Trinity Church Welcomes All through its "Big Red Doors" with Tibetan prayer flags flying in the wind. It would be hard to find a more diverse group of believers, used-to-be believers, and sort-of believers. Many of us were born into other religions and denominations, and have found ourselves to be part of the inclusiveness of God's love.

Prayer - 400 Years

As we commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619, the church invites us to give thanks for the resilience and cultural contributions of people from the African diaspora. Therefore, let us offer our prayers to our Loving, Liberating and Life-giving God.

Resilient God, keep us forever in your path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met you in gift of friend and stranger, in the crucible of fortitude and struggle, that we never forget the ancestors who have brought us thus far by faith. By your might

Restoring God, yet with a steady beat, our weary feet have come to the places for which our parents sighed, inspire us with the energy to run with perseverance the race that is set before us, keeping our eyes fixed on you. By your might: Lead us into the light.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, you who have brought us thus far on the way; Give us grace to honor the lives of your precious children, enslaved in body yet free in mind. May we forever stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and make no peace with oppression, that children of slaves and former slave owners may one day live in harmony; through Jesus Christ our liberator, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God for ever and ever. Amen.

Creation Season

Creation Time in the Season of Pentecost begins the Sunday before Labor Day and ends on Reformation Sunday. It is not a church season, but a period in which congregations celebrate the fact that creation is an integral part of the whole Christian year.

September 28 - Wenceslas

Wenceslas was raised a Christian by his grandmother St. Ludmila, but his ambitious mother, Drahomíra (Dragomir), a pagan, had her murdered and acted as regent herself, until Wenceslas came of age in 924 or 925. Her court intrigues and the wishes of the people to end the conflicts between Christian and non-Christian factions in Bohemia led Wenceslas to take the reins of government. As duke he was pious, reportedly taking the vow of virginity, and encouraged the work of German missionary priests in the Christianization of Bohemia. His zeal in spreading Christianity, however, antagonized his non-Christian opponents.

Faced with German invasions in 929, Wenceslas submitted to the German king Henry I the Fowler. His submission provoked some of the nobles to conspire against him, and they prompted his younger brother, Boleslav (Boleslaus), to murder him. Waylaid by Boleslav en route to mass, Wenceslas was killed at the church door. Frightened by the reports of miracles occurring at Wenceslas’ tomb, Boleslav had his remains transferred in 932 to the Church of St. Vitus, Prague, which became a great pilgrimage site during the medieval period. Wenceslas was regarded as Bohemia’s patron saint almost immediately after his assassination. His virtues are sung in the Christmas carol (19th century) “Good King Wenceslas.”

September 28 - Confucious

In 479 Kong Qiu Zhongni, better known in the West by his latinized name Confucius ("the master of the Kong family"), died in what is now the city of Qufu, China.

Confucius was born in China's Lu state into a family of high dignitaries. At the age of seventeen he became an officer in the Chinese mandarinate. He dedicated his life to fighting the spread of corruption and reforming the administration of public property according to the criteria of justice and order, which he considered to be qualities found in nature.

In his life and in his public discourses, Confucius called for social renewal beginning with the inner renewal of each person, which becomes possible when people combat all of the idols that distance them from the love of integrity and from harmony with one another.

Confucius believed in the gods of his ancestors, but unlike Lao-Tze, he did not invoke religion to support his work as a reformer. Instead, he relied on common sense and his understanding of human nature. His teaching had an enormous impact on Chinese culture, and remains one of the cornerstones of the world's most populous civilization. Confucius' message of peace, harmony and justice in the cosmos, to which he gave unceasing witness throughout his life, makes him one of the righteous among the nations.

September 29 - Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and All Angels

The word angel comes from the Greek angelos, and it means, literally, "messenger." Throughout the scriptures, angels are sent by God to deliver messages. In the created order, angels exist in the heavenly realm along with cherubim and seraphim. There is no hint in the Bible that people become angels, though popular culture sometimes holds this view.

