Grace Episcopal Church  

In This Issue
Sunday Ministers
Birthdays
Sunday Services

Connect with Grace!

Sunday 
8:00 AM
Celebrant: 
The Rev. Dr. Maggie Arnold
Preacher:
Mia Benjamin 
LEM:
June Pietrantoni 
Usher John Schlesinger 
Altar Guild:  June Pietrantoni 
 
10:00 AM 
Celebrant: The Rev. Noah H. Evans 
Minister of Music:
Ruth Roper
LEM I: Agnes Opara 
LEM II:  Mia Benjamin 
Ellery Klein 
Kate Woodward 
Acolytes: 
Elizabeth Woodbury, Catherine Woodbury and Francesca Viggiani 
Ushers: Linda Foote and Jill Capuccio
Altar Guild: 
Olivia Bracken 
Coffee Hour Hosts:
Tom Hamel, coffee  and The Vestry, food
Counters:
Jane Scherban and Don Capuccio

5:00 PM
Celebrant:
The Rev. Noah H. Evans 
Musician: 
Cheryl Forest Morganson
Altar Guild: 
Mia Benjamin and Carolyn Rogers 
 
*click on link to prepare for this week's readings  

Birthdays

 

Daly Celletti and Isaiah Irwin Evans (3/29); Matthew Fenn and Jarrod Rogers (3/30); Beverly Convery, Sandra Eriksson-Ellis, Linda Rogers, Holger Wirz and Barbara Hammond (3/31); Mike Fenn (4/4).

 

If we do not have your birthday, please contact the church office at 781-396-7215 or office@gracemedford.org  

 
 
Blessing Of Palms 2013 Welcome
Please join us for Palm Sunday and Holy Week at Grace Church!
On Sunday we celebrate the Liturgy of Palms and Holy Eucharist at 8:00 AM.  At 9:15 AM, we walk from Grace Church to Medford Square for the Blessing the palms with St. Joseph's Church and First Baptist Church.  We return to Grace Church at 10:00 AM to celebrate the Eucharist and for The Passion Play.  At 5:00 PM the service is the Stations of the Cross with Holy Eucharist. 
Nursery care is available for the 10 AM service.

The Rev. Dr. Maggie Arnold is the celebrant for the 8 AM service and Mia Benjamin preaches.  The Rev. Noah H. Evans is the celebrant for the 10 AM service and the 5 PM service.

Holy Week Schedule for 2015

 

Palm Sunday - March 29, 2015

8:00 AM - Liturgy of Palms and Holy Eucharist

9:30 AM - Blessing of the Palms with St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church and First Baptist Church in Medford Square

10:00 AM - Holy Eucharist, Passion Play with music and choir

5:00 PM - Contemplative Service with Stations of the Cross and Holy Eucharist

 

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

7:00 PM - Stations of the Cross

 

Maundy Thursday - April 2, 2015

7:00 PM - Holy Eucharist with foot washing and stripping of altar

 

Good Friday - April 3, 2015

12:00 noon - Liturgy for Good Friday

5:30 PM - Children's Good Friday service

7:00 PM -Liturgy for Good Friday with music and choir

 

Holy Saturday - April 4, 2015

10:00 AM - Proper Liturgy for Holy Saturday

7:00 PM - The Great Vigil of Easter with music and choir

 

Easter Sunday -April 5, 2015

8:00 AM - Holy Eucharist with Traditional Language

10:00 AM - Festival Holy Eucharist with music and choir with Easter Egg Hunt following the service

5:00 PM - Contemplative Easter Service and Holy Eucharist

 

The Passion Play 2015 will be performed on Palm Sunday, March 29th as the Gospel during the 10:00 AM service.  March  28th, 10:00 to noon is the final rehearsal.   

 

Blessing of the Palms with St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church and First Baptist Church,  Palm Sunday, March 29th, 9:30AM (meet at Grace at 9:15AM to walk down to the Rose Sloan Garden in Medford Square at the intersection of High, Forest and Salem Streets and Riverside Avenue.)This year three churches will be joining together in the Blessing of the Palms, and we will be meeting in Medford Square at9:30AM.   After the blessing of the palms we will have a festive procession back to church.  Don't miss this fantastic ecumenical beginning of Holy Week!

 

Children's Holy Week Service, April 3:

Come to our children's service on Good Friday, at 5:30pm. We will hear the whole story of Holy Week, from the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem to the Last Supper and Christ's Passion. We'll use art and drama to enter into the story from a number of different perspectives: a Roman soldier, a servant girl, and a donkey (yes, that donkey). This will be the one service on Good Friday when it's all right to make some noise. You can even tear the temple curtain in two (God did it first, so it's ok).

KID'S CORNER

Friday night youth event on March 27:

Grace Church is hosting an evening of games and fun for youth, grades 6-12, on Friday, March 27 from 6-10pm. Parent chaperones are Kathryn Benjamin and Linda Rogers. Dinner is not provided, but kids can bring a favorite board game to share.

