• A Welcome from the Rector • About Trinity Parish • What We Believe (Basic Teachings) • What do we mean by Anglo-Catholic? • What It Means To Be Anglican • Anglo-Catholic Worship (The Tradition) • The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion • Top 10 Reasons to Be an Episcopalian (Humor)

A Welcome from the Rector Welcome to Trinity Parish ! We are an a friendly growing Episcopal Church in Stoughton, Massachusetts on Sumner Street near the old Goddard Hospital, about one half hour south of Boston. Visitors will feel welcomed warmly in this community of faith. Dress in a manner that you will be comfortable. You are among family here. For over a hundred years this parish has been an Anglican witness in this charming New England town. We are also a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church in America.

We believe that Jesus Christ is alive among his people and we celebrate the active workings of God in the world. We believe that the greatest gift that a human being can experience is to know Jesus Christ personally.

We are a community of CELEBRATION ! We strive to have our service characterized by the positive message of God's love and the joy of the Lord that is our strength. We are an Anglo-catholic or High Episcopal parish since the early 1980's. That means that we tend toward more Sacramental focus on the Eucharist and the mystery in ceremonial dealing with the five senses. We are an Evangelical as well. That means we believe in the centrality of the preaching and teaching from the Scriptures.
We believe that God calls each of us to the Living Water by personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Our faith is surmised in the Baptismal Covenant of the Book of Common Prayer. We look to the Holy Spirit for empowering, leading and guidance in our lives. As Jesus, we seek in all that we do to bring praise and glory to our Father in heaven.

We seek to be good Stewards of God's gifts and creation. We seek to celebrate God by joyfully sharing our experience of knowing him and unconditionally accepting people into our Community parish life, where they are in that journey toward God that we all share. We seek to be open and affirming of All Persons striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of every human being. We are a community reflecting many generations, ethnic groups and orientations. There is a place here for you in the family of Jesus Christ. Come CELEBRATE with us, in a place both Catholic and Protestant Open and Inclusive. Should God draw you here, you will find a welcome home.

About Trinity Parish

JOIN US...

There are no strangers at Trinity. We believe life has meaning only when people come alive in the life of Jesus Christ, celebrate the life God active and alive in the world and unite with His Body, the Church. Join our joyful, praying family as we proclaim Jesus Christ through Biblical preaching and timeless sacramental worship.

WHO ARE WE?

We are an Anglo-Catholic Parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

Trinity is a part of the Episcopal Church, a branch of the historic One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ and established in this country by the Church of England. We are a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion sharing traditions of faith and order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), the fourth American edition since 1789, when the 1662 Church of England edition was used. Trinity began as a mission parish in Stoughton in 1894. We are Catholic, because we are part of the universal Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ and proclaimed by his Apostles. We are Catholic because we hold to the Traditions of the Faith that have been received since Apostolic Times. We are Catholic because our Bishops have received the laying on of hands from the first Apostles passed down from them to the Bishops we have today.

We are Reformed because we function both under the authority God has set above us in the Bishops, but also have a part in governing ourselves in each individual parish or congregation. We are Reformed because our primary lay leadership is the parish Vestry. These leaders are elected on a rotating basis yearly. The Rector or Parish Priest presides at the meetings and is the "CEO" of the parish corporation. The Reformed Tradition sees lay ministry as perhaps different, but of equal importance with the sacramental ministry of the Priesthood.

We are Contemporary because we affirm the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood and office of Bishop. We are Contemporary because in our tradition we understand that the Holy Spirit of God is at work among us and we are growing in enlightenment as God reveals more of the Truths about humanity as well as himself. We are open and affirming of all persons in the life God has called them to. God is active and alive in us. We welcome his wonderful works and leading. We are united by our tradition, our common heritage and our book of worship: The Book of Common Prayer. It is our prayer that you will have A Kind and Gentle Catholic Experience

What We Believe (Basic Teachings)

" Evangelism is the presentation of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in such ways that persons may be led to believe in Him as Savior and follow Him as Lord within the fellowship of the Church." - William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-1944.

