Two groups for Lent

Anointing at the Celtic service

Jay Paul

The ministry of healing prayer and anointing

When will these practices return?

One of the hallmarks of St. Stephen’s Sunday evening service of Celtic Evensong and Communion is the presence of healing prayer ministers and anointers. Following Jesus’ example they participate in healing through prayer—most of it silent—and touch. Before the pandemic, during the Celtic service people would approach the healing prayer ministers asking for prayers for themselves or on behalf of others. People could also go to the anointers, extend their hands, and have them marked with blessed oil. These are intimate moments drawing us closer to the heart of Christ.

Since the pandemic began, we have not been able to offer healing prayer, and it has been deeply missed. Recently we were able to bring back anointers, a welcome return, until the Omicron variant began sweeping through the country.

As we were going to press, we were ready to bring back anointing, and continuing to discern the best way forward with healing prayer. For now, we are all invited to pray for healing for all God’s people. –THE REV. CLAUDIA W. MERRITT

The Feelings Wheel of Fortune:

A Lenten Bible study

The Thursday morning Bible Study will regather beginning on March 3, for a special Lenten study series, “The Feelings Wheel of Fortune: Emotions Throughout Scripture.” The group meets each Thursday at 10 a.m. in the Small Fellowship Hall. No registration is needed; come whenever you can.

The Rev. Cate Anthony and other members of the St. Stephen’s community will gather to reflect on the breadth of human experience throughout the Bible and our own lives. The feelings wheel or wheel of emotions, created by Robert Plutchik, offers a visual representation of primary emotions, displaying the varying degrees and complexities of different feelings. Each week will dive into a different segment of the feelings wheel (wheels provided by Cate!) and its stories in Scripture.

Lenten study to use Nouwen’s

Life of the Beloved

How often do we long for someone to walk beside us, as Jesus did with his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and interpret scripture for us…tell us how to apply it to real everyday lives? We ponder the words from the Bible. We read interpretations by theologians and spiritual seekers. We flinch when we feel condemned. We’re comforted when we feel our lives are, at least for a moment, in synch with our understanding of God’s will. Yet we remain hungry…hungry for spiritual truth and guidance. Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World is spiritual nourishment to help satisfy that hunger.

Join Betsy Tyson in this Lenten study as we explore Nouwen’s belief in the truth of our belovedness and living into that truth by becoming the beloved. . . letting truth of our belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say or do.”

The group will meet on Mondays from March 7 through April 4, from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. Visit our Web site for registration, ststephensRVA.org/beloved, and to find sources for the book. If you have questions, please contact Betsy at btyson@ststephensRVA.org or call her at 804.288.2867.