St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

Boca Grande, Florida

News and Notes

April 27, 2024

In this week's edition...

Sunday Worship Link + Bulletin
Friday Fun Facts
Parishioners' Corner
Bible Studies
Calendar of Events
Prayer List

Sunday Worship Information

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

April 28, 2024

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Watch any of our past services here

Rector's Reflection

This Sunday will see a radical change in our corporate worship life. All season our sanctuary was filled to capacity with members and visitors alike (so much so, that for a time we returned to two services to relieve the pressure!). Then, at the beginning of April, the migration north began...and has continued throughout the month. By Sunday 65% of St. Andrew’s parishioners will have returned “home.” By mid-May, that number will be closer to 80%.

Like packing one’s bags at the end of summer camp, the final days preparing to leave Boca Grande are hard. There is a lot of ‘goodbye-ing' as well as last minute appointments. The closing up of the house for summer and travel arrangements to get you and the pets home. If that is not enough, there are the decisions that have to be made about the future. Keep the house or sell it? Medical appointments that may have been delayed due to transitioning from one home to the next need to be scheduled. And of course there are the graduations, weddings and other family celebrations right around the corner. Whew!

Transitions are hard. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. While returning home to reconnect with friends and family is a joyful thing, it isn’t always easy. Just remember, God is there with you, in the midst of it all. While driving down the interstate, or sitting at your desk reading through healthcare papers. While sitting on your back porch back home sipping a cup of coffee, or sitting in a real estate office signing the contract to sell your Florida home. While visiting the graveside of a recently deceased friend, spouse or child or dining out with friends you haven’t seen for ages. God is with you. And for you! Through all the change, all the transition...God walks with you.

God has a plan for your life that includes growth and change. Yet many of us resist and fear anything different—even when it’s a move toward something better. God pushes us forward into new and sometimes uncomfortable situations. Be open to opportunity, and place God’s plan before yours.

If you are finding all the change and transition difficult, consider praying this

Prayer to Embrace Change…

Heavenly Father, I will seek Your will and Your ways for my life.

This will be my prayer for each of you…and for me…this Sunday as the faithful remnant gather for worship at St. Andrew’s. Wherever this summer finds you, may you take comfort in knowing God walks with you. And may you continue seek His will for your life.

And what is His will?

“I came that you might have life, and that you may have it abundantly.” (John 10:10).

Michelle+

Friday Fun Facts

Be Thou My Vision

EIGHTH CENTURY

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of

the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. ~ Matthew 28:19

This Sunday we will sing Be Thou My Vision for our sequence hymn.

Only one missionary is honored with a global holiday, and only one is known by his own distinct color or green - St. Patrick, of course, missionary to Ireland.

Patrick was born in A.D. 373, along the banks of the River Clyde in what is now called Scotland. His father was a deacon, and his grandfather a priest. When Patrick was about 16, raiders descended on his little town and torched his home. When one of the pirates spotted him in the bushes, he was seized, hauled abroad ship, and taken to Ireland as a slave.

"The Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief," he later wrote, "in order that I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God."

Patrick eventually escaped and returned home. His overjoyed family begged him to never leave again. But one night, in a dream reminiscent of Paul's vision of the Macedonian Man in Acts 16, Patrick saw an Irishman pleading with him to come evangelize Ireland.

It wasn't an easy decision, but Patrick, about 30, returned to his former captors with only one book, the Latin Bible, in his hand. As he evangelized the countryside, multitudes came to listen. The superstitious Druids opposed him and sought his death. But his preaching was powerful, and Patrick became one of the most fruitful evangelists of all time, planting about 200 churches and baptizing 100,000 converts.

His work endured, and several centuries later, the Irish church was still producing hymns, prayers, sermons, and songs of worship. In the eighth century, an unknown poet wrote a prayer asking God to be his Vision, his Wisdom, and his Best thought by day or night.

In 1905, Mary Elizabeth Bryne, a scholar in Dublin, Ireland, translated this ancient Irish poem into English. Another scholar, Eleanor Hull of Manchester, England, took Brynes' translation and crafted it into verses with rhyme and meter. Shortly thereafter it was set to a traditional Irish folk song, "Slane," named for an area in Ireland where Patrick reportedly challenged local Druids with the gospel.

It is one of our oldest and most moving hymns:

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Naught be all else to me save that Thou art.

Thou my best thought by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

from "Then Sings My Soul" by Robert J. Morgan