THE EPISTLE:

March 20, 2025

Silver Saints Movie Matinee - Sully

TODAY, March 20 at 1pm

With so many air events and near misses happening recently we though it might be good to show an air event with a happy ending. Join us this afternoon at 1:00 PM in the St. Thomas Parish Hall for the Silver Saints Movie Matinee to see the movie, Sully.

As always, the Silver Saints Movie Matinee offers fun and fellowship with our parishioners and visitors much like going to a theater, but free. We offer snacks and beverages, and we will even pick you up and return you home if you wish. We offer comfortable seating and a time-out break half way through the movie. Please bring your friends and ask people from our neighborhood. Call Jack or Becky Stokes at 256-881-4748, or the church office at 256-880-0247. Please call 24 hours ahead if you will need a ride. Please come join us and be happy.

Praying the Rosary TOMORROW, Friday, March 21

We continue to Pray the Rosary in Lent every other Friday at 12:05 pm. Each prayer session lasts around half an hour and includes the reading of each scripture passage for the five decades of either the Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious, or Luminous Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. If you’ve never prayed the Rosary before, we always have Rosary beads available, and written directions to help you fully participate in this meaningful, scriptural, and contemplative prayer practice.

Lenten Quiet Day - Five Ways FAITH can Free us from Anxiety & Worry -

THIS Saturday

March 22

The entire parish is invited to join the Daughters of the King for a special Lenten Quiet Day led by Fr. Donavan, Saturday, March 22nd, from 9am - 2pm. Coffee and snacks will be available beginning at 8:30 AM in the Parish Hall, and Fr. Donavan will begin his timely program entitled "The Five Ways Faith can Free us from Anxiety & Worry" at 9am. A lunch will be provided at noon, and we will finish with open discussion, questions, and prayer.

Please plan on joining Fr. Donavan and the Daughters on Saturday, March 22nd, for this important discussion of how our faith can (and should!) be our greatest defense against worry, anxiety, and stress in the world and in our personal, day-to-day lives!

New Women's Group

New Ministry - Sisters in Faith

Tuesday, March 25

Are you in the mid portion of your life and looking for fellowship? Are you interested in getting to know your St. Thomas sisters better and have some fun? 

If so, please join us for a social/organizational meeting for a new ministry, Sisters in Faith, on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. in the Parish Hall. We envision this group meeting monthly for fellowship, spiritual renewal and other activities.  

If you plan to attend, please send an email to Donna Palumbo HERE. 

Spring Cleanup Day set for April 12th

Spring Cleanup Day

Saturday, April 12 at 8 AM

Everyone is invited to help with Spring Cleanup! This is the time of year we do a little spring maintenance and clean the grounds in preparation for Easter. We will meet at 8:00 AM in the Parish Hall. A light breakfast will be provided. Bring your favorite pair of work gloves and gardening tools, and let’s make St. Thomas beautiful for Easter!

Easter Flower Donations

Easter Flower Donations

Easter flower dedication envelopes are in the pews if you'd like to make a donation in honor, memory, or in thanksgiving of someone special. Dedications are a wonderful way to both beautify our church and honor loves ones. Please print legibly and with correct spelling. Simply place the envelope in the offertory plate or with the church office. Donations require a $50 minimum and must be received by Tuesday, April 15.

Palms and Pizza

Saturday, April 12

All ages are welcome to join Mtr. Katie in the Parish Hall on Saturday, April 12th at 5pm for Palms and Pizza, to enjoy a supper of pizza and make palm crosses together as we prepare to begin Holy Week!

Seder Supper Tuesday, April 15

Seder is a serious and joyful event where the Passover story is retold. Looking to our Jewish roots, we tell the Exodus story, with its themes of power and mercy, bondage and freedom, hope and despair. This is much like the spiritual journey that we continue in our lives today. Observing the Seder reminds us, as modern-day Christians, of the story of God and His people of which we are a part. Seder is a service interspersed with a dinner (lamb, chicken, or vegetarian), which concludes as the meal ends. We follow the traditional Jewish Seder, remembering that at the Last Supper, Jesus celebrated Seder with his disciples.  

Our Seder is on Tuesday, April 15 at 6pm in the Parish Hall. The meal will be provided for a donation of $12 per adult and $5 per child. Since we need to order meat, reservations should be made by Thursday, April 10 either online through the LINK HERE or by signing up in Information Hall.

