Staying Safe and Staying Connected
Good Morning Saint Stephen’s Church,
We continue our life of daily prayer. The Lord be with you!
Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.
Today’s Prayer
God bless Love!
Hadewijch, 1248 from “Love’s Great Power”
If anyone so will, let Love make him free in a different way…
Since you, O Love, can do all with love,
Give me, for the sake of love, the fruition
That delights the loving soul through your highest goodness!…
Love wills all love from noble spirits,
And that they bring their works into conformity with it,
And that they rejoice with memory
And delight in Love with joy.
Praise and honor be to Love,
To her great power, to her rich teaching;
And by her consolation may she heal the pain
Of all who gladly brave Love’s vicissitudes.
Hadewijch was a thirteenth-century Flemish mystic. Scholars identify her with something called “love mysticism,” which was a movement focusing on the emotional experience of love as union with God. Like many notable Christian women writers, Hadewijch was a beguine. Beguines were women who chose to live a monastic lifestyle, but without formal vows and with greater freedom to choose various forms of study and work. There is not much known about Hadewijch life beyond what can be found in the writings that she left behind.
From Our Prayers of the People
Today, let us pray:
For the just and proper use of your creation; for the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.
For comfort and healing for all who are affected by the Coronavirus, and for physicians, nurses, and all others who minister to the sick and the suffering, may God grant them wisdom and skill, sympathy and patience, and may God keep them healthy and safe.
For all essential workers; for police, firefighters, EMTs, postal workers, sanitation workers, grocery personnel, delivery and transport workers, and all who must report to work because what they do is essential for our well-being, health, and safety.
For those on the Parish Prayer Chain: Mary Frances, Jim, Eunice, Jane, Bruce, Pauline, John, Sabrina and Jim.
For those who are homebound: Stephen, Pauline, Joan, Janet and Marilyn.
Those who are imprisoned: those particularly vulnerable at this time, especially the women in the Schenectady County Jail.
For those in need of healing: Cindi, Mary Frances, Debbie and Joe.
For all the blessings of this life.
For our dioceses in the Anglican Communion: Muranga South (Kenya), Zaki-Biam (Nigeria), Ikwerre (Nigeria)
For all who have died: especially Harry, Gwendolyn, Grant, Donald, John H. and David.
For one another.
Something to share
The Avowal
As swimmers dare
Denise Levertov
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
Ephesus
I was in love with God for one afternoon.
Tania Runyan, in her collection What Will Soon Take Place, poems inspired by the book of Revelation
Twenty, alone on a beach, I dropped rocks
by the edge and watched the ocean
wash gray into blue, brown into red. An hour
of my crunching steps, the clack of pebbles,
the water’s rippling response. Never mind
invisibility. We were the only ones, and I
so intoxicating–sand-blown hair,
denim cut-offs, no reason to believe
anyone’s faith could dissolve. My prayers
were as certain as the stones I threw,
the answers as sure as the cove’s blue floor.
Reminders
If you have an update/news, a prayer or poem or something inspirational you would like us to share with the congregation, please send it to us. Please also send us any prayer requests. We will incorporate these into the Morning Prayers as best we can.
Prayerbook Parish Morning Prayer in Zoom – each morning. Join Dennie and me for an inter-active service of Morning Prayer at 9 am. Time to bring your prayer concerns will be provided. (contact me for the link: james.ross.mcd@gmail.com)
If you did not receive a phone call in the last few days from a member of the Vestry and you would like to be added to the communication list, please let me know (james.ross.mcd@gmail.com) and share with me the best telephone number(s) where we can reach you. We will add you to the list right away.
Our church campus is closed. All parish meetings and gatherings are canceled and postponed until further notice.
Our goal is for all of us to stay in touch and connected in this time of isolation.
Share this news, and spread some love, not the virus!
Irish Blessing
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be at your back,
May the sun shine upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Be of good courage. We are in this together, and we will be together again soon. God bless you and may God be with us in the days ahead.
Peace,
James+