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About St Mary's Episcopal Church, Reading PA
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Welcome...
St. Mary's vision for the future is:
- To be a vibrant, multicultural community which embraces and welcomes diversity.
- To open St. Mary's parish to all people.
- To be a dynamic spiritual center rooted in authentic relationship with our community and with the world beyond.
- To have a variety of musical celebrations and spiritual offerings.
- To create inter-generational opportunities through which our youth will be encouraged to grow in the knowledge and love of God and service to one another.
Our rector, The Rev. Nancy Packard, our vestry, and everyone at our church join together to thank you for visiting 'here at St Mary's.' With God's help, simple changes and updates will continue to reflect what's happening in our parish. If you'd like to offer a suggestion or have a question, please email us. We'd love to hear from you. Pastor Nancy will review your suggestion, and we'll get back to you.
This website reflects our community of individuals, young and old, who join together to worship God. We are strengthened by God's grace through the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (communion service) and each other's faith. This website also reaches out to you, another child of God. One of Pastor Nancy's sermons asked us to remember that we are all called to turn 'our attentive minds and loving hearts' to God. It continues to be a call to remember throughout the year. We are reminded that its always a good time, that its not too late to grow in closer relationship to our God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What can be more important than that?
In the Episcopal Church, we speak of choice a great deal. At an Episcopal Church, it doesn't take long to see what's meant by choice. And, when you come to St Mary's, you'll discover 'welcome' isn't a word we just chat about. It's the real thing. So, please know you are most welcome...and always...to come be 'in communion' with us. We're just a step away.
 
If you are unfamiliar with the Episcopal Church and want to know what we believe, there is An Outline of the Faith, commonly called The Catechism, in The Book of Common Prayer. It's written that its primarily intended for use by parish priests, deacons, and lay catechists, as an outline for instruction...the second use of this catechism is to provide a brief summary of the Church's teachings for an inquiring stranger who picks up a Prayer Book. So, we have The Catechism on its own webpage. It's included there, of course, to create greater understanding. But it's not only for visitors. It's very good for any one of us, too, because scripture, tradition, and reason are key aspects of our individual journeys of faith.
Prayer books (Books of Common Prayer) can be found in Episcopal churches in pews, next to hymnals, also online through internet links, in libraries and bookstores, etc. We are also including Devotions for the "Daily Cycle of Prayer." Throughout the Episcopal Church, members of communities say prayers daily, including some readings which we've included on our Prayers webpage. For the specific prayer sequence each day, there's a link where everyone can read and pray the Cycle (so feel free to browse through Links to see if there's something there that will work for you). Some of us opt to go to such links rather than read it in our prayer books. It's a personal choice we have.
When you're ready to take a next step, know we'll be right by your side, if you want, listening, encouraging, or simply being silent, worshipful companions. Come be at ease with us, when you will. Come praise God with us. Our hearts and our doors are open for you.
So..what will you see and experience with us, when you come into our church, or other Episcopal churches?
Still, many of us remember what we could call ackwardness, trying to figure out if this church was the right one for us, and a few of us may not have been able to figure out what to do when we came into St Mary's as strangers, even though we may known some or many of the prayers, or even if we knew none of them. So what we'd just like to say to you is: relax, okay? You're here for a reason. God knows you. You've come to worship God. All else comes in a remote last. And we're here for the same reason, too...to come to pray together so we can grow closer to God. And we're very happy you came to St. Mary's. Noone comes here by mistake. Welcome..
We thought we'd go over a few things, not all of them, about our Sunday service, which in our church is basically called, the Holy Eucharist, so if you're not very familiar iwth our worship practices, hopefully, what we're sharing here will help itl fall in place a bit easier, if you have never been to an Episcopal church. If you have, it's a bit of a refresher. And we all can use that from time to time.
Our service is the Holy Eucharist. There are a few other names for it, but that's the one we use more commonly, so we'll start there. Anyway, we join together for our services on Sundays. We have two Sunday services right now, and Noonday Prayer on Wednesdays most of the year.
Just as in most churches, there are hymns, or songs to be sung. In some churches, people play organs; some have synthesized music. Some use guitars and contemporary musical instruments. Sometimes, churches have big choirs. Some churches have none. When our church service is underway, when we're worshipping together at our 10 AM Holy Eucharist, we have hymns we usually sing. At our earlier 8 AM Holy Eucharist, we don't sing any hymns. But that's okay, too.
