Saturday, December 5, 2015
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RR Gene Savoy Jr.
Lector: RC Elizabeth Reece
Cantor: Rev. Nola Slevin
Reader: Rev. James Elliott
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

Sunday, December 6, 2015
Church of New Epiphany
Leave: 6:15
Gate: 6:45
Sunrise: 7:14
RR Gene Savoy Jr.
Concelebrant: RR Sean Savoy
Assistants: RC Roger Weld
RC Robert Petrovich
Rev. Barbara Whitney
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Church of the Races of Man       RC Ted Staver
Church of the New Covenant       Rev. Michael McIntyre

Wednesday, December 9, 2015
12:00 N COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
Rev. Francine Petrovich

Friday, December 27, 2015
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
RC Roger Weld

It is time to begin assembling the 2016 Community Calendar. And our publishing staff is looking for your best photos related to Community life. Submissions need to be at least 300 dpi at 7.5″ x 10″ size. Include with the name of the photographer and the name of the subject with each submission.

Send in submissions before the end of December to: editor@communitycommunique.net.

Saturday, November 28, 2015
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RR Sean Savoy
Lector: RC Roger Weld
Cantor: Rev. Robert Roy
Reader: Rev. Vickie Hewlett
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

Sunday, November 29, 2015
Church of New Epiphany
Leave: 6:00
Gate: 6:35
Sunrise: 7:07
RR Sean Savoy
Concelebrant: RC Robert Ptrovich
Assistants: RC Roger Weld
RC Ted Staver
Rev. Barbara Whitney
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Church of the End Times       Rev. Robert Roy
Church of the End Times       Noriko Roy

Wednesday, December 2, 2015
12:00 N COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
Rev. Barbara Whitney

Friday, December 4, 2015
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
Rev. Vickie Hewlett

Click here to open a PDF of the flyer for download.

The 30th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service, “A Celebration of Religious Freedom,” will be held on Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 7:00 p.m.

It is a worship service of prayers, readings and music from a variety of Faith traditions sponsored by the Nevada Clergy Association.

This year’s event is graciously hosted by: St. Therese Church of the Little Flower 875 E. Plumb Lane (corner of E. Plumb Lane & Kietzke Lane), Reno, Nevada. Monetary and food donations will go to Volunteers of America Shelter Programs.

This event is a much-revered tradition in our local community and one that is largely unique nationwide in its scope of faith diversity—something to be very proud of.

The last five previous hosts were: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2013), St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Cathedral (2012), St. John’s Presbyterian Church (2011), Trinity Episcopal Church (2010), and Sparks United Methodist Church (2009).

For information call 775-786-1800 or email gsavoyjr@communityofchrist.org or genejr@nevadaclergy.org

Click here to open a PDF of the flyer for download.

“The golden ornaments used by the priestcraft of the various world religions are again a subtle reference to the solar energy, as are also the crowns of kings. In ancient times, crowns had a number of points extruding outward like the rays of the sun, but modern conventionalism has, in many cases, either removed the points or else bent them inward. … Many of the ancient prophets, philosophers, and dignitaries carried a scepter, the upper end of which bore a representation of the solar globe surrounded by emanating rays. …
“Many deities have been associated with the sun. The Greeks believed that Apollo, Bacchus, Dionysos, Sabazius, Hercules …. partook of either the visible or invisible attributes of the sun. The Norwegians regarded Balder the Beautiful as a solar deity, and Odin is often connected with the celestial orb. … Among the Egyptians, Osiris, Ra, Anubis, Hermes, and even the mysterious Ammon himself had points of resemblance with the solar disk.” ~Manly P. Hall

I have to admit that with all my years of studying the spiritual sun (over twenty), I had never considered the symbolic meaning of the crowns of kings. It does seem obvious, though, when you stop to think about it, that those gold crowns with points or rays around the edge, and often studded with jewels, represented the sun. But why would kings, prophets, high priests, and others wear crowns that represented the sun?

< Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind. >

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

contributed by Harold Boulette

Portrait of Frank Burkitt PHOTO: Rebecca Willis

Longtime resident Consociate Frank Burkitt (November 6, 1927 – September 22, 2015) passed away at the age of 88 at his residence in Reno after battling Parkinson’s Disease for nearly thirty years.

