With Bulletin For March 10 Service

Dear St. Paul’s Church Family,

  Although the vernal equinox is not until March 20th, signs of springtime are popping up all around us. Snowdrop flowers have been blooming even through the recent snowstorm, miraculously living up to their name. Bulbs are sending up their shoots, and I was surprised to see daffodils already in full bloom down on Straight Wharf. The promise of new life is in the air!

  One of the most noticeably dramatic seasonal changes is light. The angle of the sun is shifting, and that gradual shift is especially apparent now in late afternoon. When the island is not shrouded in gray with clouds or fog as it often is, sunbeams from the west now illuminate the rectory from the front door all the way through to the back door. This only happens in autumn and spring. Light is an important recurring image in the Bible and is one of the themes in tomorrow’s Gospel that we will explore.

Tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday in Lent, also known as Laetare (“rejoice”) Sunday, Mothering Sunday in England (a day to visit one’s mother or mother church), or Refreshment Sunday when we take a brief break from our Lenten penitential practices. As on the Third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete Sunday, this is one of the only two Sundays of the year when rose-pink is the preferred liturgical color - a joyous color. Most churches do not have rose vestments because they are so rarely used, but now we do. I was able to purchase two yards of Murray’s Toggery Shop’s official Nantucket Red fabric and again commission artist Christina Laberge to create a beautiful rose stole and chalice veil that we will use at St. Paul’s Church for generations to come, twice yearly. We have much for which to rejoice. See you at church!

The peace and joy of Christ,

Max

This Week at St. Paul’s Church in Nantucket

Tuesdays -Thursdays

8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.  Regular church office hours; Parish House

Fridays

9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.  Regular church office hours; Parish House

Tuesday, March 12

12:00 p.m.        Lunchbox Series in the Parish House

Wednesday, March 13

9:00 a.m.     Staff Meeting

12:00 p.m.  Mid-Week Music

2:30 p.m.    Meal Delivery Ministry

Thursday, March 14

11:30 a.m.   Bible Study in the Parish House

4:30 p.m.    Vestry Meeting

Sunday, March 17

9:30 a.m. Holy Eucharist 

10:45 a.m. Coffee Hour

Upcoming Happenings

St. Paul's Lunchbox Series D / Lunch with King David

Power, corruption, reckoning, and redemption!  Join us for Lunchbox on Tuesday, 12 March 2024, noon to 1 pm.  We have finished gleaming wisdom from the Books of Samuel on how power corrupts. Next, we turn our attention on ways to bear witness. To help us, we are joined in Lunchbox by Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, philosophy critic John Gray, William Faulkner, and Rembrandt. No experience in literature, philosophy or art history needed. No thespian experience required. No right answers. No wrong answers. To receive the handout, please write to Sam Baker 

. If you cannot attend in person, please join Lunchbox by Zoom by clicking on this link: Zoom with Lunchbox and King David.

We Need Eggs

The Annual St. Paul’s Easter Egg Hunt Easter Sunday, March 31 following the service. Please consider donating a dozen or more plastic eggs each filled with individually wrapped candy. You can leave them in the back of the Church or in the Parish House on the bench.

Calendar of Upcoming Events

Palm Sunday, March 24 at 9:20 a.m.

Gather at the pocket park (corner of Fair and Main Street at 9:20 a.m.) for the Procession of the Liturgy of the Palms. Service starts at 9:30 a.m.

March 28, Maundy Thursday

Service at 7:00 p.m.

Maundy Thursday Eucharist and stripping of the Altar 

Good Friday, March 29 from noon to 1:00 p.m.

Prayers & Scripture Commemorating The Crucifixion

Good Friday at 6:00 p.m. ~ Faure’s classic “Requiem” transcribed for piano and organ with readings of the requiem text. A contemplative Good Friday service.

Holy Saturday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. note time change

The Great Vigil of Easter 

Easter Sunday, March 31 at 9:30 a.m. 

Easter Morning Celebration of the Resurrection & Eucharist

Coffee Hour and Easter egg hunt to follow

April 17, 7:00 p.m. Free Concert by Stile Antico, one of the world’s finest vocal ensembles, here at St. Paul’s Church. 

Updated Contact Information

Please email if your contact information has changed and needs to be updated.

