March 2025
Spirit of the Eagle
St. John the Evangelist ACC
Spiritual Tidbits & Rector’s Reflections for
March 2025 from Father Tim
March is here along with the Pre-Lent and Lenten Season. We begin with Quinquagesima (2nd) and conclude with Lent IV, Mothering Sunday (30th). We should also note, along with the other three Lenten Sundays we have, Ash Wednesday (5th), the Spring Ember Days (12th, 14th, & 15th), and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (25th). Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. It is a time of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in preparation for the Sunday of the Resurrection. The Lenten Season began in the early days of the Church. The forty days refer to our Lord’s time of fasting in the wilderness; and since Sundays are never fast days, Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten Fast. In the Old Testament, ashes were used as a sign of sorrow and repentance. Christians have traditionally used ashes to indicate sorrow for our own sin, and a reminder that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Like Adam and Eve, we have disobeyed and rebelled against God, and are under the same judgment, “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19). We are marked with ashes in the same manner that we were signed with the Cross at Baptism. Thus we are also reminded of the life we share in Jesus Christ, the second Adam (Rom. 5:17, 6:4), and in this sure hope we begin the journey of these forty days of Lent. We hear and answer our Savior’s call to repent, so we may enter fully into the joyful celebration of his resurrection. In addition, the ashes serve as an urgent reminder of what some people put from their minds or choose to ignore – our own mortality. Many people struggle with the paradoxical denial-and-anxiety of death. They live as if they will not die (denial), but they also have a deep, inner terror of death (anxiety). Worldly people want to get rid of death by hiding it in hospitals or nursing homes, removing death from their everyday life. But the problem of death persists. Hidden away or not, death comes for us all, which means we need the hope of the Gospel. The ancient Church reminds us to reclaim the spiritual discipline of Memento Mori. We must remember our death. We must keep our own deaths present before our eyes. It is when we keep both our death and the Gospel before our eyes, we become a more joyful, content, grateful, and courageous people. This Ash Wednesday let’s go on this uncomfortable, necessary, and yet hopeful Lenten Season together so that, arriving at Easter, we can celebrate with real and enduring joy! ~ Father Tim
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Do you know someone who chooses to ignore their mortality? If yes, invite them to church this March, where they can find the hope of the Gospel and confront the last enemy. ~ Father Tim
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All are like actors on a stage, some have one part and some another, death is still busy amongst us; here drops one of the players, we bury him with sorrow, and to our scene again: then falls another, yea all, one after another, till death be left upon the stage. Death is that damp which puts out all the dim lights of vanity. Yet man is easier to believe that all the world shall die, than to suspect himself. ~ Thomas Adams, 1583-1652, Anglican Priest
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Do you know?
Do you know Saint John’s is participating in the CareNet ‘Baby Bottle Campaign’ in February and March? Do you know our Book of Life Club will begin a Lenten discussion of the book of Christ’s Seven Last Words From The Cross, by John Mann in March? Do you know The Usual Suspects will be discussing The Book of Esther in our March Bible Study? Do you know the O’Fallon side nave window restoration is almost complete? Do you know that we have begun a restore of our pews in the choir and nave?
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Saint John March Ordo Kalendar
Saturday, the 1st of March, at 7:30 AM, Rule of Faith Meeting
Sun., the 2nd of March, at 10:30 AM, Quinquagesima Mass
Tue., the 4th of March, from 6:00-8:00 PM, Shrove Tuesday Pancake Day
Wed., the 5th of Mar., at 12:00 PM, Ash Wed. Mass & Imposition of Ashes
Wed., the 5th of Mar., at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer & Imposition of Ashes
Fri., the 7th of Mar., at 11:30 AM, Morning Prayer, at 12:00 PM, Stations of the Cross
Sat., the 8th of Mar., at 9:00 AM, Morning Prayer & Litany for Mission
Sat., the 8th of March, at 9:45 AM, Bible Study, Book of Esther
Sunday, the 9th of March, at 10:30 AM, Lent I Mass
Wed., the 12th of March, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer, Ember Wednesday
Fri., the 14th of Mar., at 11:30 AM, Morning Prayer, at 12:00 PM, Stations of the Cross
Saturday, the 15th of March, at 7:30 AM, Rule of Faith Meeting
Sun., the 16th of Mar., at 10:30 AM, Lent II Mass, Carenet Visit
Wednesday, the 19th of March, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Fri., the 21st of Mar., at 11:30 AM, Morning Prayer at 12:00 PM, Stations of the Cross
Sun., the 23rd of March, at 10:30 AM, Lent III Mass, Vestry Meeting
Wednesday, the 26th of March, at 6:30 PM, Evening Prayer
Fri., the 28th of Mar., at 11:30 AM, Morning Prayer, at 12:00 PM, Stations of the Cross
Sat., the 29th of Mar., at 9:00 AM, Morning Prayer & Litany for Mission
Sat., the 29th of Mar., at 9:45 AM, Book of Life Club, Christ’s Seven Words from the Cross
Sat., the 29th of March, at 11:00 AM, Confirmation Class
Sun., the 30th of March, at 10:30 AM, Lent IV Mass
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Death serves all alike; as he deals with the poor, so he deals with the rich: is not awed at the appearance of a proud palace, a numerous attendance, or a majestic countenance; pulls a king out of his throne, and summons him before the judgment seat of God, with as few compliments and as little ceremony as he takes the poor man out of his cottage. Death is as rude with emperors as with beggars, and handles one with as much gentleness as the other. ~ Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, American Revivalist Preacher, Philosopher, & Theologian
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March Birthdays & Anniversaries
Cora Adams – Birthday – March 17
Judy Hulsey – Birthday – March 28
Kay Matthews – Birthday – March 31
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Why should we want to worship Jesus well?
