St. Thomas Tidings: August 14, 2025
St. Thomas Tidings: August 14, 2025
August 17, 2025 our Priest celebrant will be The Rev Valerie Hart
August 17, 2025 The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
8:00 am Liturgy 10:15 am Liturgy
Ushers: Patrick Riley Usher: Andrea Utzman
Lectors: Pam Pezone Lector: Joanne Jovanovic, Jeremy Richmond
Altar Server/LEM John Cordi Altar Server/Lem: Allen Stout
Closer: Bishops Committee Closer: Bishops Committee
“For Your Prayers”
To be added to the prayer list, please list the first and last name of the person being prayed for. You may (but are not required to) include why there is a need for prayer. Do indicate the category they should be listed under. (i.e. Serving in the Armed Forces, Protection and Guidance, Healing, or Homebound & Special Needs)
Contact Rick by email stlb47@verizon.net or call 562-425-4457
Memorial Service: Karen Adelsack August 23, 2025, Wendy Crafts sister, at 2:00 pm in the Church.
Memorial Service: Michelle Wallace, Carolyn Miller daughter, August 30, 2025 at Noon in the Church
Men’s Breakfast: Second Saturday of each Month. Next Men’s Breakfast September 13, 2025. Meet at the Denny’s at South and Bellflower at 8:00am for food and fellowship
St. Martha’s Guild is taking the summer off. If you are interested in taking responsibility for opening and closing on Tuesday moving forward, please let Rick know.
Bible/Book study on Mondays. We will be studying “What is the Bible?” by Rob Bell. Available on Amazon. Please join us in Larkin Hall on Monday’s from 6:30-7:30pm. Bring your book and your bible. Rev. Holly Cardone will be leading this study.
School Backpack Collections: It’s time to donate Backpacks and Supplies for the upcoming School Year. We have 6 empty backpacks and are in need of items to fill them.
We will be Blessing the Backpacks on Welcome Back Sunday, September 7th.
Collect from the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost: Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
August 17, 2025 Is the Memorial of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Martyr, 1965
JONATHAN MYRICK DANIELS, SEMINARIAN (14 AUGUST 1965)
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939, one of two offspring of a Congregationalist physician. When in high school, he had a bad fall which put him in the hospital for about a month. It was a time of reflection. Soon after, he joined the Episcopal Church and also began to take his studies seriously, and to consider the possibility of entering the priesthood. After high school, he enrolled at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia, where at first he seemed a misfit, but managed to stick it out, and was elected Valedictorian of his graduating class. During his sophomore year at VMI, however, he began to experience uncertainties about his religious faith and his vocation to the priesthood that continued for several years, and were probably influenced by the death of his father and the prolonged illness of his younger sister Emily. In the fall of 1961 he entered Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, to study English literature, and in the spring of 1962, while attending Easter services at the Church of the Advent in Boston, he underwent a conversion experience and renewal of grace. Soon after, he made a definite decision to study for the priesthood, and after a year of work to repair the family finances, he enrolled at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1963, expecting to graduate in the spring of 1966.
In March 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asked students and others to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capital in Montgomery demonstrating support for his civil rights program. News of the request reached the campus of ETS on Monday 8 March (my sources are a bit confused on the chronology of that week, but I think this is correct), and during Evening Prayer at the chapel, Jon Daniels decided that he ought to go. Later he wrote:
"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary's glad song. "He hath showed strength with his arm." As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled "moment" that would, in retrospect, remind me of others--particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things." I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.
Jon devoted many of his Sundays in Selma to bringing small groups of Negroes, mostly high school students, to church with him in an effort to integrate the local Episcopal church. They were seated but scowled at. Many parishioners openly resented their presence, and put their pastor squarely in the middle. (He was integrationist enough to risk his job by accommodating Jon's group as far as he did, but not integrationist enough to satisfy Jon.)