We believe that Jesus Christ founded the Holy Catholic Church. It is the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head, and is the instrument of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate that life of God alive and at work in our lives and in our world!

Christ chose the Apostles to be the center of the Church=s authority and power. Bishops are the successors of the Apostles, and they alone have authority and power to ordain Ministers of the Word and Sacraments (I Timothy 3:1). The sacraments generally recognized are as follows:

† BAPTISM by water and in the name of the Trinity (Matthew 28:19) conveys new birth and makes one a Christian (baptismally regenerate) (John 3:5; Romans 6:4) and forgives sins (Acts 2:38; I Peter 3:21). It is the sign and seal of the sacrament and the church sees it as the New Testament fulfillment of the Jewish sacrament of circumcision.

† HOLY EUCHARIST, also called the Lord=s Supper, Holy Communion, the Divine Liturgy, or the Mass was instituted by our Lord at the Last Supper when He said: "Do this in remembrance of Me" (I Corinthians 11:24; Matthew 26:20-28; Mark 14:17-25; Luke 22:14-20) and by which He feeds His people with His Body and Blood (John 6:41-59). The Episcopal Church teaches that Christ is really present in His Body and Blood in the sacrament and in the Holy Communion we actually receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord. The difference may be that we do not try to explain how Christ is present. Two things are necessary for receiving this sacrament: first, the person be properly baptized; and second, the person be spiritually prepared. As one of the sacramental churches, the Holy Eucharist is at the center of our worship.

† CONFIRMATION conveys the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17; 19:1-7; Ephesians 1:13). It is the empowering of the Christian to fight the good fight of faith as an ambassador of Jesus Christ to this world.

† RECONCILIATION (confession) conveys the forgiveness of sins committed after Baptism (John 20: 22-23; James 5:26). It is voluntary and available as a spiritual remedy at any time.

† MINISTRATION TO THE SICK (unction) is the anointing with oil for healing (James 5:14; Mark 6:13) and is the extension of Christ=s healing ministry.

† HOLY ORDERS perpetuates the three-fold ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. (I Timothy 3:8; 5:17).

† MATRIMONY is the union of a couple before God for life. This relationship, St. Paul tells us, is like Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:31-32).

† ESTABLISH AND EQUIP CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES FOR MINISTRY

In the Anglican Tradition, the individual believer must believe nothing unless it can be proved by Holy Scripture. Because of this, I like to say that wherever you find four Episcopalians you will find at least five opinions! We are blessed with the freedom to make the decisions our consciences dictate in our lives without a magisteriam to dictate what we must or must not believe.

What do we mean by Anglo-Catholic?

The term Anglo-Catholic identifies an abiding tradition of witness within the Anglican Communion. This witness may be described with these words - Sacramental, Spiritual, and Traditional. Anglo-Catholicism is Sacramental. We believe that our Lord has ordained outward and visible signs to be the abiding vehicles of his presence and grace. As the eternal Word assumed human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, joining Himself to the physical creation, so the risen Christ now blesses his people in and through ordinary objects and actions within the world - by the washing of water, the anointing with oil, the prayerful imposition of hands, the offering of bread and wine.

Anglo-Catholicism is Spiritual. We believe that God truly wishes to bring His Church into intimate, living communion with Him. This communion is established in Baptism; renewed in the Mysteries of Christ's Body and Blood; and nourished by the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, confession, and meditation on the Scriptures. Through these disciplines the Holy Spirit sanctifies, converts, and heals the people of God. Through these disciplines we are each brought into a deeper relationship with Christ Jesus and his Father in the love of the Holy Spirit.

Anglo-Catholicism is Traditional. We confess the faith "once delivered to the saints." In Christ, God has truly revealed Himself and His ways to His people. This faith is grounded in God's written Word and authoritatively stated in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. Through preaching, teaching and liturgy, we seek to faithfully pass on this tradition of belief, in confidence that here is embodied the truth and promise of eternal life.

Who Are We?

