St. Mark's News

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February 2013

St. Mark’s News Volume 16/Issue 2

From the Rector It seems a cruel irony that Valentine’s Day, with its heart shaped boxes of candy, should be the day after Ash Wednesday when many of us will have chosen to eliminate sweets from our diet. It will surely be a challenge to our Lenten discipline. Yes, Lent is now only a couple of weeks away and once again we will choose some Lenten discipline for the season. Some of us will give up something (sweets, alcohol, meat….), while others of us will take something on (reading the Daily Office, daily Bible reading, daily prayers, acts of charity). At the first of the year I once again began the Bible Challenge and am reading through the Bible in a year. I have gotten a head start on that particular Lenten discipline. Each day I read three chapters of the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and a Psalm. Because life gets busy there are occasionally days when I have to catch up, as it were. I will also give up a few things. The intent of Lent is to walk the way of the cross from our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness to his crucifixion on Good Friday. On Ash Wednesday we will be invited to the observance of a Holy Lent “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and selfdenial; and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.” I would invite each of us to do all of the above, rather than to choose only one or two of them. Music during Lent is another tool for reflecting on the meaning of the season. Here are the words to Hymn 145, written by Percy Dearmer (1867-1936): Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry; for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain. Lent calls to prayer, trust and dedication; God brings new beauty nigh; reply, reply, reply with love to love most high; reply, reply, reply with love to love most high. To bow the head in sackcloth and in ashes, or rend the soul, such grief is not Lent’s goal; but to be led to where God’s glory flashes, his beauty to come near. Make clear, make clear, make clear where truth and light appear; Make clear, make clear, make clear where truth and light appear.

In this Issue

From the Rector ..................................... 1 Vestry Highlights .................................... 2 Lent at St. Mark’s ................................... 3 Outreach ................................................ 4 Parish Life .............................................. 5 Christian Formation ................................ 6 Parishioner Highlights ............................ 8 Birthdays & Anniversaries .................... 10 ROTA ................................................... 11

For is not this the fast that I have chosen? (The prophet spoke) To shatter every yoke, of wickedness the grievous bands to loosen, oppression put to flight, to fight to fight, to fight till every wrong’s set right. To fight, to fight, to fight till every wrong’s set right. For righteousness and peace will show their faces to those who feed the hungry in their need, and wrongs redress, who build the old waste places, and in the darkness shine. Divine, divine, divine it is when all combine! Divine, divine, divine, it is when all combine!

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