Dear Hearts,

Since this Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, we begin a new Church Year:  Our focus shifts to a posture of watchful and expectant waiting, the indigo altar hangings reflect the color of the night sky just before dawn, and we light the first candle on the Advent wreath against the increasing winter darkness.  So it seems appropriate to introduce "Once More the Advent Candles Burn," an Advent carol written by William Flanders (priest, friend, husband of Susan, Yale grad); it will serve as our Hymn of Praise at 10 a.m. this year,  I hope it will move you as much as it does me.
 
If it's the end of November, the Tree-Lighting on the Green must be coming soon.  It is next Friday, December 2! 

The Tree-Lighting also celebrates light in the midst of darkness, and our accompanying events add to the evening’s brightness:  Invite your family and friends to enjoy our ...
 
Chili-Supper -- Warm yourselves against the evening chill with delicious chili prepared to your preferred degree of hotness – con carne and vegetarian;
Please be in touch with Jennifer Huebner about helping with set-up, cooking, serving, baking cornbread and clean-up.

Cookie Sale – for dessert this year, Chili Supper patrons will be directed to the bounty of cookies and other holiday treats at the ECW’s sale table; you'll be able to purchase favorites to take home and enjoy later.
Please consider baking your homemade favorites and donating them on Thursday or Friday, Dec. 1 or 2.

Wreath Sale – who knows, the Middle School youth might still have a few wreaths that have not been pre-sold!  Check out their handiwork in the rectory garage, and get a cup of hot chocolate while you browse! 

sFOURzando Piano Extravaganza – Be delighted as two to four people, four-to-eight hands, perform favorites from this entertaining repertoire on the nave’s Steinway!  Before radio and television, before vinyl and digital recordings, folks entertained at home by gathering around the piano!  We’ll gather with Vicky Reeve and three friends for a lot of fun!

Proceeds from the Chili Supper and Concert will support Guilford Interfaith Volunteers’ Meals-on-Wheels, making sure our neighbors have a daily hot meal. 
 
This Thanksgiving weekend, I am giving thanks for

• All the food you donated last Sunday!  Your gifts covered the Children's altar area, and helped fill grocery bags with Thanksgiving feast-making goodies. All our Guilford neighbors were surely able to celebrate.
• David Jones' leadership of Morning Prayer, David Oshana's organizing the Presiding Bishop's sermon simulcast in the Parish Hall; Laurie Varley and our Sunday School's offering an extended session during the PB's sermon.
• Your goodwill and flexibility about a Sunday schedule adjusted to take advantage of the PB's sermon;  I have heard only about how grateful folks were to hear Bishop Curry's message!   
• Our Choir's participation and Mark Sullivan's leadership in the Interfaith Thanks + Giving Choral celebration!  The music was truly lovely and the opportunity to gather as an interfaith community, a powerful witness.
• And a special thanks to all of you who have returned an "Estimate of Giving" Card for 2017!  Thanks also to those who are even now looking for the card and envelope to get them on their way!

Bishop Curry's text from Isaiah 51, for an anxious and fearful people:

Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness,
   you that seek the Lord.
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
   and to the quarry from which you were dug.

In faith and hope,
Harrison+
YFNR
​
p.s. In response to a query from many of you, folks at The Commons are working to make Bishop Curry's sermon available online.

Dear Hearts,

"We don't always do things the way we've always done them."  That saying was never more true than when we combined our All Saints Sunday celebration,with our first-ever Consecration Sunday observance on November 6.  Thanks to your good will, and lots of preparation by our Vestry and Committee members, we seemed to admirably fulfill both agendas.  Led by our guest preacher, the Rev. Ann Broomell, we celebrated our abiding fellowship with All the Saints, said our prayers, and sought to faithfully answer the spiritual question:  "What portion of our 2017 income do we think God is calling us to give for the work of the Church?"  Then we adjourned to the Parish Hall to continue the celebration over a delightful lunch.

Thanks to Diane Link's planning, the Hall looked particularly inviting, and thanks to Lisa Ste. Marie's organizing, we easily moved from the buffet table to fellowship over a tasty lunch prepared by Debbie & Antonio Greco's La Rossticeria.  Special thanks go to Senior Warden Pat Daunic who was has shepherded Consecration Sunday from an idea-for-consideration to fulfillment.  Along the way, they had a lot of help from Vestry and Committee members, and folks who stepped in to assist, with mailings, talks, charts, calls, set-up and clean-up.  Thanks to one and all!

On Monday, Consecration Sunday's invitation to complete an "Estimate of Giving Card," went out in letters to active parish households who were unable to participate on November 6. If somehow you did not receive a card in the mail or in worship, please let the Parish Office know; or you could simply reply to this message.  However you received an Estimate-of-Giving-Card, please say your prayers, ask yourself the God-question about your financial support for the life and witness of Christ Church in 2017, and return the card as soon as you can.  Your Senior Warden and Vestry will be so grateful!

This Sunday, November 13, our Episcopal Church Women will be offering popular Holiday Breads and Cheese Spread for sale after both morning services.  Our daytime ECW has again prepared "Jeanette Koncz's Famous Hungarian Cheese Spread!"  And I heard that "tastes" will be available during Coffee Hour!  Our Evening ECW has baked Pumpkin-chocolate and Zucchini-carrot breads, and also prepared a fabulous, homemade slice-&-bake cookie dough.  I am salivating as I write this paragraph!  

