It’s Labour Day Weekend.  Wow!  Tempus fugit, and all that (Time flies!).  That means many things to many people, but here at the Cathedral it means (more) interesting and exciting days are coming soon.

Next Sunday, 9 September we will have ONE SERVICE ONLY AT 10 A.M., a service of thanksgiving on the Bicentenary of the Selkirk Settlement.  In attendance at this ecumenical worship will be The Right Honourable James Alexander Douglas-Hamilton , Baron Selkirk of Douglas, informally known as Lord Selkirk.  He is a descendant of the Fifth Lord Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, who established the settlement 200 years ago.  This Eucharistic service of thanksgiving will be the final event, the culmination, of a week’s festivities.  Bishop Don will preside at the Eucharist, but a number of descendants will also be involved, including both United and Presbyterian ministers.

I pray that the Cathedral will be well represented.  After all, this parish was for many years, with the arrival of David Jones from Wales, called ‘The Red River Protestant Church’ and the liturgy was edited so as to make the many Presbyterians in Red River feel welcome.  The Church of England Priest was also expected to function as Chaplain for the Hudson’s Bay Company, as well as for the Settlers themselves, and most of these were Presbyterian.  When John Black arrived from Minnesota in 1851, as the first Presbyterian Minister in Red River, about 300 people left St. John’s, which had also just become a Cathedral, with the arrival of the first Anglican Bishop of the new Diocese of Rupert’s Land, David Anderson.

Well, you get the idea… For more information on the week of 2 through 9 September, please go to the website of Red River 200.   Please tell everyone you know from the Cathedral community about this, especially the reminder of one service only at 10:00.  Thanks!

The other BIG THING I want to share with you is something new at the Cathedral which will last until next spring, a time slot on Sunday morning which I’m calling The Dean’s Forum.  This will be a time of Christian education for adults, part of the lifelong learning into which we are all invited, indeed, called, as part of our baptismal vocation.  This year I’m going to do an express survey of the whole biblical story, called Dusting Off the Bible.  I can’t claim it as an original title, but I like it.  Please come and help me with the dusting.

By conversation and consensus at the early service, we will no longer say together The Great Litany before the early, Said Eucharist.  Instead, the Said Eucharist will move from 08:30 to 08:00.  At 09:15 we’ll begin The Dean’s Forum, which will conclude – religiously, if I can get away with saying that – at 10:05.  The Sung Eucharist, with choir, will begin as usual at 10:30.

Some of the titles for our upcoming ‘dusting’ on Sunday mornings until Christmas:

You want me to do what?  (Abraham)

God’s technicolour dream  (Joseph)

Journey to the Inner Limits  (Ecclesiastes, Job… Struggling with the painful questions)

A dragon slouching toward Bethlehem (Hope for the future)

Hope to see you soon at the Cathedral.  Have a great Labour Day Weekend.  God bless.