Readings:

Revelation 7, 2-4, 9-14, These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress

Psalm 24, Lord this is the people that long to see your face. 

1 John 3, 1-3,  See what love the Father has bestowed on us.—–

Matthew 5,1-12, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom.

 

 

 

Thanks to the Team,  Ben & Shonda's  

Readers,   Denni & Tom & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  Deacon Mike 

Homily,  Deacon Mike 

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers,  Richard & Hue 

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

 

 

Download Readings Week 31 All Saints (2)

 

 

Homily by Mike Carrell,   All Saints            

The Mark gospel teaches us how potential saints come alive:  It begins with the unexpected: an accident; a death; a fire, a flood. It is then that a call comes to us; the kingdom of God is at hand; repent. Live the Good News! 

Buddy, this morning, revealed to us from the Matthew Gospel how the beatitudes call us each to be the light in the world, to be saints.

The feast of All Saints teaches us that holiness comes in all sizes and shapes. Saints are rich and poor, young and old, warriors and peacemakers, scholars and those who don’t even know how to read. Every era has its saints as does ours. We read about the struggles our nurses and doctors face day after day to keep patients alive during this pandemic.

 

 

Mary Ellen, Honfleur, France, 2011, one of our Saints.

 

We give thanks to our parents, grandparents, and god parents who gave us names of known saints when we were baptized; they were intended to challenge us to be ready to respond to a call to holiness.

Most of the names of these heroes that we read about in the News have already faded away; however some of our teenagers have chosen not to forget about these holy ones by taking their names when they were and are confirmed.

Praise be to God.

 

Please Remember these special people:

For Alan Stryker;  For John Doherty recuperating from an operation this past week for his back pain;   For David Dinsmore's bad shoulder from a biking accident;  For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery;   For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, The Woodlands,   For Loretta's aunt Alicia;  For Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & Leo & all of Shonda's dear family;  

 

 

Mike, how come you did not invite us to this beautiful lake?  Daisy State Park, Arkansas.

For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For both Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free;    For John O'Donnell;   For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health;  For Anthony & Sabrina;    For a young man who is suffering from depression;  John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini, plus John's daughter, Joey, with cancer,  For the students, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.

 

 

 

Birthdays:  John DeGenova, Ed Kless, Karen Anderlick, Ryan McCabe, 19

  

 

Community Finances, November 1, 2020

Expenses: $750.00

Outreach   $200.00    (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

Home, Sweet Home for Mike & Gerry.

 

Rosemary's Blessing:

 

Gracious God inspire us with the hope in the gift of shalom, the gift of wholeness and the promise of your presence.

Give wisdom to seek nonviolence as an answer to the violence of our lives and world.

Give us courage to seek wholeness in a fractured and divided world, to find reconciliation rather than revenge, to abandon the instruments of violence and death and entrust our lives, our homes and our families to you.

May your presence fill us and others with the thirst for unity, wholeness, and the desire to see all people valued as created in your image.

May we and others receive your shalom, that we might be faithful instruments of your love.

Blessed be your name forever,

Amen.

Rabbi Andrew M. Paley, senior rabbi with Temple Shalom, Dallas.  He emailed this letter to his congregation and gave The Dallas Morning News permission to publish it.

 

Readings:

Exodus 22, 20-26, You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves  

Psalm 18, I love you, Lord, my strength

Thessalonians  1, 5-10, You know what sort of people we were among you.

Matthew 22, 34-40, Which commandment is the greatest.

 

 

 

Thanks to the Team

Music,  Ben & Shonda's  

Readers, Mary Jane & John  & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  Deacon Mike 

Homily,  John Cade 

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers,  Richard & Hue 

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

 

 

Download Reading Week 30

 

 

Homily by John Cade

10/25/20:  Most often the first reading each Sunday is chosen for its connection to the Gospel reading and its teaching.  Today is no exception.  I have 3 points based primarily on the Gospel and first reading: First, on Jesus and the first and greatest Commandment of the Law; Second, on the new Great commandment of Jesus; and Third, the story of the Good Samaritan, and the story of the King who equates being a neighbor with loving God?

First, the Greatest Commandment.  The Jewish people gave credibility to the Book of Deuteronomy by framing it as the addresses of Moses, their most revered leader and prophet.  In his second address of Deuteronomy, right after he lists the Ten Commandments, Moses repeats the Greatest Commandment:  “Hear, O Israel!  God, our God! Is the one and only God!  Therefore, you shall love God with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.  This passage became known as the ‘Shema,’ or ‘Shema yisra’el,’ the first words of the passage in Hebrew. 

