Common sense steps to lower infection risks at Holy Communion and all church activities

Dear Companions on the Journey of Faith,

As the second wave of flu season continues, the increase in news reporting about COVD-19 coronavirus gives us an opportunity to make sure we are taking necessary steps to lower risk of infection as we gather for worship, fellowship, and ministry. The Episcopal Diocese of Newark have provided some common-sense guidelines. Click here to read.



Welcome

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.

Ordinary Time

Most of the Seasons of the Christian Church Year are organized around the two major festivals that mark sacred time: Christmas and Easter. The rest of the year following Epiphany and Pentecost is known as Ordinary Time. Rather than meaning "common"or "mundane," this term comes from the word "ordinal," which simply means counted time (First Sunday after Pentecost, etc.), which is probably a better way to think of this time of the year. Counted time after Pentecost always begins with Trinity Sunday (the first Sunday after Pentecost) and ends with Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ the King (last Sunday before the beginning of Advent). The sanctuary color for Ordinary Time is green, although other shades of green are commonly used. Green has traditionally been associated with new life and growth. Even in Hebrew in the Old Testament, the same word for the color "green" also means "young." In Christian tradition, green came to symbolize the life of the church following Pentecost, as well as symbolizing the hope of new life in the resurrection.

July 1-Pauli Murray

was an American civil rights activist who became a lawyer, a women's rights activist, Episcopal priest, and author. Drawn to the ministry, in 1977 Murray was the first African-American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest, in the first year that any women were ordained by that church.

Murray was virtually orphaned when young, and she was raised mostly by her maternal grandparents in Durham, North Carolina. At the age of 16, she moved to New York City to attend Hunter College, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1933. In 1940, Murray sat in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus with a friend, and they were arrested for violating state segregation laws. This incident, and her subsequent involvement with the socialist Workers' Defense League, led her to pursue her career goal of working as a civil rights lawyer. She enrolled in the law school at Howard University, where she also became aware of sexism. She called it "Jane Crow", alluding to the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Murray graduated first in her class, but she was denied the chance to do post-graduate work at Harvard University because of her gender. She earned a master's degree in law at University of California, Berkeley, and in 1965 she became the first African American to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from Yale Law School.

As a lawyer, Murray argued for civil rights and women's rights. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall called Murray's 1950 book, States' Laws on Race and Color, the "bible" of the civil rights movement. Murray served on the 1961–1963 Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, being appointed by John F. Kennedy. In 1966 she was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg named Murray as a coauthor of a brief on the 1971 case Reed v. Reed, in recognition of her pioneering work on gender discrimination. This case articulated the "failure of the courts to recognize sex discrimination for what it is and its common features with other types of arbitrary discrimination." Murray held faculty or administrative positions at the Ghana School of Law, Benedict College, and Brandeis University.

In 1973, Murray left academia for activities associated with the Episcopal Church. She became an ordained priest in 1977, among the first generation of women priests. Murray struggled in her adult life with issues related to her sexual and gender identity, describing herself as having an "inverted sex instinct". She had a brief, annulled marriage to a man and several deep relationships with women. In her younger years, she occasionally had passed as a teenage boy. A 2017 biographer retroactively classified her as transgender.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. The book reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.

Canada Day

Holiday celebrating the Dominion of Canada, which was formed in 1867 and confirmed by the Statute of Westminster in 1931. "Kanata" – from which "Canada" is derived – means "village" in Huron.Since the whole world has become a "village," all of us can join our Canadian sisters and brothers in celebrating this day.

July 2-Birthday of Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)

Director of NAACP for 21 years and first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Marshall’s work to end legal segregation in transportation, housing, voting, and education profoundly influenced U.S. race relations.