Wednesdays at Grace

5:30: younger children's Godly Play classes

6:00: Community Dinner

6:45: older children's classes

Adult Education- 6:45-8:00PM


April 1, Holy Wednesday

No Wednesday Night Dinner and Children and Youth Classes

7:00PM - Stations of the Cross

 

Celebrate Earth Month with the Grace Church Wednesdays at Grace

 

April 8, 2015 - 6:45PM

Erik Jacobs, Farmer for Plough & Stars 

Plough & Stars Project is a Medford based farm. It is a celebration of community and food's unique capacity to draw people together. Our members are all neighbors - households bound by geography but separated by the pace of modern life. We know each other from a distance, maybe even by name, but rarely do we find the opportunity for deeper connection. Our CSA strives to challenge that, to designate time and create space for those openings. Through our farming we seek to live and nurture lives of meaningful connection: connection to the earth, connection to each other, connection to our work and connection to our food. Through these connections we strive to steward land, nourish bodies, quiet minds and foster community. We believe that living closer to the earth brings us closer to the divine. And that, at its essence is what we celebrate...The Plough and the Stars.

 

Rosemary (Rosie) Gill, President, Board of Directors, Medford Farmers Market

Rosie Gill is dedicated to building healthy communities around food. She works primarily with non-profits engaged in improving food security through educational means.

 

April 15, 2015 - 6:45PM

Russell Cohen, Rivers Advocate at Division of Ecological Restoration/Riverways Program, Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game

Russ Cohen currently serves as the Rivers Advocate for the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game's Division of Ecological Restoration. One of his areas of expertise is in riparian vegetation. He has compiled a list of native plant species suitable for planting in riparian areas; written numerous fact sheets on the ecological and other beneficial functions of naturally vegetated buffers along rivers and streams intended to aid the effective implementation of the Mass. Rivers Protection Act; and (with the Appalachian Mountain Club) prepared Trees, Paddlers and Wildlife, a set of outreach materials intended to raise the awareness of paddlers, riparian land-owners and managers, and others about the ecological and other beneficial values of retaining trees and other woody vegetation in and along rivers and streams.

 

April 29, 2015 

Movie: "Trashed - No Place For Waste"

"Trashed - No Place for Waste" looks at the risks to the food chain and the environment through pollution of our air, land and sea by waste. The film reveals surprising truths about very immediate and potent dangers to our health, a global conversation from Iceland to Indonesia between the film star Jeremy Irons and scientists, politicians and ordinary individuals whose health and livelihoods have been fundamentally affected by waste pollution. Visually and emotionally the film is both horrific and beautiful: an interplay of human interest and political wake-up call. But it ends on a message of hope: showing how the risks to our survival can easily be averted through sustainable approaches that provide far more employment than the current 'waste industry'.

Outreach Corner 

 

The next opportunity to help at St. Luke's Community Dining is March 28.
 It is not just cooking. There are several other duties that go along with community dining, such as, serving food to people seated, clean up, washing dishes, cutting up vegetables, filling the plates with food before serving and so much more.Lisa Carson is the coordinator of Grace Church's work with the St. Luke's Community Dining ministry.  Please contact her with any questions.

 

Food is needed for the food pantries that Grace Episcopal Church supports. Food items may be placed in the baskets just outside the main entrance to the sanctuary (an usher can help you locate them).
The items for Sunday, March 29 are
coffee or tea.  The item for Sunday, April 5 is

cereal

 

Save the Date:  The Spring Clothing Pantry will be held on Saturday, April 11th.  See Maria Fenn if you would like to volunteer for set-up or to help out.
Other Announcements
 

Medford Rehab and Nursing Center  

The Grace LDI Team, now known as SHARE Grace (Spreading Hope Awareness and Renewal with the Elderly and People with Mental Illness) has come together around a shared purpose of combating the stigma against mental illness and aging in our communities to create a beautiful and sacred space for worship at the Medford Rehab and Nursing Center. We are having our next monthly service on Wednesday April 22 at 3 PM
at the Medford Rehab and Nusing Center. 

 

We will have a Palm Sunday service at the Medford Rehab and Nursing Center on
March 29th at 3 PM.  Afterwards we will go around to the residents' rooms to bring them cross-shaped palms.  Kids are welcome to join in the celebration!  We will celebrate Easter on April 5th at 3:00 PM.
 

20/30s Fellowship Group

Come for dinner, discussion, and games at Mia's intentional community house in Cambridge on Friday March 27 at 7:00 PM!  Bring a side dish, drink, and/or favorite game. Friends welcome! Contact mia@gracemedford.org
if you can attend or RSVP on our Facebook group. 

 

New Multicultural Play Coming to  

Grace Church October 2015!

Open Auditions will be held for "The Virtue of Penelope: A Chinese Odyssey" on April 18th and 25th from 10:00 AM to noon and 1:00 to 2:00 PM at Medford's Grace Church, 160 High Street, for actors aged 12 years -old to adult. All applicants should be prepared to audition with a two-minute monologue. "Call backs" will be on Saturday, May 2nd, 10:00 AM to noon and 1:00 to 3:00 PM at Grace Church. "Odyssey" will premiere at Grace Church this October 16th and 17th in conjunction with CACHE's October "Arts Around Medford" celebration.

 

Written and directed by Laura R. Duggan, "The Virtue of Penelope: A Chinese Odyssey" is based upon Homer's Epic Poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." It will be done in a Chinese theatrical style with both authentic dance and kung-fu staged by Medford's Ninja Nguyen of XTreme Ninja on Riverside Avenue.  Direct all inquiries to Laura R. Duggan at  LauraRDuggan16@gmail.com.

 

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Medford Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.