WWW.THESENTINELNEWS.COM.AU St. John’s Anglican Church 36 Grey St, Clarence Town Pastor: Rev Kimbalee Hodges Service Times: Every Sunday, Holy Communion at 10am How is everyone coping with the wet, the heat and the humidity? Nothing like an Australian Summer! At least we were blessed with the rain. It was starting to become very dry. Our Annual Pancake night will be on Tuesday 4th March from 6pm in our air-conditioned church hall. Batter supplied. Please bring along a topping of your choice. It is a great evening and you will be very welcome. Our annual Harvest Festival will be on Sunday, 6th April. Our Service will be at 10am and the auction of goods will commence following the service. The proceeds from the sale, will go towards our Mission projects. Donations of produce and cooking would be much appreciated. Our Easter Services will be at 10am on Good Friday (18th April) and 10am Easter morning. Thank you so much Nigel for coming to our rescue and mowing the lawn! You are a treasure. Sue Flannery Licensed Builder Specialising in renovations, extensions and all forms of concreting - including structural and specialty formwork Call Aaron | 0488 113 062 | Lic 349914C aaron@tayloredconstructionsolutions.com.au St. Patrick’s Catholic Church 41 Rifle St, Clarence Town Pastor: Rev Andrew Doohan Service Times: Every Sunday 8am The year is already flying by and before we know it, Easter will be here. Our preparation for this holy time will be our Lenten group meeting to be held in the church for 6 weeks prior to Easter. Times and dates to be advised. Our prayers for rain have been answered and the grass is looking much greener. We ask that God continue to bless our Parish and congregation, and all those in our area. God bless all, Marilyn Amos From the Parson’s Pen Over the last few week there was a lot of comment on the Social Media sites about the sermon by the Episcopal (ie Anglican) Bishop of Washington DC about her plea to President Trump for “mercy” on the immigrant, the needy and the like. She was criticised by many for “bringing religion into politics” and these people insisted that Church and State had to be entirely separate. HOWEVER, “religion” itself is a word of contested origin. It comes from two Latin words, “re” meaning “about, concerning” and “ligio”, meaning “to bind”: hence “religion” meaning “about that which holds things together”. Consider the ligaments, those pieces of biological matter which literally hold your skeleton together and without which you might be a twitching mass on the floor! Therefore “religion” is that system of belief, that moral code, which gives meaning, purpose and direction to your life. The Bishop of Washington was doing nothing more than giving expression to that moral code, derived from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (see “The Sermon on the Mount”) which is incumbent upon all Christians and which is itself derived from the moral code of Judaism, and which provides the basis for action for followers. It challenges the philosophy of “ME at the centre of everything” and refutes the idea that any action, personal or corporate, is based on “what’s in this for me”. Every religion, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and more, has its moral teaching embedded in the Scriptures of that tradition. That moral teaching is remarkably similar between all the major religions and we can find common purpose as we deal with justice, equity, foreign aid, domestic matters…… AND, if we are to be faithful to our religion, it is incumbent upon us to speak the truth to the public square, which is what the Bishop herself was doing, and which we all must do in our own lives and actions. (Fr) George Mainprize
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