We also need volunteers to help set up the Parish Hall, cook the meal, plate the food that is set on the table for the service, serve the meal, and clean up. Volunteer sign-up sheets are on the Information Hall Bulletin Board. Contact Mike or Laura Beth Bestor via EMAIL HERE if you have any questions.  

A Choral Meditation on the Passion of Christ

Good Friday, April 18

6:00 pm

Join us for this beautiful service of lessons and music to continue the observance of Holy Week. The service was designed in 1985 by the Dean of Chapel, the Rev. Andrew Macintosh, and the Organist, George Guest, at Cambridge University. The students of Cambridge University are not present during Holy Week, so a service was designed for the St. John’s College community to reflect on the mysteries of this key part of the Christian story beforehand.

This service has been a tradition at St. Thomas which started in the 1990's as a Good Friday offering and is now returning to its Good Friday spot in our Holy Week Services.

Music will include several Christmas Carols that reference Christ’s passion, as well as other music written especially for Holy Week such as: "I Wonder as I Wander" - arr. John Rutter, "Bethlehem Down" - Peter Warlock, "That Virgin’s Child" – Thomas Tallis, "Sing Lullaby" – Basque, "Carol of the Passion" – Gerald Near, "Stabat Mater" -Giovanni Pergolesi, "Solus ad Victimam"- Kenneth Leighton

This contemplative service will also include congregational hymns and readings from the prophecies and Passion Gospels.

Easter Egg Hunt

Saturday, April 19 at 10:30 AM

Candy Donations Needed

The St. Thomas Easter Bunny is getting ready for our annual Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 19^th at 10:30 AM!  We are collecting goodies to stuff inside the plastic eggs that we are recycling from last year. There will be a basket in Information Hall to drop off your contributions. Please make sure any candy or food item is individually wrapped. Contact our Children's Ministry Coordinator, Laura Beth, via email HERE if you have questions.

UPCOMING

Everybody's Pub Theology

Everybody's Pub Theology

Thursday, March 27

6:00 PM at PaPPo's

Sit down with Fr. Donavan and Mtr. Katie next Thursday, March 27, from 6-7:30pm, at PaPPo's Pizzeria, at 7540 Memorial Pkwy SW, Huntsville, for great fellowship, good food, tasty drinks, and hearty discussion!

Holy Hike

Saturday, March 29

9 AM at Ditto Landing

Join us on a Holy Hike along the Tennessee Riverwalk Greenway Saturday, March 29th at 9am. This will be an out and back riverside hike approximately 3.75 miles roundtrip.

We’ll meet at the Kingston Pavilion parking lot at Ditto Landing which is on Ditto Landing’s southwest corner. There are restrooms onsite at the pavilion and at the marina office. Please contact Brett Byford with any questions at brettbyford59@gmail.com.

Ditto Landing: 293 Ditto Landing Rd SE, Huntsville, AL 35803.

Scrapbooking Event Saturday, March 29

Scrapbookers and Crafters Event

Saturday, March 29

9 AM-3 PM, Parish Hall

Please join us Saturday, March 29, from 9-3 for fellowship and to work on your scrapbooking or crafting projects. Lunch will be provided. Contact Rebekah Callahan at 256-603-0219 if you plan to attend.

Pi Kappa Alpha Fundraiser Crawfish Boil - April 5

Racial Healing Pilgrimage - Need a Ride?

The Scottsboro Boys

Saturday, April 5, 11 AM - 2 PM

Need a Ride? Contact the front office

The fight for civil rights began in this state much earlier than most folks think. This 1931 trial, held in Scottsboro, where nine young black men were falsely accused and then convicted of raping two white women, became international news, highlighting the need for jury reform, and leading to two landmark Supreme Court rulings that established rights for criminal defendants. 

Our brothers and sisters in the southern part of our diocese invite folks to come walk the Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage in August. We would love your support and to invite folks here, to the "Northern Kingdom", to walk the way of a pilgrim, on a moral pilgrimage April 5. 

Kim Cantrell is driving the church van to Scottsboro to help shuttle volunteers and walkers from the parking lot to venue starting point. If you would like a ride to and from Scottsboro in the van, please call the front office and reserve your spot. Please note that she will be leaving the church at 9 AM.

If you would like to join, please register HERE or visit https://www.dioala.org/event-details-id19/?id=310

Volunteers are needed for this event to be successful. Please consider ways you can help and CLICK HERE to sign-up or copy and paste the following link in your browser https://forms.office.com/r/7v11sNU40H.

