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St. George’s and St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Newsletter live. That will never happen. God offers us heal- ing, but each one of us first has to commit to God. St. Ignatius, writing in the late first century, whom I hadn’t seen in church in a long time. She called Holy Communion “ the medicine of immor- told me about her miseries and the sadness that tality”. The body and blood of Christ is that. It is has pervaded her life. Nothing seemed to be go- real healing for what ails us on the deepest level. ing right for her. I was sorry to hear that her life But like any medicine, we need to take it as the was still so disturbed; because that is how her doctor prescribes, and in this case that means tak- life had been the last time we met. Nothing had ing it at least once a week. And on the day that we changed for her. She was living a very sad life, don’t take the medicine of Christ's body and blood, drifting from one lover to the next and quitting we have therapy to do. The therapy is to obey one job after the next, and continually complain- ing about all the “messed up” people in her God does not offer us a pill that will instantly make us feel better. God offers us a relationship Knowing that God is our Helper and Good with Himself. If we commit to that relationship Shepherd who is with us always, I asked her why and live with Him by His standards over time, we she no longer kept her baptismal commitment to will be changed, completely from the inside out. God. “ Come to me you who labor and are heavy But it takes time. You cannot come to church once laden and I will give you rest,” Jesus said. These or twice, see no change in your life and then dis- words are a promise to us all from God, our Sav- miss God by saying “ I tried that”. The key to heal- ior, that He will comfort and heal our deepest ing is to make and keep our commitment to God. wounds, from the inside out. But God will not interfere in our lives. We have to invite God into This woman had been to see many psycholo- gists and psychiatrists and doctors and counsel- ors of various kinds. But she had never let God in. She had not been to church to confess her sins or receive communion in years. When I asked her about it she said matter- of- factly, “I tried that.” I knew what she meant. She meant that just as she had tried Prozac and found it of little help, she had also tried God once and found God lack-ing. But she did not understand who God is or how God works. Just as one has to take Prozac at least every day for almost three weeks before it builds up in one’s system, we have to be in rela-tionship with God consistently over time. God is not a magic pill that will instantly make life bet-ter for us with no effort on our part. We have to bend our will to God’s will. I suspect that more than a few people in this world are disappointed in God for just this very reason. They want God to come and rescue them from themselves, but they don’t want to actually change the way they St. George’s and St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Newsletter Our friend Al Wilson, who helps each month with the newsletter, is in Manor Care Rehab in Rose- Sat. June 4 Flea Market Church Lawn 7-12 am dale this week. Keep Al in your prayers. Al’s ad- dress at Manor Care is: 6600 Ridge Rd., Room Sun. June 12 Pentecost Sunday (wear some- thing Red, for the fire of the Holy Spirit) Congratulations to Chris and Roy Seidel’s daugh- St.Anne’s, Bermuda will be our guest preacher. ter Becky, who graduated from Law School and Patty Hutton, will also be with us today to play We will also have a parish picnic on the rec- Also, a special thanks to Chris for keeping the tory lawn, weather permitting. If it is too hot, we will move into the undercroft. The vestry will supply hot dogs and hamburgers and drinks. Bring a covered dish to share with others. Sunday June 19 Trinity Sunday (wear some- We do not often have a guest preacher come to our church, especially one from another country. I am Tuesday June 21 Cactus Willie’s meet for lunch especially happy to say that the Reverend Dave Matthews and his wife Joan, from St. Anne’s, Ber- muda, will be with us. Fr. Matthews will preach the sermon on Pentecost Sunday. When Conni and I were in Bermuda last year, we attended services Prayers for our Nation and the World each at his church. Preachers in the Anglican churches do not often impress me but I was very impressed with Fr. Matthews. He and his wife will stay with Congratulations to our acolyte Jonathan Mason Conni and me for a few days. I hope that you will on graduating from High School! As of this writ- make a special effort be in church on June 12 to ing, John is still waiting to hear from the college of his choice. John would like to become a physical therapist and maybe eventually a minis- ter. Keep him in your prayers that God will lead I have included in this newsletter an e-mail that I received recently from our friend bishop Hart from Liberia. Note the number of confirmations he did. Congratulations as well to our vestryman George The church in Africa is growing by leaps and Miller Jr. who last month won a 10k race in his bounds. Keep Bishop Hart in your prayers. age category. We will not say what age category that was but let’s just say that it is a miracle for anyone at that age to still be running in mara- thons! That’s the way to go, George! Congratulations to vestryman Tom Collins who became a grandfather for the first time last month. Tom’s son and his girlfriend live in Kan-sas. The young couple will be married at St. George’s and St. Matthew’s in July. St. George’s and St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Newsletter Hope you and your family are well. My not con- tacting you does not mean that I have forgotten you. Not at all; I have been very busy. In addi- tion to the usual festivities surrounding Christ- mas, I started the year with holding a one week Agriculture workshop for my Clergy. Then while preparing for my Diocesan Convention, my retired Bishop died in the US and we had to bring the body home for burial a few days before the convention. I hosted my third, and the 81st Diocesan Convention from February 9 to 13, 2011 at The St. John Episcopal Church, Bu- chanan. Archbishop Akrofi was my guest. The Convention was followed by a visit of a five (5) man delegation from The Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church of Liberia's Covenant Com- panion. Then came a delegation from the Dio- cese of Southern Ohio to discuss our possible Companion Dioceses Relation. Our Provincial Synod was held in Conakry, Guinea to which I led a delegation from my Diocese. After Easter I travelled to the Southeastern Regions of my Dio- cese where I spent two weeks doing episcopal acts including the Confirmation of 334 new I was at St. Mark, Harper, Maryland County on May 8th and confirmed a little over 85 persons there. Our Diocesan Convention will be held there in February, 2013. We are looking forward for your promised assistance to changing the as- bestos sheets on that Church. Please let me hear I just returned from Kumasi, Ghana where we Frances sends you and Conni greetings. We pray for you all always. We will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary on August 29th, 2011. St.George’s & St.Matthew’s Episcopal Church Monthly Planner Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Flea Market
9:00am Family Breakfast
12 Pentecost
11:30am Parish Picnic
19 Trinity
21 Cactus Willies
Vestry Meeting 11:30am

Source: http://www.stgeorgesandstmatthews.ang-md.org/PDF%20Files/June%202011%20Newsletter.pdf