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, Wednesday, July 23, 2008:

• Evening Prayer at 6:30 p.m. (in the Worship Space or the Parish Hall);
• Midweek Discussion Groups at 7:00 p.m. (in the Parish Hall);
• Overeaters Anonymous at 7:30 p.m. (in the Common 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 24, 2008:

• Thursday evening choir practice is suspended through August.

Today is a feria in the Episcopal Church. The English religious group, the Northumbria Community, includes commemoration of St. John Cassian (also called Cassianus) on its calendar on this date; he is also venerated on this date in a local cultus at Marseilles, France, where he founded monateries for both men and women.

John Cassian was born in the Danube Delta in what is now Dobrogea, Romania, in about 360. In 382 he entered a monastery in Bethlehem and after several years there was granted permission, along with his friend St. Germanus of Dobrogea, to visit the Desert Fathers in Egypt. They remained in Egypt until 399, except for a brief period when they returned to Bethlehem and were released from the monastery there.

Upon leaving Egypt they went to Constantinople, where they met St. John Chrysostom, who ordained St. John Cassian as a deacon. He had to leave Constantinople in 403 when Chrysostom was exiled, eventually settling close to Marseilles, where he was ordained priest and founded two monasteries, one for women and one for men.

St. John’s most famous works are The Institutes, which detail how to live the monastic life, and The Conferences, which provide details of conversations between him, his friend Germanus, and the Desert Fathers. He also warned against some of the excesses in St. Augustine of Hippo’s theology although refraining from criticizing him by name. As a result, he has sometimes been described as Semi-Pelagian (a heresy) by some commentators.

The Northumbria Community’s Celtic Daily Prayer includes two quotations from St. John Cassian in its daily meditations:

True discretion is impossible without true humility. Self-deception is unlikely when a person is humble enough to submit to the judgement of another.

and

Observe, admire and obey may be given as the novice’s watchwords. The ideal must not remain an ideal, but has to be realized at whatever the cost. The cost is heroism.

St. John died peacefully in 435.

The following is the prayer suggested for commemoration of a monastic in The Book of Common Prayer - 1979:

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant John Cassian, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.