3rd Sunday in Advent, 2021

Please join us this Sunday at 8 am or 10 am for Communion as we continue our movement through Advent. This link will take you to the Services page on our website where you can learn more about our 8 am and 10 am services.

Below you can find our Christmas service schedule. The 8 am feast day services are wonderful opportunities for stillness, prayer, and contemplation.

Readings for this Sunday, December 12 (Third Sunday in Advent): You may access the prayer and readings by following this link. You may read the RSV and ESV translations of the readings here.

This Sunday, following on from last Sunday's emphasis on the second coming of Jesus and the "signs of the times," we look at Christian ministry. As J.H. Blunt says, "In the system of the Church the Advent Season is to the Christmas Season what St. John the Baptist was to the First, and the Christian Ministry is to the Second, Coming of our Lord." John the Baptist ministered with courage. So too the Church, characterized as it is in Acts 2:42 ("And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers") must minister with courage, grounded in hope in Jesus' provision and comfort.

If you have particular prayer requests or thanksgiving reports please share them with me. They will be offered to the Lord through the service and included in the service insert.

Special feasts and fasts* (if you follow or wish to follow the Church's traditional devotion in this way): Wednesday, Dec 15; Friday, Dec 17; and Saturday, Dec 18 are Advent Ember Days--days of fasting or abstinence.

If you intend to come to the Advent retreat (information below) please let me know. This retreat will go ahead if only for one person, but we'd like to provide coffee and refreshments. Please also gossip about this retreat to anyone you know who may be interested in it.

RECURRING AND ADVANCED NOTICES

Advent retreaton St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation.This will be held from Friday, December 17 at 7 pm to Sunday, December 19. It will be an accessible study on this key and timeless work ordered around prayer and reflection. You will find more information here. As always, feel free to email me with any questions. Please consider sharing this in your networks.

Christmas Services (all are Holy Communion). Saturday, December 25 (Christmas Day), 10 am; Sunday, December 26 (The feast of St. Stephen), 10 am; Monday, December 27 (the feast of St. John the Evangelist), 8 am; Tuesday, December 28 (The Innocents), 8 am; Saturday, January 1 (the Circumcision of Christ) 8 am; Sunday, January 2 (the 2nd Sunday after Christmas), 10 am; Thursday, January 6 (Feast of the Epiphany), 8 am.

Updated COVID19 protocols are in effect (in light of provincial guidelines and the expectations of the landlord). We will be gathered around the Lord's Table, seated by household, socially distanced. We ask that hands be sanitized and masks be worn inside for the duration of the service (exception is made for receiving the bread and the wine, and for leaders who are socially distanced).

Please reach out if you have any questions.

In Christ and Under the Mercy

Lars+