Father, our liturgical calendar continues this Trinity Sunday and we are blessed by the guidance the spirit gives our community and challenged where our connections are beyond these walls.  We thank you for our commitment to Agape Table and for our arm of support to the Home Uganda Project and Pierre Plourde’s work in Haiti.  May our stories create a myriad of beauty like pieces of a quilt – designed from varying shapes, colors, textures, and strengths.  May we celebrate community, relationships, and neighbourhoods in the spirit and life of the church. (more…)

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Let us call the community into a time of prayer. Our Glorious God we ask in remembrance of the day of Pentecost when all were gathered in one place. They were Christ’s Holy Catholic Church and may we as your universal Church continue to gather, to act according to your son’s teaching that we need to love one another as he has loved us.

Let us pray to the Lord, Hear us Lord of Glory

Our Glorious God we ask in remembrance of the sudden sound from heaven that came like a rush of a violent wind and filled the entire house that we too trust in your strength, and are prepared to accept whatever you call us to do. May we know you are in control and truly that the holy spirit guides us, and well we ask you to guide all Bishops, Priests, Deacons, leaders of ministry of your Church. (more…)

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Pierre and Daniel Plourde have now wrapped up their medical mission trip to Haiti – though Pierre is staying on for an additional week to extend the team’s work –  and by the time you read this Daniel and the rest of the team will probably already be at home.  What follows here is taken from a couple of e-mail updates sent out by Krista Waring over the course of the week.  This mission trip was supported in part by a congregational donation from saint ben’s.

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ay 19, 2010:  It sounds like the heat is just oppressive! A couple of team members have had to deal with heat stroke. But the team is looking out for each other and still managing to accomplish much. Sunday’s activities included a worship service, where the new building was packed with people, a visit to another site where the school is temporarily ‘housed’ and a bit of soccer.

Monday and Tuesday were busy clinic days at ES-1 (the new building) with over 250 patients being seen. Colin, Nicole, Raph, Rachelle, Jesicca, & Daniel stayed at the clinic. For part of these first 2 days, James, Kristin and Branden also worked at the school site (ES-2). Pierre is trying to be where needed. Today Daniel will go to the school and Branden will help at the clinic; they hope to play a little soccer at the school today (depending on the weather).

Everyone is very impressed with all of the construction work that these Haitians have managed to accomplish without much in the way of heavy equipment. We’ll see what the ‘experts’ think as the eMi (engineering ministries international) arrive this morning.

In just a few days, they’ll be home with plenty of pictures, lots of stories and a huge appreciation for temperatures that are below 35 degrees. (more…)

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a reflection on one of the readings from this past Sunday, Acts 16:16-34

“Wherever Paul went, there were earthquakes: the Roman world, and communities and individuals within it, were turned upside down by the power of Jesus’ name.” (N.T. Wright)

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s you read through this passage from the Book of Acts, with its retelling of two apparently miraculous events packed into less than twenty verses, it might have be tempting to think something like, “well, that is the sort of stuff you read in the bible; the sort of stuff that might have happened back then… but it seems a whole different world from ours.”  And it is, in many respects, a different world – a different landscape – but enter this biblical landscape with me, and see what it might tell us about the world in which we live.

Paul and his travelling companion Silas have arrived in Philippi, a predominantly Gentile city in the northern part of Greece.  They are now very much engaged in ministry and mission to Gentiles; the sense of this Jesus movement being limited to Jews has really disappeared for these men.

(more…)

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On May 13, Christopher Holmes was ordained a priest of the Anglican Church of Canada.  Over the past eight months, Chris served a ministry placement at saint benedict’s table, and just a couple of weeks from now he and his family will be relocating to New Zealand, where he will take up a new academic post.  This is the text of a letter written to him on the occasion of his ordination, and with his permission it is shared here on our website.

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iven how much is on your plate over this next month or two—your ordination as a priest, but also a move to the other side of the world to take up your new academic post, with all that entails for you and your family—I thought I’d offer these reflections to you in written form, so that at some point when the proverbial dust has begun to settle you can spend a few minutes mulling over what is really an extension of the conversations we’ve shared over these past eight months.