On this feast day, we remember God's heavenly messengers. And we give thanks that we are able to join with them at each celebration of Holy Eucharist as we sing, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of power and might." Angels remind us of our place in the created order, and they sometimes bear messages for us from God.

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September 29-Oct 1 - Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. The Biblical name for this holiday is called Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets according to the correct biblical calendar of the 1st and 2nd temple period, not Rosh Hashanah. It is the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora'im ("Days of Awe") which usually occur in the early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah is a two-day celebration, which begins on the first day of Tishrei. The day is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and their first actions toward the realization of humanity's role in God's world. Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram's horn) and eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to evoke a "sweet new year".

September 30 - Jerome

Jerome is chiefly remembered as the translator of the most famous and widely used version of the Bible ever published, the Latin Vulgate. In the sixth century most people in Western Europe spoke Latin, yet there was not an accurate or complete Latin text of the Bible. Jerome translated the entire Bible into Latin from its original Hebrew and Greek. He translated the sacred text into the common language of his day, called "vulgar" Latin. In time this work came to be regarded as a classic, but when it was published it was the subject of considerable controversy. A native of Stridon, Italy, Jerome traveled widely and was educated in Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. He got involved in practically every important issue of his day and was one of the most vehement adversaries of the Arian and Pelagian heresies. His correspondence reflects a strong faith and a sound mind as well as a passion for truth and integrity. He settled finally in Bethlehem as the head of a monastic community. One of history's greatest scholars and translators became a great pastor. "Now," he said, "we have to translate the words of scripture into deeds!"

Gutenberg Bible

September 30 is the day in 1452 the first section of the Gutenberg Bible was finished in Mainz, Germany. Johannes Gutenberg was the youngest son of a wealthy merchant, and his innovations in developing what became the modern printing press - capturing the moves of Medieval calligraphy in separable, movable type - transformed religion, literature, and politics. Before the printing press, a book like the Bible would take years to produce by hand; Gutenberg’s press made 185 copies, about 50 of which still survive today. The consequent printing revolution reshaped human culture, changing forever how (and how far) knowledge was disseminated, democratizing learning, and making new art forms possible. Known in its day as “the art of multiplying books,” modern printing was catalytic for the European Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Protestant Reformations. His legacy is carried on today by Project Gutenberg, a group of volunteers digitizing cultural and literary works, making them open and free to the public.

Elie Wiesel

September 30 is the birthday of writer and concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel, born in Romania in 1928. Raised in a Hasidic community, he learned to love reading by studying the Jewish Bible. When he was 15, his family was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where his mother and sister were killed; his father was then killed in the Buchenwald camp. Wiesel’s memoir about his experience, Night (1955), has become one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust. In 1986, in honor of his writing and teaching, Wiesel received the Nobel Prize in literature.

October 1 - Don't Give Up the Ship Day

This day in 1781 marks the birthday of James Lawrence, the American naval officer who while under attack by a British frigate cried out to his men, "Don't give up the ship!" Today, if the ship you're on is in danger of sinking, whether it's an institution, marriage or your spiritual life, hold fast with a heart filled with courage. Don't abandon ship till it's no longer possible to stay with it, and spend your time now trying to save it.

Nat Turner

October 1 the birthday of Nat Turner, born enslaved in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1800. He learned to read, studied the Bible, became a preacher who urged rebellion against slavery - and led a revolt in 1831, after a solar eclipse he took as a divine sign. At his trial, he confirmed he had led the rebellion but nevertheless pleaded not guilty. His Bible is on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

October 2, Birthday of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

a religious and civic leader born in India and best known for his role in India’s independence movement against British colonial rule, and particularly for his promotion of nonviolence as a means of resistance and liberation. He influenced Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s interests in nonviolence; King kept a portrait of Gandhi in his study. Gandhi wrote, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”






Feast of the Holy Angels

We can become aware that our life is “marvelously guided by good powers,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer experienced in a Nazi prison. Christian tradition speaks of these guiding powers as Guardian Angels and celebrates them on this special feast.

