From the Vicar

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

A huge thanks to Bill and Ginny Larson, who organized our spring work day, and also thanks to everyone who participated!  It’s great to see this renewed energy around the upkeep and care of our grounds, restoring and updating the Bible and Memorial Gardens.

Spring is in the air, and we are living in Easter! No surprise, then, that many of you are telling me that we are ready to take further steps in growing into our vision statement:
 
A place of acceptance and welcome
where people experience renewal and transformation:
 
The introduction to the book we will begin studying this week describes spiritual transformation as consisting of two movements: self-knowledge (or self-understanding), and self transcendence. Spiritual wholeness is living into both of these, as they come together in conscious love and in a deepened ability to serve and follow Christ in ways that are unique to each one of us.
 
Often, we ask the question “where and how do we really find renewal and transformation in our lives?”  My hope is that this class, integrating traditional Christian spirituality and modern understandings of the psyche, will be a place where we can look deeply into this question, and that the exercise will bring us into experiences and understandings that will make a real difference, even a change, in our lives, and our experiences as people continually invited into living lives of wholeness and hope.
 
Become a community of love,
making a positive difference in the world:
 
Over the past few months, I have been delighted to hear questions like “how can we do more? how do we make a difference in our community? how do we live our faith in ways that concretely serve others?
 
What our Bishop’s Advisory Committee will be discussing next, is how to mobilize this energy.  What, exactly, would we be called to do at this time? How do we discover this? How do we organize ourselves as the community we are today around this hunger for mission and service?
 
With this in mind, I expect that soon we will be offering a small-group opportunity to study, share, learn and pray. My hope is that this will soon lead us into active work in mission and service, “making a positive difference” in our community, and in the world.
 
As always, “stay tuned”!
 
Blessings in Christ,
Patricia+
 

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Getting to Know Each Other

 
As our St. Catherine’s community continues to grow and change, it is important for us to offer many opportunities for relationship building outside of Sunday services. Those of you who have been around for many years would like to meet newer members, and those of you who are more recent arrivals are wanting to create relationships as well.

A simple way to get started is over a meal.  Sign up and get to know your fellow church members at St. Catherine’s! Sign up sheet is in entryway.

Patricia+ 

Towards Spiritual Wholeness:
A Ten Week Book Study on Deepening our Spiritual Journey

A ten-week book study on developing the integration of our spiritual lives begins this week, Thursday, April 23 at 10 AM in the meeting room at the church. We are reading “Urgings of the Heart: A Spirituality of Integration” – by Wilkie Au and Noreen Cannon. Order the book at local bookstore or on Amazon. Read the first chapter for our gathering on April 23.

Patricia+

O God, enlarge within us the sense of
fellowship with all living things,
our brothers the animals to whom thou
gavest the earth as their home in
common with us.

We remember with shame that in the past
we have exercised the high dominion
of man with ruthless cruelty
so that the voice of the earth,
which should have gone up to thee
in song, has been a groan of travail.

May we realize that they live not for
us alone but for themselves and for
thee, and that they love
the sweetness of live.

--St. Basil the Great (330-379)