ANNUAL MEETING 2008

The Annual Meeting of Saint Matthias Church was held at the Church in Morrell Hall at 10:15 A.M. on Sunday, January 27, 2008. The Meeting was preceded by a celebration of the Holy Eucharist at 9 A.M., the only celebration scheduled for that day.

The following persons were elected to serve on the parish's Vestry: Larry Ensminger for a two-year term as Warden; Tom Reese, Eveline Koch, Kitty Turgeon and Peter Westphal as Vestry Members. Alice Brown and Ed Koch were elected to serve as two of the parish's representatives at October's Diocesan Convention.

Click here to read the Annual Report.

SUPPORT FOR THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION

The General Theological Seminary and the Episcopal Divinity School each received $1,000 from Saint Matthias Church as part of the parish's long-time commitment to support theological education in the Episcopal Church. Fr. Bill Wipfler is a graduate of GTS, which is located in New York City, and he will receive an honoray doctorate from the Seminary in the fall. Fr. Dan Weir is a graduate of EDS, which is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and serves as Co-President for the School's Alumni/ae Executive Committee.  He will be spending his sabbatical this fall at EDS as a Proctor Scholar. (For more information about his plans you can read Sabbatical.)

 2007 OUTREACH GRANTS

The Vestry of Saint Matthias Church made four $500 outreach grants in December 2007. The recipient organizations were the Aurora Adult Day Care Center, the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Buffalo (www.ihngb.org), the Diocese of Louisiana (for its Jericho Housing Program - jerichohousing.org/) and Global Teams (for the work of missionary Mary Sherwood in Madagascar - www.global-teams.org/missionaries/mary.htm) .

THOMAS BROAD'S ORDINATION

Tom Broad, a member of the parish, was ordained at Saint Matthias Church to the Transitional Diaconate on Sunday, September 2, 2007. In May he graduated from the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He has been called to serve Grace Church in Randolph, New York and will be ordained the the Priesthood at Grace Church at 11 A.M. on Saturday, September 13.  You can read Tom's reflections at his blog, Casting Shadow.

The Spirit Searches Everything

During Lent and Easter in 2007 the Sunday morning adult class had lively discussions of The Spirit Searches Everything by Frederick Borsch, retired Bishop of Los Angeles. Bishop Borsch joined the discussion one Sunday by phone. Discussion questions are still posted for this excellent book; follow this link to find them. 

A SOLEMN PROFESSION

At the 10 A.M. celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Sunday, November 19, 2006, Linda Makson made her Solemn Profession as an Oblate of the Order of Julian of Norwich.

The Order of Julian of Norwich is a religious order of nuns and monks living a contemplative, monastic life in the Episcopal Church.

Living together in two monastic houses, the members profess the traditional monastic vows of poverty, celibate chastity, and obedience, with the added vow of prayer "in the spirit of our Blessed Mother Saint Julian."     

The purpose of the Order's life is to nurture a deep life of prayer for the sake of the Church and world. This life of prayer - the desire to live intimately with God - is expressed in the Order's liturgical worship in chapel as well as in the members' commitment to individual silence and solitude. The members meet in chapel five times daily, Gregorian Chant being used for most of the four-fold Divine Office of the Book of Common Prayer. The Eucharist is the center of the Order's life and the community has a strong devotion to the communion of saints.

 The foundation of the Order is classical monastic spirituality drawn from Benedictine and Carmelite sources, and is infused with the simple and direct, humble and light-filled spirit of our patron, Blessed Julian of Norwich.  The members' daily labor consists mostly of work around the house: cooking and cleaning, gardening, and taking care of the buildings. Such 'homely' work has a priority in the community's life. The Order's life is thus balanced between community and solitude, prayer and work, the chapel and the cell, speaking and silence, with the love of God as the animating heart of all.

Founded in 1985 by The Rev. John Swanson, the Order was canonically recognized by the Episcopal Church in 1997, and currently has two houses, both located in southern Wisconsin.

