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Seasonal Journal Pentecost / Ordinary Time / Christ the King Sunday June 9-November 24, 2019

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Seasonal Journal Pentecost / Ordinary Time / Christ the King Sunday June 9-November 24, 2019 Seasonal Journal Pentecost / Ordinary Time / Christ the King Sunday June 9-November 24, 2019 “Pentecost: True Spiritual Unity and Fellowship in the Holy Spirit” by Rebecca Brogan Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Colorado Springs, CO Mission: To accept God’s grace and bear witness to His grace in the world 1 On the cover: “Pentecost: True Spiritual Unity and Fellowship in The Holy Spirit”: Rebecca Brogan, the artist who created the wonderful drawing, reports that from left to right the celebrants’ ethnicities are Northern European, Australian Aboriginal, Hispanic, Russian/Western Asian, South American, Middle Eastern (modeled after the original Christians who received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2), African, Pacific Islander, South Asian, Native North American, East Asian, and Mediterranean European. You can see more of Rebecca’s Christian-themed art at John the Baptist Artworks online. Table of Contents The Liturgical Season 3 by Joan Ray A Pentecost Poem: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” 4 by Joan Ray Pentecost: A Lesson in Active Listening 7 by The Rt. Rev. Larry Benfield Pentecost: Leap of Faith 9 by The Rev. Tim Schenck Trinity Sunday 11 by The Rev. Rainey G. Dankel Ordinary Time: The Green Season 13 by The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson The Not So “Ordinary” Time 14 by The Rev. Denise Vaughn The Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary 16 by The Rev. Jen Williamson “Fear Not”: A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday 17 by The Rev. Lonnie Lacy A “Heart Strangely Warmed” 19 by David Margiotta Walking with the Mystics: My Journey with Saint Teresa of Ávila 21 by Nicole Hensel Editor’s Note Bishop Kym Lucas’s Easter Sermon Song 23 Back Cover: “A Portrait of Grace,” © Poem and Drawing by GSS Parishioner, author Ronnie Lee Graham (about whose work you can learn at http://www.ronnieleegraham.com) Image of Jesus and Nicodemus, a stained-glass window at GSS, photo by Nicole Paulson Editor: Joan Klingel Ray Editorial Assistant: Cindy Page Layout and Design: Max Pearson Printed by Print Net Inc., owned by David Byers, 306 Auburn Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80909 Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church at Tejon and Monument Streets (Nave), 601 N. Tejon St. (Office), Colorado Springs, CO 80903 Tel: (719) 328-1125 http://www.gssepiscopal.org Rev. Jeremiah Williamson, Rector Rev. Brendan Williamson, CSJC Curate Pastor Jennifer Williamson, Youth Minister The Seasonal Journal does not receive funds from Grace and St. Stephen’s. The Journal’s publication is made possible through the generosity of parishioners. If you’d like to donate to the Journal’s publication costs, please note “Journal” in the memo section of a check made out to GSS Episcopal or on an envelope with cash that says “Journal Donation.” Permission to reprint: Nearly every article in this issue of the Seasonal Journal is available for use, free of charge, in your diocesan paper, parish newsletter, or on your church website. Please credit Grace and St. Stephen’s Seasonal Journal. For sermons by clergy of other churches, please contact the appropriate church. Any copyrighted image is so noted. Permission to reprint any copyrighted images must be obtained directly from the artist. Let us know how you’ve used the Seasonal Journal by emailing [email protected]. 2 The Liturgical Season Liturgical Color As we observed in the previous issue of our On Pentecost, the liturgical color for the clergy’s church’s Seasonal Journal, the Episcopal Church’s vestments and the paraments (hangings on the altar, Liturgical Year is divided into seasons. The current lectern, pulpit) is red, symbolizing the tongues of fire as Seasonal Journal treats Pentecost and Ordinary Time. the Holy Spirit descended. During this period, we will also celebrate the feast day of Trinity Sunday and conclude with Christ the King Sunday. Trinity Sunday Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost. It is the only feast day in the church year that חגג To Celebrate Religiously: hagag The Hebrew root-verb hagag “describes “a commemorates a doctrine—the Trinity—rather than a gathering of people in order to celebrate or hold a feast, person or event. Trinity Sunday is the “Feast that specifically any of the three main pilgrimage feasts that celebrates ‘the one and equal glory’ of Father, Son, and Israel was to celebrate (Exodus 23: 14-16)” (Abarim’s Holy Spirit,’ in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Being’” Online Biblical Hebrew Dictionary http://www.abarim- (BCP, 380). publications.com/Dictionary/ht/ht-g-g.html#.XI0SjxNKiGg Retrieved April 3, 2019). When we celebrate in a religious Ordinary Time sense, we are honoring