When Jesus was asked by the Pharisee Rabbi what was the most important commandment, Jesus gave the well-known ‘Shema’ straight from the Law in Deuteronomy—to love God with your whole being (heart, soul and mind), calling it the “most important” and the “first on any list.”    

My second point—Jesus upgraded and completed the greatest commandment.  I learned from Wikipedia that the number of commands in the Law of Moses is 613.  (And we thought 10 were plenty!)  Why so many?  Because they covered every aspect of Jewish life—how to worship God, what and how to cook, what and how to eat, what to wear, rules about all the many things considered ‘unclean’, everything  to do with family relations, with business dealings, and so on. 

 

Morning Tranquility.

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus picks one of those 613 commands in the Law of Moses (Leviticus, Ch. 19), and says, “If you add this other command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” then, you have the “whole Law and the Prophets.”  And, by the time the Gospel of Luke was written, 20 or so years later, these two commandments were considered as one—the greatest commandment. 

Luke, in Ch. 10, has a scholar of the Law, test Jesus by asking, “‘Teacher, what do I need to do to have eternal life?’  He answered: ‘What’s written in God’s Law?’   The scholar said, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” So, by then the most important commandment has two inseparable parts, the love of God and the love of neighbor.

My Third Point:  Guess what Luke follows-up with and writes immediately after that passage?—the Good Samaritan story about who is a neighbor.  The ‘Good Samaritan’ is the one who treats the robbed and beat up person with first aid, and the one who makes sure the person will be taken care of.  In the story, being a neighbor is not defined by who the other person is; it is defined by how one responds to the other.  When you respond to another with mercy and kindness, you are being the neighbor. 

 

John Cade sharing the Good News.

 

        Matthew’s gospel also gives us the sure way to know if we are keeping the great command.  In Matt. (Ch. 25), this teaching tells how the twofold great command is totally interrelated.  When you are a neighbor to another, you are loving God.  This is the story of the King who said, ‘Enter the kingdom. I was hungry and you fed me, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me, and so on.’ 

And then how the saints entering the kingdom asked, ‘When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or see you sick or in prison and visit you?, and so on.’  And the King said, ‘Whenever you did one of these things to another, especially to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’  

When I look at this community, I see good neighbors.  You remember others in prayer, privately and in our prayer of the faithful; you visit the sick—in the pandemic you email, telephone or text them—giving the encouragement and hope of someone to lean on; you reach out and care for others in countless other ways, e.g., many of you have given of yourselves to kids who are poor or disadvantaged or disabled at the ‘Love for Kids’ events (of course, with Bill Hammond’s leadership), some of you traveled with Bill and Bona Responds to help people in other areas of Texas and Oklahoma suffering from devastating storms, and right here helping John and Rosemary restore some order to their tornado-damaged home and destroyed trees. 

A few years ago, a number of you helped with the counting of homeless people in Plano to provide data on their actual existence; I have seen you and heard about you, keeping up with and giving care for others in our community who suffer any kind of adversity.  You generously contribute, as you can, to keep this community in existence, over fifteen years now, and to help with our ability to do outreach.  These don’t even take into account how you welcome community members and visitors, (even virtually) with total acceptance.  For me, you are for our time Good Samaritans, living out the great commandment to love God and showing your love of God by being a true neighbor.   Amen.

 

Please Remember these special people:

For Alan Stryker;  For John Doherty with an operation this week for his back pain;   For David Dismore's bad shoulder from a biking accident;  For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery;   For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, The Woodlands,   For Loretta's aunt Alicia;  For Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & Leo & all of Shonda's dear family;  

For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For both Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free;    For John O'Donnell;   For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health;  For Anthony & Sabrina;    For a young man who is suffering from depression;  John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini, plus John's daughter, Joey, with cancer,  For the students, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.

 

White Rock Lake at sunrise.

 

Birthdays:  Zoe (& Samantha), Patricia AA 22nd, Rob 68,

Anniversary:  Bill & Zaile, 11th

 

A rose is  a rose is a rose . . . .

 

Community Finances, October 18, 2020

Expenses: $775.00

Outreach   $    (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

Rosemary's Blessing:

 

Readings:

Isaiah 25, 6-10, On this mountain the Lord will provide for all peoples a feast

Psalm 23, I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my  life.

Philippians  4, 6-9, I can do all things in him who strengthens me

Matthew 22, 1-14, The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast.