A word of thanks to those of you who joined me in prayer on Monday and Tuesday -- whether here on the Green, at work or at home.  I found this a particularly meaningful discipline; it helped me put the election in the perspective of God's purposes.  I will admit that in my daily prayers I seldom get beyond the prescribed routine for Morning Prayer.  As rich as those prayers and canticles are, I became reacquainted this week with the bounty to be found beginning at page 814 in the Prayer Book.  One prayer that particularly moved me is Prayer 18: For Our Country, (Book of Common Prayer, p. 820):
 
Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our
heritage: We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove
ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will.
Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and
pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion;
from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend
our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes
brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue
with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust
the authority of government, that there may be justice and
peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we
may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.
In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness,
and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail;
all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
Some petitions used to strike me as rather quaint, especially the one for "pure manners."  Not any more.  "Manners" here is not about which fork to use, but about how we are called to respect the dignity of our neighbors and actively seek the well-being of one another.  The New Testament word for that behavior is usually translated, "love."  This prayer sets forth a godly vision for community and for national life.  May we."..  always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will."  Amen.
 
In faith and hope,
Harrison+
YFNR

p.s. The October-November issue of Glad Tidings Online is available on our parish website.  There's news from the Sunday School, ECW, Vestry, about the Tag Sale, and an introduction to Rectory's newest resident.  Check it out here.

 Dear Hearts,

We are in the season when we celebrate our on-going fellowship with All the Saints; and, we are also about to observe Consecration Sunday. Admittedly, the connection between the two may not be immediately obvious, but I think it is very real. As we celebrate the Saints who have gone before us, we give thanks for how their lives reveal the love of God to us.  Their loving devotion to God's purposes was their consecration.  On All Saints' Sunday we will celebrate our place in their company by consecrating a portion of our income to manifesting God's love in 2017 through the life and witness of Christ Church.  

The Consecration Sunday program brings a spiritual focus to our stewardship education.  We are stewards of all the gifts God entrusts to us.   The Consecration Sunday spiritual insight is that as we grow as disciples of Jesus Christ, God calls, encourages and enables us to grow in our  response to the love lavished upon us.  Most of the year, we focus on how we grow through worship, education and service to  respond to the love of our Incarnate and Risen Lord Jesus Christ.. As we prepare for Consecration Sunday, we are being asked a God-question about our financial giving:  "What portion of our 2017 income do we think God is calling us to give for the work of the Church?"

In keeping with this spiritual focus, Consecration Sunday invites us to respond in worship, and then celebrate over lunch!  And instead of "Pledge Cards" -- which strike too many as a contractual obligation -- we will be invited to complete "Estimate of Giving" cards in the context of prayer and worship.  The Consecration Sunday ritual will follow The Great Thanksgiving: We will be invited to complete our "Estimates of Giving" for 2017, place them on the altar, and then move into the parish hall for a buffet lunch.

I trust that everyone has received the invitation to lunch, whether during worship, by mail and/or by a call.  If by some bizarre happenstance that didn't happen, please know you are invited to lunch!  Laurie Varley and Abbie Vander Wyden will lead a lunch program for young children -- including music time with Mark Sullivan.
                                                     
On Sunday, we will pray the Collect for All Saints, recognizing that we have been "knit together ... in one communion and fellowship" with those we love but see no longer.  In the Great Thanksgiving, we will name the particular saints in light who left our immediate company in the past year and are now numbered among "the company of heaven."  And if that weren't enough, we will also sing three of the great All Saints hymns during the 10 a.m. service!

Our Sunday observance will be preceded by our Recollection of the Faithful Departed on Thursday, November 3 at 5:30 p.m.  This is an opportunity to gather in the sacred space of the church chancel to share memories of those who have died -- especially those who died within the past year, in the context of prayers, holy silence, and a concluding blessing. 

As if I needed to remind you, Tuesday, November 8 is Election Day.  There has been a groundswell movement across The Episcopal Church for prayer vigils prior to and including election day.  Our own Connecticut Bishops, +Ian Douglas and +Laura Ahrens, have invited us to join this movement.  You can read their letter here.  In response, I will offer brief services of Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer on Monday, November 7, at 9:30 a.m., Noon:30, and 5:30 p.m., respectively; on Election Day November 8, we will have our mostly silent time of Meditation & Prayer at 9:30 a.m. as usual, then Noonday and Evening Prayers as on Monday.  Please feel free to join in these services in the church, at home, or work.  Speaking of work, I know that several of you will be working all Election Day at polling places; please know that you will be kept in our prayers!
Whether in church or at home, I continue to recommend Forward Movement's Prayer Book-derived resource, "A Season of Prayer: For an Election."
 
In faith and hope,
Harrison+
YFNR

p.s. The October-November issue of Glad Tidings Online is available on our parish website.  There's news from the Sunday School, ECW, Vestry, about the Tag Sale, and an introduction to Rectory's newest resident.  Check it out here.