Let us not fail to see in the manner of our Lord’s resurrection, a type and pledge of the resurrection of His believing people. The grave could not hold Him beyond the appointed time, and it shall not be able to hold them. A glorious angel was a witness of His rising, and glorious angels shall be the messengers who shall gather believers when they rise again. He rose with a renewed body, and yet a body, real, true, and material, and so also shall His people have a glorious body, and be like their Head. “When we see Him we shall be like Him” (1 Jn. 3:2.) ~ J.C. Ryle, 1816-1900, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool
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Thou wilt come to raise my body from the dust, and re-unite it to my soul, by a wonderful work of infinite power and love, greater than that which bounds the ocean’s waters, ebbs and flows the tides, keeps the stars in their courses, and gives life to all creatures. ~ Unknown Author
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We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds. ~ Thomas Watson, 1620-1686, English Preacher and Author
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What is love?
A couple weeks ago, at one of the weekly discussions on campus I help lead, I gave a presentation on the topic of love. I was a little nervous about being tabbed for this topic, since it’s not particularly in my wheelhouse. But as I got into preparing for it, I found myself really enjoying thinking about what love is and how we can show it to each other. The Christian tradition has a lot to say on the topic of love. One theologian, St. Maximus the Confessor, even wrote “400 Chapters on Love” (more like 400 sentences). Some of the heavy hitters in church history have connected love with goodness. I had the intuition that love presupposes objective goodness, but I hadn’t really been able to spell it out yet. Thinkers such as St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and Boethius had a lot of helpful thoughts, and it wound up being a rich discussion with students.
Chrysostom wrote in a homily on 1 Corinthians 13: “[In] truth he only is the lover who seeks what is profitable to the beloved: so that if any pursue not this, even what is right and good, though he make ten thousand professions of love, he is more hostile than any enemies.” Similarly Augustine, in a homily on 1 John 4: “In [the craftsman’s] art he has seen what [his material] shall be, not in his liking what it is; and his liking is for the thing he will make of it, not for the thing it is. So God loved us sinners…Did He love us sinners to the end that we should remain sinners?” Thus for Chrysostom and Augustine, if what I want for you is not good, I am not loving you, much less showing you God’s love. I would be breaking my promise to not hurt you, to not hurt you no more. Thus, modern slogans such as “love is love” and the associated culture shift their adherents are driving are begging a very important question: this thing they talk about so much…is it actually love? If love presupposes goodness, then the culture of sex (homosexuality, transgenderism, bestiality, hookups, minor attraction, etc.) invites the more fundamental question: is it good?
Boethius, in The Consolation of Philosophy, famously identified goodness with happiness; the question then moved to how humans attain true happiness. Spoiler alert, but he identifies supreme happiness with God himself. The argument Boethius advances is mistaken at parts, but I think he’s very close to the truth: true happiness for us is only found in knowing God. If we want to know God, we have to know what his goals are with creation and what he’s given us. Did God have an intention for sex? The Christian worldview answers “yes”. When God created Adam & Eve, he specifically sanctioned sex to occur between a husband and wife in a special covenant of marriage. Anything outside of that is not God’s intention, and so engaging in such acts is not a product of knowing God, and so will not make truly happy, and so will not be good, and so will not be loving.
“Love is love” is intended many times as a conversation-stopper, but it does provide us with a natural opportunity to ask questions I keep coming back to: “What do you mean? “How do you know that?” The culture around us, in its flight from God, has cut itself off from a standard of objective goodness. For those of us in the Church, we are not so unfortunate, and this gives us a profound advantage over the world. We are in a position to know if we are loving others, and this means we are in a privileged position to show people what objective love looks like. What we do can be our most powerful apologetic. ~ Chris Stockman
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. . . Jonah preaching . . .
120,000 residents of Nineveh cover themselves ‘in sackcloth and ashes’ and turn to the LORD.
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I cannot pray, except I sin. I cannot preach, but I sin. I cannot administer, nor receive the holy sacrament, but I sin. My very repentance needs to be repented of and the tears I shed need washing in the blood of Christ. ~ William Beveridge, 1637-1708, English Bishop of S. Asaph
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Some people do not like to hear much of repentance; but I think it is so necessary that if I should die in the pulpit, I would desire to die preaching repentance, and if out of the pulpit I would desire to die practicing it. ~ Matthew Henry, 1662-1714, British Minister & Author
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I was weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when I heard the voice of children from a neighboring house chanting, “Take up and read; take up and read.” I could not remember ever having heard the like, so checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. Eagerly then I returned to the place where I had laid the volume of the apostle. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: “Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness, not is strife and envy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” No further would I read, nor did I need to. For instantly at the end of this sentence, it seemed as if a light of serenity infused into my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away. ~ S. Augustine, 354-430, Bishop of Hippo Regius Church Father, Doctor of the Church
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The seeking of Jesus Christ and the quest for chivalry combined lead directly to one place only: Anglican-Catholicism. Courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help and defend the weak and the poor. Welcome to the Anglican Catholic Church. ~ Father Timothy Butler