One important thing is that we worship in our church, meaning the entire Episcopal Church nationwide, using the Book of Common Prayer, which was mentioned in the preceding Welcome section.
Through the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), we follow a certain form through which we worship...look at the book, and you'll see. There are a lot of prayers, including collects. We all learn what they are and that you don't say collect like in collecting money...you say...coll ect. They are prayers, too. There are prayers a priest says, and prayers parish members say, and prayers we say together. Okay? The Psalms are in the BCP, too. They're an important part of our worship together, but then, all parts become important to us.
As a faith group, we believe in tradition...and that means there in rituals within those traditions. Traditions and rituals have come down through the ages and are a part of this time. There are times we stand, sit, kneel, and times some will sit while others stand or kneel. You'll also see candles and vestments (special clothes that are worn by ordained ministers, known as priests. Traditions and rituals and candles and vestments are have meanings behind them. You get to know more about them along the journey. Here at we have one priest, who is also our rector.
Back to background on our worshipping God together as a community of people of faith. Most of the time, we use the same Book of Common Prayer texts over and over again. sometimes, we say different prayers and our responses are different. When that happens, its due to what is happening in our church year. The church year is divided into weeks, just like in the world outside the physical walls of any house of God. It may sound complex, but it's not. You get into the flow of it after a while, as you see the whys behind the change of the seasons within the church year. Just like Bible readings are different at Christmas than they are at Easter, so are some of our prayers...
What is the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table?
Good question, eh? Our service is broken into two parts...the Word of God and the 'Gifts of God for the People of God (Communion)'. More formally, the church calls this the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Table.
During the Liturgy of the Word, we offer praise and song (hymns) to God. Church members and our priest read from the Bible, and we can read along in the church bulletins we get from the ushers who meet us inside the church near the door. Usually, there's an Old Testament reading, and a Psalm (usually a reader - lector - reads the first line, and the entire congregation reads the second part until all the lines of the Psalm have been read), and usually there's a reading from one of the Epistles in the New Testament, followed by a priest, who reads from the Gospels. Everyone who can stand, does stand when the Gospel is read.
Next, a priest offers a sermon, which is meant to help us focus our attention on what the readings and/or the Gospel mean. Then, there are more prayers. We join together to say the Nicene Creed, which is an ancient...1,500-year old prayer. It speaks to what we believe...its a statement of faith (we, meaning the entire church since the Fifth Century through today and on into our tomorrows). All along the way, here at St Mary's, our pastor invites us to journey through the Book of Common Prayer, by reminding us what pages to turn to, so we can follow and participate in the service fully. The pages are printed in St Mary's weekly church bulletin, because we all can use reminders. Of course, your neighbors in the pews around you can help you follow the service, too.
There are a sequence of prayers that are very special parts of our services that follow. These are Prayers for the People. These prayers we offer for those ill or homebound, for those in the military and their families, for other congregations, for special needs, for the Church and its clergy and lay ministers, for our congregation, for those celebrating special occasions, for all that's wonderful in creation, around us and within us, for families and babies, and grandparents and newlyweds, and for those who have died.
At the end of these prayers, a priest brings it all together into an intercessory prayer. Sometimes, during the church year, we...all of us..together formally confess our sings before God and each other. A special prayer format invites us all of us to pray for forgiveness for what 'we've done and left undone' after which a priest recites 'the absolution,' which reaffirms God's loving forgiveness of our sins.
Then, we exchange what's called 'the Peace." We physically wish each other, peace. After this exchange, our pastor usually makes her announcements of what's happening that day after our service in the Parish Hall, or what's coming up that's important to us so that we know and can be invited to participate.
The second part of the Holy Eucharist is at the altar. It's the Liturgy of the Table. There's a cloth on top of the altar. There are candles. there's a plate of wafers (or bread), and a cup of wine.