Explore Greek Orthodoxy and Episcopalian Faith Together with Mtr. Katie

This Lent we move from Fr. Donavan’s class on orthodoxy to Mtr. Katie’s class about Orthodoxy — specifically, she will be talking about her life as an Episcopal priest married to a Greek Orthodox musician! We will continue our conversation in the parish hall THIS SUNDAY.

Lenten Series on The Great Divorce Continues in Lent

We'll continue our Lenten Series every Wednesday in Lent at 6:15 PM in the Parish Hall with a deep dive into C.S. Lewis' classic, The Great Divorce. This short novel follows the tale of an observer who steps onto a bus in the "Gray Town" of Hell to travel with troubled souls to the possibility of entrance into Heaven! In the masterful way for which C.S. Lewis is known, Lewis opens up the struggles all of us have with sin and faith; he completely turns the traditional Christian ideas of Heaven and hell on their head without ever turning away from the Bible and the church's teachings. A special Taize Worship Service will begin each Wednesday program at 5:30 PM in the Nave, and a Lenten supper of homemade soup and salad will begin being served in the Parish Hall this year at 5:45 PM. There will be a concurrent Children's Lent program on the Parables that will meet in the Parlor.

Please read chapters 2 and 3 for our next discussion on 3/26.

The book is available for purchase in any format in your favorite online bookstores, or at the local Barnes & Noble. OR download a PDF eBook version of the book by clicking HERE. If you have any questions, call the church office or speak to Mtr. Katie this Sunday!

Taizé Prayer

Wednesdays in Lent 5:30 PM

Taizé Prayer is a distinctive style of meditative prayer developed by an ecumenical community of monks in rural France. This quiet, moving, reflective prayer combines elements of the Church's traditional Liturgy of the Hours with elements of contemplative meditation. A typical Taizé prayer service incorporates periods of silence with meditative readings from Scripture, prayers of praise and intercession, and the frequent repetition of simple, contemporary chants based on the Psalms or other parts of Scripture. Short songs or chants, repeated over and over, create a meditative environment and express fundamental realities of faith that the mind and the heart can easily grasp. The result is to move prayer from the head to the heart gradually.

LENT IS HERE!

Rite I 8am Eucharist Every Sunday

Go deeper into our Lenten worship at St. Thomas this year with the older liturgy of Rite I from the Book of Common Prayer every Sunday morning during the 8am Holy Eucharist. Rite I uses traditional English language and can help our worship together focus more profoundly on repentance and God's mercy during Lent. Mtr. Katie & Fr. Donavan and our 8am worship bulletins will help everyone at 8am make the changes in the prayers and responses this year, so get ready for the return of "The Lord be with you. And with THY SPIRIT!”

If you've never experienced the more traditional language and Anglican worship of the Rite I Holy Eucharist in the Episcopal Church, this is your opportunity to step back into the history of our church and follow Jesus more deeply into the desert over the forty days of Lent this year at St. Thomas.

Children's Chapel and Christian Formation Returns

Children and Youth Christian Formation Returns March 16

See the regularly scheduled Children and Youth Sunday School offerings by simply clicking the link below. You can also find both Adult and Treble Choir rehearsal times and times for Bell Choir rehearsals with just a simple click of the button below!

Sunday "Come As You Are" Eucharist

"Come As You Are"

5pm Holy Eucharist

This Sunday, and every Sunday, at 5pm in the Nave, you are invited to the "Come As You Are" Holy Eucharist at St. Thomas. The 5pm Holy Eucharist features joyful hymns from the Alleluia III hymnal, special gospel music chosen by our amazing pianist and organist, Sam Wright, and casual sermons preached from the floor.

Habitat for Humanity House

Calling all volunteers! Volunteers are needed for construction of this year’s Habitat house. The address is 4305 Blue Spring Rd NW. Please join in if you are able. Please contact George Harriman at 256-509-6666. We are also looking for a new lead contact person for Habitat for Humanity at St. Thomas, as our dedicated past leader, Elouisa Stokes, has stepped down after many years in that role.

First Stop Volunteers Needed!

St. Thomas serves a hot breakfast at First Stop on 206 Stokes Street in downtown Huntsville on the first and second Friday of each month to First Stop clients. We need more helpers to assist with preparing food and serving for the first Friday breakfast team. We serve from 8:15 – 9:00 a.m.

If you are interested in helping, please call Patty Moy 256-655-2756. Thank you!

Phone: 256.880.0247

Email: StThomas@stthomashuntsville.org