St. Martin's 
Episcopal 
Church

Weekly E-News
August 1, 2014

Worship Schedule

Sunday        
8am and 10am
Holy Eucharist 
 
9:45am  Nursery 
 
Tuesday-Friday
9am
Morning Prayer in the Chapel

Wednesday 
7am service with Holy Eucharist        
Join Our List
Join Our Mailing List
Quick Links
Find us on Facebook
+
St. Martin's Website
+
Diocese of Rhode Island
+
National Episcopal Church
'Participants in Worship'
Click here for list of 'Participants in Worship' for this week and next.
Calendar Events
       
LAST Summer Barbeque
at 
St. Martin's
 
 Wednesday
August 20th at 5:30pm in the Great Hall. 
(rescheduled from May 13th)
 
Children are welcomed!!
 
Questions contact Gail Peet. 
  Thank You
To our August volunteers
Rick and Blythe White

for helping to maintain

St. Martin's Memorial Garden.

News from the CLOAK
hangers

We have started a new relationship with Harrington Hall and PICA to provide a monthly donation for both women and men.   

 

Delivery dates for the rest of the year:
8/15, 9/19, 10/17, 11/14, 12/19

 

Mary

 

**If you would like to volunteer with the Cloak please contact Mary Gray here.

Morning Prayer

It is my practice to endeavor to say Morning Prayer in the Chapel of the Church on Tuesday -Friday each week at 9am.
I would be interested in knowing of anyone who would like to join me. Morning Prayer takes about 25 minutes. 

 

I would also like to hear from those of you working downtown, which I believe is referred to as downcity here, who might be interested in saying Evening Prayer and or celebrating Eucharist at least one evening a week at around 5.30PM.

 

       Please email me with your                            thoughts. 

 

Best wishes.

Mark+


 

The Rev. Mark R. Sutherland

Rector

St Martin of Tours

Providence, RI

You Are Invited!

  

 

To a 'get to know you' gathering with  
Father Mark Sutherland
and Al Marcetti

 

The New Rector Welcome Committee is pleased to announce a series of small gatherings where parishioners can get to know Mark and Al. A variety of dates are available this summer and fall. We will gather at parishioner's homes and at church for summer barbeques. Please call or email the church to reserve a date and location that suits you. 

 

The Welcome Committee and Vestry extend a 'hearty thanks' to all who have offered their homes for these gatherings.

 

RSVP sesposito@stmartinsprov.org or (401) 751-2141


   Volunteer!
VolunteerHands 

To volunteer for these ministries please contact:

CLOAK 
(Mary Gray)
 
       THRIFT SHOP           
(Karen Bracken) 
 
(John Lawlor)
LINKS
All the latest news and information on the:

'Thrifty Goose' 
 
Epiphany Soup Kitchen
  
                     and CLOAK 
 
can be found here. 
 
Rector Recap

  

    

 

With so many of you still away on holiday I am certain that plugging into the Rector's Recap on the weekly E-news

has become the valuable source for spiritual sustenance to see you through until you can return to the lifeline of weekly worship. 

 

Tongue-in-cheek aside, for the last two Sundays I have been coming to grips with the 8th Chapter of St. Paul's letter to the desperate and persecuted Christians in Rome, and you can read more here. 
It's important to do this because as a rule Episcopalians are Gospel (Life and times of Jesus) people and we tend to let the Epistles (letters to the early Christian communities) wash over us because we are rather sensitive to what appears to us as the censorious tone in a lot of the New Testament letters. We find Paul particularly difficult because he seems to contradict himself, a lot. That's because the later letters attributed to Paul were not written by him at all, but by others in his name and reflect views at a later point in time, that are not necessarily those of Paul himself.  

For further reading on this you might enjoy N.T. Wright's, Paul: in Fresh Perspective and Marcus Borg-
Dominic Crossan's  The First Paul.

 

One of the problems for human beings is that we tend to recognize only that which is already familiar to us. So when it comes to prayer one of the most important prayers I know is: God, show me the pieces of the puzzle I don't yet see. Is it possible that through prayer we might become open to the truly novel, the completely new? Could what we call prayer be one of the principle ways we escape from the limitations of our own individual memories?