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e’ve received some wonderful responses to Beautiful Mercy | A Book of Hours, our book and CD project released earlier this Spring.  The book actually spent four weeks on the McNally Robinson bestseller list, and for two weeks straight was their bestselling nonfiction hardcover title.  An article in the Winnipeg Free Press was picked up by various other papers across the county, including the Welland Tribune, The Halifax Chronicle Herald and the Moncton Times & Transcript.  The Anglican Journal ran a feature piece on the book, ChristianWeek ran a review, and Comment Magazine flagged us in their online edition.  That’s all good stuff.

We also received some direct feedback that really needs to be shared.

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This past Sunday, May 9, we  celebrated baptisms at saint benedict’s table.  What follows is a reflection written for those exploring baptism, unpacking some of the key pieces of the liturgy.  Because everyone present at a baptism is invited to renew their own baptismal covenant, this is actually a reflection which should have some relevance to all of us.

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thought it made sense to offer a bit of a reflection for all of you, regarding the upcoming baptism and renewal of baptismal vows.  What I’m offering here is a quick tour through three of the sections of the liturgy, hopefully providing something of an interpretive lens through which to understand the material, as well as a foundation for your own continuing reflections.

This time around, our liturgy will involve the baptism both of an infant and of an adult, as well as the reaffirmation by three different individuals of their previous baptisms.  We don’t in this tradition ever “re-baptize,” as that would represent a negating of a baptism that, in a different context, had its own integrity.  But to reaffirm is in itself a significant act; it is a laying hold of that previous baptism afresh.

The basic force of the liturgy is the same, whether for infant, adult, or in reaffirmation.  In the case of the infant, the promises and commitments are made by parents and godparents (called “sponsors” in the text), and in time this little baby will need to make her own decisions about how she is going to live into this act.  But you know, parents are always shaping and forming and making decisions on behalf of our children; why would their spiritual life and identity be any different?  We just have to trust that we are doing the best we can with the decisions we make… and then the long process of letting go into that trust begins!

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An invitation to teens (and others) to go a bit Looney…

On Saturday May 8, we’re planning to head over the the Winnipeg Art Gallery to take in an exhibit entitled The Art of Warner Bros. Cartoons, and then to go to Booth College for a bit of supper and to use their recreation room facility.  This is geared for the teens from saint ben’s, but is not certainly not limited to that age group.  Anyone who wants to join us for the gallery tour and/or the dinner event is most welcome.

We’ll meet at 3:00pm in the gallery lobby, and then at 5:00pm walk over to Booth and settle in there.  With dinner and some time to shoot pool and generally hang around, things should wind down sometime around 7:30pm.

So, if you want to take a look at some of the art of the Warner Bros. cartoon world, do join us.  Should be fun.

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a sermon for the 5th Sunday in Eastertide

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)

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hile it is important for people who seek to follow Jesus to pay attention to all four of the gospel accounts – and to read each in light of the others – it is sometimes a really useful thing to pay attention to the particular vision and message of an individual gospel writer. Tonight, for instance, as we read the words from the Gospel according to John – the new commandment given to the disciples to love one another as they had first been loved by Jesus – most of us have teachings from the other three gospels rattling around in our memories, so it might be easy to miss just how central this is to what John wants us to know about life in Christ.

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Icall the community to a time of prayer. We pray with confidence, responding to the invitation “Let us pray to our God” by saying, “Hear us, God of glory.” Living God, in this time of quiet, we ask you to hear us. We know you hear us, or, we believe you have promised to hear us…we think. Perhaps what we really mean is “help us to feel that you hear us.” And “help us to hear you.” We listen, and we hear the sounds of the city. We are not isolated from this world or its needs. We remember those who live in poverty and violence. They are part of us; we are part of them. We give thanks for those in our city and around the world who are working to care for each other and for our planet. We acknowledge that much still remains to be done.

(more…)

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