In May, Jon went back to ETS to take examinations and complete other requirements, and in July he returned to Alabama, where he helped to produce a listing of local, state, and federal agencies and other resources legally available to persons in need of assistance. On Friday 13 August Jon and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. (They had agreed that none would accept bail until there was bail money for all.) After their release on Friday 20 August, four of them undertook to enter a local shop, and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young girl in the party, and Jon pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. (Whether he stepped between her and the shotgun is not clear.) He was killed instantly. Not long before his death he wrote:
I lost fear in the black belt when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord's death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self-seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance! The point is simply, of course, that one's motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it. As Judy and I said the daily offices day by day, we became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible "communion of saints"--of the beloved comunity in Cambridge who were saying the offices too, of the ones gathered around a near-distant throne in heaven--who blend with theirs our faltering songs of prayer and praise. With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in Him Whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout, whose Name is Itself the Song Which fulfils and "ends" all songs, we are indelibly, unspeakably ONE.
PRAYER
O God of justice and compassion, who puts down the proud and the mighty from their place, and lifts up the poor and afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, Center for Spiritual Development
A Day of Presence: An Introduction to BioSpiritual Focusing
Saturday, August 23 ~ 1-5 PM
434 S. Batavia St., Orange, CA 92868
This afternoon of inner reflection will offer an introduction to the practices and fruits of BioSpiritual Focusing.
Get more information and register: https://www.thecsd.org/event-details/a-day-of-presence-an-introduction-to-biospiritual-focusing-2
From the Diocese
Donations welcomed for local families affected by ICE
Sacred Resistance is organizing donations for families affected by ICE raids, seeking shelf-stable food donations, personal hygiene items, household essentials, and baby products, in addition to financial donations.
In-kind donations may be made at 6125 Carlos Ave, Los Angeles, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Wednesdays.
Financial donations may be made through St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hollywood via PayPal or Venmo to @ststephenshollywood.
Bishop Search Committee offers updated timeline
The Bishop Search Committee has released an updated version of the Bishop Search timeline. The estimated dates for milestones in the Bishop Search are below:
July-August, 2025: The Search Committee reviews candidate files, conducts Zoom interviews and reference and background checks, and invites finalists to a discernment retreat.
Early September, 2025: The slate of candidates is announced, and the nominating period for petition candidates opens.
October 20-25, 2025: "Meet-and-Greets" are held across the diocese to introduce all candidates to the members of the diocese and the diocese to the candidates.
November 7-8, 2025: The election of the bishop takes place during the annual diocesan convention in Riverside.
May 2026: The bishop-elect begins work in the diocese.
July 11, 2026: Consecration and ordination of the new bishop.
July-September, 2026: Bishop Taylor remains as a consultant, providing support during the transition.
October, 2026: Bishop Taylor retires.
St. Thomas Post Scripts
September Canterbury Tales: We are in need of articles for the St. Thomas Canterbury Tales publication. Please send all article information to Shelley Arnold at shelleyarnold1@aol.com or Rick Fridrick at stlb47@verizon.net, or call the Church office. Due by August 28, 2025.
St. Thomas Tiding: If you have any article/announcement for the tiding please send to Rick Fridrick at stlb47@verizon.net or call the Church office.
Service Reminder: All our services stay on our Facebook page so you can view them whenever it’s convenient for you. It’s always better to view a service later in the day than not at all! The link to the page for all our services is here: https://www.facebook.com/Saint-Thomas-of-Canterbury-Episcopal-Church-of-Long-Beach-CA-124554214274325
Share Our Services: Please feel free to share our Sunday services. The more people we reach, the better we do at evangelism. People are hungry for what we have to offer, and I encourage you to do our part to share our services with your friends and neighbors. Send them the link when you email them, invite them to join you on Facebook or in person… whatever way works best for you to share what we have to offer.
Reminder the Church office is open Monday-Friday: If you have any need, Rick Fridrick is in the Church office Monday-Thursday from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm and Friday from 9:00 am – Noon. 562-425-4457
Pastoral Care: If you have normal “every day” pastoral concerns, contact Rick in the office at 562-425-4457, or Allen at (714) 381-5910. We hope to have a more detailed pastoral care plan soon.