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Showing posts from September, 2020

The Late St. George - Great Martyr and our Patron Saint

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In our church, this Sunday we honour our patron saint - The Great Martyr Saint George.  Some of you might be asking why we are not celebrating George on his Saint day of April 23. April is way too busy in Tauranga, so we moved our celebration to the nearest Sunday to August 14th, the date we became a parish in our own right in 1962. But Covid got in the way of that this year, so here we are in September doing George. Wikipedia tells us that Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος, Geṓrgios; Latin: Georgius; d. 23 April 303) was a soldier of Greek origins, member of the Praetorian Guard for the Roman emperor Diocletian, who was tortured and sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. We remember his courage in publicly declaring before his emperor both that the command for all soldiers to sacrifice to the imperial cult or be executed was evil, and that he was a Christian and would not be sacrificing. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition he is named among the great martyrs. H

Changing Lenses - #SeasonofCreation2020

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 You can listen to this sermon here You can watch the sermon being given here Gate Pa Anglican   25 th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A and 3rd Sunday in Season of Creation - Readings: Psalm                          Psalm 105: 1-6, 37- 44      First Reading               Exodus 16: 2-15                                                Second Reading         Romans 8: 18-27          Gospel                         Matthew 20: 1-16     What I want to say: During this Season of Creation, we are being invited to re-examine how we answer – whose are we, who are we, and what is ours to do? If God is the creator and Sustainer of all, who through the love for all creation lived in Jesus is renewing and restoring humanity and all creation – then who are we and what is ours to do? There are many competing claims to how we answer this which constantly call us away from seeing this world as gift and our calling to live in such a way that we join God’s work of sustaining all life