All Saints Gazette: Ahead of Trinity Sunday
Greetings from All Saints!
This Week—
Thursday, May 23: Prayer Lab, 18:00 at Vrijburg
Sunday, May 26: No service. BUT:
Following Sunday, June 2: Worship with Bishop’s Visitation
With Pentecost behind us, there are no more Dutch national holidays until Christmas, but The Episcopal Church has two more principal feasts: Trinity Sunday and All Saints. Trinity is this Sunday. It’s an off Sunday for us, but the Beloved Community Corner below will give you some material to think and pray about, and we’ll talk about the Trinity at prayer lab on Thursday. (We of course are having a service for All Saints—in fact, go ahead and put November 3 on your calendar.)
June 2: Bishop’s Visitation
Bishop Mark will be with us on Sunday, June 2. Please come! For those who are newish to The Episcopal Church, a bishop’s visit is always a celebration, and a way for whole church to bless our community. We we’re going to plan the welcome, so contact Mpho if you can help. We don’t want to send him away hungry!
Go Deeper With Prayer Lab (Thursday at 18:00)
This week’s prayer lab will include evening prayer, and a theologian is going to lead us in a meditation on the Trinity (regrettably, I am the only theologian available on short notice). Bring some food to share if you can, but the main thing is that you come.
Beloved Community Corner
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. To say what the Trinity means, we either need one unsatisfying sentence or a long book (perhaps also unsatisfying). Put another way, it is easy to teach the grammar of the statement that God is three and one, that the difference between the three is real, but that each of them is everything the others is, and the three are one God. It is harder to teach its wisdom. But consider this: the life of God is nothing but relationship, nothing but communication. We might even say that it is nothing but Beloved Community. If you look at the picture above, you will see that there are three lights that are also one light. The innermost light is a person. The person is how you begin to perceive the Trinity, but you can only really perceive the person in the other two lights. You can only perceive Jesus in the light of the Holy Spirit. And perhaps you can only see any human being as the image of Jesus in light of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps that is why we are learning to “pray in the Spirit at all times.” But how do you do that?
All Saints People: Tell us the story of your name
Let’s see what Rasmus has to say.
From the Showings of Divine Love by the 14th-century woman known as Julian of Norwich:
And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.
That's all for today!
Want to talk to a priest? We want to talk to you too!
Website: https://allsaintsamsterdam.church/
Mpho: mpho@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Kyle: kyle@allsaintsamsterdam.church
General: info@allsaintsamsterdam.church
