A Message from the Rev. Charlie de Kay - March 27, 2012

I would like to invite you and your loved ones to the most sacred of times in the church calendar – Holy Week and Easter. The schedule is below. As we are reclaiming some ancient traditions this year in our observance of these precious hours, I’d like to say a little about what it is we’re going to be doing.

We begin with Palm Sunday, which features the odd juxtaposition of the bright, cheery, cacophany of the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and moves into the darkness of Jesus’s Passion. It truncates the events of Holy Week into a single, powerful, and unsettling service. At the 8:00, our service will be kept to the Chapel, but for the 10:30 service (weather permitting) we begin by gathering outside on the lawn in front of the Memorial Garden. Wear bright clothes, and bring your kazoos! Traveling instrumentalists – especially drums and horns – please get in touch with me; we’d love to have you play. We will process around the neighborhood making a joyful noise before we enter the church, where we will sing that grand church hymn, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” as we box the church.

As active members of the wider community, on Monday we will join with Episcopalians from around the Diocese at “CrossWalk” to respond to the violence that sometimes . . . sometimes seems to overwhelm our world.

On Maundy Thursday, we will gather in the Parish Hall at 7:00 pm (note the time) for an agapé dinner, a recreation of the last supper – as Christians have celebrated since the first centuries of the faith – a time of community, and of re-telling the story of faith in our own time. It is an all-ages event. Immediately following dinner, we will begin the service (still in the Parish Hall) with prayers, readings, sermon and the footwashing. We move into the church for the Eucharist and the stripping of the altar. Jesus, in the form of the consecrated Bread and Wine, will move into the Chapel, where people – in pairs – will be able to keep vigil with Him through the night, remembering the night in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is often a very moving time of contemplation, reflection, and prayer. Sign up for the hour you will “Watch with Christ” in the back of the Church.

For Good Friday, we gather at 7:30 pm in the church for the extraordinary presentation from our excellent choir of the Passion, based on the Gospel of Mark, by Charles Wood. (While we can’t manage it this year, I’ve heard of interest in restoring the mid-day service of The Last Words of Christ, which runs from noon to 3pm on Good Friday. If this is of interest to you, please let me know.)

Saturday morning, Pam Moore is leading us, once more, in her ever popular “Family Easter Celebration.” For the young and young at heart, this is not to be missed.

Saturday evening, we are observing the Easter Vigil, at 7:30 pm, followed by a party. Next week, I’d like to offer some thoughts about the Vigil. For now, I’ll simply say that for many Christians this is simply the most important (and very often favorite) service of the entire year.

On Easter morning we’ll celebrate Jesus’ resurrection at 8 in the Church with a few hymns, and at 10:30 with the Festival Eucharist, including choir and brass.

Please join us when you can!
Faithfully,
Charlie

A Lenten Confession - March 24, 2012

A Message from Pam Moore

My kitchen sink is located in a corner of our kitchen which means there is a triangle-shaped shelf behind it and corner windows as well. My neighbors consider this triangle useless space, but I love it. I put tidbits from nature and seasonal decorations there: candles, flowers, shells, stones, ornaments, etc. so that when I am cooking or washing dishes I am immersed in the beauty of the current earthly as well as liturgical season. It’s actually a little prayer corner for me. The windows face south and east so I get to see the sunrise each day. Just standing there enjoying that miracle day after day is a kind of prayer.

Lent, however, is a difficult time. I never know quite what to put there. I feel like it should be bare or at least have the desert prayer display that I create and offer to families at our Family Lenten Celebration each year. But I don’t do either of these things. In fact, I do the complete opposite. I buy flowers and put them there. I extend Valentine’s Day decorations well into March. Simply put, I don’t do Lent anymore. I can’t. Not since March 16, 1997 when an automobile accident took the life of our fourteen year old daughter Lisa. Life is Lent.