A Memorial Service was held to celebrate his life on Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 11:30 a.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Child. In attendance were two of Frank’s sons, Jeffrey and Norm Burkitt, and the members of the Reno Church Community.

Frank had been a resident member of the Second Advent Community for many years. During that time, he received Third-level Ordination in the Order of The Holy Child and was active in the Second Advent ministry and had sponsored or taken part in a number expeditions to the Chachapoyas region of Peru through the Andean Explorers Foundation. Until he became physically dependent on nursing assistance a few years ago, he was an active participant in a great many facets of Church Community life.

Eulogy for the Reverend Frank Burkitt, written and delivered by the Reverend Amanda Buchanan, October 24, 2015.

Frank Burkitt was born on November 6, 1927, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was raised outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father was a chemist at DuPont, and his mother had been a teacher. He had two brothers: William, who was older than Frank, and George, who was younger. Although Frank was born prior to the Depression and the Dust Bowl years, his family was not affected by either. His father, as an employee of DuPont, kept his job during the Depression, and Frank said he did not remember the historic dust storms of 1930s Oklahoma and Texas.

Frank talked about fishing and playing or watching baseball with his brothers. He frequently spoke of his older brother, William. William wanted to be an Air Force parachutist during WWII, but his eyesight disqualified him from joining the Air Force so he went into the Army. Frank said William had been badly wounded in fighting in southern France and was disabled for the rest of his life. This had had a profound effect on Frank.

Frank himself went into the Navy on July 4, 1945. He was stationed on Guam as a member of the SEABEES (the construction crew of the Navy). He helped build airfields on the island, operating the machinery that applied the tar to the field. When I asked him whether he had seen any combat, he said, “only fighting the monsoons.” He and his crew had had to have the tar applied and hardened before those heavy rainstorms came; that meant being on the job at 4:30 a.m. Frank said his most trying “combat” was making himself get up at 3 a.m., as he had never been a morning person. He was discharged from the Navy a year later.

Frank had three big loves in his life: His ex-wife Marylou, music, and pie. Marylou had been Frank’s high school sweetheart. When he returned from Guam, he wanted to marry her right away. His father, however, wanted him to return to college, but Frank did not like college. He was twenty years old and had a job repairing radios. His father told him that if he would wait until he was twenty-one to get married, he would give him $100. As that was a lot of money, then, Frank consented. He and Marylou were married as soon as Frank turned twenty-one. The couple moved from Oklahoma to Kansas City, Missouri, where Frank worked for a company that repaired radios and, later, TVs.

Frank then got the opportunity to work for TWA. The airline trained him to be an airplane electronics technician. After some time in Missouri, Frank was offered a transfer to New York, so the family moved. They lived in New York for many years. During this time, Frank’s daughter, Georgia, was diagnosed with leukemia. She died just after graduating from high school. Frank and his family never really recovered from the loss of the child. The grief eventually destroyed his marriage and estranged him from his family, but Frank never stopped loving Marylou. Even toward the end of his life, when often he could not remember where he lived or what decade it was, he always spoke of Marylou and the things they did together.

Frank’s second love was music. His mother had played the piano and given piano lessons to the neighborhood children. Frank loved to listen to his mother play and even learned to play the piano a little himself. His father had played the cornet and thought that playing a cornet was more suitable for a boy than the piano. Frank’s father gave him the cornet that is displayed there on the table. Frank never went anywhere without that cornet. He even took it on expedition to Peru in 1994, where he would play reveille every morning to awaken the camp.

Frank was a member of a brass band while he lived in New York. The band toured up and down the East Coast. Frank said he joined the band because his wife said he was in her hair and that he needed a hobby. (Frank worked the graveyard shift, so he slept during the morning hours and by early afternoon was up and, as he said, “rattling around the house.”) Frank had a friend in the neighborhood who was in the band and invited Frank to join. Frank not only played in the band, but he bought many instruments for the other band members and searched out music for them to play. (In these last few years, as Frank increasingly had memory problems, every now and again he would ask Rebecca to buy him valve oil for his cornet and would ask me to take him to band practice.)