October 3-12: Durga Puja

Durga Puja (Dussehra). Hindu festival which honors the Divine as Shakti, the cosmic energy which brings all beings to life. During this observance, which varies in length according to region, devotees worship the Mother Goddess through procession and rituals venerating a beautiful image of Her. Devotees recite and listen to verses from sacred scripture. At the conclusion of the festival, the Durga image is released with a traditional water blessing.

October 4 - Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). St. Francis inspires us by his love of peace and his kinship with all creatures. Some eight centuries after Francis lived in Italy, hundreds of thousands of Franciscans around the world strive to follow the Gospel with the joy he expressed. A great reformer who was called the first Protestant.

St. Francis embraced this prayer before a crucifix in a little church called San Damiano: "Most high, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart. Instill in me a correct faith, a certain hope and a perfect love; a sense and a knowledge, Lord, so that I may do your holy and true command."

Francis’ words are often in the form of direct "conversation" with God, a conversation that includes all creation. His Canticle of the Creatures proclaims: "Most High, all-powerful, good Lord, all praise, glory, honor and blessing are yours...All praise to you, Oh Lord, for Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” all these brother and sister creatures. His themes spring from sacred scripture, e.g. Psalms ("The orb of the Sun, resplendent at its rising; what a wonderful work of the Most High!") and St. Matthew’s Gospel ("Look at the birds in the sky...Learn from the way the wild flowers grow").

October 5 - Calendar Celebration Day. On this day in 1582 the Gregorian Calendar was introduced. It is the order of days that we presently are following, having made a 12 day correction in the Julian calendar. The use of calendars was once reserved for shamans and priests who alone knew the secrets of the seasons, solstices and equinoxes. Today, remember that when you observe the changing seasons, the new and full moons and the other events in the cosmic calendar you are living in harmony with the universe. Celebrating the calendar is an excellent prayer.

October 8 - Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

The Day of Atonement with its scriptural provision as "a statute forever" (Lev. 23:31) is the most important holiday of the Jewish year. Through time-honored traditions, observers express humility and gratefulness for God's mercy.

October 9 - Abraham, father of all believers in the one God, prophet - The Bible has two special titles for Abraham: "friend of God" and "father of all believers."

At God's insistent call, Abraham leaves his father's country and his people, and sets out for the place the Lord himself intends to show him. With this gesture of faith on Abraham's part, communion between God and humanity is restored, and God's blessing, destined to reach all living beings, begins to be fulfilled. In Abraham, the three great monotheistic religions have a common patriarch and a certain unity, because it is through Abraham that God bound himself in an eternal covenant with all people.

Together with his wife Sarah, Abraham listens obediently to God's word and puts it into practice without delay. Both became models of faith in the one God. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, his only-begotten son, the child of the promise, is an example of hope against all hope: Abraham was certain that God is able to keep his word even when he seems to contradict it.

It was Abraham's faith that allowed him to enter into God's secrets, intercede for all people, and welcome all those who abandon themselves to the Lord, allowing God's will of life to be fulfilled in them.

October 10 - Vida Dutton Scudder-(December 15, 1861 - October 9, 1954) was an American educator, writer, and welfare activist in the social gospel movement. She was one of the most prominent lesbian authors of her time.She was born in Madurai, India, in 1861, the only child of David Coit Scudder and Harriet Louise (Dutton) Scudder. After her father, a Congregationalist missionary, was accidentally drowned in 1862, she and her mother returned to the family home in Boston. Apart from travel in Europe, she attended private secondary schools in Boston, and was graduated from the Boston Girl's Latin School in 1880. Scudder then entered Smith College, where she received her BA degree in 1884.

