Christ Church Cobble Hill

17 SUNDAY: THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (Proper 19)

Sunday Summer Schedule

Holy Eucharist 11:00 AM. In the garden, weather permitting. (Coffee & Conversation follows)

ATLANTIC ANTIC  32th Anniversary Celebration 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Atlantic Avenue between Hicks Street and Fourth Avenue. RAIN OR SHINE!!!

Parish House:
AA 7:30-8:30 AM

18 Monday: Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, 1882

Parish House
LINDEN TREE PRESCHOOL - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon / 12:30-3:30 PM NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYSPACE - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon GYMSTARS - 12:Noon-3:00 PM

19 Tuesday: Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690
Holy Eucharist 9:00 AM *

Parish House:
LINDEN TREE PRESCHOOL - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon
NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYSPACE 9:30 AM-12:00 Noon
COBBLE HILL BALLET - 1:00-2:30 PM
MUSIC TOGETHER - 3:30-5:00 PM
ACTORS WORKSHOP - 5:15-7:30 PM

20 Wednesday: John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia,and his Companions, Martyrs, 1871

Evening Prayer 6:00 PM
Holy Eucharist 6:30 PM
BOOK READING GROUP 7:30 PM

Parish House
LINDEN TREE PRESCHOOL - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon / 12:30-3:30 PM NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYSPACE - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon

21 Thursday: SAINT MATTHEW, APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST

Parish House
LINDEN TREE PRESCHOOL - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon
NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYSPACE 9:30 AM-12:00 Noon
GYMSTARS - 3:00-4:00 PM
COBBLE HILL BALLET - 1:00-3:15 PM
AA - 6:30-7:30 PM

22 Friday: Weekday Day of Special Devotion: Abstinence

Holy Eucharist 9:00 AM *

Parish House
LINDEN TREE PRESCHOOL - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon / 12:30-3:30 PM NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYSPACE - 9:00 AM-12:00 Noon

23 Saturday: Weekday

Parish House
AA 7:30-8:30 AM COBBLE HILL BALLET - 10:00 AM-12:45 PM

24 SUNDAY: THE SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (Proper 20)

Holy Eucharist 11:00 AM (Coffee & Conversation follows)

Parish House
AA 7:30-8:30 AM

* At Saint Andrew’s House, 199 Carroll Street, between Court and Clinton Streets

BISHOP’S COMMITTEE MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

The Bishop’s Committee will meet MONDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2006, at 6:30 p.m. Committee reports and agenda items must be submitted by Monday, 18 September, to be considered at this meeting.

ANNUAL CHRYSANTHEMUM SALE

The Annual Chrysanthemum Sale will take place on next Saturday, 23 September and next Sunday, 24 September. Please speak with Mary or Norman Fox or Haigo Salow for more information. We need volunteers to help sell plants on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon!

CHRIST CHURCH FOR KIDS: SUNDAY SCHOOL

We will have an organizational meeting next Sunday, 21 September at 10:00 a.m. for planning and scheduling courses and teachers for our Sunday School. You do not need to have a child in the Sunday School to be a teacher. The commitment is for 10 weeks. Please consider this as something YOU can do for your church!

CHRIST CHURCH BOOK READING GROUP

The Christ Church Book Reading Group is currently reading Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom is published by Penguin Books at $14.00 (available from Amazon.com starting at $1.37); ISBN: 0143036432. 512 pages. This book is a is the next in the series after Dissolution, our last selection. The discussion notes and a review of the book are on the leaflet table. We will meet this Wednesday, 20 September, for good food and drink, and a lively discussion of this book following the 6:30 p.m. Mass. If you are interested in joining us, please R.S.V.P. on 718-625-2919, or speak with the Vicar.

CHRIST CHURCH COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Can and Will You Help with our outreach ministry? We want to schedule a meeting to plan for the future of this work, including applying for grants and working more closely with Family Consultation Service to distribute food, clothing, school supplies, campers supplies, toys, etc. and adopting a family year-round — and working with Cobble Hill Nursing Home to provide on-going visits to residents. CHIPS (Christian Help in Park Slope) feeds the hungry and provides counseling and clothing to those in need. Please consider this outreach of our Christian community to our wider community!

SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVIN’S EASY

Church Members are reminded that church expenses do not take a summer break . . . so please keep your pledge to your church up-to-date as you take your own summer vacations.

REFLECTION

HOLY CROSS DAY

September 14, is Holy Cross Day, or the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, previously called the Exaltation of the Cross. Christians have celebrated this feast on this day since the first half of the fourth century. According to an Eastern text, the empress Helena discovered the Lord’s cross on September 14, 320. Fifteen years later, on September 13, two churches on Golgotha in Jerusalem were consecrated (the Church of the Cross and the Church of the Resurrection). On the following day, the relic of the cross found by Helena was solemnly exposed for public veneration. An annual commemoration began in Jerusalem, and churches in other cities that had relics of the cross brought them forth this day for veneration by the faithful. The ceremony was called the exaltatio (lifting up). What follows are some words our ancestors in the faith have used to describe the mystery, glory and power of the cross of Christ.

