Today (July 22), has been the Feast of Mary Magdalene
The Rectory


Be Sure to Save the Date
For our festive anniversary brunch at the Rams Head Inn. August 15, at noon following our Liturgy with Bishop Provenzano. Tickets are available now through Eventbrite and are available for purchase in the office during the week. Tickets will also be available after the service on Sundays. The price is $45 per person.

There is a deadline for tickets: August 1st! The Ram's Head Inn has asked us to give a count by then

Ticket cost should not be a bar to anyone in our community. If it feels like it is, let me know in confidentiality. That's what our discretionary fund is for.

Father Steve Crowson will be joining us for the anniversary liturgy and brunch. He will be arriving on Saturday the 14th and I believe leaving after the festivities on Sunday. He currently lives in Connecticut. Does anyone have a guest quarters or apartment that we could offer him. It would be great if it was someone with a connection to Fr. Steve during his years here.


St. Mary's 3 Brigham Windows
We Pray for the Healing & Support:

We ask your prayers in a special way for Madeline Moran who is currently in ELIH. She had a serious bout with sepsis, seems to be doing better, but certainly is in need of prayers.

For those who have lost loved ones in the Pandemic, for those who are ill, for all those who serve, for all those who are anxious or fearful, and for...
Barbara Brigham, Sara Mundy, Jean Adams, Kathy Cogan, Jim Fancher, Diane & Nancy Fickett, Bob Fisher, Sharon Gibbs, Kathryn James, Gillian Johnson, Halle Kneeland, Toni Landry, Jesse Marshall, Ruth McAlonen, Elizabeth Mooney, Madeline Moran, Dick Petry, Virginia Springsteen, Vita Stellke, Linda VanArdale, Beth Wagner, Georgia and Rod Griffis, Betianne Morritt's great grandaughter Eliana, Jean Brechter , Susan Bopp daughter of Jean Brechter's friend Bob Edwards, for Louie Cicero, Barbara Allen Lieblein' s grandsons, Kristopher and Alexander, and Bill Lieblein's grand daughter's husband, Matt Grzesik, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, Hermance Canning, Dr. Barbara Phillips-Cole and her son Matthew Cole, who has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer, Sr. Joy Wright, repose of the soul of Wade Badgett, for Margaret MacLean and family, for Ann "Boo" Dimon, and all our parishioners living with cancer, known or undetected & for all those who participate in a 12 step group here at St. Mary’s
Call in any requests or corrections to the office. (631-749-0770)




The Collect
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament
2 Kings 4:42-44
A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.




The Psalm
Psalm 145:10-19
Exaltabo te, Deus
10 All your works praise you, O Lord, *
and your faithful servants bless you.
11 They make known the glory of your kingdom *
and speak of your power;
12 That the peoples may know of your power *
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; *
your dominion endures throughout all ages.
14 The Lord is faithful in all his words *
and merciful in all his deeds.
15 The Lord upholds all those who fall; *
he lifts up those who are bowed down.
16 The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, *
and you give them their food in due season.
17 You open wide your hand *
and satisfy the needs of every living creature.
18 The Lord is righteous in all his ways *
and loving in all his works.
19 The Lord is near to those who call upon him, * to all who call upon him faithfully.




The Epistle
Ephesians 3:14-21
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.


Feeding the Five Thousand Eulalia Clarke

The Gospel
John 6:1-21
Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

Feeding the 5000 Eric Feather


Some Reflections


 The lectionary this Sunday begins a break in the year’s readings from the Gospel of Mark. The lectionary gives us five consecutive Sundays of Eucharistic themes from chapter six of the Gospel of John. Reflections for this week’s Eucharistic reading from St. Augustine on the Word as food:
 
Are you asking me what the Word of God is?
   If I wanted to tell you what the word of man is, I can’t explain it, I get tired, I get stuck, I give up; I can’t even explain the power of a human word. 
   Look here, before I say to you what I want to say to you, the word is already in my heart.  It hasn’t yet been spoken by me, and it’s with me.  Then it’s spoken by me, and it reaches you, and it doesn’t depart from me.
   You’re all intending to hear a word from me; I’m feeding your minds when I speak.  If I were bringing you food for your stomachs, you would divide it up among yourselves, and it wouldn’t all get to each of you; but you would divide up what I set before you into the more portions, the more of you there were; and the greater the number of those receiving it, the less each would get.
Now, though, I’ve brought food along for your minds: I say, “Accept it, take it, eat it.”  You’ve accepted it, eaten it, and not divided it up.  Whatever I speak, it’s all there for all of you, and all there for each of you. 
   There you are, that’s how its impossible to explain satisfactorly the enormous power a human word has, and you ask me what the Word of God is?  The Word of God is feeding all those millions of angels.  It’s their minds being fed, their minds being filled.  It fills the angels, fills the world, fills the virgin’s womb; it isn’t spaced out there, it isn’t squeezed tight here.
   What is the Word of God?  Let him tell us himself, the only begotten, the only Son, let him tell us himself what the Word of God is.  He puts it very briefly, but what he says is something tremendous:  I and the Father are one (John 10:30).
    I don’t want you to count the words; weigh them.  More words won’t help to explain the one Word.
 -Augustine of Hippo 354-430 
 Sermon 237, The Works of Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, John E. Rotelle, author,  Edmond Hill, translator, 1993
 
 
 
We Are That Which We Receive
 
Dear Brethren, that which you see on the Lord’s table is bread and wine. But when a word is added, that bread and wine become the body and blood of the Word. Because the Lord, ‘who in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ – because that same Lord, in His mercy, did not despise that which He had created to His own image, ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.’ As you know, that word assumed human nature by assuming a human soul and a human body, and thus became man without ceasing to be God. In this way, He suffered for us, and He has left us His body and blood in this sacrament. He has even made us His body, for we have become the body of Christ. Through His mercy, therefore, we are that which we receive.
 
Augustine
Sermon 6, Selected Sermons
 
 
There feeding the angels, here on earth a hungry child; there unfailing Bread with perfect powers, here, along with speechless children, needing the nourishment of milk; there doing good, here suffering evil; there never dying, here rising after death and bestowing eternal life on mortals.  God became one of us so that we might become God. 
 
-Augustine
 The Fathers of the Church, 1959, quoted from A Eucharist Sourcebook, LTP

 
Loaves and Fishes James Reilly
P.O Box 1660, 26 St. Mary's Road , Shelter Island, NY 11964
(631) 749-0770
stmarys11964@optonline.net