THE EPISTLE:

March 27, 2025

Everybody's Pub Theology

Everybody's Pub Theology

TONIGHT, March 27

6:00 PM at PaPPo's

Sit down with Fr. Donavan and Mtr. Katie TONIGHT, 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!

Stations of the Cross for Lent TOMORROW,

March 28

Every other Friday in Lent, the church will be open for anyone who'd like to walk through the fourteen Stations of the Cross. If you've never participated in the Stations, this is an opportunity to spend time in Lent enriching your soul with each Stations' powerful prayers, scripture readings, and physical movement in this special manner of following the Passion of Jesus. 



Join Fr. Donavan tomorrow, Friday, March 28, at 12:05pm, in the Nave, and make the Stations of the Cross a part of your Lenten season of devotion this year. And pray the Rosary for Lent next Friday, April 4.

Holy Hike

THIS 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

THIS 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.

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.

Newcomer's Class

Newcomer's Class

Sunday, April 6, 9:30 AM

Conference Room 1

Are you new to St. Thomas? Newcomers to St. Thomas, please join Fr. Donavan on April 6 at 9:30 after breakfast in Conference Room 1 for a brief introduction to the Episcopal Church. Simply follow the blue signs!

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!

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

RSVP's Required

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

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 4-10 for next week's discussion.

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.

Children's Chapel and Christian Formation

Children and Youth Christian Formation

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.

Phone: 256.880.0247

Email: StThomas@stthomashuntsville.org