In 1885 she and Clara French were the first American women admitted to the graduate program at Oxford, where she was influenced by York Powell and John Ruskin. While in England she was also influenced by Leo Tolstoi and by George Bernard Shaw and Fabian Socialism. Scudder and French returned to Boston in 1886

Scudder taught English literature from 1887 at Wellesley College, where she became an associate professor in 1892 and full professor in 1910. When French died in 1888, Scudder joined the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, a group of Episcopalian women dedicated to intercessionary prayer and social reconciliation. Also in 1888, she joined the Society of Christian Socialists, which, under the Rev. William Dwight Porter Bliss, established the Church of the Carpenter in Boston and published The Dawn. She was one of the founders, in 1890, along with Helena Dudley and Emily Greene Balch, of Denison House in Boston, the third settlement house in the United States. Scudder was its primary administrator from 1893 to 1913.

In 1893 Scudder was a delegate to the convention of the Boston Central Labor Union. Later, she helped organize the Federal Labor Union, a group of professional people who associated themselves with the American Federation of Labor. Having received a leave of absence from Wellesley for 1894-96, Scudder spent a year in Italy and France studying modern Italian and French literature.

In 1903 Scudder helped organize the Women's Trade Union League. The same year she became director of the Circolo Italo-Americano at Denison House. Moving farther to the left, in 1911 she co-founded the Episcopal Church Socialist League and joined the Socialist Party. Scudder attempted to reconcile the conflicting doctrines of Marxism and Christianity. She became controversial in 1912 when she supported striking textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and spoke at a strike meeting, but Wellesley resisted calls for her dismissal as a professor. In 1913 Scudder ended her association with Denison House and moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts, with her elderly mother, who died in 1920.

Unlike Eugene Victor Debs and other Socialist leaders, Scudder supported President Woodrow Wilson's decision to intervene in the First World War in 1917. In 1919 she founded the Church League for Industrial Democracy. From 1919 until her death, Scudder was in a lesbian relationship with Florence Converse In Wellesley they resided at 45 Leighton Road.

At Wellesley College the poet Katherine Lee Bates developed an intimate partnership with fellow poet Katharine Coman, the professor of economics and dean of the college. They jointly wrote English History as Taught by English Poets. Their “Boston Marriage” of living together for twenty-five years ended in Coman’s cancer death at age 57. Bates, in her agony, published Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance[ celebrating their love, common labor in education and literature and their involvement in social reform with their colleague Vida Scudder.

In the 1920s Scudder embraced pacifism. She joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1923, the same year she gave a series of lectures before the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Prague. Scudder retired from Wellesley in 1927 and received the title of professor emeritus. She became the first dean of the Summer School of Christian Ethics in 1930 at Wellesley. In 1931 she lectured weekly at the New School for Social Research in New York. She published an autobiography, On Journey, in London in 1937, and a collection of essays, The Privilege of Age, in New York in 1939.

Scudder had received the degree of LHD from Smith College in 1922. From Nashotah House, an Episcopalian seminary in Nashotah, Wisconsin, she received an LLD degree in 1942. Vida Dutton Scudder died at Wellesley, Massachusetts, on October 10, 1954.

October 12 -Columbus Day. In 1937 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed October 12 as Columbus Day to commemorate the landing of Columbus in America in 1492. In recent years the day has been observed by recognition of Native American suffering and entitlement.

October 12 - Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) witness. Today the Anglican Church commemorates Elizabeth Fry, a prison reformer. Elizabeth Gurney was born in Earlham, Norfolk in 1780. At the age of twenty she married Joseph Fry, a London merchant and observant Quaker. Admitted to the Society of Friends as a minister, Elizabeth became a famous preacher. When she learned of the deplorable conditions of her country's jails, she decided to fight to improve the living conditions of women prisoners at Newgate.