But today, Sunday, March 18, 2012, I cleared away the Valentine decorations and found myself placing pitchers on my triangle prayer shelf: a beautiful English pitcher from my mother-in-law, a hand-painted one from my own mother, a chubby gold one from my grandmother, small glass creamers, and a robust pewter pitcher. It sort of looks like a display case in a department store. I think I should remove a few, but I don’t. I think one pitcher should suffice, but it doesn’t. I think about the purpose of a pitcher. It is filled with a liquid and then poured out, shared, distributed. It is an image of the Christian life. We are filled up in order to be poured out. Surely that was the essence of Jesus – filled with divine life he poured that same life out to all, to us, even to those of us who can’t do Lent the conventional way.

-Pam Moore

Lenten reflections and opportunities - March 5, 2012

A week into Lent, where do you find yourself on your spiritual journey? Lent is a time when we are reminded to slow down, and spend a little time in reflection. How’s your life going? Is it what you’d hoped or is there something missing?

Are you just beginning – perhaps feeling wary or even a little bit beaten up organized religion – just beginning to consider opening up to new possibilities? Lent is, of course, the Old English word for spring, a time of new and extraordinary possibilities. Here at St. Matthew’s, signs of new life are cautiously emerging.

As we welcome new individuals and families into our midst, we offer an Inquirers’ Class (4 sessions in March, Saturdays 10:30-noon) beginning this Saturday, March 3rd. Often known by its subtitle: “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Episcopal Church But Were Afraid to Ask,” this is a time of learning, discovery, and fellowship; and it’s been known to be as useful to cradle Episcopalians as newcomers. All are welcome. We’ll be meeting in the Clergy office, just to the left after you enter from Lincoln Street.

Are you, perhaps, engaged and looking to go deeper? Our Tuesday night Lenten program has something for every age group. Our scripture reflection times on Sundays (at 9:30 am) and Mondays (at 10:30 am) offer time to discover the wonders of our sacred texts. The intercessory prayer group meets every Tuesday morning at 11:15 to offer prayers for everyone on our prayer list. Our Chapel is a gathering space on Wednesday morning (at 9:30) when we gather for prayer, and on Friday mornings (at 7:30) we gather in silence to listen for God. If you find peace best when alone, the Chapel is open daily during the week from 8 to 3 for private prayer and meditation.  If you are interested in digging deeper, but none of these times work for you or none of the activities fits where you are, please let me know. We would like to create opportunities that meet you where you are, and a time that works well for you.

Wishing you a rich and earthy Lenten season,
Charlie

Ashes To Go - February 25, 2012

The season of Lent began this week with a program of worship that included several services Ash Wednesday and an “Ashes to Go” ministry at Metra’s Central Street Train Station led by the Rev. Charles de Kay.

Ashes To Go

For background on Ashes to Go – the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago published this information about the project. Go to: http://ashestogo.org/about/

According to the site, on Ash Wednesday 2010, three Chicago-area Episcopal congregations took ashes and prayer to suburban train stations, and discovered commuters hungry for a moment of prayer, renewal and grace. Those who had no time to attend services or had forgotten about the tradition were delighted to receive ashes with prayer as they began their day. Many responded with tears or smiles of gratitude that the church would come to them.

Leaders in the three congregations who offered Ashes to Go agreed that this was too good to keep to themselves, and they decided to invite others to join, according to the website. Churches in San Francisco, St. Louis and elsewhere had offered similar ministries for years, but in 2011, the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago chose to coordinate Ashes outreach, and more than 25 Episcopal congregations and organizations around the Chicago area offered ashes on street corners and train platforms, coffee shops and outside grocery stores.

The Ashes To Go website explained, “ashes are an ancient sign of penitence. From the Middle Ages it became the custom to begin Lent by being marked in ash with the sign of the cross. The reminder that we are dust turns our attention to the creative power of God, and God’s ability to heal the brokenness in our lives when we offer that brokenness to God. That turning to God is the work of Lent, preparation for the celebration of Easter.

“We take ashes to the street corner because that reminder of need, humility, and healing shouldn’t be confined to a church building. We probably need it more when we are in the middle of our daily business!”