Your Bishop's Committee met on Sunday, March 27.

• The Food Pantry's Thrift Store will be open on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting April 6.
• The midweek Zoom Evening Prayer Service will resume on Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. beginning April 14.
• The Coffee Hour Bible Study will continue during the Easter Season beginning Sunday, April 24.
• The Food Pantry will hold a Rummage Sale in May.

Sundays in Lent, March 6, 13, 20, 27, and April 3
Starting at approximately 11 a.m.
Please join us as we study the appointed Sunday passages during coffee hour.

The Sunday Readings during Lent

Please join the people of St. Michael's as we join St. Paul's Bakersfield for this Zoom Bible Study.

As Christians we are not the first to walk the path of faith, and we are blessed to have been preceded by many people who we now call Saints, Church Fathers or Mothers, or great Christian thinkers. These individuals lived exemplary lives of faith that gave them special insights into Scripture and our traditions. This Lent, Luke Martinez is leading a Bible Study as we walk with some of these saints and read Scripture alongside them. We will learn about their lives, read their study of Scripture, and reflect on what that means for us. In doing so, we can join with those blessed generations that came before us as one community that bridges time and space.

The study will meet via Zoom for the five Wednesdays of Lent beginning March 9 at 6 pm each time for Evening Prayer followed by the Bible Study.

March 9 Irenaeus (The Gospels)
March 16 Julian of Norwich (St. Paul and the Psalms)
March 23 Thomas Cranmer (Old Testament)
March 30 Therese of Lisieux (Matthew and Isaiah)
April 6 Simone Weil (Letter to the Romans)

The Zoom link can be found here.
Meeting ID: 86184998917 | Passcode: 573597 

What is Lent?
The word Lent comes from an old English word meaning spring. Early Christians observed “a season of penitence and fasting” in preparation for Easter. This fast became attached to, or overlapped, another fast of forty days, in imitation of Christ's fasting in the wilderness. Lent was especially important for converts to the faith who were preparing for baptism, and for those guilty of notorious sins who were being restored to the Christian assembly.

In the western church the forty days of Lent extend from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, omitting Sundays. All Christians are invited “to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.”

RIDGECREST, CA: The Right Rev. David Rice will bless the solar panels installed at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in a ceremony on Sunday, October 17, 2021. According to Bishop Rice, “Episcopalians believe that creation continues to occur, that it’s a gift to all of God’s people, whether they are part of a faith community or not, and that acknowledging creation care is to acknowledge that creation is a gift to all of us.” In 2019, 100% of the clergy, bishops, priests, and deacons, and a significant number of lay members, of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin made the Creation Care Pledge to the wider Episcopal Church. In witness to that pledge, the Diocese intends to generate at least 93% of its churches’ energy requirements from solar power by the end of Phase 2. The goal is consistent with that of the wider Episcopal Church’s goal to be good stewards of God’s creation – earth and its environment.
 
The solar array was installed on the roof of the parish hall in September. The array consists of 30 solar panels, 22 on the west side and 8 on the east side.

On Thursday, October 7 at 5:30pm, we will have Constance & Dain Perry with us to lead a conversation in Unpacking White Privilege. Some of you will remember Constance & Dain from a previous clergy conference, as well as the work we did last summer on "Waking Up White". The Anti-Racism Commission is pleased to invite Constance & Dain to be with us again for this important conversation.

RSVP to canonanna@diosanjoaquin.org to get the ZOOM link.