St. Mark's News

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December 2015

St. Mark’s News Volume 19/Issue 11

From the Rector Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee . . . . (Hymn 66) On Friday, November 13, as news of the terrorist attacks in Paris were unfolding and the death toll was rising, the poem that came immediately to my mind was The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight; a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

In this Issue From the Rector ........................ 1 New Assistant Rector ................ 2 Vestry Highlights ....................... 3 Advent Schedule ....................... 4 Christmas Schedule .................. 4 Outreach ................................... 5 Parish Life ................................. 6 Music Notes............................... 7 Christian Formation ................... 8 Parishioner Highlights ............. 10 Celebrations ............................ 11 ROTA ...................................... 12

The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born. This season of Advent in which we now find ourselves has as its focus the Second Coming of Christ. On the first Sunday of Advent, in the 21st chapter of St. Luke’s gospel we read, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations, confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” On the second and third Sundays of Advent we encounter John the Baptist in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It is not until the fourth

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