July 4- Independence Day

U.S. celebration commemorating the 1776 Declaration of Independence. May we seek nonviolent, skillful means to insure each person’s “unalienable right” to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

July 6- John Hus

John Hus (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia in 1371. Following his education, he was a theology professor from 1398 and was ordained priest in 1400. He lived during a time of great crisis within the church, as rival claimants to the papacy vied for power and position. The church faced theological threats too, as John Wycliffe and others began to break down the medieval synthesis and challenge church teachings. Hus became entangled in struggles between his archbishop and other figures, and soon found himself at odds with his patrons.

In his preaching, Hus challenged church abuses. He held that the chalice should be given to all communicants, in contrast to the practice of the day, which was for only the celebrant to receive wine while the bread was offered to the congregation. Hus said that Christian leaders should not also hold secular authority. Hus was summoned to a council in 1414 and was asked to recant. He offered to recant, but only if his positions could be shown to be in error based on the the scriptures. Hus was pronounced a heretic and sentenced to die on the stake. Just before he was burned, he was offered one last chance to recant. His words are famous, "God is my witness that the things charged against me I never preached. In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today."

July 10- The 51 Jewish martyrs of Berlin (d. 1510)

In 1510, the Jews of Berlin were accused of profaning a Eucharistic host and stealing several sacred vessels from the church in the small village of Knoblauch. 111 members of Berlin's Jewish community were arrested, 51 were condemned to death, and 38 were burned alive at the stake that had been erected in Berlin's new market square. In 1539, the Diet of Frankfurt recognized the innocence of all of the victims.

July 11-Benedict (ca. 480-547)monk

Today is the feast of Benedict, the father of Western monasticism.

"There was a man of venerable life, Benedictus (blessed) by grace and by name." So begins the second book of Dialogues, in which Gregory the Great tells the life story of the most famous Latin monk, who was born in Nursia, Italy around the year 480.

Benedict was sent to study in Rome, but he left the city, "wisely ignorant and sensibly uncultured, desiring to please God alone." He explored the different forms of monastic life that existed at the time, experienced semi-anchorite life in Affile and eremitic life in a cave near Subiaco, and noted the decadence and lack of discipline that characterized cenobitic life in his era.

After a failed attempt to reform an already existing monastery, Benedict returned to solitude. He was soon joined by many people who wished to have him as their spiritual father. Benedict organized a number of small communities for his disciples, assigned an abbot to each community, and taught the monks to become familiar with Scripture and to lead lives of fellowship and prayer.

In 529 Benedict moved to Montecassino with several monks to found a new type of monastery. For this cenobitic community guided by a single abbot, he wrote his Rule, which bears witness to his expert discernment and sense of moderation, and which eventually became the essential guideline for all of Western monasticism. Benedict organized the community's daily schedule so as to allow time for both prayer and work, which he considered equally necessary to monastic life.

July 12-Nathan Soderblom

was a Swedish clergyman. He was the Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala between 1914 and 1931,[1] and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1912, he became a professor of Religious studies at Leipzig University. But already in 1914, he was elected as Archbishop of Uppsala, the head of the Lutheran church in Sweden. During the First World War, he called on all Christian leaders to work for peace and justice.

He believed that church unity had the specific purpose of presenting the gospel to the world and that the messages of Jesus were relevant to social life. His leadership of the Christian "Life and Work" movement in the 1920s has led him to be recognised as one of the principal founders of the ecumenical movement. His was instrumental in chairing the World Conference of Life and Work in Stockholm, in 1925. He was a close friend of the English ecumenist George Bell.

July 14- Bastille Day

The French National Day is the anniversary of Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a turning point of the French Revolution, as well as the Fête de la Fédération which celebrated the unity of the French people on 14 July 1790.


July 15-St Swithin

was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester and subsequently patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. His historical importance as bishop is overshadowed by his reputation for posthumous miracle-working. According to tradition, if it rains on Saint Swithin's bridge (Winchester) on his feast day (15 July) it will continue for forty days. The precise meaning and origin of Swithun's name is unknown, but it most likely derives from the Old English word swiþ, 'strong'.

The name of Swithun is best known today for a British weather lore proverb, which says that if it rains on St. Swithun's day, 15 July, it will rain for 40 days.



