It's hard to believe that it has been 6 years since we had the Rural Migrant Ministry kids' day camp here for a visit, but it has been That was July 19, 2019. The summer before the COVID Pandemic. The camp and kids are located at our Iglesia San Francisco, (St. Francis' Church) in Riverhead,

They will be here again on Wednesday, July 16th, and the itinerary will be the same. A visit to the Mashomack visitor Center, some time at the Ram Island causeway beach, and finally a pizza party at St. Mary's.

If anyone would like to help host them, and meet some of the kids, the kids will be arriving for pizza at ca. 4:30 PM

Let me know

Fr C

Our annual Blessing of Animals will take place on Saturday Morning, August 2nd, at 11:00 AM

The Good Samaritan Van Gogh

The Collect

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Old Testament

Deuteronomy 30:9-14

Moses said to the people of Israel, "The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

"Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?' No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe."

The Psalm

Psalm 25:1-9

Ad te, Domine, levavi

1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;

my God, I put my trust in you; *

let me not be humiliated,

nor let my enemies triumph over me.

2 Let none who look to you be put to shame; *

let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes.

3 Show me your ways, O Lord, *

and teach me your paths.

4 Lead me in your truth and teach me, *

for you are the God of my salvation;

in you have I trusted all the day long.

5 Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, *

for they are from everlasting.

6 Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; *

remember me according to your love

and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.

7 Gracious and upright is the Lord; *

therefore he teaches sinners in his way.

8 He guides the humble in doing right *

and teaches his way to the lowly.

9 All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness *

to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Colossians 1:1-14

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.



The Good Samaritan Paula Modersohn-Becker

Rev'd up For Sunday's scripture discussion

Fr Plant's Gospel Study

The Gospel

Luke 10:25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

The Good Samaritan Stephen Sawyer

REFLECTIONS

Who is my neighbor?

I had the most extraordinary experience of love of neighbor with a Hindu family. A gentleman came to our house and said: "Mother Teresa, there is a family who have not eaten for so long. Do something." So I took some rice and went there immediately. And I saw the children - their eyes shining with hunger. I don't know if you have ever seen hunger. But I have seen it very often. And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her and went out. When she came back, I asked her: "Where did you go? What did you do?" And she gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also." What struck me was that she knew - and who are they? A Muslim family - and she knew. ...

-Mother Teresa of Calcutta 1910-1997

One day when I had gone to a little chapel near my office at lunchtime and was once more praying while wondering how and why and to whom I prayed, a man came in and eased into the pew directly across the aisle from me. As we were the only two people there, his choice of where to sit seemed odd, and irritating. Within a couple of minutes, all thought of God was gone into the man's constant movements and his elaborate sighs, and when I finally rose in exasperation, he stood immediately to face me. He had the sandblasted look of long poverty, the skeletal clarity of long addiction, and that vaguely aggressive abasement that truly tests the nature of one's charity. Very cunning, I noted, failing the test even as I opened my wallet: to stake out this little chapel, to prey upon the praying! For days then it nagged at me - not him, but it, the situation - which, I finally realized, was precisely the problem: how easily a fatal complacency seeps into even those acts we undertake as disciplines, and how comfortable we become with our own intellectual and spiritual discomfort. Wondering how and why and to whom I prayed? I felt almost as if God had been telling me, as if Christ were telling me (in church no less): get off your mystified butt and do something.

-Christian Wiman

My Bright Abyss

Suppose we were to...draw the outline of a circle.... Let us suppose that this circle is the world, and that God is the center; the straight lines drawn from the circumference are the lives of people....The closer those lines are to God, the closer they become to one another; and the closer they are to one another, the closer they become to God.

-Dorotheos of Gaza   505-565

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey of life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

-Martin Luther King Jr., “A Time to Break Silence,”

 Riverside Church, New York

Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smaller right and doing it all for love.

- Thérèse of Lisieux 1873-1897