@AlpineAnglican Church of the Blessed Trinity
Worship Weather Report
It’s great New Year’s weather in Alpine this First Sunday of the Christian Year. Yes, it was 75 degrees and heading into the eighties this afternoon. This warm spell should help not only the winter weeds, but ripen the navel oranges, tangerines, and swell the avocados just in time for Christmastide.
With it being New Year’s Day we were a smaller than normal crowd (or should I say group). We had several families out and about over this Thanksgiving weekend.
The Padre was playing solo this morning, but this allowed us to sing Offering and a number of Advent songs and hymns with some Celtic influenced guitar work. This was a little different from some of our country-blues leaning on some other Sundays. We sang The King of Love My Shepherd Is; Here I am to Worship; Humbly I Adore Thee; Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus; Creator of the Stars; O Come, O Come Emmanuel; and the Doxology.
Ten-Minute Teaching
The Padre covered the time of persecution picking up on the Church History segment where we left off this summer. We covered “Why the catacombs?”, Severus, Decius, and Diocletian persecutions, martyrs of the period including Perpetua and Felicity, and Cyprian, and ended with the Edict of Toleration by the Emperor Constantine in 313AD.
Propers for Today
The First Sunday of Advent
Blunt writes in his commentary on the Book of Common Prayer:
The Christian year opens on this Sunday with a direct representation of our Lord Jesus Christ to us in His Human Nature, coming to visit us in great humility in "this mortal life," as well as in His Divine Nature, to be the Object of our Adoration. We cannot do otherwise than love the Babe of Bethlehem, the Child of the Temple, the Son of the Virgin, the Companion of the Apostles, the Healer of the Sick, the Friend of Bethany, the Man of Sorrows, the Dying Crucified One: but we must adore as well as love; and recognize in all these the triumphant King of Glory Who reigns over the earthly Sion, and over the heavenly Jerusalem. No contemplation of the Humility of the Son of Man must divert our eyes from the contemplation of His Infinite Majesty of Whom the Father saith when He bringeth in the First-Begotten into the world, "Let all the angels of God worship Him."
Link to the Collect (prayer) and Bible Readings
Greg C was our reader for this morning.
Today’s Message:
Our Heart to be as God’s Heart
Do you need a change of heart? As Christians our heart needs to become like the heart of God. This comes by the process of Spiritual Formation, not by accident or magic. We need to participate in what God is and continues to do to “put on” the new man or woman for which God created you. Is the Holy Spirit active in your life?
Jan M delighted everyone with cream cheese based confection that was not only a tasty treat, but the stenciled leaves were done from geranium leaves from her garden as the template. Not to be out done were the Cranberry-Orange chewy cookies and always popular deviled-eggs. Nick really missed out having a hockey tournament in Orange County today.
LORD, grant us a vision of your being and beauty, that in the strength of it we may work without haste or worry.
