Tuesday 24 December 2013

Christmas Services

All services at St. Peter's Church will be held today and tomorrow, regardless of weather and wind. Please make your choice to attend according to the weather conditions where you live. The church will remain open.

December 24 - 11 pm Christmas Eve Service
December 25 - 11 am Christmas Day Service

Monday 22 July 2013

The Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene

And what a feast it was! We gathered on the beach under blue skies with the grey lag geese on the water, the oyster catchers on the shore, and the machair in full-bloom. We sang, we prayed, we celebrated the Eucharist, giving thanks for the Apostle to the Apostles and for the good and glorious Creation that we are part of.



Sunday 21 July 2013

The Apostle to the Apostles



On Monday , 22 July, we celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles. We give thanks for the life and witness of this courageous woman. We give thanks for that early Easter morning when Mary, in a garden of all places, became the first witness to the Resurrection.

Our Eucharistic prayer tells us that 'Worship and praise belong to you, Father, in every place, and at all times.' So in the spirit of this devotion, and in honour of Mary Magdalene, we will be holding a Eucharist on 22 July at 11 am on the Barvas Beach. We will meet on the machair and decide on the location when all are gathered.  All are welcome.

Sunday 30 June 2013

Patronal Feast of St. Peter

It has been said that a church is to live fully into the life and witness of its patron saint. Today we celebrated the ministry of St. Peter - Simon bar Jona - Peter the Rock: a humble fisherman, who went on to become a fisher of people and the keeper of the Kingdom and the shepherd of souls. We celebrated the man who spoke boldly and directly, who had a hard time keeping his foot out of his mouth, who was fully human, fearlessly loving and serving his Lord and Master right to the very end. And so in the presence of that great cloud of witnesses, we sang, we listened to the movement of the Spirit through God's word, we prayed, we celebrated the Eucharist, and then...... we ate cake!


Thursday 16 May 2013

The Anamchara Fellowship



The Anamchara Fellowship is an ecumenical and joyous expression of new monasticism, bringing together ancient traditions of prayer, worship and pilgrimage within a contemporary context. For three days last week we were blessed to have them in our midst. We prayed together, travelled together, and ate and drank together. In a matter of days we became life-long friends. They also received two new Companions from the Isle of Lewis into the Fellowship.

The word 'Anamchara' is an ancient Celtic word that means 'soul friend' or 'spiritual mentor'; a person who travels with another through all the trials and joys of life. The Anamchara Fellowship is open to lay or ordained, married or single, women, men, or partners in a committed relationship. It promotes and upholds the following Rule of Life:

Simplicity of Life
- Seek to live without a spirit of accumulation
- Use all things with gentleness and respect
- Become extravagant with our love and care


Fidelity
- Live with gentleness of manner toward everyone
- Renounce all physical and verbal control over others
- Constancy toward the one with whom God has blessed us as mate or as Anamchara
- Consciously strive after peace and mercy for all


Obedience:
- Follow the Gospel imperatives of love and forgiveness
- Work within the context of the Church to which the member belongs, seeing the leadership and councils of the Church as guide
- Listen to the voice of God in those placed in authority over us in our congregations, dioceses and within the Fellowship


If you are interested in the Fellowship, please look at their website for further details:

www.anamcharafellowship.org



Saturday 6 April 2013

Lenten Stones Turned to Easter Joy!

On the First Sunday of Lent, each of us took a stone and placed it into the baptismal font as a symbolic gesture of entering the wilderness with Jesus. We were encouraged to think during this time about all those things we have done and have left undone that separate us from God's gracious love.

On Holy Saturday, as we prepared the church for the Great Easter Vigil and for Easter Sunday celebrations, I asked one of our St. Peter's children to remove the stones from the font and take them outside. I gave him rather vague instructions such as, 'Just take the stones and put them somewhere in the garden.' After about 20 minutes or so, this child approached me and said, 'Come and see what I've done!' I was led outside and there in the front garden of the church was a miniature Easter tomb that he had built out of our Lenten stones! He explained that it was an empty tomb and that the stone had been rolled away.


Alleluia, He is Risen; The Lord is Risen indeed!! Alleluia!!

Click on the photo to enlarge it

Wednesday 20 March 2013

The Drama of the Eucharist

Today we ended our Lenten Book Study with a Eucharist in the church hall. We decided to move out of  our comfortable pews and into a different space with a different set-up. We used the altar frontal from our ancient church of St. Moluag's in Eoropaidh and created a sacred space in a place normally used for all sorts of activities. It was wonderful and inspiring.



For the past five weeks we have been looking at how the Eucharist draws us into the life of God and propels us out into the world, fed, nourished and sustained by the Body and Blood of Christ. For the sermon today we focused on the wonderful words of Dom Gregory Dix:

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to fetich because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.










Monday 18 March 2013

Holy Week at St.Peter's


Maundy Thursday, March 28, 7:30 pm
Holy Eucharist with Foot Washing

Good Friday. March 29, 11 amMusic and Meditations on the Cross

Holy Saturday, March 30, 8 pm
Easter Vigil with the lighting of the Holy Fire

All are welcome

Monday 18 February 2013

Lent Bible Study



Please join us in the church hall at 1 pm on Tuesday, February 19th for our Lent Bible Study. All that you need to bring is an enquiring mind. All are welcome.

Friday 15 February 2013

Monastic Wisdom for Everyday Living



This Lent join the Brothers of SSJE on a daily journey into the heart of God in prayer. Subscribe to “Brother, Give Us A Word” and during Lent you will receive a short daily video via email. View the trailer: www.ssje.org/prayer

Sunday 3 February 2013

The Bible Challenge



Recent studies show that vibrant and growing churches share one thing in common: they have a strong commitment to teaching and reading the Bible in an accessible way. To that end, the Centre for Biblical Studies has designed a one-year reading schedule to help people read successfully through the entire Bible in one year. Since it began, well over 2,000 congregations in at least 27 different countries are participating. So far, 7 people at St. Peter's have committed themselves to this challenge. Would you like to join us? Whether you live on the Isle of Lewis or half way around the world, we would love it if you joined us in this challenge beginning on Ash Wednesday. All it takes is for you to personally set aside 15-25 minutes every day for one year and follow the reading plan. And if you do this, you'll have read through the entire Bible!

For a detailed plan for reading the Bible in one year please visit this website:

http://thecenterforbiblicalstudies.org/what-is-the-bible-challenge/


Wednesday 2 January 2013

A New Year



The new year, like a new born child, is placed in our hands as the old year passes away. The days and weeks to come are God's gift; they carry God's blessing. And as a blessing we welcome them. Our hope for the year which has ended is that all that was good in it will remain with us and all that was harmful will be left behind. How will you welcome this gift today, this week, this month, this year?