July 16- Righteous Gentiles

(khassidey umot ha-olam "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

The term originates with the concept of "righteous gentiles", a term used in rabbinic Judaism to refer to non-Jews, called ger toshav, who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah.

Notable Individuals:

July 17- William White

Bishop of Pennsylvania, 1836.At the conclusion of the American Revolution there was grave concern that the Anglican Church might succumb as a disastrous side effect of the war. One of the most tireless and effective workers for an autonomous American Episcopal Church was William White, rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, and former chaplain of the Continental Congress. Appropriately, he became the first American bishop ordained in the English line. He was a quiet and scholarly man and an intimate friend of some of the prominent leaders of both America and England.

As a clergyman in Philadelphia, White had exhibited an unusual sensitivity for the poor, the unfortunate, and those who were in trouble. He was president of the Philadelphia Dispensary, which supplied medical aid to the poor; of the Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf and Dumb; and of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. He was concerned about religious education and was instrumental in the founding of the first Episcopal Sunday school in America. On February 4, 1787, in Lambeth Chapel, London, William White was ordained bishop by the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Moore, and two other bishops. He returned immediately to America and became the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

July 18-Paul Schneider (1897-1939) Lutheran pastor and martyr

In 1939 Paul Schneider, a pastor of the German Evangelical Church, died at the concentration camp of Buchenwald after fourteen months of torture and humiliation in solitary confinement. Paul was born in Pferdsfeld, Germany in 1897. He studied theology at Giessen, Marburg and Tubingen, and then became a volunteer with workers in Germany's Ruhr region, accepting the most physically exhausting tasks. After this period of service, he became a pastor in Hochelheim. Schneider married Margarete Dieterich and became the father of six children. When the Nazis' ascent to power forced him to choose between faithfulness to the Gospel and faithfulness to the regime, he had no doubts. As an active member of the Confessing Church, he preached the Gospel courageously, spoke out against the Arian Paragraph and Nazi racial laws, and was arrested more than once.

Aware of the destiny that awaited him, he accepted it freely, for love of Christ and the flock he had been given. At Buchenwald, where he was interned in 1937, his only concern was comforting those who were suffering with him. He announced the word of God at every possible moment, wanting nothing more than to bring life to those who were near death. When word of Schneider's execution reached Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the United States, he overcame his hesitation and returned to Germany, and several years later he followed Schneider on the road to martyrdom.

Bartolome De Las Casas

was a 16th-century Spanish colonist who acted as a historian and social reformer before becoming a Dominican friar. He was appointed as the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies. He described the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples. Bartolomé de las Casas spent 50 years of his life actively fighting slavery and the colonial abuse of indigenous peoples, especially by trying to convince the Spanish court to adopt a more humane policy of colonization. Unlike other priests who sought to destroy the indigenous peoples' native books and writings, he strictly opposed this action.Although he failed to save the indigenous peoples of the Western Indies, his efforts did result in improvement of the legal status of the natives, and in an increased colonial focus on the ethics of colonialism. Las Casas is often considered to be one of the first advocates for a universal conception of human dignity (later human rights).

July 20 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1902; Amelia Bloomer, 1894; Sojourner Truth, 1883; and Harriet Ross Tubman, 1913, Liberators and Prophets.

Today the church celebrates the witness of four courageous women who in the nineteenth century blazed the trail for equal rights and human dignity for all people regardless of race or gender. All four were deeply religious Christians who acted out of response to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the teaching of Paul that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton led in the organization of America's first Women's Rights Convention in 1848. She was a dynamic speaker and traveled throughout the nation speaking wherever she could against the oppression of women and the enslavement of African Americans. Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a leader in the antislavery, women's rights, and temperance movements. She was also a popular public speaker and she published a newspaper, The Lily. A native of New York, later in life she moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she worked to establish a church, a library, and a school. Isabella Sojourner Truth escaped from the slavery into which she was born, settled in New York City, became a street preacher, and opened a shelter for homeless women. She was six feet tall, had a powerful voice, and became a traveling evangelist and one of the most popular speakers on the abolitionist and women's rights circuits. Harriet Ross Tubman was born a slave on a Maryland plantation but escaped to Pennsylvania and freedom. She led more than three hundred slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad in the decade before the Civil War. During that war she once led a unit of black troops on a raid which freed more than seven hundred slaves.

