Author: Daniel Rondeau

I am a husband and father and an Episcopal Priest (now retired) in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego.

Advent Calendar Day 4: St. Margaret’s Outreach Center

St. Margaret’s Outreach Center

Bob from our Forum volunteers at our St. Margaret’s Outreach Center every Tuesday. Stan and Julie are frequent participants in the Thursday Morning Prayer at the Outreach Center. The Outreach Center is part of our Parish’s Overall Mission to “change the world.”

What we do

St. Margaret’s Outreach Center reaches out to children, adults, and seniors in our community assisting them with the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter.

Current efforts

  • Food distribution on Tuesdays from Noon-4:00 pm
  • Morning Prayer Service on Thursdays at 9:00 am
  • Assistance by appointment on Thursdays

For the rest of the story: Outreach Ministries at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church


For further reflection

Bonus Bag Update (11/27/11)
SMEC Parishioners are the best! Not only did we bring in $540 for last week’s Bonus Bags; but three of our parishioners signed on for credit card charges for one year’s worth of monthly support! For the cost of a few lattes, you can provide our Outreach gang reliable $$ for year-round fresh food expenditures. Your $20 (or more!) donation will be gratefully accepted in cash, check or credit card. You, too, can be a part of this tremendous service to those in need…

St. Margaret’s Parish Life Bulletin for November 27, 2011

Advent Calendar Day 3: Camp Stevens

Camp Stevens

Camp Stevens is in the mountains above San Diego in Julian, CA. It is an Episcopal Camp and Conference Center only 2 hours away. Members of St. Margaret’s regularly participate in Camp work days. Children and youth from the parish have had their “Summer Camp” experience their. Suzanne, from our Forum has served as a Summer Camp Nurse. Fr. Dan has served as the Chair of the Camp Stevens Board in years past and frequently served as Chaplain to various hiking and camping groups.

Camp Mission Statement
The Mission of Camp Stevens is to help individuals of all ages deepen their sense of reverence and respect for themselves, and their fellow human beings, the creation, and God. It also seeks to be a peaceful ‘place apart’ for nurturing, planning, reflection, exchange of ideas, and sharing in Christian community.

Environmental Mission Statement
As a peaceful place apart in a beautiful natural setting, Camp Stevens serves as a point of contact between human beings and the natural world. Today we are faced with enormous environmental challenges, having failed in many respects to appreciate and protect the earth. We invite you to join us in reclaiming an active stewardship of God’s Creation. About Camp Stevens Mission

For the rest of the story: Home page for Camp Stevens

Advent Calendar 2011


For further reflection

The Mission of Camp Stevens is to help individuals of all ages deepen their sense of reverence and respect for themselves, and their fellow human beings, the creation, and God.

We invite you to join us in reclaiming an active stewardship of God’s Creation.

Advent Calendar Day 2: The Bishop’s Appeal

The Bishop’s Appeal

Our bishop, the Rt. Rev. James Mathes, appeals to us every year in order to further the ministry of our diocese in southern California and eastern Arizona.

“Every gift directly and positively touches lives; every dollar provides for pressing human need. This year, more than $100,000 in donations have been distributed, thanks to your generosity.”

Read the Bishop’s Appeal Letter

Advent Calendar 2011


For further reflection

Who we are

We are a diverse community committed to living out the message of Jesus Christ. This message is one of hope for the oppressed, love for the outcast, home for the alien, and peace for all people.

We strive to build relationships across ideological, political and socio-economic divides as a way responding to Jesus’ call to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We believe in God’s redeeming love through the person of Jesus Christ. We value human relationships above all else as reflected by the incarnation of God in the body and person of Jesus.

We embrace the awe and mystery of God through traditional liturgy while being open to the movement of the Holy Spirit to experience new forms of expression.

We are rooted in the ancient church and our eyes and hearts look to the future.

We welcome all people to experience the love of God.

Source: The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego

Do you have a favorite Advent hymn?

Well, do you? Here is one of my favorite Advent hymns beautifully sung by Enya.

Use the comment section to share your favorite Advent Hymn.

Advent Calendar Day 1: Angel Tree

Angel Tree Ministries

Starting today, November 27, 2011, the people of St. Margaret’s will again participate in the Angel Tree Christmas ministry. What is Angel Tree Ministries? Here is their Mission Statement:

Every child has a story. For 1.7 million American children, that story is filled with the abandonment, loneliness, and shame that comes from having a mom or dad in prison. For many, it may also include following their parents down the same destructive road to incarceration.