The life of the Order is “one of discipline, conversion of life, and to spiritual development within Christian community.” This life is lived by members of the Order who live in community in the Julian House in Wisconsin and by Oblates out in the world. The Order of Julian of Norwich is a member of the Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas (CAROA). To learn more about the 23 Religious Orders that are members of CAROA and about Religious Life in the Anglican Communion, visit the CAROA website at http://www.orders.anglican.org/caroa/

Memory Walk 2007

Pauline Wipfler

Memory Walk 2007 was held in Buffalo's Delaware Park on Saturday, September 29. Pauline's Team,  which was once again sponsored by Absolut Care of Orchard Park (formerly The Waters of Orchard Park)  and Saint Matthias Church, won the Memory Cup for the fifth year in a row at Memory Walk 2007, raising more than $18,000 for the Western New York Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. The Team was led by Fr. Bill Wipfler, Priest Associate at Saint Matthias Church, to honor his wife Pauline, a resident at Absolut Care of Orchard Park. 

A second team has been organized to honor another member of the parish, Doris Kaye who is also a resident at Absolut Care of Orchard Park. At Memory Walk 2007 Doris's Team raised more than $2,700. 

Doris Kaye

MISSION TRIPS

Every summer young people and adults from Saint Matthias Church and area Methodist and Presbyterian Churches go on mission.

In 2006, they went to New Orleans. You can read journal entries from members of the group by following this link.

In 2007, a group of young people and adults went to Honduras. You can read journal entries from members of the group by following this link.

WE WILL STAND WITH YOU

The Diocesan Counci of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York l has declared August 27 “We Will Stand With You Sunday” across the entire diocese to support of our partner parish, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, New Orleans. All diocesan congregations are urged to participate. This date was chosen because it is the closest Sunday to the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The day will also be observed in the Diocese of Olympia, which is also partnered with St. Paul’s. The following stories, excerpted from St. Paul’s website, demonstrate why our support is still so desperately needed:

Before Katrina, the people of St. Paul’s had a big nave and sanctuary where they worshipped. It filled up with eleven feet of water, which dropped to eight feet and then hung around for three weeks. After Katrina, the congregation moved its worship space; itsnumber was diminished by nearly two-thirds. Average Sunday attendance is now 100 or so.

Before Katrina, the school on the grounds served about 300 kids and had a brand new gym. After Katrina, the school moved to a temporary location with less than half its students; the gym is now filled with relief supplies.

Water still fills the spaces between the double-paned windows on the ground floor of the school. Vestments and furniture, prayer books and hymnals are a memory; water-soaked, they were left by the curb to be picked up and added to a debris pile. Some things were recovered, like the chalice and paten and offering plate. ‘Every day we found another piece,’ said Natalie James, who has called St. Paul’s her church home since she was a child.

The Haydens

"We lost our home, we lost our business, we lost our church, we lost our school, you’ve heard the story,” says Stacey, who shared the modest two-story with her son, Robert, a mop-topped first grader, and husband Rusty.

Gingerly walking over warped floors and stepping around overturned furniture and broken mementos, she points to a few sheets of Monopoly money about six feet up on the living room wall. The flood waters that settled in the house for several weeks carried it up and left it there.

“When I first came in and saw it, I had to laugh," says Stacey, a St. Paul’s vestry member.

But they barely had time to assess the hurricane and flood damage before the house was struck by a tornado in February that blew portions of their neighbor’s roof into their bath bathroom and Robert’s bedroom. Then in early April, looters came and rifled through plastic bags of clothes she was trying to save and walked out with a small window air conditioner that had somehow managed to escape damage.

The Waldmans

After fleeing Katrina last August, the family returned to New Orleans in December. Sarah chose not to come to the house, but Debbie and husband Bud found the home had been inundated with six and a half feet of water in the front and ten feet in the back. The house will be bulldozed.

The Dioceses of Louisiana and Mississippi, in partnership with the Episcopal Church Foundation, will launch Darkness into Day, a national capital campaign this summer. The partnerships already formed under We Will Stand With You form a natural support network for this campaign.

Plan now to stand with the Waldmans, the Haydens and rest of St. Paul’s church community on August 26. Let’s show them Western New York cares!

THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY

In Lent and Eastertide 2006, we had  lively discussions of Marcus Borg's, The Heart of Christianity. Although the group discussion is over, we encourage people to read the book and discuss it with friends. Discussion questions for the book are posted on this site. Follow this link to get to the questions.

RECTOR'S COMMENTARY ON LOCAL NPR STATION

On November 22, 2005, WBFO, the local NPR station, included during Morning Edition a commentary by Fr. Dan Weir. In the commentary, he addressed an issue which he had addressed in a sermon a week earlier - the protest against Abercrombie & Fitch's sale of t-shirts that are demeaning to women.

Follow this link to read and listen to the commentary.