For over 25 years we have been an Anglo-Catholic witness, beginning under the ministry of Fr. Tom Schulze. Successive priests have built on that foundation. We continue in that tradition of confessing one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. The heart of our parish is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Our liturgy is traditional, prayerful, reverent, transcendent, yet at times contemporary. In the words of the Psalmist, we seek to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." In word, gesture, and song, God is glorified and His kingdom evoked; heaven becomes present in our midst.

Our sermons are practical and relevant to our lives today. Living as a Christian in this modern world is both challenging and yet rewarding. We seek to bear the Love of Jesus Christ to the world and let God work through us to share the Holy Spirit in all our daily pursuits.

Both Tradition and yet Contemporary, we Proclaim God's Grace in Jesus Christ !

What It Means To Be Anglican

The Scriptures and the Gospels, the Apostolic Church and the early Church Fathers, are the foundation of Anglican faith and worship. The basic tenets of being an Anglican are:

* We view the Old and New Testaments 'as containing all things necessary for salvation' and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

* We understand the Apostles' creed as the baptismal symbol, and the Nicene creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

* The two sacraments ordained by Christ himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - are administered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and the elements are ordained by him.

* The historic episcopate is locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church.

Anglicans trace their Christian roots back to the early Celtic Church, and their specifically Anglican identity to the post-Reformation expansion of the Church of England and other Episcopal or Anglican Churches. Historically, there were 2 main stages in the development and spread of the Communion. Beginning with the 17th century, Anglicanism was established alongside colonisation in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The second state began in the 18th century when missionaries worked to establish Anglican churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

As a worldwide family of churches, the Anglican Communion has more than 70 million adherents in 38 Provinces spreading across 161 countries. Located on every continent, Anglicans speak many languages and come from different races and cultures. Although the churches are autonomous, they are also uniquely unified through their history, their theology, their worship and their relationship to the ancient See of Canterbury.

Anglicans uphold the Catholic and Apostolic faith. Following the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Churches are committed to the proclamation of the good news of the Gospel to the whole creation. In practice this is based on the revelation contained in Holy Scripture and the Catholic creeds, and is interpreted in light of Christian tradition, scholarship, reason and experience.
By baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a person is made one with Christ and received into the fellowship of the Church. This sacrament of initiation is open to children as well as to adults.

Central to worship for Anglicans is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, also called the Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper or the Mass. In this offering of prayer and praise, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are recalled through the proclamation of the word and the celebration of the sacrament. Other important rites, commonly called sacraments, include confirmation, holy orders, reconciliation, marriage and anointing of the sick.

Worship is at the very heart of Anglicanism. Its styles vary from simple to elaborate, or even a combination. The great uniting text is The Book of Common Prayer, in its various revisions throughout the Communion. The Book of Common Prayer, alongside additional liturgies gives expression to the comprehensiveness found within the Church whose principles reflect that of the via media in relation to its own and other Christian Churches.

The Book of Common Prayer (1662) is a permanent feature of the Church of England's worship. It is loved for its beauty of language and the services which it contains are widely used (in their entirety or in adapted form). It is also the foundation of a tradition of common prayer and is a fundamental source of Church of England doctrine.The Scottish Church made certain modifications to The Book of Common Prayer and its wholehearted retention by the new Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA as well as the emerging dominions and dependencies, ensured its place as a key ingredient of the growing Anglican Communion. Despite its widespread use, it did not emerge from the horrors of the Great War (World War 1) without criticism. A modest revision prepared during the 1920s was not approved by Parliament.

The Lambeth Conferences of the 1950s and 1960s called for more up-to-date national liturgies and this is going on today. No matter how distinctive each is, they are all clearly of the lineage of The Book of Common Prayer.
Another distinguishing feature of the corporate nature of Anglicanism is that it is an interdependent Church, where parishes, dioceses and provinces help each other to achieve by mutual support in terms of financial assistance and the sharing of other resources.

To be an Anglican is to be on a journey of faith to God supported by a fellowship of co-believers who are dedicated to finding Him by prayer and service.