A priest stands at the altar, raises her or his hands, offers a greeting to the parish members, and starts saying the Eucharistic Prayer, which is the story of our belief from creation, on to the tribe of Israel being chosen by God as his covenanted people and it speaks to how the people of God continued to sin against God despite his calling them to do what was right and sin no more. Then, the priest tells the story of the coming of Jesus Christ, the night before his death and how he instituted the Eucharistic meal (communion) as a continual remembrance of him.
A priest blesses the bread and the wine. The parish members and the priest recite the Lord's Prayer together. The priest breaks the bread and offers it to those present, as "the gifts of God for the People of God."
The blessed bread and wine have been consecrated through the priest's actions, and all come forward to receive the bread and wine. Episcopalians welcome all to come to the Lord's table. In Episcopalian churches, all baptised people can receive "the gifts of God," because in our tradition, because we the baptism of all people is honored and taken seriously, so the Eucharist (communion) is offered. If those who come forward to the Lord's table (altar) do not choose to take communion or are not baptised but would like to have a blessing offered, the priest will bless those individuals.
Hymns may be offered at various times, during the Liturgy of the Table, and at the end of the service. At the end of the service (Holy Eucharist), we offer prayers of thanksgiving to God together, and our priest speaks the final prayer to 'send us out into the world' to continue to serve God.
Our pastor is at the rear of St Mary's church, in front of our wonderful back wall of stainglass windows, to greet everyone as we leave or go down to the Parish Hall for coffee hour after our service. Everyone is welcome there, too.
There are some changes in our service, during the course of the church year, that reflect the different times the church year observes. For example, Advent that leads into Christmas, and Lent that leads into Easter. Some things are different, but this outlines the heart of the service.
This section has been written after seeing many versions of it offered in website after website after website online, from Episcopal churches coast-to-coast. It's a simple attempt to make you, the visitor, feel more comfortable. Some of us remember what it was like coming into the church a while ago and we stayed......so we could be here at St Mary's to center ourselves into praising and thanking God 'from whom all blessings flow.'
So -- welcome to St Mary's online... We hope, some day you will walk into our church at the corner of Front and W. Windsor Streets, Reading. There's off street parking at the 8 AM service. There's street parking at the 10 AM. No big deal for most of us, right? After all, God's people have walked the earth since the beginning...
Peace...from the people of St Mary's
Welcome...
St. Mary's vision for the future is:
- To be a vibrant, multicultural community which embraces and welcomes diversity.
- To open St. Mary's parish to all people.
- To be a dynamic spiritual center rooted in authentic relationship with our community and with the world beyond.
- To have a variety of musical celebrations and spiritual offerings.
- To create inter-generational opportunities through which our youth will be encouraged to grow in the knowledge and love of God and service to one another.
Our rector, The Rev. Nancy Packard, our vestry, and everyone at our church join together to thank you for visiting 'here at St Mary's.' With God's help, simple changes and updates will continue to reflect what's happening in our parish. If you'd like to offer a suggestion or have a question, please email us. We'd love to hear from you. Pastor Nancy will review your suggestion, and we'll get back to you.
This website reflects our community of individuals, young and old, who join together to worship God. We are strengthened by God's grace through the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (communion service) and each other's faith. This website also reaches out to you, another child of God. One of Pastor Nancy's sermons asked us to remember that we are all called to turn 'our attentive minds and loving hearts' to God. It continues to be a call to remember throughout the year. We are reminded that its always a good time, that its not too late to grow in closer relationship to our God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What can be more important than that?
In the Episcopal Church, we speak of choice a great deal. At an Episcopal Church, it doesn't take long to see what's meant by choice. And, when you come to St Mary's, you'll discover 'welcome' isn't a word we just chat about. It's the real thing. So, please know you are most welcome...and always...to come be 'in communion' with us. We're just a step away.
If you are unfamiliar with the Episcopal Church and want to know what we believe, there is An Outline of the Faith, commonly called The Catechism, in The Book of Common Prayer. It's written that its primarily intended for use by parish priests, deacons, and lay catechists, as an outline for instruction...the second use of this catechism is to provide a brief summary of the Church's teachings for an inquiring stranger who picks up a Prayer Book. So, we have The Catechism on its own webpage. It's included there, of course, to create greater understanding. But it's not only for visitors. It's very good for any one of us, too, because scripture, tradition, and reason are key aspects of our individual journeys of faith.
