Trinity
The Weekly News
June 8, 2017
Holy Trinity
Saturday, June 10, 2017
5:00 pm
Pre sider: Kay Schmitt
Homilist: Kay Schmitt
Readers: Therese Gabriel, Sue Self
Eucharistic Ministers: Art Maines, Barbara Harris, Helen Gennari
Sacristan: Kathy Krishon
Location: 204 East Lockwood, 63119
Sunday, June 11, 2017
9:00 am
Pre sider: Kay Schmitt
Homilist: Kay Schmitt
Reader:  Karen Diehl
Eucharistic Minister: Suzanne Schloemann
Location: 17 Selma Avenue, 63119

The 10th Annual Metro East Pride Fest 

The Metro East PrideFest will be held this Saturday, June 10, 2017, from Noon until 10:00 pm. It is being held on West Main Street in downtown Belleville, IL, between 1st and 2nd Streets.  The Welcoming Catholic booth is #17 and is located midway down the North side of Main Street. Some out and see us!

Alternatives to Lawns 

Tired of mowing and caring for your lawn?  Consider an alternative: wildflower gardens.  Native plants can be used to create wildflower gardens that are good for the butterflies, bees, birds  and other wildlife.  This does not have to be an all or nothing mindset.  You can start small with a wildflower garden and gradually expand it, thereby slowly reducing the size of your lawn and the resources necessary to maintain it. 

Next week:  Benefits of Landscaping with Natives 

BBQ Garfield

Summer BBQs

Sunday, June 25, 2017

3:00 pm - ?  

4038 Potomac, St. Louis 63116

The first parish barbecue of the season will be hosted by Nancy Emmel on June 25.

Gateway Grizzlies Welcome
Sts. Clare & Francis
Last Sunday evening, a group from Sts. Clare & Francis enjoyed an outing to a Gateway Grizzlies baseball game. Even though we had a few sprinkles everyone had a blast!
Homilies

Hear George von Stamwitz' homily from May 20:


The text of archived homilies can be found here.
Caring Ministry
The Caring Ministry at Sts. Clare & Francis brings the loving presence of God, through a caring companion on the journey, when life is difficult. When we find ourselves struggling with illness, grief, depression, relationships, stress, the Caring Ministry is a supportive and listening presence - not counseling or problem solving. Don't go it alone; contact Sue Self or one of our priests to find out more, and see if it's a fit for you. We want to care for you.
 
Prayer List
The Sts. Clare & Francis Prayer list is available for you to share prayer requests from you to your sisters and brothers who are walking this faith journey with you.  Praying for one another when there are specific needs is one of the greatest ministries we can provide to one another. But, we cannot pray for events and happenings that we do not know about. Please share your prayers requests with the community. You can be as specific or general as you would like.  Contact Jim Schratz with all prayer requests.

Parish Office Hours 

The Sts. Clare & Francis Office, [483 E Lockwood Ave, Ste. 3, Schultz Hall (Door B) – Eden Theological Seminary, Webster Groves, MO 63119] will be open each week on Mondays, from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm and Thursdays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm. Although someone is here more often than that, I am in and out much of the time. So I am making a concerted effort to have posted hours to be more available to people who might want to drop by. 

Thanks! 

Jim

Sponsored by Friends...

Tree House

Prayer Circles 
1st Tuesday at 7:00 pm 
Holy Angels Apartments II 
3499 DePaul Lane, St. Louis. 63044 (at I-270 and St. Charles Rock Road)
 
3rd Wednesday at 1:00 - 2:30 pm
Library Headquarters  
East Room 
St. Louis County Library
1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard
Frontenac, MO 63131 

 

  random sightings

wisdom...reflection...insight...amusement

Telescope

TRINITY

Interesting. On Monday I chose the Richard Rohr piece below for this space. Then this morning (Thursday), Christ Church Cathedral posted the following on Facebook, quoted from a different source.  

-- Steve


Christ Church Cathedral

If you follow a faith that includes Trinity Sunday, you might enjoy this brief expansion. New to me, but love visualizing the dance:

The dance of love: perichoresis:
The theologians in the early church tried to describe this wonderful reality that we call Trinity. If any of you have ever been to a Greek wedding, you may have seen their distinctive way of dancing . . . It’s called perichoresis. There are not two dancers, but at least three. They start to go in circles, weaving in and out in this very beautiful pattern of motion. They start to go faster and faster and faster, all the while staying in perfect rhythm and in sync with each other. Eventually, they are dancing so quickly (yet so effortlessly) that as you look at them, it just becomes a blur. Their individual identities are part of a larger dance. The early church fathers and mothers looked at that dance (perichoresis) and said, “That’s what the Trinity is like.” It’s a harmonious set of relationship in which there is mutual giving and receiving. This relationship is called love, and it’s what the Trinity is all about. The perichoresis is the dance of love.

–Jonathan Marlowe



A Circle Dance

You become the God you worship. In other words, your image of God creates you. If you get the image of God wrong, everything else that builds on it is going to be rather inadequate. That might seem like an overstatement, but let’s recognize how that’s been true in Western Christianity in particular. 

The operative image of God for most Christians (except for the mystics) is a powerful monarch, usually an old white man sitting on a throne. It’s no accident that the Latin word for God, Deus, came from the same root as Zeus. At the risk of shocking you, let me say that Christianity hasn’t moved much beyond the mythological image of Zeus. Yet this is not the image of God revealed to us by Jesus—a vulnerable baby born in an occupied and oppressed land; a refugee; a humble carpenter whose friends were fishermen, prostitutes, and tax-collectors; a political criminal executed on a cross. In other words, Jesus shows a vulnerable God much more than the almighty one Christians often assume.

