is near! Next Sunday, September 10th we want to welcome everyone back from summer travels and vacations. Hopefully everyone will fee refreshed. We will have a pot luck lunch following the service so please bring along a favourite cooked dish or salad to share with others. There will also be Sunday School Registration.
Food Bank Sunday We make a special effort on the 2nd Sunday of each month for people to bring items for the food bank. Sept. 10 is our next Food Bank Sunday. Please do remember this when you come next week.
Sunday School Begins As mentioned above, Sunday School registration takes place on September 10th and regular classes will begin the following Sunday, September 17th. The children will learn about Jesus and his followers, sing songs, have a snack and return to the service to participate in communion.
Corn Roast Fundraiser Raised... Well, we will let Dino tell you.
New Organist and Choir Director It has been announced that Mr. Matthew Ma will take up the duties of Organist and Choir Director at St. Helen's as of September 4th and his first Sunday with us will be September 10th . Matthew has studied Piano in Hong Kong; in Manchester, England and achieved a Masters Degree in Piano Performance from McGill University in Montreal. Over the last 20 years Matthew has been organist and choir director in a number of Anglican, United, and Roman Catholic Churches mostly in the Greater Vancouver area. We welcome Matthew as he works with the choir and with the congregation.
Bottle Drive Thank you to everyone who contributes to this fundraiser. Since April 30 our bottle drive has brought in $185. Thank you to Les and Kelly Foulds for all their efforts.
Recruiting Choir Members Would you like to add your voice to our choir and be a part of the music ministry? If so, please speak with any choir member to get more information. The choir rehearses on Sundays after our coffee and fellowship time and we are done by 1pm.
Summer Giving Catch-Up We hope you have had a relaxing summer. As you now begin to gear up for the autumn, if you find that you have not kept up to date with your contributions for the various ministries of the church, your offerings to help cover our shortfall over the summer would be very much appreciated.
Christmas Bazaar That's right you heard it correctly.The date has been set for Saturday, November 25th for this years Bazaar. Jams, jellies, pickles, and preserves are needed for this. There will be a focus on Blackberries this year. If you need jars or can supply jars, please speak with Jacquie Stinson.
Readings for Next Sunday, September 10th Pentecost 14
Exodus 1-14; Psalm 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
Holy Days and Commemorations this Week
Gregory the Great 3 September Bishop of Rome, Teacher of the Faith, 604 Memorial
Today we recall Gregory the Great, who became bishop of Rome in the year 590 and guided his people through fourteen crisis-filled years, using his gifts as a pastor and teacher to strengthen their faith in the saving mercy of God. Sixth-century Italy was an unhappy land, afflicted by brigands and war, burdened with recurrent crop-failures and famine, and decimated by bubonic plague. The people took these events as signs that the end of the world was indeed just around the corner, and they were frightened. Gregory shared this expectation but not the fear of it on the contrary, he looked forward to the world's end as a day of liberation, and helped his people to understand the tribulations of their age in the light of God's promise to bring creation out of its misery. In the meantime, he followed the example of the five wise maidens in the parable appointed for today's gospel: he kept watch over the Church, making sure that it was well-ordered and at peace in itself so that it would continue to shed the light of Christ even as all other lamps appeared to be going out. That is why he sent a small party of Roman monks to Anglo-Saxon England, so that those who lived at the ends of the earth might be converted to the knowledge and love of Christ before his coming again in judgement. Because of this initiative and the support he continued to give it Gregory is justly called the apostle of the English. He himself preferred to be known by another title, as Gregory, the servant of the servants of God. And so he was in his preaching, in his pastoral gifts, and in his missionary foresight. Gregory followed the gospel and became great by serving the whole body of the faithful and renewing their hope of God's love in Jesus Christ.
First Anglican Eucharist in Canada 4 September 1578 Commemoration
In the summer of 1578 an English fleet appeared off the coast of Baffin Island. This expedition was under the command of Martin Frobisher, who had made two previous voyages to the Canadian Arctic. On the second voyage Frobisher's crew thought they found gold, so the expedition of 1578 came to settle the unknown land and mine its riches. It included a priest of the Church of England named Robert Wolfall. On Sunday, September third, the company of the ship Anne Francis gathered on the shore of Baffin Island and, as the captain later reported, Master Wolfall .... preached a godly sermon, which being ended he celebrated also a Communion upon the land .... The celebration of the divine mystery was the first sign, seal and confirmation of Christ's name, death and passion ever known in these quarters. Master Wolfall made sermons and celebrated the Communion at sundry other times in several and sundry ships, because the whole company could never meet together at anyone place. Wolfall was the vicar of West Harptree, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, when he joined Frobisher's third expedition. He was a graduate of Eton and King's College, Cambridge, who (as the captain of the Anne Francis tells us) had a good honest woman to wife and very towardly children and was himself of good reputation among the best. Despite his professional standing and large family, he chose to take part in Frobisher's arduous expedition because he desired to sustain the faith of his comrades and, if the opportunity arose, to preach the gospel among the native peoples. In the event, Frobisher decided to give up the idea of establishing a permanent settlement on Baffin Island and took the entire fleet back to England in mid-September. Almost a century would pass before Anglicans again celebrated the eucharist on Canadian soil.
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary 8 September -Memorial
A legend dating from the second century tells this story about the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Once upon a time there was a Jewish couple named Jo-a-chim and Anne. They were elderly, and their neighbours reproached them for not having any children. But God heard Anne's laments and sent an angel to tell her: You shall conceive and bear, and your offspring shall be spoken of in all the world. Anne responded: As the Lord my God lives, if I bear a child, whether male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it shall serve him all the days of its life. And so it came to pass that Anne conceived; and when the time was fulfilled, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Mary. Both parents vowed to dedicate their child to the service of God, and when she was three years old they presented her in the temple at Jerusalem. And the high priest placed Mary on the third step of the altar, and the Lord God put grace upon the child, and she danced for joy with her feet, and the whole house of Israel loved her. Such is the legend of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we continue to tell the story because it bears witness to a deeper truth of faith that Mary herself was the daughter of Israel's hope and the child whose own offspring would fulfill the longing of the whole family of creation.