50th Anniversary of Apollo 11-Landing on the Moon

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two people on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later. Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind

July 21- Albert John Luthuli, Prophetic Witness in South Africa

also known by his Zulu name Mvumbi, was a South African teacher, activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and politician. Luthuli was elected president of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1952, at the time an umbrella organisation that led opposition to the white minority government in South Africa, and served until his accidental death. He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the non-violent struggle against apartheid. He was the first person of African heritage to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Luthuli was a lay preacher of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA) based at its Groutville Congregational Church in Stanger, KwaZulu Natal, where Luthuli was laid to rest upon his passing in 1967.

July 22- St. Mary Magdalene

She is usually thought of as the second-most important woman in the New Testament after Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus as one of his followers. She was present at Jesus' two most important moments: the crucifixion and the resurrection. Within the four Gospels, the oldest historical record mentioning her name, she is named at least 12 times, more than most of the apostles. The Gospel references describe her as courageous, brave enough to stand by Jesus in his hours of suffering, death and beyond.

July 25- St. James

One of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and traditionally considered the first apostle to be martyred. James is described as one of the first disciples to join Jesus. The Gospels state that James and John were with their father by the seashore when Jesus called them to follow him. James was one of only three apostles whom Jesus selected to bear witness to his Transfiguration.

July 26-Joachim and Anne, Parents of Blessed Mary

The Gospels tell us little about the home of our Lord’s mother. She is thought to have been of Davidic descent and to have been brought up in a devout Jewish family that cherished the hope of Israel for the coming kingdom of God, in remembrance of the promise to Abraham and the forefathers.


In the second century, a devout Christian sought to supply a fuller account of Mary’s birth and family, to satisfy the interest and curiosity of believers. An apocryphal gospel, known as the Protevangelium of James or The Nativity of Mary, appeared. It included legendary stories of Mary’s parents Joachim and Anne. These stories were built out of Old Testament narratives of the births of Isaac and of Samuel (whose mother’s name, Hannah, is the original form of Anne), and from traditions of the birth of John the Baptist. In these stories, Joachim and Anne—the childless, elderly couple who grieved that they would have no posterity—were rewarded with the birth of a girl whom they dedicated in infancy to the service of God under the tutelage of the temple priests.

In 550 the Emperor Justinian I erected in Constantinople the first church to Saint Anne. The Eastern Churches observe her festival on July 25. Not until the twelfth century did her feast become known in the West. Pope Urban VI fixed her day, in 1378, to follow the feast of Saint James. Joachim has had several dates assigned to his memory; but the new Roman Calendar of 1969 joins his festival to that of Anne on this day.

July 27- Panteleimon-Healer and Martyr

He studied medicine with such success that the Emperor Maximian appointed him his physician. One day as he was talking with a priest named Hermolaus, the latter, after praising the study of medicine, concluded thus: "But, my friend, of what use are all thy acquirements in this art, since thou art ignorant of the science of salvation?

By miraculously healing a blind man by invoking the name of Jesus over him, Panteleimon converted his father, upon whose death he came into possession of a large fortune, but freed his slaves and, distributing his wealth among the poor, developed a great reputation in Nicomedia. Envious colleagues denounced him to the emperor during the Diocletian persecution. The emperor wished to save him and sought to persuade him to apostasy. Pateleimon, however, openly confessed his faith, and as proof that Christ is the true God, he healed a paralytic. Notwithstanding this, he was condemned to death by the emperor, who regarded the miracle as an exhibition of magic.

