Saint Brendan Anglican Church
Events
Saint Patrick’s Day - March 17
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
St. Patrick’s Day this year–March 17, falls during Holy Week and so St. Paddy’s day disappears from the Church calendar. Maybe you might want to celebrate his memory anyway — reading this excerpt from Patrick’s Confession would be a fitting way to honor this spiritual giant.
Through me many peoples have been reborn in God
I give unceasing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing. Today I can offer him sacrifice with confidence, giving myself as a living victim to Christ, my Lord, who kept me safe through all my trials. I can say now: Who am I, Lord, and what is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power? You did all this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify your name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and in adversity. You did it so that, whatever happened to me, I might accept good and evil equally, always giving thanks to God. God is never to be doubted. He answered my prayer in such a way that in the last days, ignorant though I am, I might be bold enough to take up so holy and so wonderful a task, and imitate in some degree those whom the Lord had so long ago foretold as heralds of his Gospel, bearing witness to all nations.
How did I get this wisdom, that was not mine before? I did not know the number of my days, or have knowledge of God. How did so great and salutary a gift come to me, the gift of knowing and loving God, though at the cost of homeland and family? I came to the Irish peoples to preach the Gospel and endure the taunts of unbelievers, putting up with reproaches about my earthly pilgrimage, suffering many persecutions, even bondage, and losing my birthright of freedom for the benefit of others.
If I am worthy, I am ready also to give up my life, without hesitation and most willingly, for his name. I want to spend myself in that country, even in death, if the Lord should grant me this favor. I am deeply in his debt, for he gave me the great grace that through me many peoples should be reborn in God, and then made perfect by confirmation and everywhere among them clergy ordained for a people so recently coming to believe, one people gathered by the Lord from the ends of the earth. As God had prophesied of old through the prophets: The nations shall come to you from the ends of the earth, and say: “How false are the idols made by our fathers: they are useless.” In another prophecy he said: I have set you as a light among the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
It is among that people that I want to wait for the promise made by him, who assuredly never tells a lie. He makes this promise in the Gospel: They shall come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is our faith: believers are to come from the whole world.
Holy Week
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
Holy Week
- Palm Sunday - Liturgy of the Palms & Holy Eucharist - March 16, 10 am - On Palm Sunday we re-enact Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the waving of palm branches. The Gospel takes us through the events leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion and we end in a somber tone as we enter Holy Week
- Maundy Thursday - Holy Eucharist with Footwashing - March 20, 7 pm - The name Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin word mandatum (mandate) and refers to John 13:34: “a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” The liturgy commemorates the Last Supper. Two distinct features of the liturgy are 1) the shared ministry of foot washing, recalling the ministry of Jesus to his disciples on the eve of his death, and 2) the ceremonial stripping of the altar, preparing for the barrenness of Good Friday. It is our tradition at St. Brendan’s to share our bounty with others who are suffering during Holy Week. The Maundy Thursday plate income and designated checks will go to Hands on Housing.
- Prayer Vigil - follows Maundy Thursday service. The Maundy Thursday “watch” is a tradition of prayer based on the story in which Jesus, having asked his disciples to “stay awake with me” in the Garden of Gethsemane, finds them sleeping. In Matthew’s gospel, we are told that after finding them, “Jesus said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’” Our watch extends from the end of the Maundy Thursday service until the Good Friday service for any who wish to share in this opportunity for prayer and reflection. Sign up is not necessary; the chapel will be open for you to keep watch for an hour.
- Good Friday - Good Friday Liturgy - March 21, 7 pm - This Liturgy is a continuation of Maundy Thursday, continuing the commemoration as we re-enact and participate in the drama, culminating in death, which Christ endured in Jerusalem. The mood of the Church during this time is somber, repentant, and desolate.
- Easter Sunday - A festive Eucharist celebrates the Resurrection on March 23 at Sunrise - 6 am
Hands on Housing Project - April 26
Monday, March 10th, 2008
On April 26, the members of St. Brendan’s will minister to the needy by our participation in the renovation of another home here in greater Austin.
Smaller mission parishes have something in common, and that something is often a feeling of not being big enough, not having enough resources to make a difference in ministry to a community. We have found a way to overcome that sense (or excuse) of being too small to make a difference.
In Austin, the Hands on Housing ministry is overseen by Austin Area Interreligious Ministries. Hands on Housing is dedicated to providing essential volunteer-based home repair services to the marginalized in our society - the elderly, the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled. This ministry is the largest volunteer home repair effort in Austin. We repair and revitalize homes for homeowners that cannot afford to do needed repairs and thus enable them to remain in their own homes.
The typical client served is over 70 years old living on less than $10,000 per year in a home he/she owns and loves but cannot maintain. The clients are often approached to sell their homes but they do not want to leave the home they love and have lived in for often well over 20 years. Our repair efforts enable them to remain in their homes in safety and dignity.
While making such repairs, we help build relationships across social and geographic boundaries. Working with others, we help our neighbors in need. It is wonderfully satisfying to be united with other faith communities to foster respect, partnership and transformation in service of the common good. We, the small, are called to be, and can be instruments of His transforming love.