May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Galatians 6:14–16

Faithful Cross, above all other,
One and only noble tree,
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit your peer may be;
Sweet the wood and sweet the iron
And your load, most sweet is he.

Bend your boughs, O Tree of glory!
All your rigid branches, bend!
For a while the ancient temper
That your birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of earth and heaven
Gently on your bosom tend.
—Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century

An entry for the Everyday Matters Challenge #34. Autumnal equinox. I think I like Fall the best. It’s a bit gray and rainy, but it always feels cozy. I know that time moves in constant speed everyday, but somehow it feels like it moves faster in Fall. Probably it has something to do with the fact that the days are shorter. So it is now already the end of September. October is coming this weekend. Before I know it, it’s time again to plan a Thanksgiving dinner in Amsterdam (note: I don’t cook the dinner, but someone else. I just plan, arrange, etc). Then Sinterklaas and his Zwarte piet will be hailed here from Madrid (or was it Turkey? I can’t seem to get this fact right). Time for chocolate letters, yum yum I love dark chocolate letters. It’s amazing that letters such as Q, X, and Z are never sold out. Eating chocolate letters is a good way to wait for Christmas to arrive. After that it will be New Year again and I am so certain that by that time, time will move slower again….at least that’s how I will feel.

AUTUMN: A SENSE OF THE SEASON

All of our days are numbered. Now that Christ has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, we count down the days until he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. Ordinary Time is “ordinal” time: numbered days, days in which we lay out the scriptures and the prayers to bide our time until Christ returns.

Although the church makes no official distinction between the days of from Pentecost until Advent, in our lives we experience the subtle shift from the relaxed days of summer to the increasingly active days of autumn. For some of us, the shift comes with the end-of-summer holiday or the beginning of school. Others see work activities shift, from tending to harvesting, from stocking shelves to increasing sales, from cashing out an old fiscal year to digging into a new one. For all of us it comes at 12:03 AM EDT, this Saturday 23 September 2006, when the sun appears to cross the celestial equator, from north to south; enters the constellation Libra and Autumn officially begins.

The church’s calendar contains some subtle shifts, too. 14 September we celebrated the Holy Cross Day, and the waning of the natural world around us points us to the mystery of suffering and redemption. At the end of September (29th) we invoke the holy angels and archangels to guard us in the encroaching twilight. And if we listen closely to the scriptures in October, we begin to hear talk of the last days and the final things. These thoughts reach their culmination with the great festival of saints and souls, November 1 and 2. And we spend November remembering the dead, preparing for the end and celebrating Christ, the firstfruits harvested of the new creation, the firstborn from the dead. This is the extraordinary opportunity that Autumn’s “ordinary time” opens to us.

PRACTICE OF FAITH:THE WOOD OF THE CROSS. Last Thursday we celebrated the feast of Holy Cross Day. The cross is probably the most recognizable sign of our faith. While on its face the cross is an instrument of pain and capital punishment, Christians proudly wear, display and honor crosses. That is because the cross is a sign of the redemption Christ won for us. In the light of the resurrection, the cross is a sign of love and sacrifice as well as a promise of a glorious eternity.

Celebrate the cross as the tree of life by decorating one this week with flowers, greenery or ribbons. Place it in an accessible place and use it, accompanied with candles, as a focus for prayer this week. For dinner or dessert, score your baked goods with the sign of the cross as a reminder that we are fed by the crucified and risen Christ.

PRACTICE OF HOPE:NEIGHBORS. Who, exactly, are our neighbors? The folks who live next door? The family down the street?

What about a tribe of Native Americans trying to prepare a field for the return of a buffalo herd, or Hispanic children in a Bible School hundreds of miles away? Nearly 1,000 teens from all over the country would tell you that they are neighbors , and more, thanks to Dr Tom Bright. He is founder of “Young Neighbors in Action,”  a program that puts teens into diverse cultural experiences to help them understand their role in promoting justice.

“When we talk about evangelizing, we talk about what Jesus said. But it’s my belief that the stronger tool is doing what Jesus did,” says Bright. “It’s a sign of hope for me that they (the young people) didn’t just come and have a good time but were committed to continuing things when they return home.”

PRACTICE OF CHARITY:ENMITY NO LONGER. Forgiveness and reconciliation do not come easily for individuals or for groups that have suffered wrong. Yet we are called to live as Jesus did, forgiving the evil done to us. As we work for reconciliation, we must also give attention to the ways we can prevent the next generation from continuing the prejudices we have learned. One group trying to do this is the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa. Another, closer to home is the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama. They have a classroom program called “Teaching Tolerance,: which is designed to help the next generation accept the differences that exist among people. For information about this program, write: Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery AL 36104; or call 334.956.8200.