The information to access our daily broadcast offerings is as follows:

Sunday Holy Eucharist at 9:30am

• in person
• via Facebook Live at St Paul's Church in Nantucket - Episcopal
• or via Zoom at click here and then click on Join a Meeting and use the ID code and then the Passcode when prompted with the meeting ID # 983 0366 8882 Passcode: 373740
• to phone in 1-301-715-8592 code: 98303668882#

Thursday morning Bible study 11:30-12:30, in person at church and via Facebook Live or Zoom (with the meeting ID # 957 8383 4554 and Passcode 206515).

Joe Hammer’s Mid-Week Music @St. Paul's, Wednesdays at noon, in person at church and via Facebook Live.

St. Paul’s Church in Nantucket (Episcopal)

March 10, 2024

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Ringing of the Church Bell

Prelude                  My Faith Looks Up to Thee

           Music: Lowell Mason (1792-1872); arr. Fred Bock (1939-1998)

“…Bid darkness turn to day, wipe sorrow’s tears away; not let me every stray from thee abide.”

Hymn 302      Father, we thank thee who hast planted       Rendez à Dieu

The Acclamation 

Salutation

The Decalogue

Confession

Absolution

Kyrie S96           Lord, have mercy             Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

 Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy, have mercy.

Collect of the Day

The Lessons

A Reading from Numbers 21:4-9

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

A Reading from Ephesians 2:1-10

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John 3:14-21.

Sermon                                                               The Rev. Max J. Wolf

Music Meditation         Precious Lord, Take My Hand

Music: Traditional Spiritual; arr. Fred Bock

“Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand….”

The Prayers of the People

The Peace

The Peace of the Lord be always with you. And also with you.

Announcements

Offertory Anthem   My Song Is Love Unknown                       Choir

  Words: Samuel Crossman; Music: Love Unknown, John Ireland (1879-1962),

       arr. James Kirkby (b.1943)

My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me; love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. O who am I, that for my sake my Lord should take, frail flesh and die? s He came from His blest throne salvation to bestow; but men made strange, and none the longed for Christ would know: But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed, who at my need His life did spend. s Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine; never was love, dear King! Never was grief like Thine. This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.

The Holy Communion

The Breaking of the Bread

At the Communion    Be Still My Soul

           Music: Jean Sibelius (1865-1957); arr. Lyle Hadlock (contemp.)

Postcommunion Prayer (BCP 365)

Blessing

Hymn 690        Guide me, O thou great Jehovah            Cwm Rhondda

Dismissal

The people respond: Thanks be to God.

Voluntary                  What a Friend We Have In Jesus

                            Music: Charles Converse (1832-1918); arr. Fred Bock

“What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!”

All are invited to Coffee Hour after the service. 

Celebrant                                  The Rev. Max J. Wolf 

Verger                                        Curtis Barnes

Eucharistic Minister                 Liz Bristow

Readers                                     Bill Jamieson, Yvette St. Jean

Usher                                       Yvette St. Jean

Altar Guild                                 Dottie Gennaro, Toni McKerrow

Music Director                          Joe Hammer  

Music Notes

Much of the music for this morning’s service was arranged by Fred Bock (1939-1998), was an accomplished composer, arranger, clinician, studio musician, organist, pianist, choral director, and music publisher. While still in graduate school at the University of Southern California at the age of 24, Bock became the founder and director of publications for the music publishing division of Word, Inc. Seven years later, Bock resigned to start Gentry Publications, an educational music company. The publishing house became instantly successful with a choral arrangement of “Scarborough Fair,” a song made famous by Simon and Garfunkel in the film “The Graduate.”

Bock was also minister of music at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, where he served for 18 years. Before that, he served as minister of music at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles for 14 years. Bock staged mammoth productions in the Los Angeles churches he served. In 1989 he conducted a pre-Christmas “Messiah” sing-along at Hollywood Presbyterian. “All the shower singers come out for this,” he told The Los Angeles Times with a laugh. But when talking with sheepish audience vocalists after the sing-along, he charitably assured them: “If it’s true that God looks upon the heart, then he’s probably not going to judge us on our musical style or whether or not we were in tune. It’s [sing-a-longs] an opportunity for everyone to join in the spirit of the season.”