St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church

Weekly E-Blast

February 29, 2024

This Week at St. Francis

Thursday, February 29

7:00 pm - AA Men’s Group

Sunday, March 3

8:00 am - Spoken Eucharist

9:00 am - Adult Formation

10:30 am - Eucharist, Live Eucharist on YouTube/Facebook

10:30 am - Sunday School

12:30 pm - Misa

5:00 pm - Taize

Monday, March 4

10:30 pm - Bell Choir Rehearsal

7:30 pm - AA

Tuesday, March 5

1:00 pm - Backpack Buddies Sorting

1:00 pm - Stations of the Cross

3:00 pm - Movie Tuesday in the Parish Hall

Wednesday, March 6

12:00 pm - Eucharist

1:00 pm - Staff Meeting

1:00 pm - Backpack Buddies Packing

7:00 pm - Choir Rehearsal

7:30 pm - AA

Thursday, March 7

7:00 pm - AA Men’s Group

Sunday, March 10

8:00 am - Spoken Eucharist

9:00 am - Adult Formation

10:30 am - Eucharist, Live Eucharist on YouTube/Facebook

10:30 am - Sunday School

12:30 pm - Misa

Dinner Church

Our next gathering for Dinner Church will be Sunday, March 17, at 5 pm in the Parish Hall. Father Brendan will make the main dish and we will have a potluck for sides, salads, and desserts. There is a sign-up sheet in the Information Center. We will have dinner, break bread, and celebrate the Eucharist.

The Stations of the Cross (via Crucis) at Mt. Angel Abbey

The Stations of the Cross are graphic representations of the events that happened to Jesus on his way from Pilate’s house to Golgotha. They comprise an ancient Christian devotion that enables us to walk in the footsteps of Christ during His path of suffering and death (Via Crucis or Way of the Cross), for our Redemption. The devotion was started by early Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, who took the practice to their lands of origin and spread it in different forms and under different traditions.

This Lenten season we will have the opportunity to carry on this devotion at the Stations of the Cross located along the wooded hillside that leads to Mt. Angel Benedictine Abbey.  The finished Stations, and the statuary and paintings contained within, date back to 1889 and they are a beautiful example of 19th-century German sacred art.  We will walk the Stations on Tuesday, March 5th, and on Saturday, March 16th.  We will meet in the church parking lot at 1:00 pm on the 5th and 1:30 pm on the 16th for carpooling. If you want to participate, there is a sign-up sheet in the Narthex.  For more information please contact:  Lucia Jorge-Nebert (email: [email protected] or call or text: 971-341-2068).

Memorial Gardens Planting

Please join the Memorial Gardens Committee on March 23 to make the gardens beautiful for Palm Sunday and Easter! We’ll begin about 9:30 and hope to finish work by lunchtime. Come when you can! We’ll have plants and fertilizer ready to put in the dirt! You bring gloves, digger and trowel if you have them. It's such a happy bit of work!

Easter Flower Donations

Easter flowers transform our worship space for the celebration of the resurrection. Please consider donating to support the transformation. You can use the flower donation envelopes being handed out by Flower and Altar Guild members beginning March 3rd (also available in the Information Center) or send a check to the office to donate. Let us know the names of people you’d like named for remembrance, and come celebrate with us on Easter! Contact Debbi Kapp or Apryl Garmon if you have questions or suggestions. 

Easter Flowers

On Easter Sunday, the veil of Lent has been lifted, and flowers and joy come out in abundance. St. Francis looks breathtakingly beautiful on Easter Sunday, and our hearts feel this happiness. Many hands make this possible, so on Easter Saturday, March 30th, we gather and create beauty with lovely flowers. We gather at 9 am for a few hours, and have a fun time creating and sharing friendships - old and new. All flowers are provided. Previous flower arranging experience is not necessary. A sign-up sheet is in the Information Center for those who would to help on this glorious day.

Thank you.

Apryl Garmon and Jane Domagalski ([email protected])

Prayer Chain

The Prayer Chain at St. Francis is a quiet, powerful ministry we can do in our own time and place. If you would like to receive emails with prayer requests, or would like to request prayers for any concern, please email Terri Hoffmann ([email protected]), who is filling in while Deacon Ken is ill.

Lent

Lent at St. Francis includes opportunities and choices for us to use at home or at church. We are all invited to observe the quiet, contemplative and community opportunities that make Lent meaningful and prepare us for Holy Week and Easter. Choose what is best for you!

• Adult Formation will focus on ‘There is a Season’: conversations about the challenges of aging and grief. Contact Norm Shrumm for more details.

• Lenten Evening Prayer is shifting to in-person-only meetings Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays this Lent. We’ll pray together until March 22, just before Holy Week, and hope you’ll come any time or every time! We are working our way through the Gospel of John and the Epistles appointed for each day.

• "Praying for the World" with Carolynne Fairweather on Wednesday evenings.

