Dearly Beloved,
THIS SUNDAY— THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINITY!
A TRINITY OF TIDINGS! 1. Dialogue Sermon; 2. Donna Shelton Scones; 3. Farewell Party
BUT FIRST— BREAKING NEWS!
WARDENS' CORNER
As we prepare for Bill's retirement celebration on May 31st, Cherie and I are extremely pleased to announce that the Reverend David P. Jones has accepted our call to be Interim Rector at St. Gregory's.
After retiring as a parish priest in New Hampshire in 2006, David relocated to the Chicago area.
He has served as an Interim Rector at five different Episcopal Churches, including St. Matthews, Evanston; St. James the Less, Northfield; Holy Trinity, Skokie; St. Mary's, Park Ridge and Trinity, Highland Park, where he is currently serving through August.
David will become Interim Rector at St. Gregory's on September 1, 2015.
David's wife is the Reverend Heath Howe, who is an assistant at Holy Comforter in Kenilworth.
They have four children and reside in Evanston, where David is the Chaplain for the Evanston Fire and Police Departments.
Here's a photo of David at a baptism… David is the guy in the beard!
Since David will not be joining us until September, we have arranged these Supply Priests for June, July and August:
June 7: The Rev. Suzann Holding
June 14 and 21: The Rev. Lisa Hackney-James
June 28: The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter (Deacon Scott Elliott preaching)
July 5 and 12: The Rev. Lisa Hackney-James
July 19 and 26: The Rev. James Swarthout
August 2: The Rev. Andrea Mysen
August 9: The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter (Deacon Sue Nebel preaching)
August 16: The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter (Deacon Scott Elliott preaching)
August 23: The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter (Brett Chandler preaching)
August 30: The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter (Mass on the Grass)
Please keep David, Bill, the Vestry, the Search Committee Chairs, and St. Gregory's in your prayers during this time of transition.
Jon Dutcher and Cherie Thompson, Wardens
1. FINAL DIALOGUE SERMON
After reading the Lesson and Gospel, ask yourself:
1. What did I learn?
2. What mired or inspired, depressed or impressed me?
3. Is God inviting me to change?
Romans 8:12-17:
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.
When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ— if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
John 3:1-17:
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the [Jerusalem Judicial Counsel].
He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."
Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."
Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"
Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
"What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
"Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.'
"The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
"So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?"
Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.
"If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
"No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
2. DONNA SHELTON IS BAKING HER SCRUMPTIOUS SCONES
Come to the Coffee Hour following the Nine O'Clock Practice for conversation, coffee, and culinary craft!
3. BILL'S AND INGRID'S FABULOUS FAREWELL, 1-5 PM (Park Early!)
1:00-5:00 p.m. Music, Cash Bar and Complimentary Lemonade, Coffee and Tea Service
2:00-4:00 p.m. Food Stations (food service will end promptly at 4:00 p.m.)
2:30 p.m. Program Begins
4:00 p.m. Cake and Champagne Toast and Farewell
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER CHANGES BEGINNING NEXT WEEK!
If you would like to have something included in the newsletter sent out on Wednesdays, please submit your article no later than the preceding Monday at 9:30 a.m. to parish@stgregoryschurch.org.
If you do not have email, please call the office at 847-945-1678 and speak to me directly.
For all events, include a brief description of the event, the date, time and location.
Please contact me if you have any questions. Charlene Vanderhulst, Parish Administrator
THANK YOU FROM MANO A MANO FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER
Dear Missions Board,
Thank you for sponsoring Milagros de Corazón (Miracles from the Heart) 2015 Gala Dinner on April 11, 2015, as a Generous Heart sponsor.
We are sincerely grateful for your leadership in giving and support as it enables us to continue providing much needed services to thousands of immigrant families in Lake County.
All proceeds from Milagros de Corazón will support our comprehensive programming that empowers more than 4,000 community members every year— providing support and the tools they need to be successful, self-sufficient, and better integrated into the community.
Together with your support we build Healthy Families, create Engaged Citizens, empower Productive Parents, and raise Successful Children.
Your presence and support at this year's annual gala and all of the other days of the year speak to Mano a Mano's amazing community of support, one that supports at Mano a Mano every day.
Thank you for your continued support,
Megan McKenna Mejia, Executive Director
THANK YOU FROM BISHOP EPTING
Dear Bill and the People of St. Gregory's,
Thank you for your gift to the Bishop of Chicago's discretionary fund of $695.00 on the occasion of my episcopal visit on April 12, 2015.
It was a great pleasure to worship with you and spend time in fellowship and conversation.
What a special privilege to confirm 14 youth as part of the visit.
I am most grateful for your generosity and spirit of outreach and for your presence and ministry in our Diocese.
Your gracious gift will be used with care and discernment.
God bless you all.
Faithfully yours in Christ,
+ C. Christopher Epting, Assisting Bishop
THANK YOU FROM PRESIDING BISHOP JEFFERTS SCHORI
Dear Good People of St. Gregory's,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I have received word of your faithfulness and generosity in the financial support you have provided through the Good Friday Offering.
On behalf of the bishops, clergy, and people of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East and all who will benefit from your support, I offer you my deep appreciation.