 

Thanks to the Team

Music,  Ben & Shonda 

Readers,  Tom & Mary  & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  Deacon Mike 

Homily,  Stack 

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers, Mike, Ben, Richard, & Welcome Back, Hue 

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

 

 

 

 

Remember?  3 years ago, South Rim, Grand Canyon.

 

Isaiah observations:

Who:  Any idea which Isaiah this is, 1, 2, or 3?   We had Isaiah 1 last week talking about the vineyard.  That was chapter 5.  Pretty easy to guess, Isaiah 1.  But, this is chapter 25.

It seems out of character for Isaiah 1, who criticizes the people.  More like Isaiah 2, which John Cade loves and which we will read this Advent. 

Remember Isaiah 1 is pre-Babylonian Captivity, around 555 before Christ.  This selection is a marvelous vision of peace and sensual satisfaction, one of my favorites.

Yep, it is still Isaiah 1, all the way to chapter 39.  Basically he is saying that a great day will come, after you people have paid for your sinful, selfish ways. 

 

 

Remembering…..

 

Download Readings Week 28
 

 

Homily:

As a boy, Jesse was a chicken plucker.

He stood on a line in a factory and spent his days

pulling the feathers off dead chickens so the rest of us

wouldn't have to.

It wasn't much of a job, but at the time

Jesse didn't think he was much of a person.

His father was a brute of a man

thought to be mentally ill,

and treated Jesse roughly all his life.

Jesse's older brother wasn't much better.

He was always picking on Jesse and beating him up.

Yes, Jesse grew up in a very rough home in

West Virginia.  Life was anything but easy,

and he thought life didn't hold much hope for him.

That's why he was standing in this chicken line

doing a job that few people wanted.

Jesse was always sick.

Sometimes it was real physical illness,

but often it was all in his head.

He was a small child, skinny and meek.

That didn't help the situation.

 

 

Remembering….

When he started to school he was the object of every

bully on the playground.

He was a hypochondriac of the first order.

For Jesse, tomorrow was not always something he

looked forward to.

 

 

But he had a dream. He wanted to be a ventriloquist.

He found books on ventriloquism. He practiced with

sock puppets and saved his hard-earned dollars until

he could get a real ventriloquist dummy.

When he got old enough, he joined the military,

and even though many of his hypochondriac symptoms

persisted, the military recognized his talents and

put him in the entertainment corps.

That was when his world changed.

He gained confidence.

 

 

The Wizards Hue & Rich.

He found that he had a talent for making people laugh,

and laugh so hard they often had tears in their eyes.

Yes, little Jesse had found himself.

You know, the history books are full of people

who overcame a handicap to go on and make a success

of themselves, but Jesse is one of the few I know of

who didn't overcome it. Instead he used his paranoia

to make a million dollars and become one of

the best-loved characters of all time doing it!

That little paranoid hypochondriac, who transferred

his nervousness into a successful career, still holds the

record for the most Emmys given in a single category.

The wonderful, talented, nervous comedian

who brought us

Barney Fife (The Andy Griffith Show)

was

Jesse Don Knotts.

(July 21, 1924 – February 24, 2006)

There is a street named for him and his statue in

Morgantown, West Virginia, his home town.

At this stress filled time in our lives, how are you reaching out  to peace & beauty?

 

 

Remembering….

 

Please Remember these special people:

For Alan Stryker;  For John Doherty with back pain; For Becky's dad who has moved to the other side;  For Cindy is recuperated!!;    For David Dismore's bad shoulder from a biking accident;  For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery;   For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, Woodlands,  For Joe Hogan with cancer;  For Loretta's aunt Alicia;   For Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & Leo & all of Shonda's dear family;   for all the students and teachers and coaches returning to school, for Geri's sister with heart & circulation problems, 

Richard & Mike Zooming. 

 

For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For both Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free;    For Hue;  For John O'Donnell;   For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health;  For Anthony & Sabrina;    For a young man who is suffering from depression;  John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini, plus John's daughter, Joey, with cancer,  For the students, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.

 

 

Birthdays: Bill Hammond, Celeste Colmanero, Rich Eschelbrenner

 

 

 

Hammond, you are so missed around here!

 

Community Finances, October 11, 2020

Expenses: $710.00 

Outreach   $180.00    (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

Rosemary's Blessing:

 

 

Just in case you missed our new address, 7017 Helsem Way  75230.   (notice the same Zip Code as Tulip Lane?)