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, Saturday, July 26, 2008:

• Free Farmers’ Market at 10:00 a.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 27, 2008:

• Pastoral Assistant Jennifer Leider will officiate and preach at worship services tomorrow.
• Morning Prayer with Sermon at 8:00 a.m.;
• Nursery Opens at 9:15 a.m.;
• Morning Prayer with Sermon & Hymns at 9:30 a.m.;
• Children’s Story Time at 9:30 a.m.;
• Evening Prayer at 5:30 p.m.

Today on the calendar of the Episcopal Church we commemorate the Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As James Kiefer notes, “The Scriptures tell us nothing about the parents of the Virgin Mother, not even their names. An early but unreliable document, known as the Proto-Gospel (or Proto-Evangelion) of James, calls them Anne and Joachim, by which names they are customarily known. Our only real information about them, however, is an inference from the kind of daughter they reared.”

The website of the Internationanl Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton provides this summary of the Proto-Evangelion’s story:

The Rev. Bert Buby, S.M., a Marian scholar at the University of Dayton, calls the Protovangelium account “a very imaginative, creative story about the birth of Mary, written about 150 A.D.” In the beginning of the Protovangelium, Joachim is fasting in the wilderness and Anne is mourning in her garden, both of them lamenting their childlessness. An angel appears to Anne, promises her that she will conceive, and then directs her attention to her returning husband. Anne and Joachim share a tremendous embrace indicating their great confidence in God that a child will be born, and Anne does conceive. They dedicate their daughter, Mary, to God, keeping her from sin and evil. When she is three years old, Anne and Joachim present her in the temple, where Mary dances on the third step of the altar and “all the house of Israel loved her.” Joseph is named as her protector when she reaches twelve or thirteen years of age. He’s chosen as her betrothed after a sign from God - a dove came out of his staff.

The following is the prayer for commemoration of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Lesser Feasts and Fasts:

Almighty God, heavenly Father, we remember in thanksgiving this day the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and we pray that we all may be made one in the heavenly family of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.