Saint Paul in Marin

Upcoming Study Course on John Henry Newman

starting Thursday September 23, 2010 and ending Thursday December 16, 2010.

By Fr. David Anderson
St. Peter Eastern Catholic Church Ukiah
(190 Orr Street, Ukiah, CA 95482, tel: 707 468-4348). A Mission of the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy.

Location of classes: Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield
on Thursdays, 7:30 to 9:30 PM
For directions to Marin HS click here

Donations: $150 recommended for each session
(but no one will be turned away for lack of funds).
Bring checks to class, write them to "Saint Peter Eastern Catholic Mission" (Ukiah).
We invite everyone to come by for a free class visit!
For more information, email Mary Ann at : haeuser@sbcglobal.net or call her at 415 454-0979.

In the last couple of years, we have studied St. Paul: Thessalonians; Galatians; Corinthians; Collossians; Ephesians; Phillipians; Titus; Romans, Hebrews.
We also studied St. John: The Book of Revelation using the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. To order from Ignatius Press, click here. Or bring you own Bible to class.

Living the Joy of the Liturgy. Read the recent article in the "National Catholic Register" on Fr. David and St. Peter Eastern Catholic Mission in Ukiah: St. Peter Eastern Catholic Mission offers nothing to attract the worldly eye. There's a small parking lot, a field of weeds, and a nondescript white-stucco building that could use a fresh coat of paint. The only outward sign to mark the latter as a church is a small golden rooftop Byzantine cross. And yet, inside this little church, the feeling is always of having stepped into another dimension. Sunlight streams through the east window. Joyful psalmody fills the air. Breathtakingly beautiful liturgy can last three to four hours"...
Read more here .

Divine Liturgy in St Sebastian On Saturday August 28, 2010 (on St. Augustine Feast day) at St. Sebastian Church in Marin County: The Divine Liturgy, lunch and a Talk on Saint Augustine by Fr. David Anderson.

(Here are my own quick abbreviated notes of the talk) Augustine refused to learn Greek in school and as a result, was "distanced" from the main body of the Church's teachings and theologians. He was an intellectual dilettante. He regarded Scriptures as "substandard". He was most attracted by a particular sect: the Manicheans. He is known to have been attracted to "the flesh". Not only he had a mistress and a son out of wedlock but he had a "spiritual mistress" as well (his attachment to Manichaeism), the dual notion that sources of good and evil are equal, that there is a God of good and a God of evil, and that what is material is evil. … Augustine, when he was a Manicheans, justified getting into evil ways since "they don't really matters". The goal of the Christian life is what happens to us, as a person. …. Augustine became a believer in Christ through the dissatisfaction of the intellectual system he had embraced. It did not answer the longing of his heart... Augustine referred to God as "that which is beautiful" . …There is a reality to our body which is permanent. The centrality of the resurrection, the realization that only in that day, there will be true completion, will our restlessness come to an end. To rest in the Lord is to share the same glory that the Body of Christ … Fr. David spoke of original sin, in St Augustine, the differences in the East and the West. He spoke of The theology of the Trinity: the Father the lover, the Son the beloved and the love the HS. He also told us that The City of God was written by Augustine in a time which was very much like our own, with the whole fabric of the classical world falling apart. … The question is: of which City are we citizen? The world is not our home. The City of God is the one which is eternal. A sense of homelessness, of being a pilgrim. Our goal, our destiny is the City of God. God has done everything for us to get there. He has done so much, he sent his only Son….Ecclesia means to be called out. We are called out, we are on a journey of conversion and purification toward the union with God... Fr. David spoke of knowledge, which is much more than just pieces of information… God has intimate knowledge of every bit of his creation. (Then we had Q and A).

Fr. David is a terrific speaker, a great teacher, a Scripture scholar, extremely knowledgeable on the Fathers of the Church, both in the East and the West, on the History of the Church and the development of the Liturgy.

"St. Augustine of Hippo" (354-430): Christian Neoplatonist, North African Bishop, Doctor of the Catholic Church. One of the decisive developments in the western philosophical tradition was the eventually widespread merging of the Greek philosophical tradition and the Judeo-Christian religious and scriptural traditions. Augustine is one of the main figures through and by whom this merging was accomplished. He is, as well, one of the towering figures of medieval philosophy whose authority and thought came to exert a pervasive and enduring influence well into the modern period…with his subtle accounts of belief and authority, knowledge and illumination, his emphasis upon the importance and centrality of the will, and his focus upon a new way of conceptualizing the phenomena of human history.
(Excerpts from Mendelson, Michael, "Saint Augustine", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Addressing all people on their "walk" on Earth, the Holy Father called on Wednesday for a continued search for the "profound truth," after the example of St. Augustine. Referring to the example of this Church Father, he said that no one should be afraid to encounter the Truth, which could "find us, get hold of us and change our lives." (Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug 25, 2010 CNA/EWTN News)

On Saturday July 25, 2009,
in St. Sebastian Church in Greenbrae, Marin County, we gathered for the Divine Liturgy, a brunch and a Talk on:
Reflections on the Priesthood from Scriptures and the Early Fathers
by Father David Anderson, Pastor of St. Peter Eastern Catholic Church, Ukiah.

San Sebastian slide1
First we had the Divine Liturgy in the Church, with the Choir from Ukiah, a real feast for our souls,

then we gathered in the Church hall for brunch (quite a feast in itself)
and listen to the Talk on the Priesthood (one more feast for our minds and our hearts!).

San Sebastian slide1

We are very thankful to Fr Mark and the San Sebastian parish community for allowing us to use their beautiful Church and hall.

On Saturday September 15, 2007,
we were blessed with the Divine Liturgy at Saint Sebastian Church. It was a wonderful moment of worship and we are very thankful to Fr. David and to all the members of his parish who came down with him, all the way from Ukiah. See pictures below. (Although the pictures do not do justice to the beauty of the chanting and the reverence of the worship). Afterwards, we gathered downstairs in the Church Hall where Fr. Ken Westray had cooked a delicious breakfast of eggs and sausages, little muffins and croissants and fruit salad.Thank you for your hospitality, Fr. Ken. We ate and talked and also had the opportunity to ask Fr. David questions about the Byzantine rite or about the upcoming Study Course on Saint Paul. Many thanks to all who came and for the ones who could not be there, know that you were in our prayers.