We sometimes wonder what we can do in times which seem so tragic and confusing.
The Good Friday Offering provides us a focus for our prayers and action in support of our sisters and brothers throughout the Middle East.
Our support for the schools, hospitals, medical clinics, and parishes sponsored by the dioceses of the Province promote mutual respect and understanding among the people of the region which are the foundation stones of the future.
Thank you for your participation in the vital ministry.
Your servant in Christ,
+ Katherine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop, The Episcopal Chuch
THANK YOU THE WEST DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP FOOD PANTRY
Dear Rev. Roberts and St. Gregory's Parishioners,
Thank you for your generous donation of food that you delivered to the 1st Presbyterian Church's food drive on May 9thth for the West Deerfield Township Food Pantry!
Once again we appreciate the planning, time, and effort that went into making your collection such a success.
Your continual commitment to helping your fellow community members is truly commendable.
The many bags of food your provided will make a big difference to those the pantry assists.
Sincerely,
Alyson M. Feiger, Township Supervisor
BRENT HOUSE CHAPLAIN STACY ALAN'S COLUMN
Brent House is the Episcopal Center at the University of Chicago. Mother Stacy Alan has preached several times at St. Gregory's— you will find two of them clicking here— and the Missions Board has supported Brent House. This article appears in the May 2015 Brent House Newsletter.
Two themes have been appearing with some regularity in conversations with my students lately: prayer and sex. Prayer has been a major theme all year: What is it, really? What are we trying to accomplish? How can I pray? There has been an increased interest in the communal, structured prayers of our tradition and we had a full roster for our all-night Maundy Thursday vigil. Hand-in-hand with the questions about prayer has come an increased and more explicit interest in discernment, which is, I believe, a kind of prayer as well: What is God's call in my life? How do I know it?
The questions about sex are mostly what one would expect in this place with this community: questions about my body and the other's body, my boundaries and commitments and how they intersect with another's. They are more numerous this year, however, at least insofar as students are approaching me about them.
It occurs to me that the two themes are not unrelated. At the core, at their depth, prayer and sexuality are about connection, about community, about who I am as beloved, and about whom (or Whom) I love. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in his beautiful and oft-cited essay on sexuality, "The Body's Grace," describes grace in such a way as to evoke both prayer and sexual intimacy:
Grace, for the Christian believer, is a transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted. . . .
The Christian community's reason for being is to embody that grace:
The life of the Christian community has as its rationale—if not invariably its practical reality —the task of teaching us this: so ordering our relations that human beings may see themselves as desired, as the occasion of joy.
More and more I am convinced that offering this kind of acknowledgement, of seeing each other in such a way as to give a sense of how God sees and desires us, is the most important work of the Gospel. All of our Gospel work—justice, reconciliation, formation, hospitality, piety, Discipleship—is rooted in this vision.
In our prayer lives, this is the invitation: to be in God's presence with our whole being—past, present, and future; body, heart, mind, and soul; wounds, sins, and reconciliations; fears, hopes, and convictions—and to know ourselves seen: seen and loved.
This has been my experience of the communities that make up Brent House and its ministries. In our resident community, where despite the stresses of classes and field placements, and amid the inevitable tensions over getting the dishes done, our residents offer support to each other and warm, open hospitality to our many guests. In a discernment group, graduate students listen deeply and compassionately to the questions each asks about God's call in their lives. Students bring friends (religious and not) to our worship services so that they may experience both the comfort and challenge of hearing and experiencing in the liturgy (and the community that Practices it) the truth about themselves—loved and flawed, accepted and challenged, seen and embraced. I have been the recipient of that kind of seeing, as our students have welcomed me into their lives and challenged me in love.
In this context, it is no surprise that conversations about prayer can morph into conversations about sexuality and return again to who we are—and who we are being called to be—in God's eyes. We all desire to be seen as beloved, and in experiencing this, our mandate is to offer that to others.
For more than 85 years, Brent House has been a place where this vision of God's love has been lived out: beginning with its work among international students, and continuing to today, with a strong reputation on campus, within our Diocese, and nationally, as a place of welcome, spiritual depth, and warm community. We invite you to help us continue in that ministry of being a place where our belovedness in God's eye is experienced with your generous gift. As our students depend on us, so we depend on you.
Faithfully yours,
Stacy +
PENTECOST SUNDAY RETROSPECTIVE!
Thanks to Debbie Welker for these pictures of the Altar and a representative Altar Guild member!
And Dan Evans, who grew up at St. Gregory's, and whose mother Marilyn is still a member, came all the way from Crystal Lake for my penultimate Sunday!
And thanks to Ida Butler here is a video of Courtney Yvette Creevy's Baptism:
And a video of my Pentecost sermon:
And the text of my sermon by clicking here.
In your prayers this week, please remember the sick, especially Vicki Garvey, Rob Beuttas, Laurie Vancil-Beyer, Bridget Caude and Family, Ruth Ann Stokes, Chanel Bazzoni, Lou Ness, Danielle McLaughlin, and Maryellen Davis; and
thanksgiving for the birth of Mia Grace Keller; and
for our companion parish in Madagascar, Santa Grégoire, Tolagnaro, and Dean Donné.
Keep on loving and taking care of each other,