Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

Worshiping God, living in community, reaching out to the world.

Tag: Saints

Walking among saints
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that easily distracts, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us….

Hebrews 12:1 (NRSV, with footnote)

In Walking among saints, we will explore the lives and thinking of several holy people. Then we will consider what we can learn from each.

This exploration takes place at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer starting on Sunday, October 27, 2024, starting at 9:30 am and running each Sunday until November 24. The class is free and open to everyone in the community. You do not need to be a member of Church of the Redeemer.
- October 27. Join us as we separate myth from what is known of St. Mary Magdelene, “disciple to the disciples.” Presented by the Rev. Theresa Newell.
- November 3. Experience and understand what it means to be truly humble from the perspective of St. Therese of Lisieux. Presented by the Rev. Theresa Newell.
- November 10. Find out about St. Kevin, known as the founder and first abbot of Glendalough in County Wicklow, Ireland. Presented by the Rev. Jed Fox.
- November 17. Consider what is important or permissible in worship as we consider the ideas and history of Nicholas Ridley, one of the Oxford Martyrs. Presented by Earl Beede.
- November 24. Delve into the thought and experiences of St. Francis and St. Clare, cofounders of a religious movement whose values run counter to the culture of their times (and ours). Presented by Barry McAllister and Marsha Goss.
This adult class meets on the main floor in the worship area. A different class for children meets in a room off of the downstairs parish hall.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 NE 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. For more information, contact the Rev. Theresa Newell at tnewell@redeemer-kenmore.org.

Church of the Redeemer

Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.
October 24, 2024
The bulletin insert for September 3, 2023
This is the weekly bulletin insert from Sermons That Work.

The Feast of Constance and Her Companions: The Martyrs of Memphis

On September 9, The Episcopal Church celebrates the witness of Constance and her companions, remembered along with other faithful Christians, as the Martyrs of Memphis.

Yellow fever is a mosquito-borne illness that frequently affected the American South during the late 19^th century. It had reached an epidemic status in August 1878. Memphis, Tennessee, on the banks of the Mississippi River, had been afflicted by the disease several times before. This lead citizens to flee the city en masse at the earliest signs of an outbreak. More than half of the city’s population left, leaving more than 20,000 people behind.

According to A Great Cloud of Witnesses, “As cases multiplied, death tolls averaged 200 daily. When the worst was over, ninety percent of the people who remained had contracted the fever; more than 5,000 people had died.”

Icon of Constance and Her Companions, from St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Diocese of West Tennessee.

Faithful Episcopalians and other Christians remained behind in the stifling heat to serve the city in its crisis. Chief among these saints were Constance, the Superior of the Sisters of St. Mary, and several other sisters of the order, who had come to Memphis some years earlier to found a girls’ school at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral.

The cathedral was located in the thick of the yellow fever epidemic. This provided ample opportunity to minister to the afflicted. They tended the sick, gave rest to the weary, soothed the suffering, and blessed the dying, making a special effort to find and take care of the numerous orphaned children of Memphis.

Constance and her companions knew well the danger and destruction that the fever represented. However, they would not be deterred from serving God and neighbor in that place. By the end of September, four of the sisters, along with two Episcopal priests and many unnamed volunteers, had succumbed to the fever:
- Sister Constance
- Sister Thecla
- Sister Ruth
- Sister Frances
- The Rev. Louis Schuyler
- The Rev. Charles Parsons
Sister Constance’s last words, uttered when she was no longer physically able to serve, are enshrined in the altar at St. Mary’s Cathedral: “Alleluia! Osanna!”

Collect for Constance and Her Companions

We give you thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death; Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Published by the Office of Formation of The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017

© 2023 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Weekly bulletin inserts

This weekly bulletin insert provides information about the history, music, liturgy, mission, and ministry of The Episcopal Church. For more information, please contact us at stw@episcopalchurch.org.

Sermons That Work

For more than 20 years, Sermons That Work, a ministry of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication, has provided free sermons, Bible studies, bulletin inserts, and other resources that speak to congregations across the Church. Our writers and readers come from numerous and varied backgrounds, and the resources we provide are used in small house churches, sprawling cathedrals, and everything between.

Church of the Redeemer

Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.
September 1, 2023
The bulletin insert for August 20, 2023

This is the weekly bulletin insert from Sermons That Work.

The Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle

The Church celebrates the Feast of St. Bartholomew on August 24.

One of the twelve apostles of Jesus, Bartholomew is known to us only by his being listed among them in the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. His name means “Son of Tolmai, and according to Holy Women, Holy Men, “He is sometimes identified with Nathanael, the friend of Philip, the ‘Israelite without guile’ in John’s Gospel, to whom Jesus promised the vision of angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (Holy Women, Holy Men, page 538).

Unfortunately, this is the only information recorded about Bartholomew across the Gospels; few other historically reliable sources are available. Despite this lack of a reliable historical record, tradition has filled in several details around his travels, ministry, and martyrdom.

This hagiography, or writing of the life of a saint, has come to diverse conclusions. Some sources hold that church historians Jerome and Bede knew of a Gospel of Bartholomew, though such a text is lost to us today. Eusebius of Caesarea writes in the third century that a Hebrew text of Matthew’s Gospel was found in India by a traveling philosopher-theologian, attributed by locals to “Bartholomew, one of the Apostles.”

There is also a tradition that Bartholomew, along with the Apostle Jude Thaddeus, brought the gospel to Armenia. While there, they are reputed to have converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity, thus enraging the king’s brother, who ordered Bartholomew’s execution. The story holds that the apostle was flayed alive and crucified at Albanopolis, leading to a common (and sometimes grotesque) depiction of the saint as a man or skeleton holding his own skin.

There are at least 18 Episcopal churches named in honor of the saint, from California and the Dominican Republic to Michigan and Georgia. Perhaps the most famous example is St. Bart’s on Park Avenue in New York City, a rare example of Byzantine Revival architecture from 1916 and a National Historic Landmark.

Collect for St. Bartholomew

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Published by the Office of Formation of The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017

© 2023 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Weekly bulletin inserts

This weekly bulletin insert provides information about the history, music, liturgy, mission, and ministry of The Episcopal Church. For more information, please contact us at stw@episcopalchurch.org.

Sermons That Work

For more than 20 years, Sermons That Work, a ministry of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication, has provided free sermons, Bible studies, bulletin inserts, and other resources that speak to congregations across the Church. Our writers and readers come from numerous and varied backgrounds, and the resources we provide are used in small house churches, sprawling cathedrals, and everything between.

Church of the Redeemer

Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.

August 18, 2023

Spring forward this Sunday, March 8, 2026. Daylight saving time starts.

Stop by The Hangar at Kenmore Town Square anytime between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm for Ashes to Go on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

3rd Sunday in Lent (Year A), March 8, 2026. Services at 8:00 am (no music) and 10:30 (music). Christian education for children and adults at 9:15 am. Spring forward one hour for the start of Daylight Saving Time.