Prayer books (Books of Common Prayer) can be found in Episcopal churches in pews, next to hymnals, also online through internet links, in libraries and bookstores, etc. We are also including Devotions for the "Daily Cycle of Prayer." Throughout the Episcopal Church, members of communities say prayers daily, including some readings which we've included on our Prayers webpage. For the specific prayer sequence each day, there's a link where everyone can read and pray the Cycle (so feel free to browse through Links to see if there's something there that will work for you). Some of us opt to go to such links rather than read it in our prayer books. It's a personal choice we have.
When you're ready to take a next step, know we'll be right by your side, if you want, listening, encouraging, or simply being silent, worshipful companions. Come be at ease with us, when you will. Come praise God with us. Our hearts and our doors are open for you.
So..what will you see and experience with us, when you come into our church, or other Episcopal churches?
Still, many of us remember what we could call ackwardness, trying to figure out if this church was the right one for us, and a few of us may not have been able to figure out what to do when we came into St Mary's as strangers, even though we may known some or many of the prayers, or even if we knew none of them. So what we'd just like to say to you is: relax, okay? You're here for a reason. God knows you. You've come to worship God. All else comes in a remote last. And we're here for the same reason, too...to come to pray together so we can grow closer to God. And we're very happy you came to St. Mary's. Noone comes here by mistake. Welcome..
We thought we'd go over a few things, not all of them, about our Sunday service, which in our church is basically called, the Holy Eucharist, so if you're not very familiar iwth our worship practices, hopefully, what we're sharing here will help itl fall in place a bit easier, if you have never been to an Episcopal church. If you have, it's a bit of a refresher. And we all can use that from time to time.
Our service is the Holy Eucharist. There are a few other names for it, but that's the one we use more commonly, so we'll start there. Anyway, we join together for our services on Sundays. We have two Sunday services right now, and Noonday Prayer on Wednesdays most of the year.
Just as in most churches, there are hymns, or songs to be sung. In some churches, people play organs; some have synthesized music. Some use guitars and contemporary musical instruments. Sometimes, churches have big choirs. Some churches have none. When our church service is underway, when we're worshipping together at our 10 AM Holy Eucharist, we have hymns we usually sing. At our earlier 8 AM Holy Eucharist, we don't sing any hymns. But that's okay, too.
One important thing is that we worship in our church, meaning the entire Episcopal Church nationwide, using the Book of Common Prayer, which was mentioned in the preceding Welcome section.
Through the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), we follow a certain form through which we worship...look at the book, and you'll see. There are a lot of prayers, including collects. We all learn what they are and that you don't say collect like in collecting money...you say...coll ect. They are prayers, too. There are prayers a priest says, and prayers parish members say, and prayers we say together. Okay? The Psalms are in the BCP, too. They're an important part of our worship together, but then, all parts become important to us.
As a faith group, we believe in tradition...and that means there in rituals within those traditions. Traditions and rituals have come down through the ages and are a part of this time. There are times we stand, sit, kneel, and times some will sit while others stand or kneel. You'll also see candles and vestments (special clothes that are worn by ordained ministers, known as priests. Traditions and rituals and candles and vestments are have meanings behind them. You get to know more about them along the journey. Here at we have one priest, who is also our rector.
Back to background on our worshipping God together as a community of people of faith. Most of the time, we use the same Book of Common Prayer texts over and over again. sometimes, we say different prayers and our responses are different. When that happens, its due to what is happening in our church year. The church year is divided into weeks, just like in the world outside the physical walls of any house of God. It may sound complex, but it's not. You get into the flow of it after a while, as you see the whys behind the change of the seasons within the church year. Just like Bible readings are different at Christmas than they are at Easter, so are some of our prayers...
What is the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table?
Good question, eh? Our service is broken into two parts...the Word of God and the 'Gifts of God for the People of God (Communion)'. More formally, the church calls this the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Table.
During the Liturgy of the Word, we offer praise and song (hymns) to God. Church members and our priest read from the Bible, and we can read along in the church bulletins we get from the ushers who meet us inside the church near the door. Usually, there's an Old Testament reading, and a Psalm (usually a reader - lector - reads the first line, and the entire congregation reads the second part until all the lines of the Psalm have been read), and usually there's a reading from one of the Epistles in the New Testament, followed by a priest, who reads from the Gospels. Everyone who can stand, does stand when the Gospel is read.
