St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

The decennial Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops is in session July 16 through August 3, 2008. Please pray for our bishops and for the Anglican Communion.

At St. Paul’s Parish today,Friday, July 18, 2008:

• Our Rector, the Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston, is overseas on education leave for the next five weeks;
• Women’s AA meeting at 7:30 p.m. (in the Dining Room).

The Summer issue of St. Paul’s Sword of the Spirit, our monthly newsletter, is available on line, as are the calendars of parish events for July 2008 and August 2008.

Today’s news in the Episcopal Church - Episcopal Life Online.

On the calendar tomorrow, July 19, 2008:

• Free Farmers’ Market at 10:00 a.m. (in the Dining Room).

Today is a feria on the calendar of the Episcopal Church. On the Church of England’s calendar we find the commemoration of Elizabeth Ferard, first Deaconess of the Church of England and founder of the Community of St Andrew. Her biography in Exciting Holiness tells us:

Elizabeth Catherine Ferard was encouraged by Bishop Tait of London to visit deaconess institutions in Germany and, in November 1861, she and a group of women dedicated themselves ‘to minister to the necessities of the Church’ as servants in the Church. On this day in 1862, Elizabeth Ferard received the first deaconess licence from Bishop Tait. She went on to found a community of deaconesses within a religious sisterhood, working first in a poor parish in the King’s Cross area of London and then moving to Notting Hill in 1873. When her health failed, she passed on the leadership to others and died on Easter Day 1883.

The following is the prayer suggested for Deaconess Ferard’s commemoration in Exciting Holiness:

Almighty God, by whose grace Elizabeth Ferard, kindled with the fire of your love, became a burning and a shining light in the Church: inflame us with the same spirit of discipline and love, that we may ever walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.