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ECW Annual Meeting -- May 14

The annual meeting of the diocesan Episcopal Churchwomen will be held on May 14 at Kirby House, 9:30 to 2:30 Program: The Lionesses of Sudan, Women of Southern Sudan, presented by Jo Trepagnier, World Mission Committee secretary, and Char Horst, development officer for the Diocese of Bethlehem. Bishop Paul will preside and preach at Eucharist.

Send PREPAID registration $12 to: Catherine Jeffery, 1839 Ulster Road, Allentown, PA 18109. Make checks payable to “Diocesan ECW.”

Registration deadline is April 25 (No exceptions)

All who attend are asked to bring a small bottle of tap water from your home, abeled with your church’s name and the area where you live.

Food Packaging Event, April 26 -- Can you help?

Mother Demery Bader-Saye, diocesan youth missioner, invites folks young and old from the Diocese of Bethlehem to take part in a short but exciting mission project on Saturday, April 26 at Spruce Lake Retreat in Canadensis, PA. From 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. we need help with food packaging for an organization called Stop Hunger Now The organization, which sends nutritious meals to third world countries and devastated areas all over the world, is based in Raleigh, N.C. They are coming with food and equipment to Christophany this year! The goal for Christophany participants is to package 50,000 meals over the course of the weekend. Donations from the Christian Outreach Committee Church of the Epiphany in Clarks Summit and Bishop Paul have made this event possible. In order to meet the goal of packaging 50,000 meals, we will need some help from our fellow church-goers on Saturday afternoon, April 26. To see what fun, and how inspiring, the event will be, take a look at this "Stop Hunger Now" clip on YouTube. Children as young as 5 or 6 can help out -- and of course teens and adults of any age are welcome too! Our hope is to have 75 volunteers to help out for 2 hours between 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. on the 26th. If you are able to help, please reply by email: dbader-saye@diobeth.org. Once I hear from you I will send directions. Many thanks and peace.

Mark Laubach named Canon Precentor

Bishop Paul Marshall has named Mark Laubach Canon Precentor "to take the lead in efforts to coordinate, communicate, and further educate all the musicians of the [14-county] Diocese of Bethlehem."

Canon Laubach is a lay person who has served as music minister at St. Stephen's Pro-Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre since 1986 where he administers a busy liturgical, choral, concert and broadcasting schedule. He will continue in that position. He resides in Forty Fort.

"For more than two decades you have served St. Stephen’s, the Diocese, and the community with great artistry and great gentleness," Bishop Paul said during the March 22 Easter Vigil at St. Stephen’s. "You have sought the glory of God in your performing, conducting and teaching. Together with Roy and Carol Horton, you have been a singular teacher and coach to many of those musicians who served our smaller congregations. You have been an invaluable adviser to many priests and at least one bishop. Most recently, you have agreed to take the lead in efforts to coordinate, communicate, and further educate all the musicians of the Diocese. So it is with gratitude and joy that I name you Canon Precentor of the Diocese. This is both an honorary canonry for life and also a working canonry, given what you have undertaken. You have been a blessing to so many. Please know that what we do tonight is a thanksgiving to God for the gifts he has given the Church through you, and thanksgiving and recognition of you as someone who has been a dedicated steward of the gifts that come from above."

Under Laubach's leadership in 2002, St. Stephen’s large pipe organ was rebuilt by the Berghaus Organ Company of Chicago. This instrument now stands among the finest of its type in the Mid-Atlantic region, having won high praise from organists and audiences.

He served as a diocesan deputy to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 2003 and has been elected to serve in that capacity once again for the General Convention of 2009.

Having won first prize in the 1984 American Guild of Organists (AGO) National Young Artists' Competition in Organ Performance, he is regarded among the finest organists of his generation in the U.S.

Download laubach_named_canon_precentor.doc

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Mocked in the empty tomb -- Easter Sermon by Bishop Paul Marshall

[An excerpt] Eastern Orthodox Christians have a centuries-old tradition of telling jokes in church on Easter. That is because Easter is, of course, God’s biggest joke. That is, when all the things in you and me, all the things in humanity that conspire against holiness, goodness, integrity and equity had done their very worst and Jesus lay in tomb, God raised his Son to a life beyond our imagining or understanding, to a life that we are offered to enter in the here-and-now in the most practical of ways. Evil takes itself so seriously, and in the empty tomb it is mocked. ...

I had been approaching our celebration of this liturgy with far too much seriousness. Some of that seriousness is arguably appropriate—we are celebrating the key moment in human history. Some of that seriousness is wildly inappropriate: it is not for me, after all, to fix other people or to will them into changing, especially when they are 3,000 miles away.

My seriousness was limiting my ability to laugh; ... I was, in short, looking for a fight ... I had to confront, big-time, my defensiveness about representing religion in an anti-religious culture.

[Download the sermon below]

Download 080323.EasterSermon.doc

Download 080323.EasterSermon.pdf

Diocesan Life/April 2008

Stories and features include: Living Water: Gushing in Bethlehem, Flowing in Kajo Keji, by Howard Stringfellow, on pages 1 and 4. The Children of Kajo Keji, by Charlie Barebo, on pages 1 and 5. Bishop Paul's column, Are you emotionally present to your spouse? on page 2. Father Henry Pease, on page 3. The spirituality and practice of peacemaking, on page 6. Trinity Store in Easton, on page 6. Letters from children of Kajo Keji, on page 6. Calendar and cycles of prayer, on page 7. Dwelling in the word, reflections on the gospel passage for the third to sixth Sundays of Easter, by Maria Tjeltveit, Charles Cesarett, and Laura Howell.

The first link below is a 1.7MB file which will open the eight-page Diocesan Life in actual size. he second link, a 1.2MB file, will open it in letter size.