Angel Tree is a ministry that reaches out to the children of inmates and their families with the love of Christ. This unique program gives your church an opportunity to share Christ’s love by helping to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the families of prisoners.

Angel Tree Christmas works by connecting parents in prison with their children through the delivery of Christmas gifts. Every Christmas, thousands of churches like yours help brighten the lives of countless children by purchasing, wrapping and delivering gifts on behalf of their incarcerated parent—not only delivering a message of love from parent to child, but also the true meaning of Christmas—the good news of Jesus Christ.

But Angel Tree doesn’t end with Christmas. For you and your church, that first Christmas connection can be the beginning of a rewarding ongoing relationship with these children and their families. Continue your Angel Tree ministry throughout the year and God will use your church to help these children and their families grow in their faith, strengthen their relationships with imprisoned parents, and fulfill the purposes that God has for their lives.

Read more about Angel Tree Ministries

Advent Calendar 2011


For further reflection

When Mom or Dad is in prison, it is the children who do the hard time, but you can let them know they aren’t forgotten. You can give the child of a prisoner the joy of Christmas this year.

After Thanksgiving Angel Tree Tags will be available. Please take one or more and buy the gifts for the children. Donations can also be made for the party that is given for the families.Return the donations/wrapped gifts to the church on or before December 12th.

Volunteers will be needed to sort through the gifts and organize by families. Please contact Debby at 760-346-2697 if you can help.

St. Margaret’s Parish Life Bulletin for November 27, 2011

Looking for gift ideas this year? Do we have something for you!

Proudly introducing the St. Margaret’s Online Advent Calendar.

Beginning with the First Sunday of Advent (11/27/2011) a new posting will be made everyday to introduce you to a person, an organization, or a fund that embodies the Gospel imperative to “love your neighbor as yourself.” This Advent you will become aware of the many needs that surround us and the many persons, individually and collectively, working to meet those needs.

Every day during Advent come to the Online Calendar to open a new “window” and look upon the world into which Christ is to be born. In quiet and prayer, hear what the Spirit is saying to you.

Advent Calendar 2011


For further reflection
Culturally we are bombarded with messages in this season to go and buy gifts for others. We are immersed in the notion that if we are a decent human being we will go and buy lots of gifts to give to our loved ones; furthermore, if we have been good, then we can expect to receive lots of gifts from our loved ones who have been (like us) buying things like crazy.

Spiritually, of course, we hear readings and prayers about the end of time, the second coming of Christ, and judgment. We hear, too, of the foretelling of the birth of Jesus and we prepare ourselves to remember the birth of Jesus (Christmas) and the revelation of God’s love to the whole world (Epiphany, January 6). This year we enter Advent having just heard that we encounter Jesus in the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the one who is sick and the one in prison; we encounter Jesus in the “least” among us. Matthew 25:31-46

The St. Margaret’s Online Advent Calendar is a response to what we hear the Spirit saying in the Sunday Morning Forum. Sunday after Sunday, in a variety of ways, we hear the truth of the Apostle’s teaching:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. James 2:14-18, 26

Instead of purchasing another item to give to a loved one you will be invited to consider gifting the money (you would have spent) to a person, organization, or fund on behalf of your loved one.

Here is an opportunity to “change the world” — use it

Part of taking action on behalf of others is being informed. Then, part of effective action is joining with others to enhance the action taken (you know, “strength in numbers” and so on). I would like to introduce the Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) Blog to you by sharing from today’s post. You will see that the blog is intended to be “a forum for discussion, sharing and community.” Be informed.

Then, as we enter the season when gifts are given, hear Rob Radtke’s appeal. Rob is the President of ERD. He has donors who will match every donation made through November 30th up to $500,000. Consider a gift that will be twice as large (with the help of others) and do a world of good.  Then, make a gift. Here is Rob’s introduction:

It’s that time of year. The leaves are turning, there’s a chill in the air and the holidays are rushing toward us. And as I write, we’re over halfway through our 2011 Matching Gift Challenge. Just as they did last fall, some extremely generous donors are again matching every donation we receive through November 30, dollar for dollar – up to a total of $500,000.

As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s generally not my policy to ask for donations on our blog. I try as much as possible to honor the goal of this space: to be a forum for discussion, sharing and community. But once again, I’m making an exception because of this remarkable opportunity.

