Parish Newsletter

January 2023 

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Collect for The Epiphany, January 6

We have seen His star in the East, and have come to worship Him. This statement by the three wise men to King Herod signals for us the Epiphany, the conclusion of Christmastide, and the heart of the message for all who follow the risen Lord. As we celebrated Christmas we heard the angels announcing Jesus’ birth first to the poor and humble shepherds. And then as we prepared to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany we learned that God’s reconciling love is for ALL people: lowly and powerful; rich and poor, “insiders” and “outsiders;” those we love and those we despise.

The Magi’s statement is a powerful one; it is a declaration of action. It is one thing to see the beautiful star in the heavens, the star that proclaims the birth of the King of Kings, and it is quite another to follow it. You see, the wise men did not simply look at the star, admire its beauty, and leave it at that. Oh, no; they followed it. They took action: they seized the moment and went out in search of the newborn king. They didn’t know where it would lead, but they knew what they would find when they arrived. And so they set out to follow the star.

We too have heard the wonderful news proclaimed that our King is near. We have seen his star in the beauty of Christmas. We know the story of his life, his teaching, and his amazing gift of redeeming love. Now we, like those kings of old, have a choice to make: we can admire His star from a distance – or we can go. We can go and give those gifts which are uniquely ours and which He most desires from us: our hearts, our hands and our selves, in service to the One who gave himself for US that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Faithfully,

St. Mary's Supports - A Baby Center

A sincere and heartfelt thank you to all of you for helping us support the important work done by The Baby Center. What could be more fitting in this Christmas Season than to uplift young families and newborn babies. Your generosity during our Christmas Service Open Plate resulted in $1719.00 being donated to The Baby Center. We were also able to donate $370 worth in gift cards gathered during our Christmas Party. Thank you St. Mary's!

A Joyous Celebration of Saint Lucia

at First Lutheran

Many St. Mary's parishioners gathered at First Lutheran on December 13th for a beautiful night of prayers and caroling and sharing traditions. For those of you who were unable to attend, I cannot attach the delicious baked goods they served but, I can attach the program from the evening. Click here to read through the celebration of St. Lucia.

St. Mary's Celebrates!

Our First Annual Night of Christmas Joy and Caroling Party

A GIANT thank you to all of the families and children who participated in our Christmas Pageant this year! We had a beautiful menagerie of animals in the manger, sheep, a kitten, a tiger, and a clydesdale sized donkey. We had radiant angels and stars twinkling, a charismatic Ceasar Augustus, a wise prophet Isaiah and a whole flock of enthusiastic shepherds. Our baby Jesus appeared at the last minute and switched from being a wolf to being the christ child. A special thanks to our teenagers and even a couple college students who helped us complete our cast and support the youngest participants. It was a beautiful night. THANK YOU ALL!

Search Committee Corner

Almost four months into its tenure, your Search Committee is progressing steadily towards its first key objective: Organizing the survey of our membership that will facilitate the creation of our parish profile. That profile will be circulated throughout the Episcopal Church – on our own website, the Diocesan website, and the Episcopal News Service’s situations vacant columns, for example – with the goal or reaching every priest who might consider the opportunity to become our next rector.



The survey will consist of a series of multiple-choice questions. It’s designed, in effect, to take the temperature of the parish. It will do so by asking us to indicate what, as a congregation, we like and don’t like about our present situation; what changes, in terms of new programs and initiatives and de-emphasis on old ones, we would like to see St. Mary’s undertake in the next few years and beyond; what qualities we want to see in our new rector; and other relevant issues. Once all the data are gathered, they will be subjected to analysis and interpretation that will provide a template for the parish profile.

The success of the survey will, of course, rest on the depth of responses that it receives from parish members. Of course, we hope for 100 percent participation, so that every voice is heard. Certainly, we strongly encourage you to start thinking about your expectations for St. Mary’s and its future rector, and to be prepared to reveal those thoughts once the survey arrives. We’ll let you know well in advance when you can expect to receive the survey, and we’ll set up a meeting in Walden Hall to outline its details and the procedure for completing it. The survey will be available both remotely – via email – and in pen-and-paper format. And we assure you that we’ll maintain the privacy of all participants’ responses. So as you gather your thoughts about our parish, please remember to check for updates in the Search Committee Corner in the weekly parish Enews. And please feel free to contact us with your thoughts and suggestions at search@stmarys-church.org.

Outreach Committee Minutes

December 5, 2022

5:00 p.m. St. James Room

Present: Roy Hammer, Bev Parke, Judy Scarafile, Barry Olofsson, Bill Babcock, Jud Phelps, Allison Bresette, Father Scott, Sally Cameron, and Leezie Magruder

There was a thoughtful discussion about the allocation of the remaining Outreach Funds to be

distributed ($26,407.60).

The programs from October that were tabled were reported on:

Sally Cameron

These requests from the Angel House were actually a duplicate application due to a change in the administration at Angel House.

 $2,000 - Angel House Family Shelter

$2,500 - $5,000 -- Angel House Family Shelter -- Housing Assistance Corporation

Judy Scarafile for Peter Scarafile

This request is to support an ongoing program helping people keep up with their medical needs.

 $1,000 - $2,500 - Duffy Health Center

Bev Parke

The Amazing Grace program is going to be active this summer as they hold their camp program for children of an incarcerated parent.