• Devotional books will be available from the National Cathedral ($10). This year’s theme for daily reflections is ‘Hear Us, Good Lord,’ based on the Great Litany. To reserve a copy of ‘Hear Us, Good Lord,’ contact Terri Hoffmann. We also are offering Spanish devotional books to our Misa congregation.

• If you would like to sing or ring your way through Lent, join the choir or bell choir for the season! Both choirs have just begun rehearsals of music for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. Contact Jon Holland or Wendy Shrumm for more details.

• During Lent we weave palm crosses and prepare the church for Easter. Both are wonderful opportunities to be in community and reflect on the seasons. Watch e-Blasts for more details.

World in Prayer

Our “World in Prayer” Lenten Zoom class occurs weekly until Wednesday, March 27th. Please join us as we as we look at new ways to pray, by modeling Jesus’ Third Way of Praying, and looking at a more Eastern Christian approach to Jesus, often hidden in plain sight from our Western taught concepts of prayer.

The “World in Prayer” website is: worldinprayer.org. There you will find the weekly update of world news stories and prayer concerns. You can open it before or after class each week for a focus for your Lenten prayers.

If you haven’t received your hand-held rubber globe, please contact me. I will have some at the UWIF meeting tomorrow morning or can send you one in the mail.

The link to join the Zoom meeting is: World in Prayer Zoom

Meeting ID: 971 8569 4832

Passcode: 650332

Feel free to contact Carolynne Fairweather by phone at 503-332-8486 or email at: [email protected].  

Movie Tuesday

We will continue watching episodes of The Chosen each Tuesday in Lent at 3 pm in the Parish Hall. Light dinner will be served.

Upcoming Cursillo Weekend

The next Co-Ed (for all adults) Cursillo Weekend is scheduled for April 11-14, 2024, in Turner, Oregon. If you are interested in attending but don’t have someone to sponsor you (someone in your congregation who has been to a Cursillo weekend), reach out to the coordinators.

There are openings for all levels – both new and seasoned team members. Many roles are available: Palanca, Table Leader, Angels, Music team, Spiritual team. If you are interested, the next team meeting will March 16, 2024, at St. Francis in Wilsonville. If you can’t be there the entire weekend, you can participate as day angels and prayer warriors, too!

See Cursillo's website for a video on sponsoring, materials to give to a candidate, and forms to be completed. The deadline for candidate applications is April 1. Scholarships are available for sponsors who need them.

Adult Formation: "There is a Season," continued

Adult Formation has returned to "There is a Season," our guided discussion of the spiritual, emotional, and medical challenges particular to senior adults and their families. How can we best understand our experiences of grief and support others struggling with this? What framework of thinking, praying, and community might best support our preparation for our own mortality, and that of the people we love? How do our culture and medical system both hinder and support our needs in this season of life? Norman Shrumm, semi-retired from hospice chaplaincy, and a former Presbyterian pastor, continues as discussion leader for this series, which has been enthusiastically described as "not as dolorous as you might expect."  

Taize Prayer at St. Francis

For a time of prayer, reflection, and peace, please join us for Taize prayers at the Cross of San Damiano. Come at 5 pm for the service, or at 4:30 if you would like to sing through the chants prior to the service. Our next Taize Prayer will be this Sunday, March 3.

Save the Date

Masa Mijuno will join intrepid St. Francis gardeners for a day of pruning in the memorial and east gardens on March 14. Please mark your calendars and prepare your foul weather gear and pruning tools! We’ll begin at 9 am and work until our fingers and toes make us stop. Come any time. Bring soup if you can - our master pruner likes hot soup breaks! Masa is a great teacher and we learn a lot from him each year.

Did You Know? - Amahl and the Night Visitors

Twenty-seven years ago, in December 1996, the St. Francis music ministry performed the operetta “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” The audio cassette recording of the performance was recently transferred to a digital file and uploaded to YouTube. There six old photos of the performance, which are sprinkled throughout the YT video.   

https://youtu.be/pY3pEx5BfFE

Our parishioners did the entire production from set construction to costumes and make-up.

The cast included:

The Mother – Barbara Bridge

Amahl – Scott Henderson

King Kaspar (tenor) – Walt Buhl

King Melchior (baritone) – John Hoffmann

King Balthazar (bass) – Bruce Schroeder

Page – Mark Hoffmann

Shepherd Ensemble – St. Francis parishioners 

We also had a live parrot, which squawked at inappropriate times throughout the performance.

Ministry Prayers – Welcome Table Ministry

Each week, in our Prayers of the People, we pray for a ministry here at St. Francis. This week, we pray for our Welcome Table Ministry, whose primary mission is to welcome visitors. Special assistance is offered to those not familiar with our Eucharist service and how we take Communion.  For those who appear to be looking for a new Church home, this ministry tries to spend extra time providing each with the information they may be seeking to make it more likely they will return another Sunday.

Are you interested in joining this Ministry? Contact Gary Thompson for more information.