In 1820 Elizabeth was among the founders of a shelter for London's homeless, and in that year she began to travel throughout Europe, fighting for prison reform in every country she visited. Sustained by her strongly evangelical vision, Elizabeth Fry ended her struggle only on the day of her death, October 12, 1845.

October 13 - Madeleine Delbrél (1904-1964) witness. Madeleine Delbrêl, a witness to the Gospel, died unexpectedly in 1964, in the years of her full human and Christian maturity. Born in 1904 in Mussidan, Dordogne, Madeleine was influenced in her childhood by the liberal thinkers with whom her father associated. As a young adult, she joined the chorus of those who were proclaiming the death of God. The very discovery that she could live without God led her to seek out the company of other people, and this search eventually took her back to the Other, God himself, first in prayer and then in a vital, daily relationship with the Gospel.

After her minimal and yet radical conversion, Madeleine studied social work, and in 1933 she settled in Ivry, in the secularized, communist suburbs of Paris. There she spent the second half of her life as a simple Christian. She shared her plain dwelling with a small community of women, making it a house open to all.

Madeleine's daily life was the most important aspect of her witness to the Gospel in the company of others. She understood that behind atheism lurk many mistakes made by Christians, who are often quick to announce a God who takes sides rather than a Truth that can never exclude other people, since it coincides, when all is said and done, with love. Until the end of her short life, Madeleine kept listening both to God's reasons and to the reasons of those around her, and to all those who met her she was a source of radiant joy and peace.

October 13-20 - Sukkot

Sukkot, commonly translated as Festival of Tabernacles also known as Chag HaAsif, the Festival of Ingathering, is a biblical Jewish holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the seventh month, Tishrei.

October 14 -Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky was born in Lithuania in 1831, went to Germany to study for the rabbinate, there became a Christian, emigrated to America, trained for the priesthood, and in 1859 was sent by the Episcopal Church to China, where he devoted himself from 1862 to 1875 to translating the Bible into Mandarin Chinese. In 1877 he was elected Bishop of Shanghai, where he founded St. John’s University, and began his translation of the Bible into Wenli (another Chinese dialect). He developed Parkinson’s disease, was largely paralyzed, resigned his position as Bishop of Shanghai, and spent the rest of his life completing his Wenli Bible, the last 2000 pages of which he typed with the one finger that he could still move.

Four years before his death in 1906, he said: "I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted."

October 15 - Feast of St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). Spanish nun, theologian, mystical writer, and reformer whose spiritual life exemplified both contemplative and active paths.

In 1535, at age 20, St. Teresa joined the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Avila. Overcoming strong opposition to reforms she proposed, she founded monasteries of friars and nuns. These included the Convent of Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph of Avila, established with the assistance of St. John of the Cross. Her spiritual autobiography, The Interior Castle, describes with humility and frankness the struggles of her spiritual development. Some of her most beloved words are these:

October 17 - Ignatius of Antioch-was a student of John the Apostle, and was the third bishop of Antioch. En route to Rome, where according to Christian tradition he met his martyrdom by being fed to wild beasts, he wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology. Important topics addressed in these letters include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.






October 18 - St. Luke - Luke was a Gentile and a physician. He was probably a slave, since most physicians were in those days. He was a Christian convert and a frequent companion of Paul. He probably ministered medically to Paul. In Christian literature he is most often referred to as "The Beloved Physician." Luke exhibited a sense of history, unique among the evangelists. He was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus's life, but tried to present an accurate and orderly account of those events which he had heard about from his sources. His writings, The Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, give us an historical narrative which remains altogether appealing, even to modern ears. Luke has given us the familiar Christmas story and the parable of the Good Samaritan that the other evangelists omit. According to tradition, Luke lived to an old age. Unlike so many of the leaders of the early church, he seems to have died quite peacefully of natural causes.

October 19 - Birthday of John Woolman (1720-1772). Quaker pacifist and abolitionist who preached and practiced that "all are equal in the sight of God."

