Dear Siblings in Christ,

Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

The Builders are coming! The Builders are coming!! 

The time has arrived and any ready hands are invited to join in moving items from Mercer Hall to either the storage bin or dumpster this Saturday, 7/18/2026. If you can join in, we will be working from 8am until we have fully cleared Mercer Hall. Any and all help is appreciated. 

In other news, The Rev. Tulia Sanchez Ortigas from Cuba will be staying in the apartment building this coming week with her family. If you see them around, please extend a friendly welcome. She is spending time sharing her ministry with our diocese during her stay with us.

Also, Hank Teahan will be making an appearance in the magazine publication of Scouting America, Scout Life Magazine. Hank is a member of Saint Mary’s, a Thurifer, a member of the youth program, and a Life-Rank Scout in Troop 91. He responded to an emergency situation while on a trail, initiating a call to First Responders and performing CPR until they arrived. While the patient did not survive, Hank’s actions made it possible for organs to be donated, saving the lives of multiple patients. His actions embodied the Scout Law, enacted scout skills, and displayed Scout Spirit. He was presented with an award for his actions by the Daniel Boone Council, and his story is now being shared by Scouting America. 

Even in Summer, there is much going on here at Saint Mary’s. Thank you for being a part of it.

Yours in Christ,

Robert+

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 19

Altar Flowers are given to the glory of God in thanksgiving for our wedding anniversary by Faulkner and Anthony Sgro.

Mass Servers: (8:00 a.m. & 11:00 a.m.) Celebrant and Preacher – The Rev. Dr. Robert Wetherington (11:00 a.m.) Lay Eucharistic Minister – R. Bullock; Servers – L. Bullock, E. Wetherington; Lectors – H. Teahan, L. Bullock; Ushers – G. Bullock, L. Bullock; Hospitality – ; Counters – T. Naomi, K. Osteen-Cochrane (Vestry persons of the day)

Click here for Service Bulletin and July 19 Insert

Adult Forum is on hiatus. 

ECW meets Tuesday, July 21 at 6:30pm, continuing their study of women in the Bible. 

Click here for June/July 2026 Worship Team Calendar

Click here for weekly lessons: Lectionary readings, Lectionary study resources

Mercer Hall Clear Out

This Saturday, July 18, from 8am til finished, we need help to clear Mercer Hall for the renovation to begin. All hands and joyful hearts welcome. We hope to see you here!

Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM)

ABCCM has many ways you can help to provide individuals an opportunity to grow, mature and express their faith through fellowship and service for the joy set before us in Christ.  You can learn more  HERE.  ABCCM operates seven ministries that provide emergency needs and longer term efforts to help individuals heal and be restored. You can be a part of this. CLICK HERE 

With the Summer underway, Chef Kiko, with Each 1 Teach 1, has expanded their outreach work to include opportunities to teach youth to cook in a commercial kitchen. Our connection with E1T1 and with Chef Kiko and Iindia began during our storm relief efforts. They work to ensure that underprivileged children and youth in Asheville receive hot meals throughout the week. Their kitchen was wiped out by Helene, and we have worked with them and supported their efforts as they have regained their footing. Now, they are inviting youth to learn to cook as well as to be fed. As you can imagine, Kiko and Iindia can use any help they can get with working with and supporting the youth that are involved. If you would like to volunteer to help them in the kitchen, please reach out to them by way of the Google Form accessible from the button below. Our connection with their work has only deepened over time as has our mutual affection. Lend a hand if you can. You will not regret a moment of it. 

Special Choir Event - Please join us!

You are invited to join the choir for an exciting new experience at Saint Mary's. On Saturday, July 25, at 7PM in the Parish Hall, the choir will be workshopping a new piece of music based on G.K. Chesterton's work The Ballad of the White Horse. This piece of music was written especially for our choir and the workshop will serve as a world premiere! During the workshop, you'll get a backstage look into how the work was commissioned, why the text was chosen, and how it is developing. You'll also get the chance to give feedback that can help shape the music for future performances. Don't miss this chance to see the process behind creating music. 

Adult Forum is on hiatus. 

Mercer Hall News! We have permits and work will begin next week. This Saturday, July 18, from 8am til finished, we need help to clear Mercer Hall for the renovation to begin. All hands and joyful hearts welcome. We hope to see you here!

ECW meets this Tuesday, July 21 at 6:30pm. ECW continues to study 10 influential Women of the Bible. Information is in the Ministry Hub office. Meetings are 3rd Tuesdays.

Just three (3) tickets left!  Asheville Tourist Baseball Game Church Outing is July 30. Greyline trolley is providing transportation from and to the church. Pick up is 5:30pm. Game is at 6:35pm. Call or email the Church Office if you would like one of the 3 game tickets still available. Tickets are $11 each. Please submit your payment as soon as possible. 

Bishop’s José’s Farewell on Saturday, August 1, 12:30-3:30pm – if you would like to go, please RSVP with the Diocese at https://www.diocesewnc.org/events-1/bishop-joses-farewell-party, and sign up for transportation on the flyer inside the double red doors. If we have enough people, we can provide a shuttle from the church to Christ School in Arden. 

JULY 2026 printable church calendar

As I return from my annual Franciscan convocation, I wanted to take a moment and thank Saint Mary’s for your prayers and support during my time in Racine, Wisconsin. Each year, the Franciscan brothers in the Order of St. Francis gather for a time of formation, prayer, business, and fellowship. We are a religious order of Anglican Franciscan Friars active in ministry throughout the USA (Episcopal Church) and Canada (Anglican Church of Canada). In many ways, we function as missionaries within the Anglican Communion embedded out in the world and serving in ministries to the poor, the homeless, the homebound, the ill, those living in a care facility, the incarcerated, and the marginalized. We gather yearly at our home base, the DeKoven Episcopal Center, in Racine Wisconsin. Check us out on the web - click on the button below.

Have you visited the "Missioner's Corner" yet? 

The secretary in the Ministry Hub room includes a lending library with books that focus on building a rich prayer and devotional life. There are books focusing on C.S. Lewis, Julian of Norwich, Archbishop Demond Tutu, Saint Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, Saint Benedict, and many others. Please feel free to borrow a book, read and enjoy it, then return it for someone else to enjoy. There are also many free items: rosaries, Bibles, holy cards, prayer candles, and devotional handouts. Take time to check out the secretary and enrich your devotional life with the material available there.  

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease.  This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty.  Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living.  In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

Click the button to see what is happening in our community of faith of Western North Carolina.

Subscribe to the Diocesan Newsletter here.

Bishop Transition Webpage

Culminating Bishop José's tenure:

Farewell Party, Aug. 1 from 12:30-3:30pm at Christ School, Arden (if you have photos with the Bishop, share them with Katie at the Diocese)

Hermitage Matching Donation Challenge - Bishop José has invited contributions to match his pledge of $150,000 to construct two or more new hermitages at the Valle Crucis Conference Center. Your donations will help make the new Hermitages a reality AND support the existing ministry of retreat! 

Learn more about The Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Church mission and ministry priorities rise from the work done at General Convention. See the depth and breadth of the work in which our church is involved HERE.

Episcopal News Service shares stories of faith lived and prayers offered.

The EPISCOPAL PUBLIC POLICY NETWORK (EPPN) is a grassroots effort of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations to educate, equip and engage individual Episcopalians in federal public policy advocacy, guided by the resolutions of the General Convention and the Executive Council.