See also http://www.anglicancommunion.org/

Anglo-Catholic Worship (The Tradition)

The Episcopal Church is Via Media, (a middle way) between the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox Churches and Protestantism. It is the Church of England (Anglican) as established in the United States in 1789. Many of the signers of both the Declaration of Independence and composers of the Constitution were Episcopalians. Our traditions include attitudes that are protestant and catholic, ancient and reformed, liberal and conservative. Our parishes vary in degree between what is termed Low Church (more protestant and reformed / Presbyterian in worship) and High Church (more Catholic and Sacramental in worship). We operate on the basis of a variety of inherited traditions. For many of them that are offered, the understanding is simply that: all may, some should, no one must (partake of or participate in what is offered).

The three basic sources of our beliefs are:

• Scripture - authorized and handed down by the Church Catholic as the primary source of doctrine;

• Tradition - Scripture and those parts of the faith not written down as interpreted by the Church historically; and the fundamental practices and traditions of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church over the ages. We hold sacred the principles set forth in the ancient document, the Vincentian Canon.

From the Vincentian Canon, 434 A.D. "Therefore, because of the intricacies of error, which is so multiform, there is great need for the laying down of a rule for the exposition of Prophets and Apostles in accordance with the standard interpretation of the Church Catholic."

Now, in the Catholic Church itself, we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. [Italics added] That is truly and properly 'Catholic', as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally. We hold to his rule if we follow universality, antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations, which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike. . ." - St. Vincent of Lérins

• Reason, the teaching authority of the Church Catholic as lived out in human experience enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

We accept the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds as the sufficient statements of our faith. We find the fullest expression of Christianity in the Scriptures, the historic creeds, and the sacraments of the church.

Worship is a prime responsibility for all Christians. Anglicans (Episcopalians) believe the life of Christian service is possible only through a life of worship, through which we receive God's love and express our love to Him. We believe our obligation is to worship God together every Lord's Day and to have a daily life of prayer.

The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is an inheritor of 2000 years of catholic and apostolic tradition dating from Christ himself, rooted in the Church of England. When the Church of England spread throughout the British Empire, sister churches sprang up. These churches, while autonomous in their governance, are bound together by tradition, Scripture, and the inheritance they have received from the Church of England. They together make up the Anglican Communion, a body headed spiritually by the Archbishop of Canterbury and having some 80 million members, making it the second largest Christian body in the Western world. The Episcopal Church came into existence as an independent denomination after the American Revolution. Today it has between two and three million members in the United States, Mexico, and Central America, all of which are under jurisdiction of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Tracy Griswold III.

Bishops in the American Episcopal Church are elected by individual dioceses and are consecrated into the Apostolic Succession, considered to witness to an unbroken line of Church leadership beginning with the Apostles themselves. For more than two decades the American Episcopal Church has ordained women to the priesthood. In 1988 the Diocese of Massachusetts elected the first Anglican woman bishop, Barbara Harris.

Although it subscribes to the historic Creeds (the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed), considers the Bible to be divinely inspired, and holds the Eucharist or Lord's Supper to be the central act of Christian worship, the Episcopal Church grants great latitude in interpretation of doctrine. It tends to stress less the confession of particular beliefs than the use of the Book of Common Prayer in public worship. This book, first published in the sixteenth century, even in its revisions, stands today as a major source of unity for Anglicans around the world.

The Church of England has always valued the life of the mind and dialogue with fields of secular study. Isaac Newton was an Anglican clergyman and theologian as were several of the founders of the Royal Society, the earliest institution organized for the promotion of science. The Episcopal Church maintains this tradition, routinely requiring its clergy to hold university as well as seminary degrees and supporting many university chaplains.

Top 10 Reasons to Be an Episcopalian (Humor)

10. No snake handling.
09. You can believe in dinosaurs.
08. Male and females: God created them male and female and we ordain them.
07. You don't check your brains at the door.
06. Pew aerobics.
05. The church year is color-coded (often).
04. Free wine on Sunday.
03. All of the pageantry and none of the guilt.
02. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And the Number One Reason to be an Episcopalian:
01. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.