God’s “continually renewed immediacy,” as Thomas Kelly put it, is too intimate and subtle for our dualistic and rational minds to grasp. Two thousand years after the revelation of God in Christ most of Christianity is still quite immature in terms of its ability to process what Jesus taught and demonstrated.

The Creation story in Genesis gives us a wonderful insight into God’s character by using plural pronouns: “Let us create in our image” (Genesis 1:26-27). Of course, this is problematic for monotheistic Judaism and Christianity. It took centuries to develop the doctrine of the Trinity. The Cappadocian Fathers (including Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory Nazianzen) of fourth century eastern Turkey finally turned to a word from Greek theater, perichoresis—circle dance—to describe the foundational quality of God’s character: relationship and communion. In the beginning was relationship.

God is not the dancer but the dance itself! God is much more a dynamic verb than a static noun. God is constant flow. You don’t even need to understand it intellectually or theologically to participate in the flow of God. You are already there. Within your heart, body, and mind is an implanted flow toward life, goodness, love, communion, and connection. “Sin” is quite simply any resistance to that flow.

 Trinity is saying, “In the beginning is the relationship.” When we start with God as relationship, we begin the spiritual journey on a very different foundation. This foundation is not static but continually evolving and creating new forms of communion and interdependence.

Richard Rohr, OFM

Parish Council News

To see Parish Council meeting minutes or the Parish Constitution and Bylaws, click the appropriate link:

Minutes, May 2017

SCF Constitution & Bylaws

 

Members 

(click name to contact by e-mail): 

Suzanne Schloemann

Nancy Emmel

Mary Vonderheide

Mallory Rusch

Judy DeFrank

Jim Schratz

Frank Krebs

Diana Burnson

Clarence Heller

Cecelia Andres

Caroline Reardon, Chair

Finance Committee




Members 
(click name to contact by e-mail) :

Mary Vonderheide

Jim Schneider Chair
Ecumenical Catholic Communion


ECC Financials



ECC Midwest Partner Communities 
Emmaus
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Epiphany
Chicago, Illinois
San Damiano
Little Rock, Arkansas
St. Jerome
Tulsa, Oklahoma  

  All Saints ECC
Our Mission Church
 
We meet at:
Trinity United Church of Christ
47 North Douglas Avenue
Belleville, IL  62220
 
Our Metro East ECC Mission Church meets every Sunday at 9:30 am. 

Our chapel is in the lower level of Trinity UCC.
 
Directions from St. Louis: 
Hwy. 64 East to Exit 12; 
RIGHT onto #159/IL St. Continue 5 miles to Douglas Ave.
(railroad crossing)
LEFT on Douglas Ave. to church.
 
For information, contact:
Rev. Frank Krebs (314.740.1160) or Rev. Kay Schmitt (314.620.9511). Contact Kay if you wish to ride with her.
All are welcome.
General Info

Want to get connected and involved?  Start by taking a look at our   Ministries Brochure  or check out our website at www.scfecc.org
  
The Parish Office  is located at Eden Theological Seminary,  483 East Lockwood, Suite 3, St. Louis, MO 63119.  
Frank  or Jim are available for appointments. You can also reach Frank at 314.740.1160 or Jim at 314.896.0125.
 
To Schedule Meetings at Peace UCC:
 
Contact Kelly, the church secretary, to get it on their calendar.   
314.968.1727
churchoffice@peaceuccstl.org 
 
Matthew 25
The Matthew 25 Fund helps members in our community who need financial assistance. All information concerning the people with whom we work is held in the strictest confidence. If you would like to contribute to this fund, make your check payable to Matthew 25, and place it in the collection basket. If you need assistance from the fund, contact  Peggy Montgomery
 
We have a SafeChurch Policy to protect our children and other vulnerable populations .

The Sts. Clare & Francis

Lands’ End Store

http://business.landsend.com/store/scfecc/

In partnership with Lands’ End, you can now purchase clothing and other items embroidered with the Sts. Clare & Francis logo (below).  Just follow the link above.  If you have any questions, please contact Suzanne.schloemann@gmail.com.  

Fundraising

Please keep our Schnucks E-Scrip fund raiser in mind when you shop.  If you don't already have an E-Scrip card, please call Marilyn Tenholder (314.323.1467) and she will get one to you. There is no charge and all you have to do is activate it by either a phone call or by going online.  Simply show the card when you check out and a percentage of your purchase cost will be rebated back to Sts. Clare & Francis. Thank you!!
Sts. Clare & Francis offers information about other organizations and activities as a way of providing information that we feel is useful or relevant to our members and to the public.  As an Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) organization, Sts. Clare & Francis is required to abide by certain rules.  Sts. Clare & Francis is absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.  Sts. Clare & Francis is also prohibited from devoting a substantial part of its activities to attempting to influence legislation.  As a result of these rules, we do not specifically endorse  these organizations or activities nor do they specifically represent the views of Sts. Clare & Francis, to the extent that doing so would jeopardize Sts. Clare & Francis' standing as a Section 501(c)(3) organization.
If you have an item that you wish to submit for publication in the Weekly News, please send it to Steve Campbell  no later than noon on Wednesday of the week you would like it to appear.  If you cannot  send an e-mail, you may contact Steve at 314.603.9991.
Sts. Clare & Francis ECC
Church : 204 East Lockwood Avenue | St. Louis | MO|63119
Office: 483 East Lockwood Ave. | Suite 3 | St. Louis | MO | 63119