October 21- Simchat Torah-Rejoicing of/[with the] Torah") is a Jewish holiday that celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle.

October 24 Hiram Hisanori Kano - The Rev. Hiram Hisanori Kano (1889-1986), an Episcopal priest known by some as the "Saint of Nebraska and Colorado," was an agricultural missionary among Japanese Americans in western Nebraska and a pastor to American soldiers imprisoned for having been AWOL while he himself was a prisoner during the Japanese internment of WWII. Churches in the Dioceses of Nebraska and Colorado observe a Saint’s day for Fr. Kano annually.

Fr. Kano, who was from a well-known family in Tokyo, received a Master’s degree in agriculture from the State University of Nebraska. In the early 1920’s, Bishop George Allen Beecher of the Missionary District of Western Nebraska discerned in farmer and educator Kano, the evangelist he was seeking to call Nebraska's Japanese to be God's people. A lay missionary first, Kano would become Deacon Kano in 1928 and Fr. Kano in 1936. By the spring of 1934 there were 250 baptized and 50 confirmed through Fr. Kano’s ministry.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Fr. Kano had just celebrated the Eucharist at Episcopal Church of Our Savior in North Platte, Nebraska, 180 miles from his wife and children at their Scottsbluff home. On that morning he was arrested by the local police and not allowed to notify his family of his detention, but was sent to the district attorney in Omaha. He heard the terrible news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war on Japan on the police car radio. Because his family in Japan had connections with the Japanese government, and he was so personally influential with the Japanese Americans as both a minister and a teacher of agriculture, he was rated "Class A – the most potentially dangerous of Japanese Americans." He was the only Japanese of the 5,000 living in Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming to receive this rating and to be interned.

Despite his own defense and pleas from his bishop who knew Fr. Kano to be a dedicated Christian and loyal to his adopted country, he spent the next two years in internment camps. He spent time in four different states, always working to help the other internees and those imprisoned AWOL soldiers. He served as dean of a school for the internees and taught many courses in Agricultural Study and English, and he preached the gospel.

After the war, it was determined that Fr. Kano should not return to his ministry in Nebraska. He had been detained longer than most, and it was feared that folks in Nebraska would be unaware of his loyalty to the U.S. and only remember inflammatory headlines such as, "Alien Pastor Arrested by FBI ... Admits Writing to Tokyo." He was sent to an Episcopal Seminary in Wisconsin where he earned both Bachelors and Masters of Divinity degrees. He returned to Nebraska and his ministry in 1946.

Fr. Kano and Mrs. Kano earned their citizenship soon after the law permitted it in 1952, and then began teaching citizenship classes so that between 1953 and 1955, nearly 100 percent of the Nebraska Japanese became citizens. Forty years after WWII, when the U.S. government acknowledged that Japanese Americans had been wronged by the internments and offered to pay reparations, Fr. Kano told his bishop, "I don't want the money. God just used that as another opportunity for me to preach the gospel."

October 31-All Hallows Eve. Also known as Halloween, Martinmas, Samhain, and Old Hallowmas, this day marks the midpoint of autumn. Nature's energy turns inward towards winter, and the veil between worlds thins.

October 31-Reformation Day is a religious holiday celebrated on October 31, alongside All Hallows' Eve, in remembrance of the Reformation, particularly by Lutheran and some Reformed church communities.The liturgical color of the day is red, which represents the Holy Spirit and the Martyrs of the Christian Church.


The Liturgical Seasons

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** This prayer is offer for Victims of Violence throughout of the world. Victims of verbal, physical, emotional, of hunger and thirst,economic abuse,warfare (especially Ukraine, Venezuela, parts of Africa, South America Asia and the Middle East, terrorist action, the death penalty, suicide, shootings (in our cities and neighborhoods), and other guise of violence. May their souls rest in peace and their families experience the Comfort of God. The Church bells will toll on Wednesdays @ 6:10pm.

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