EASTER FLOWER / CANDLE FORMS OVERDUE!!! Please leave forms in baskets or in Jaana’s mailbox to ensure that your loved one’s name is added to the Easter Sunday bulletin.
Easter and Holy Week Offerings As is the custom at Grace Church, the offerings gathered on Palm Sunday, at the services during Holy Week and on Easter Sunday will be distributed outside our church. This year the Outreach Commission has selected three organizations, two international and one local, to share the Outreach Offerings equally. American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ). AFEDJ is devoted to building hope and peace by financially supporting education and healthcare available to all in the Holy Land and raising awareness in the US. Fourteen Diocesan schools in Israel, Palestine and Jordan educate more than 6,400 students each year. The Diocese operates two major hospitals, four outpatient clinics, and a number of mobile clinics. Four institutions support children and adults with disabilities. These institutions help all who enter regardless of religious, ethnic, or economic status and serve the needs of all people in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Israel. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Tabletochki Foundation in Kyiv, a partner of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, has been concentrating on evacuating pediatric cancer patients and their family members to neighboring countries, across Europe, and even North America. Tabletochki’s staff arranges safe transportation to the western city of Lviv, and from there to a medical triage center St. Jude has set up with partners in Poland, where clinical partners evaluate the patients for future treatment. Natalia Wobst, daughter of parishioners Jude and Martin Wobst, as the lead representative for Eurasia at St. Jude’s Foundation, has spoken movingly of her work with local partners such as Tabletochki (Kyiv) and Fundacja Herosi (Poland). As a hunger-relief nonprofit serving individuals and families at risk of hunger in all four Western Mass. counties, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts distributes food to member agencies; food pantries, meal sites, shelters and elder care facilities. This is a critical mission in these difficult times as many residents of our communities face food insecurity. Please consider a generous gift to support these important programs. If you write a check, please make it payable to Grace Church and add “outreach” on the memo line. Thank you for any gift you are able to give.
Climate Action @ Grace meets today, April 10th at 9:30 a.m. in the Fireplace Room in the Parke House.
11th Hour Bell Ringing for Climate Change, Monday, April 11th at 10:45 Calling all ages to be part of the 11th Hour Bell Ringing for Climate Change this Monday, April 11 at 10:45 Join friends and neighbors for prayer and meditation before the 11th hour ringing begins. No one is too young; no one is too old. This is an invitation to join religious groups across the country and beyond to express our hope and determination that together we can act boldly to address the climate crisis. Our church bell will be rung for 11 minutes on the 11th day of each month at 11 AM. After the church bells ring, everyone will have a chance to make a joyful noise of resolve. Bring your cow bells, dinner bells, kazoos, and gongs, drums, cymbals, and noise makers of any kind. Signs and banners are encouraged. Who knows, maybe some folks passing by will stop and join in or at least catch the spirit of what committed people can do when joined together in faith.
The Cross Through Artists’ Eyes : Artistic Lenten Lunchtime Meditations, Mondays at 12:15pm, Zoom Meeting Every Monday of Lent, we will gather over Zoom for a short, 15 minute service of prayer and meditation at 12:15 p.m., focusing on different artists’ interpretations of the cross either through visual art or creative writing. Feel free to bring your lunch with you! Artists will represent a wide spectrum of relationships to Christianity and the cross, as well as vary significantly in their depictions, but all will invite us into a deeper and more creative relationship with this essential symbol of our faith. No familiarity with the week’s artist or writer is needed to participate! In these 15 minutes, there will be a short introduction to the artist’s work and to our prayer practice, time with silence or background music to prayerfully meditate on that artist’s perspective, and time for a few comments. For our last session, Monday, April 11th, we’ll be exploring “The Cross Through The Eyes of Living Artists.” Reflecting on multiple contemporary pieces, we will see how artists today contribute to the vibrant and varied ways the cross has been depicted through visual art.
Sign Up for the All-night Vigil It is a tradition at Grace that a vigil is kept in the chapel throughout the night, immediately following the Maundy Thursday 7pm service, April 14th, which concludes at 9am the morning of Good Friday. Participants are asked to sign up for a one hour slot (ideally at least two people per time slot). The sign up sheet is in the back of the church next to the prayer request binder. Could you not stay awake with me one hour? (Matthew 26:40b)
Egg Hunt Easter Sunday, April 17th Once again following our Easter Sunday services we will have egg hunts for children in the Garth (weather permitting). During Holy Week, parishioners are welcome to drop off Easter eggs at the church for this fun activity.
If you are interested in being baptized this Easter season, or know someone who is, please contact the church office or the Rector. We would be happy to speak with you about this holy sacrament.
April Community Conversation Board – Holding Together Sorrow and Joy Throughout the month of April, our community conversation bulletin board, found in the Connector, is focused on the theme “Holding Together Sorrow and Joy.” Our liturgical celebrations in April take us through both some of the most sorrowful and most joyful moments in Scripture. What does it look like to try to hold together life’s sorrows and joys and the sorrows and joys at the heart of faith? We hope you will contribute your thoughts on the relationship of your spirituality to sorrow, joy, and all the experiences that fall in-between; you are also encouraged to view the contributions of others!
The Grace Church Stewardship campaign for 2022 To date 144 pledges have come in totaling $437,848.00 – most encouraging, we have 7 new pledges. To those who have pledged God Bless, to those who have yet to pledge please pray and pledge so our Vestry can budget for 2022. If you need a pledge card, they are available as you enter the church or you can contact the office (413) 256-6754 or Bruce Stebbins at (413) 549-5933.
SAVE THE DATE
Please join us: The Haiti Ministry welcomes new participants any time. If you’d like to visit and observe first, that’s fine, too. Our next meeting is Tuesday, April 19, at 5:00 in the Connector, in person and on Zoom. For the link, contact co-chairs Sandy Muspratt or Bonnie Vigeland, or any member of the ministry.
An Invitation from the Jewish Community of Amherst (JCA): Dayenu National action: The schmutzy seven campaign to “Get the dough out of fossil fuels” Thursday, April 21st at noon, Bank of America branch in the center of Amherst
The Jewish Community of Amherst (JCA) has invited Grace Church and other houses of worship to join them in advocating for divestment from fossil fuels, particularly on the part of large banks. During the weeks around Passover, Jews and allies will gather outside the branches and offices of the banks and asset managers that exacerbate the climate crisis by investing their money in Fossil Fuel Pharaohs: oil, gas, and coal companies. We will publicly proclaim today’s fossil-fueled plagues, and lift up matzah as a symbol of urgency, calling on these financial institutions to move their dough. It is long past time for them to honor their commitments and stop funding fossil fuels. Only then can we leave the polluting past behind and move towards a just and livable future.
The Postures of Prayer: Poems of George Herbert, Wednesday, April 27, at 6 p.m. in the Connector George Herbert, poet and priest of the Church of England, spent a good deal of time considering the most appropriate attitudes, both physical and spiritual, in which to approach or listen to God. Join us in reading some of the poems in which he represents this life-long struggle.
We are excited to announce a visit from Père Wallin Decamp on May 6-9, provided all goes as planned. Père Decamp is the priest at St. Matthieu in Bayonnais and supervises the school. This will be our first time meeting him in person. Watch for further details!