Thanks to our special donors, a gift today will go twice as far to reach people living in extreme poverty and hunger around the world. You’ll be able to provide double the amount of emergency relief supplies for those affected by disaster, two times as many meals for hungry school children, or twice the number of life-saving malaria nets and training to protect families.

via Episcopal Relief & Development.

Photo: ERD blog

What we are doing on earth—a bishop speaks

The Rev. Dr. Mariann Budde was consecrated as the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Washington on 12 Nov 2011 and was “seated” in her cathedral and preached her first “episcopal sermon” on 13 Nov 2011 in the National Cathedral. You can read her entire sermon here: What we are doing on earth.

To whet your appetite for reading, I offer this tidbit from the midst of her remarks. It is a remeinder to all of us of the unique character of our Episcopal Church (firmly in the “Anglican Tradition”). Enjoy.

My friends of the Episcopal Diocese of this Washington, you have called me to serve as your bishop at a decisive moment of opportunity and challenge for us all. The opportunity is all around us. We of the Episcopal Church have been entrusted with a particular expression of Christ’s gospel that is priceless. Think of what it means to you to have a spiritual home with such an appreciation of mystery and all that is beyond our knowing and curiosity about the world as we can know it through the rigorous inquiry of science.

Think of what it means to you to have a spiritual home that lives the Via Media, the middle way among all expressions of Christianity, affirming the wholeness of faith that can only be fully experienced in the creative tension of polarities — heart and mind, Catholic and Protestant, word and sacrament, mysticism and service, contemplation and social engagement. Think of what it means to you to be part of a Church that does not ask its members to agree on matters of politics or theology or biblical interpretation, but rather to allow the grace of God to unite us at the altar of Christ in full appreciation of our differences and the God-given right of everyone to be welcome at God’s table.

Come back and leave a comment or two. Share your reaction to her sermon. What is stirred up within you? What did you learn? What did you relearn? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Photo: Episcopal News Service

It is better to light one candle, than to curse the darkness

Lighting a candle is a way to let Christ, the Light, into our lives; it is a way to let our light (of care, concern, hope, love, compassion, interconnectedness, peace) shine into the world;  it is an invitation to warmth; the fire of a candle ascends, like our prayer; it can be an offering of self, “our souls and bodies” to  God’s glory. … The lit candle can be our continuing prayer, even when our conscious praying is interrupted or distracted into oblivion.

The lit candle, especially in the darkest part of the night, is a symbol of an unquenchable hope; it is a symbol of a life-giving trust (in God).

I encourage you to light a candle, offer a prayer, give light (no, give the Light you know) to the world.

For further reading and reflection

In many different traditions lighting candles is a sacred action. It expresses more than words can express. It has to do with gratefulness. From time immemorial, people have lit candles in sacred places. Why should cyberspace not be sacred? From the website of Gratefulness.org as an introduction to a sacred space in which you can light a candle.

I have started a Group for us on Gratefulness.org. The Group initials are 4 letters: a-m-e-n. Our group is “amen” (without the quotes). As you complete the guided process to light your candle in cyberspace you will have the opportunity to enter a set of Group initials. Use “amen” (without the quote marks). All candles with the Group initials amen will appear together. If you want to find your candle, use your initials in the space provided.

“Amen.” Of course, this is a common ending to our prayers. To say Amen to a prayer is to say to all who hear “Let it be so, even more than I can say, or more than I can ask or imagine, let it be so.”

Click the image or click here: Light A Candle and go to Gratefulness.org I will greet you there and you will be guided in your candle lighting effort; God will do the rest.

Light a candle in your home or other sacred space and spend time with the light before leaving and then, take that light into the world.

Note: The headline is borrowed from The Christophers and was a frequent mantra while i was hospitalized in 2008-09.

God’s activity is so musical!

When you have about an hour and a half and feel somewhat in a meditative mood, check out this YouTube presentation from UCTV, University of California Television. Dr. Jeremy S. Begbie takes even a non-musician (like me) into the world of music and in his talk opens, in a new way, the “speech” of the Spirit as recorded in our Bible. I wanted to hear more.

May you find yet another way to hear what the Spirit is saying.

“In a fascinating multimedia presentation, Jeremy Begbie, Professor of Music, Cambridge University, expounds upon the relationship between music and theology. Series: “Let There Be Light” [10/2003] [Humanities] [Show ID: 7906]”