a day with solemn rites. In the The term “Ordinary Time” does not appear in the Church, we celebrate feast days. Book of Common Prayer; however, it is addressed in the Episcopal Glossary. The term is used in the Roman Catholic Feast Days and Movable Feasts Church to describe that period after the Day of Pentecost Feasts in the Church are days of celebration with through the First Sunday of Advent, which is the beginning solemn rites. “The seven principal feasts (Easter Day, of a new liturgical year. Ordinary Time, also known as Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, All Early and Late Pentecost, is the longest season in the Saints' Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany) take church year. We will see in our church bulletins that precedence over any other day or observance” (Book of Sundays are named in relationship to Pentecost, the Common Prayer, 15). Church Feasts are all Sundays, the previous feast day: for example, the Second Sunday after fixed dates of Christmas (December 25) and Epiphany Pentecost, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, etc. (January 6), and the “movable feasts.” Movable feasts on “Ordinary” is likely derived from the word ordinal, the liturgical calendar are feast days that do not fall on the meaning counted. Ordinary Time—the season that begins same date each year. Easter is a movable feast, as it falls after Pentecost Sunday—is the time of year when we are anytime between March 22 and April 25. Easter’s date not commemorating the major events in Jesus’ life (his determines Ash Wednesday (40 weekdays before Easter), birth at Christmas; his death on Good Friday; his Ascension Day (forty days after Easter), and Pentecost resurrection on Easter). Instead, we are reading Scripture (fifty days after Easter, the 7th Sunday after Easter). about the life Jesus led during his time on earth in terms of what he said and did. Pentecost Pentecost, derived from the Greek word, The Liturgical Color pentecostē, meaning fiftieth, as in the fiftieth day, is a major Green is the liturgical color after Pentecost Sunday. Green feast day in the Episcopal Liturgical Year. Marking the end is the color of living, growing things; it is the color of hope of the Easter Season, Pentecost in 2019 falls on June 9 and and renewal as we celebrate the Holy Spirit in our lives. celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the We are growing in our Christian lives as we learn about the Apostles, fifty days after the resurrection of Christ, as told life of Jesus Christ. in Acts 2:1. In the British Isles, Pentecost Sunday is called Whitsunday. In Acts 1, we read that the Apostles, along with Christ the King Sunday: “certain women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus,” The First Sunday after Pentecost were gathered in a room, praying. The second chapter The final Sunday of the Liturgical Year is Christ the King recounts how a sudden gust of wind filled the room, and Sunday: November 24, 2019. Pope Pius XI originally “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a instituted it in 1925 as a “celebration of the all-embracing tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with authority of Christ, which will lead mankind to seek the the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as ‘Peace of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ’” (Oxford the Spirit gave them the ability” (Acts 2:3-4). Some Dictionary of the Christian Church). Initially celebrated on scholars interpret the speaking in tongues as symbolic of the last Sunday in October, it is now celebrated on the final the Church’s worldwide reach. For this reason, Pentecost Sunday before Advent, the first day of the liturgical year, is frequently called the “birthday of the Christian Church.” which will be year A for 2019: year A is always a year that The BCP identifies Pentecost Sunday as “especially is divisible by 3 without a remainder. appropriate for baptism” (312). 3 A Pentecost Poem: “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins This sonnet, a poem of 14 lines, is, to be more by Joan Ray precise, an Italian sonnet, wherein the final six lines resolve the thought or problem set forth in the first A fourth-generation New York City native, Joan has been a eight lines. In the first eight lines, “God’s Grandeur” member of our church since moving to Colorado in fall explores the relationship between God—particularly 1978 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of English at God’s grandeur—and the natural world and the way UCCS. Retired, she is Professor Emerita of English and “man[’s]” or humanity’s works are at odds with God’s th President’s Teaching Scholar. Her PhD in 18 -century work. The poet then provides a resolution in the final British literature is from Brown University. With others in the Faith-Seeking Class, she reaffirmed her confirmation six lines, showing that God’s grandeur is immutable, vows on May 25, 2019 with Bishop Kym Lucas at Pueblo’s inexhaustible—infinite.
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