$1,000 - $2,500 -- Amazing Grace of Cape Cod

Judy Scarafile

Judy explained the request from Big Nick’s Ride. After a thoughtful discussion by the committee members present, it was felt that their request does not really match our mission so no money will be allocated.

$2,500 - $5,000 -- Nicholas G. Xiarhos Memorial Fund - Big Nick's Ride for the Fallen

Jud Phelps

This request from the Baby Center was overlooked in October. 

$1500 – Baby Center for funds for car seats.

Jud Phelps requested that the money allocated to N.A.M.I. ($2500) in October be reallocated to F.A.I.R. due to lack of communication from N.A.M.I. administrator. The committee agreed to grant this request.

The Committee voted to allocate the following amounts:

$8,000 – to be divided between Angel House and the Housing Assistance Corporation

                 Angel House -- $5,000

                 Housing Assistance Corporation -- $3,000

$2,500 – Duffy House

$2,450 – Amazing Grace for camp scholarships

$450 will be identified as coming from the Eleanor Braun Fund for scholarship support

                  $2000 will be identified as coming from Outreach to be used for scholarships for one 8 --11 year old and one 12 – 15 year old.

$3,000 – The Baby Center for car seats

$2,000 – Hands of Hope

                 $1,000 will be identified as coming from the Marion Ferguson Fund

                 $1,000 will be identified as coming from Outreach

$5,000 – The Needy Fund

$3,000 – Habitat for Humanity

Final amount for Miracle Kitchen still to be determined

The Youth Group gift certificate program will not be happening this year.

Any remaining funds will be allocated to the Rector’s Discretionary Fund

The Christmas Offering will be decided by the Vestry at their next meeting. The parish will be notified of about the offering distribution.

The total allocated amount was $25,950.

The committee agreed that we should meet more than 2 times a year. We want to attempt to get programs to apply on our timeline of April 1 and October 1 so their program can be considered. Two programs we hope to learn more about are Tommy’s Place and We CAN. Committee members are encouraged to help get the word out to organizations and other parishioners.

The application is on the St. Mary’s website – stmarys-church.org

Future meeting will be determined.

Respectfully submitted,

Leezie Magruder

Nearly Every Country Signs

Agrees to a Sweeping Deal to Protect Nature

MONTREAL, Quebec

Roughly 190 countries early on Monday approved a sweeping United Nations agreement to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 and to take a slew of other measures against biodiversity loss, a mounting under-the-radar crisis that, if left unchecked, jeopardizes the planet’s food and water supplies as well as the existence of untold species around the world.

The agreement comes as biodiversity is declining worldwide at rates never seen before in human history. Researchers have projected that a million plants and animals are at risk of extinction, many within decades. The last extinction event of that magnitude was the one that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

While many scientists and activists had pushed for even stronger measures, the deal, which includes monitoring mechanisms that previous agreements had lacked, clearly signals increasing momentum around the issue.

“This is a huge moment for nature,” Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, a coalition of groups pushing for protections, said about the agreement. “This is a scale of conservation that we haven’t seen ever attempted before.”

Overall, the deal lays out a suite of 23 environmental targets. The most prominent, known as 30x30, would place 30 percent of land and sea under protection. Currently, about 17 percent of the planet’s land and roughly 8 percent of its oceans are protected, with restrictions on activities like fishing, farming and mining.

The United States is just one of two countries in the world that are not party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, largely because Republicans, who are typically opposed to joining treaties, have blocked United States membership. That means the American delegation was required to participate from the sidelines.

President Biden has signed an executive order that would similarly place 30 percent of United States land and waters under protection, but any legislative efforts to support that goal are expected to face strong opposition when Republicans take control of the House in January.

While there are multiple causes of biodiversity loss, humans are behind them all. On land, the biggest driver is agriculture. At sea, it’s overfishing. Other factors include hunting, mining,logging, climate change, pollution and invasive species.

Buildings and Grounds Update

Our solar panels have been working hard for us. Originally it was estimated that we would produce about 40% of the electricity we consume. Our 104 panels have produced 44% of our electricity in 2022. (Pray for sunshine). That was over 40 MW of electricity and the solar panels saved us over $11,000 in 2022. 

That is enough electricity to run a refrigerator for 25 years! As a wonderful bonus we saved the equivalent of 734 trees. Overall a pretty good year. Congratulations to all of you who supported the project. 

A Note From The Sacred Ground Committee

Thank you all for your interest in joining us on another journey through the Sacred Ground Curriculum. Unfortunately, although there was a lot of interest throughout the Parish we did not have enough individuals able to fill any one session. The Committee will be working to modify our proposed class schedule and in addition we will be inviting our brothers and sisters at First Lutheran to participate with us, most likely after Easter. More details to follow.

A Note to Our Volunteers

Thank you to all who participated in the special training sessions Father Scott offered for LEM, Altar Guild, Acolytes and other Liturgical Participants. Please know your dedication and care makes our Worship beautiful and our spiritual lives richer. An enormous thank you to our Flower and Altar Guilds who worked overtime during the Christmas Season making our church look so glorious. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

We always welcome more to join our ministry groups. Please give the office a call if you are interested. We are still in need of more, garden committee members, flower guild members, ushers, LEM's , acolytes, lectors, video streamers, zoom facilitators, Half Day Hooray Volunteers, Coffee Hour hosts. ALL ARE WARMLY WELCOME! Please just let Julie or Allison know you are interested.