Next, a priest offers a sermon, which is meant to help us focus our attention on what the readings and/or the Gospel mean. Then, there are more prayers. We join together to say the Nicene Creed, which is an ancient...1,500-year old prayer. It speaks to what we believe...its a statement of faith (we, meaning the entire church since the Fifth Century through today and on into our tomorrows). All along the way, here at St Mary's, our pastor invites us to journey through the Book of Common Prayer, by reminding us what pages to turn to, so we can follow and participate in the service fully. The pages are printed in St Mary's weekly church bulletin, because we all can use reminders. Of course, your neighbors in the pews around you can help you follow the service, too.
There are a sequence of prayers that are very special parts of our services that follow. These are Prayers for the People. These prayers we offer for those ill or homebound, for those in the military and their families, for other congregations, for special needs, for the Church and its clergy and lay ministers, for our congregation, for those celebrating special occasions, for all that's wonderful in creation, around us and within us, for families and babies, and grandparents and newlyweds, and for those who have died.
At the end of these prayers, a priest brings it all together into an intercessory prayer. Sometimes, during the church year, we...all of us..together formally confess our sings before God and each other. A special prayer format invites us all of us to pray for forgiveness for what 'we've done and left undone' after which a priest recites 'the absolution,' which reaffirms God's loving forgiveness of our sins.
Then, we exchange what's called 'the Peace." We physically wish each other, peace. After this exchange, our pastor usually makes her announcements of what's happening that day after our service in the Parish Hall, or what's coming up that's important to us so that we know and can be invited to participate.
The second part of the Holy Eucharist is at the altar. It's the Liturgy of the Table. There's a cloth on top of the altar. There are candles. there's a plate of wafers (or bread), and a cup of wine.
A priest stands at the altar, raises her or his hands, offers a greeting to the parish members, and starts saying the Eucharistic Prayer, which is the story of our belief from creation, on to the tribe of Israel being chosen by God as his covenanted people and it speaks to how the people of God continued to sin against God despite his calling them to do what was right and sin no more. Then, the priest tells the story of the coming of Jesus Christ, the night before his death and how he instituted the Eucharistic meal (communion) as a continual remembrance of him.
A priest blesses the bread and the wine. The parish members and the priest recite the Lord's Prayer together. The priest breaks the bread and offers it to those present, as "the gifts of God for the People of God."
The blessed bread and wine have been consecrated through the priest's actions, and all come forward to receive the bread and wine. Episcopalians welcome all to come to the Lord's table. In Episcopalian churches, all baptised people can receive "the gifts of God," because in our tradition, because we the baptism of all people is honored and taken seriously, so the Eucharist (communion) is offered. If those who come forward to the Lord's table (altar) do not choose to take communion or are not baptised but would like to have a blessing offered, the priest will bless those individuals.
Hymns may be offered at various times, during the Liturgy of the Table, and at the end of the service. At the end of the service (Holy Eucharist), we offer prayers of thanksgiving to God together, and our priest speaks the final prayer to 'send us out into the world' to continue to serve God.
Our pastor is at the rear of St Mary's church, in front of our wonderful back wall of stainglass windows, to greet everyone as we leave or go down to the Parish Hall for coffee hour after our service. Everyone is welcome there, too.
There are some changes in our service, during the course of the church year, that reflect the different times the church year observes. For example, Advent that leads into Christmas, and Lent that leads into Easter. Some things are different, but this outlines the heart of the service.
This section has been written after seeing many versions of it offered in website after website after website online, from Episcopal churches coast-to-coast. It's a simple attempt to make you, the visitor, feel more comfortable. Some of us remember what it was like coming into the church a while ago and we stayed......so we could be here at St Mary's to center ourselves into praising and thanking God 'from whom all blessings flow.'
So -- welcome to St Mary's online... We hope, some day you will walk into our church at the corner of Front and W. Windsor Streets, Reading. There's off street parking at the 8 AM service. There's street parking at the 10 AM. No big deal for most of us, right? After all, God's people have walked the earth since the beginning...
Peace...from the people of St Mary's
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