A warm thank you to all who participated in the 27 January ACW meeting, sharing lunch and fellowship.
For 25 years our Anglican Church Women have supported female students at Bishop McAllister College in Uganda. For many years, support was generated by our fundraising projects, augmented by dividends from bank shares held by Bishop and Chapter in trust for the ACW. It now is timely that the shares be cashed and the revenue invested.
The gathering willingly approved and endorsed the ACW Executive Committee’s course of action to invest in the Cathedral Anglican Church Women Education Trust Fund as managed by the DCIF of the Diocese and they accepted the Terms of Reference that this Fund will continue supporting students at this worthy institution.
The Cathedral Youth Group -- CYG -- had three lovely and lively gatherings in the later part of 2024.
We met first outside for supper and games on the Cathedral Green on 20 October, then again inside at Cathedral Memorial Hall on 17 November to prepare ourselves for Advent and decorate the Hall for Christmas, and a third time on 22 December to enjoy a holiday supper and watch "O Holy Night," the Christmas special produced by The Chosen.
We've got a wonderful group of young people involved in CYG for 2024-2025, with two combined 'subgroups' (representing middle school and high school) of roughly the same size. And we have hopes and plans to meet monthly or so from now until the end of the school year -- with some ice-skating and roller-skating both on the docket!
Ms. Jane Martinez, principal of St. Hilda's Anglican School in Belize, recently sent this video which includes photos of the students and staff from 2024, and a holiday greeting.
Ms. Jane also sent this note:
Greetings Friends,
It has been a long and challenging year but a blessing nonetheless. As we come to the end of another year, I want to say how thankful we are to have you as friends praying for and supporting us. Words cannot express the appreciation that we have for your continuous support. Even though we are far in distance, know that you are dear at heart.
I pray that this Christmas season is a blessed and safe one for each of you. We look forward to your continued partnership in the new year. Love you all.
Best, Jane
The Cathedral has a special relationship with the staff and students of St. Hilda’s Anglican School, an elementary in the rural village of Georgeville. Over two hundred children attend the school, ranging between kindergarten and grade 8, in addition to a recently established preschool.
Cathedral teams have travelled to Belize five times: in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2018. Over 60 Cathedral members ranging in age from 15 to 79 have participated in a mission trip to Belize, and hundreds of people in Fredericton have supported the work at St. Hilda's through organizational support, donations and prayers.
In 2010, Cathedral mission team members established a high school scholarship program which has allowed students from St. Hilda’s to apply for a scholarship to continue their education past grade 8. Some of the graduates supported by the Cathedral have continued on to post-secondary education, and all have gained knowledge and experience that will help them in their future.
We are grateful for all who have helped to provide scholarships for these teenagers, and support for programs at the elementary school. Learn more about our mission work in Belize.
You can contribute to the mission in Belize through offering envelopes or donate online.
If you are interested in participating in future endeavors benefiting the students in Belize, please contact the Cathedral Office to connect with members of the Belize mission committee.
Stewardship is a core Christian practice rooted in scripture. The Bible offers a commentary on human stewardship that begins with God’s purpose in setting our first ancestor in the garden “to till and keep it,” and ends in the new creation, in a recurring pattern of crisis and resolution. That pattern of human crisis and divine resolution flows through the Bible — in the creation, in the covenant with Abraham, in the law, the prophets and the writings of the Hebrew scripture, in the life of Jesus, and in the continuing life of his disciples after the resurrection.
The first crisis of human stewardship came with our first ancestors’ decision to test the sovereignty of God by consuming the only fruit in the garden reserved exclusively to the Creator. Rejecting stewardship and embracing the illusory promise of sovereign possession of the garden, they initiate a continuing pattern of exploitation, entitlement, violence and destruction that plagues human participation in the life of the earth. There is only one essential stewardship question: Will we make use of resources entrusted to us to serve God’s mission, or for purposes that we ourselves devise or that are thrust upon us by an economy that depends absolutely on growing consumption to sustain it?
Stewardship is a response to the mission of God. When we invite persons into discipleship and baptize, we also invite them into the practices of faithful stewardship. Those practices are properly framed in terms of whether or not they contribute to what God desires in and for the life of the world.
The parable of the two sons opens up a stewardship crisis for leaders among the baptized. When we have turned inward to focus on our wants and needs, when we have used the language of stewardship to address our own religious agenda instead of God’s mission, when we have reduced the challenge of stewardship to servicing the existence, program and practices of the church, then we have squandered the treasure of God in a far country.
Will we make use of resources entrusted to us to serve God’s mission?
For Canadian Anglicans, no faithful conversation about stewardship can be undertaken without consideration of the Baptismal Covenant and the Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion. The former is, like the “Rule of Life” that preceded it in the Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer, (p. 544) a framework for faithful personal participation in the mission of God. And the Marks of Mission form a framework for faithful corporate participation in that mission. The Resources for Mission Department works in partnership with dioceses to foster a generous sense of stewardship across the Canadian Church.
The Baptismal Covenant offers an expansive vision of stewardship, including commitments to the community and its common life; to resisting evil and turning away from our participation in it; to offering the world the gospel of Jesus Christ as an alternative to its story of entitlement, consumption, and conflict, to embody that gospel in acts of service and to work for justice, peace and the dignity of persons.
The Marks of Mission complement and support the principles and practices of the Baptismal Covenant with a commitment to shape our common life in alignment with the mission of God., Beginning with “the Good News of the Kingdom” they offer a set of shared practices that include inviting people to inhabit that Kingdom through baptism, and to enact the Kingdom’s ethos in response to human need, in a commitment to justice, in care for creation and in reconciliation and peace-making.
God sets out in mission to make all things new. It is God’s mission to transform persons, to redeem us and restore us to joyful and useful participation in God’s work. It is God’s mission to transform the church as well, to redeem and restore our common life so that we might live as stewards of God’s abundant gifts, and invite others into that stewardship – for the sake of the world God loves.
This document was approved as a theological rationale for the work of the Resources for Mission Department of General Synod by the Standing Committee on Philanthropy.
For 25 years our Anglican Church Women have supported female students at Bishop McAllister College in Uganda. For many years, support was generated by our fundraising projects, augmented by dividends from bank shares held by Bishop and Chapter in trust for the ACW. It now is timely that the shares be cashed and the revenue invested.