According to the later stories Panteleimon's flesh was first burned with torches, whereupon Christ appeared to all in the form of Hermolaus to strengthen and heal Panteleimon. The torches were extinguished. Then a bath of molten lead was prepared; when the apparition of Christ stepped into the cauldron with him, the fire went out and the lead became cold. Panteleimon was now thrown into the sea, loaded with a great stone, which floated. He was thrown to wild beasts, but these fawned upon him and could not be forced away until he had blessed them. He was bound on the wheel, but the ropes snapped, and the wheel broke. An attempt was made to behead him, but the sword bent, and the executioners were converted to Christianity.

Panteleimon implored Heaven to forgive them, for which reason he also received the name of Panteleimon ("mercy for everyone" or "all-compassionate"). It was not until he himself desired it that it was possible to behead him, upon which there issued forth blood and a white liquid like milk.

He is patron saint of Physicians, midwives, livestock, lottery, lottery winners, lottery tickets, invoked against headaches, consumption, locusts, witchcraft, accidents and loneliness, helper for crying children.

Prayer:


July 28- Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick, and Henry Purcell


July 29- Mary, Martha and Lazarus of Bethany

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany are described in the Gospels according to Luke and John as close and much-loved friends of Jesus. Luke records the well-known story of their hospitality, which made Martha a symbol of the active life and Mary of the contemplative, though some commentators would take the words of Jesus to be a defense of that which Mary does best, and a commendation of Martha for what she does best—neither vocation giving grounds for despising the other. The devotion and friendship of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus have been an example of fidelity and service to the Lord. Their hospitality and kindness, and Jesus’ enjoyment of their company, show us the beauty of human friendship and love at its best. And the raising of Lazarus by Jesus is a sign of hope and promise for all who are in Christ.

July 29- First Ordination of Women to the Priesthood in the Episcopal Church

In 1974 and 1975 fifteen women shattered the stained-glass ceiling and forced a morally correct change in the ordination policies of The Episcopal Church.


July 30- William Wilberforce and Anthony Ashley Cooper

William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was an English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an evangelical Christian, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform. In 1787, he came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one of the leading English abolitionists. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (28 April 1801 – 1 October 1885), styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851, was an English politician, philanthropist and social reformer. Although he was offered a burial at Westminster Abbey, Shaftesbury wished to be buried at St. Giles. A funeral service was held in Westminster Abbey during early morning of 8 October and the streets along the route from Grosvenor Square and Westminster Abbey were thronged with poor people, costermongers, flower-girls, boot-blacks, crossing-sweepers, factory-hands and similar workers who waited for hours to see Shaftesbury's coffin as it passed by. Due to his constant advocacy for the better treatment of the working classes, Shaftesbury became known as the "Poor Man's Earl".

One of his biographers, Georgina Battiscombe, has claimed that "No man has in fact ever done more to lessen the extent of human misery or to add to the sum total of human happiness".

July 31 - St. Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius was born into a noble Basque family in 1491. In his autobiography he tells us, “Up to his twenty-sixth year, he was a man given over to the vanities of the world and took special delight in the exercise of arms with a great and vain desire of winning glory.” An act of reckless heroism at the Battle of Pamplona in 1521 led to his being seriously wounded. During his convalescence at Loyola, Ignatius experienced a profound spiritual awakening. Following his recovery and an arduous period of retreat, a call to be Christ’s knight in the service of God’s kingdom was deepened and confirmed.

Ignatius began to share the fruits of his experience with others, making use of a notebook which eventually became the text of the Spiritual Exercises. Since his time, many have found the Exercises to be a way of encountering Christ as intimate companion and responding to Christ’s call: "Whoever wishes to come with me must labor with me."

The fact that Ignatius was an unschooled layman made him suspect in the eyes of church authorities and led him, at the age of 37, to study theology at the University of Paris in preparation for the priesthood. While there, Ignatius gave the Exercises to several of his fellow students; and in 1534, together with six companions, he took vows to live lives of strict poverty and to serve the needs of the poor. Thus, what later came to be known as the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) was born.


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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