St. Matthias Anglican Church | Anglican church in Victoria, BC

Dear friends:

What a wonderful warm time of year this is - as the flowers bloom and the gardens grow, as children are ending their school year and we all hear rumours of this long-awaited return to 'normal.' As we approah the longest day of the year, Summer Solstice on June 20, we praise the God whose light flared forth in creation and who continues to kindle life in all diverse forms. The with-us-God who renews the face of the earth! We invite you to spend some time prayerfully reflecting on the passing seasons and the beginning of summer - what might God be inviting you into as the days lengthen and the nights warm? What might we attend more closely to in this time of growth and fiery transformation?

Entering Summer, we continue in Ordinary Time winding our way through Mark's Gospel. We will hear many familar stories and teachings of Jesus as he goes about his day to day life in Ancient Palestine. How are we being drawn to the person of Christ in the ordinary of our own summer days - days of dishes and appointments, of family visits and phone calls, of watering the garden and hopefully some brief moments of holiday? How might we encounter the living God in the quotidian mystery of this, our shared life?

This season also brings a time of deep truth-telling and hard work towards reconcilation - as the revelations of the mass grave at Kamloops unearths a shadowed part of our past that continues to haunt the Church today. We invite you to several opportunities to listen and to learn (more details below), including National Indigenous Day of Prayer and an Indigenous History Tour of Ross Bay Cemetary on Saturday June 26. Reach out to us if you would like to process all of this with one of the team.

We hope you join us on zoom for worship this Sunday, June 20. In celebration of Father's Day, and in a moment of levity, the wardens invite all the women of the Church to wear their best Sunday hats in celebration! (All are welcome to wear hats!)

We are hard at work planning our Summer and a return to in person worship. We are awaiting revised diocesan guidelines for July 1 so stay tuned for how that will look, but know we are committed to alternating weeks in person and on zoom throughout the Summer. More about that below.

Throughout this season of change, growth, and transition, our God is walking with us. You are in our prayers and we look forward to being back with you in person soon!

- The Rev. Matthew W. Humphrey, on behalf of the team

Let us praise the grace and risk of Fire.

In the beginning,
The Word was red,
And the sound was thunder,
And the wound in the unseen
Spilled forth the red weather of being.
In the name of the Fire,
The Flame
And the Light:
Praise the pure presence of fire
That burns from within
Without thought of time.
The hunger of Fire has no need
For the reliquary of the future;
It adores the eros of now,
Where the memory of the earth
In flames that lick and drink the air
Is made to release
Its long-enduring forms
In a powder of ashes
Left for the wind to decipher.
As air intensifies the hunger of fire,
May the thought of death
Breathe new urgency
Into our love of life.
As fire cleanses dross,
May the flame of passion
Burn away what is false.
As short as the time
From spark to flame,
So brief may the distance be
Between heart and being.
May we discover
Beneath our fear
Embers of anger
To kindle justice.
May courage
Cause our lives to flame,
In the name of the Fire,
And the Flame
And the Light.

In Praise of Fire - John O’Donohue

Indigenous History tour led by Métis educators, Fern and Mark Perkins

About this event

Join us for a 90 minute tour of Ross Bay Cemetary by Métis educators Mark and Fern Perkins. They weave together their own stories with the early Métis history of this place. We gather to listen and to learn, to engage in simple ceremony and to offer our prayers and gratitude for all who have stewarded this land for generations.

Register here.

Fern Perkins is the Métis, great-great-great granddaughter of the Anishinabe woman, Isabella Mainville Ross, and HBC Scottish Chief Trader, Charles Ross. They were the parents of the first Metis family in Fort Victoria and on Vancouver Island. Fern is a professional educator who has taught in Canada and the US. Fern currently coordinates the Metis Education Enhancement Program for the Greater Victoria Métis Nation in local elementary and secondary schools. After retiring from the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria, Fern discovered the truth about all her relations. She then returned to reach Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria, to learn with her students in this hopeful era of truth and education.

Mark Perkins is the great-great-great grandson of Peter Skene Ogden and his Cree-Dené wife of Ile å La Crosse, Saskatchewan. Their first Métis child, Peter Ogden Jr., was the Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Factor of the New Caledonia District, before it became BC. Mark did not know his hidden Cree-Dené-Métis and Shoshone history until after he retired from 33+ years as Battalion Chief with the Victoria Fire Department. Mark started his professional life as a teacher before he changed careers and became a firefighter. He and Fern met in elementary school and did not know about their parallel Métis history, until after they retired.

NOTE: tickets to this event are free. But we welcome donations towards a gift which Wild Church will be giving to the tour leaders - you can donate here: https://www.abbeychurch.ca/donate (Click the green "give" button and then select "emmaus community" on the dropdown menu in the popup/ diocesan giving site...) OR bring cash or cheques (made out to Emmaus Community).

Summer Solstice greetings

Let’s talk Territorial Acknowledgements

With: The Rev’d Wally Eamer (MBA, Harvard 1979), Deacon in the Diocese of BC.

About this event

Follow us on Facebook