Download 0804018.Full Size.pdf

Download 0804018.Letter Size.pdf

Pray for ... (Cycles of Prayer -- April)

In the Diocese of Bethlehem
Apr. 6: Grace Church, Allentown, The Rev. Patrick Malloy, rector; The Rev. Rodney Conn, deacon, www.graceallentown.org
Apr. 13: Grace Church, Honesdale, The Rev. Ed Erb, rector
Apr. 20: St. Mark's/St. John's Church, Jim Thorpe, The Rev. Joseph De Acetis, priest-in-charge, www.stmarkandjohn.org
Apr. 27: St. John's Church, Hamlin, Marianne Berryman, senior warden, www.stjohnshamlin.org

Anglicans Around the World
Apr. 6: The clergy and people of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, www.hkskh.org.
Apr. 13: The clergy and people of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean.
Apr. 20: The clergy and people of the Church of Ireland, www.ireland.anglicanorg.
Apr. 27: The clergy and people of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, www.nskk.org/hokkaido

The Diocese of Kajo Keji
Apr. 6: Kala Archdeaconry, The Ven. Eluzai Lo’boka Yairo
Apr. 13: Bori Archdeaconry, The Ven. Sadoka Toe
Apr. 20: Gederu Archdeaconry, The Ven. George Kenyi
Apr. 27: Kiri Archdeaconry, The Ven. Amosa Buli Gwolo

Be strong and very courageous -- By Bishop John Croneberger

The only thing that allows me to share any of this with you today is of course step 26 of the spiritual ladder of the seventh-century ascetic John of the Ladder – which, in case you haven’t read it recently, says this:

“If some are still dominated by their former bad habits, and yet can teach by mere words, let them teach ... for perhaps, being put to shame by their own words, they will eventually begin to practice what they teach.”

Elie Wiesel said that God made people because God loves stories. Our task here and now is to provide opportunities for others to learn and experience more and more of God’s story while we are coming to discover that each of us also has a story to tell. The reign of God has something to do with bringing our stories together with God’s story. My sisters and brothers… May God richly bless you and me as we continue this painfully delicious journey to which we have been called.

[Download Bishop Jack Croneberger's sermon at the Chrism Mass of the Diocese of Bethlehem, March 13 2008.]

Download 080313.Croneberger.Chrism.doc

Download 080313.Croneberger.Chrism.pdf

The Rev. Henry J. Pease -- Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother, Henry

Memorial Service: Saturday, April 19, at 2 p.m. in St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral, Wilkes-Barre.

The Rev. Henry J. Pease, 75, died during the early morning hours of March 13. He served as rector of Historic St. Paul’s Church, Montrose, Susquehanna County, for 26 years (1972-98). In retirement, he served as priest-in-charge of St George’s Church, Nanticoke, near Wilkes-Barre, for eight years.

Ordained a priest in 1965, Father Pease served as an assistant at St. Stephen's Church, Wilkes-Barre, for six years before being called to serve as rector in Montrose. Prior to seminary and ordination, he worked at Dun and Bradstreet (Richmond District) and as a bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Inn Philadelphia.

During a courageous journey into Ecuador in 2000, he rescued three boys, ages 3, 5 and 8, whom he raised in his Saddle Lake home near Tunkhannock, where he had been living alone, and legally adopted them to be his sons. [An April 2002 Diocesan Life story, Journey into Danger, may be downloaded here.]

He was also an adjunct professor of economics at Kings College and Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, since 1966.

[Download He Knew Jesus, a poem for Henry by Gwendolyn-Jane Romeril]
Download pease.He Knew Jesus.pdf

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Messages in the Mall -- a new book by Bishop Paul

Messages in the Mall -- Looking at Life in 600 Words or Less (Church Publishing, 2008) is a new book by Bishop Paul Marshall who has written extensively both for scholars and clergy and for the general reader. His scholarly works have been described as “readable” and his popular works as “learned.” For more than a decade, Bishop Paul has written a monthly column for secular newspapers, usually 600 words or less and different from the monthly column he writes for Diocesan Life. This rigorous discipline of writing to strict space requirements was meant from its beginning in 1996 to engage the secular culture and to bring the church's message to it by commenting on the realities of the human condition and on issues of general interest. The book is a compilation of many of the columns, organized along thematic lines. Some six to eight papers in northeastern Pennsylvania currently publish the monthly column. Their combined circulation is about 400,000.

St. Matthew Society Reception: Sunday, May 4

Bishop Paul will greet members of the St. Matthew Society as they gather on St. Matthew Sunday, May 4, for a special reception to honor and celebrate their generosity to the Church. The St. Matthew Society was founded in 2001 throughout the Diocese of Bethlehem to recognize and thank all those who have planned a gift to their individual parishes. This year’s celebration event will be held at the Lehigh Country Club from 3:00 to 5:30 p.m., and will feature food, drink and good company. The Bishop sincerely hopes that all current St. Matthew Society members will plan to join him and each other at this special gathering. For information about enrolling in the St. Matthew Society, and/or to learn more about the stewardship of planned giving, please contact Char Horst, Missioner for Development, by email or at 610.683.8625.

Living Water: Gushing in Bethlehem, Flowing in Kajo Keji

Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow and Charlie Barebo, chair of the New Hope Campaign and member of Diocesan Council, visited our companion Diocese of Kajo Keji in Southern Sudan on behalf of the New Hope Campaign and the Diocese of Bethlehem during late February 2008 to strengthen the ties between our dioceses, meet with the person who is to be Bethlehem's representative in Kajo Keji during the Campaign's construction of schools and the Canon Benaiah Poggo College, and inspect the progress of those constructions.

Download the pdf file. Text and photographs by Howard Stringfellow.

Download 0802.Stringfellow.pdf