 

We can find Paul's response to the question in verse 26 of Romans 8:

 

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how we ought to pray, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words
. The Spirit of God, 

working deep within us with sighs and groans too deep for words utters 
us into new experience. We begin to glimpse the pieces of the puzzle we have not seen before. Note that Paul says we not only don't know what it is we need to pray for, but we can't know what we really need to pray for. We simply open ourselves in prayer, trying to keep expectation to a minimum. Through the workings of the Spirit we begin to glimpse the outlines of the bigger picture within which our current living is unfolding.

 

Prayer is ultimately not our doing. The work of prayer is the Spirit's work uttering us into the mind of God so that God's great love for us finds its echo in our inarticulate longing to love God and be loved by God. Our work in prayer is to turn the volume down on the voices of memory clamoring for our attention. If we look back these voices have never really been right before so why believe them now?  A good phrase to practice is: I have memories, but I am more than these memories. If we can sit, and wait, and not pay too much attention to the cacophony of thoughts in our heads, we open to the possibility of perceiving something new - a piece of the puzzle we have not glimpsed before. 
 

Paul speaks of the fruits of this kind of prayer, the prayer of waiting and watching when he says:
That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. (Romans 8:25 Message translation).

 
Paul proclaims that through the cross and resurrection of Christ we are more than conquerors through him who loves us, because no experience, either actual or remembered has the power to limit the possibilities that emerge when God's love for us finds echo in our longing to love God. Put another way ultimately, memory cannot limit what we are in the process of coming to see and hear, and discover. Through learning to watch ourselves in prayer we collaborate with the Holy Spirit in our liberation into a future that has already taken place (is predestined is Paul's word) in the mind of God.

 

For those of you still on holiday, relax and be re-created for the task of living. For those of you back in town -
see you in Church, this Sunday!

 

Yours in Christ, 

 Mark+

+++

 

If you are interested in reading past or present sermons please check out relationalrealities.com
 
Also please visit our St. Martin's Facebook page where the extended reflection on last Sunday's gospel is also
posted.

 

Sunday

 

Isaiah 55:1-5
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
Click here for this Sunday's readings

+++

Healing Prayers this Sunday at 11am in the Chapel


Meet our new Director of Christian Formation!

 

I am so pleased to be able to announce the appointment of Linda Griggs as the new
Director of Christian Formation. 

 

Linda is married to Malcolm and with two adult children comes with experience of Christian Education, both as a parent, and as a program director and teacher in Episcopal churches in North Carolina, Cincinnati, and New York. Linda and Malcolm have recently bought a house in East Greenwich, and will be moving to Rhode Island in early September. Although she won't be physically present until September, her appointment commences August 1st and Linda is already in conversation with current teachers and parents concerning planning and ideas for the new school year.

 

Linda graduated this year from Yale Divinity School. In addition to her Christian Education experience she is coming to us with a strong theological and ministerial formation behind her.

 

I am sure you will all want to join with me in welcoming Linda into her new role, and to both her and Malcolm and their family to our St. Martin's Community. I will be able to give more information about this in August. In the meantime, please keep Linda and Malcolm in prayer as they negotiate the complexities and disruptions of moving home and preparing for a new phase in their lives.

 

Mark+

Collection Baskets


We have four (4) collection baskets at  
the back of the church designated for:   

+++   
         
      Epiphany Soup Kitchen at
S. Stephen's.  Small or travel-sized toiletries including chap stick, razors, shaving cream, toothbrushes, toothpaste, new socks and underwear.  
 
** We are looking for three volunteers for the next date which is August 23rd from 3-5 pm.
Please contact John Lawlor at 434-9769 or jlawlor2@verizon.net if you can help


 +++


Food Pantries

Non-perishable food for Camp street Ministries and
Providence In-Town (PICA)

**August collection goes to PICA

 

+++

 

Bin of the Month

(August)

New underwear for men/women/children
 

 

+++

Backpack Express

Weekend food for the Providence School System's neediest students including: beans, tuna, peanut butter, pasta, mac & cheese, cereal, milk boxes, canned vegetables or fruit

 

For more information on all these wonderful ministries
please click here.