His third love in life was pie. Frank ate pie for breakfast, saying it was the best breakfast food. But he did not confine himself to eating pie at breakfast only; he would eat several every day. He was particularly fond of cherry pie, but any fruit pie would do. If you took Frank to the grocery store, he would buy 30 to 40 pre-packaged small pies. The supply would not last more than a week to maybe a week and a half. He complained long and hard when the pie supply was cut off because he could no longer go the store to buy them and because we had restricted his diet to reduce the huge amount of sugar he was consuming. His favorite beverages were hard cider, beer, and apple juice. He considered water something to cook with but not to drink. Oddly, nevertheless, Frank kept many containers full of water in his house at all times.

Frank liked to keep things. He would never throw anything away. He claimed hat he needed it or that he might use it or that it may someday become valuable. One time when cleaning his house, I found home-canned dill pickles in Frank’s refrigerator. When I asked where he had gotten the pickles, he told me his wife had canned them when he lived in New York. When I asked how long ago that had been, he replied, “Twenty years ago.” He had taken the pickles with him when he had moved from New York to Reno and was still eating them. He was more than a little upset when we threw the pickles out. We tried to explain how dangerous it was to eat such old canned goods, but Frank didn’t buy it. He said you could keep home-canned things forever. He also had canned food from the store with expiration dates of twenty to twenty-five years earlier and could not understand why they needed to be thrown away.

Frank was nonetheless a very knowledgeable man. He had been a very good electrician. He was also particularly interested in astronomy. He had studied the night sky and knew all of the constellations. His music collection was vast and included everything from classical to band music. He was of course very fond of trumpet music. He had a good sense of humor that was very dry; he was amused by the ironies of life. Frank and I had many conversations and many good laughs. Once you were Frank’s friend you were his friend for life. He will be missed.

Saturday, November 21, 2015
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RR Gene Savoy Jr.
Lector: RR Sean Savoy
Cantor: Rev. Michael McIntyre
Reader: Rev. Karen Elliott
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

Sunday, November 22, 2015
Church of New Epiphany
Leave: 6:00
Gate: 6:30
Sunrise: 7:00
RR Gene Savoy Jr.
Concelebrant: RR Sean Savoy
Assistants: RC Roger Weld
RC Robert Petrovich
Rev. Barbara Whitney
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Church of the Races of Man       Rev. Dorothy Kubiak
Church of the New Covenant       Dea. Stephan Fuelling

Wednesday, November 25, 2015
12:00 N COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
Rev. Vickie Hewlett

Friday, November 27, 2015
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
RC Gary Buchanan

“The would-be initiate must come into contact with certain things and facts belonging to the higher worlds, but he can only see and hear them if his feeling is ripe for the perception of the spiritual forms, colors and tones. …The first trial consists in obtaining a truer vision than the average man has of the corporeal attributes of lifeless things, and later of plants, animals, and human beings. This does not mean what at present is called scientific knowledge, for it is a question not of science but of vision. …
“For many people, ordinary life is itself a more or less unconscious process of initiation through the Fire-Trial. … Thus they are often initiates without knowing it, and it then needs but little to unseal their spiritual hearing and sight.” ~Rudolf Steiner

While Steiner and others of his time may have called this ordinary spiritual growth process “Fire-Trial”, today a fire trial, or trial by fire, is something different. Otherwise, what he says in the quoted text still applies and always has.

The spiritual initiate does begin to see things differently than his materialistic friends. He may think that he is the one who is seeing something false, a kind of hallucination, but he isn’t. It is those who see only the small part of reality called matter who are seeing falsehood and illusion. But don’t think that this happens overnight. The quick awakening of St. Francis is an exception, not the rule, so don’t rely on being another one-in-ten-million exception. Most of us only see subtle hints of the spiritual worlds hidden by the denser material one, but even those hints are enough to let us know that we are much more than just animated balls of dirt.

< Read the complete blog post at Solar Wind. >

Visit and bookmark Harold Boulette’s blog Solar Wind at:  http://spiritsun.net/

contributed by Harold Boulette

Pannuches Meal Rite
The 95h Pannuches Meal Rite was held Saturday, July 25, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Child. This is a private ceremony for members of the Order. Jubilee Sunrise Divine Service was held in Sanctuary the following morning. The Jubilee Sunday is a day of fasting. The elderly are exempt from fasting on that day if they choose.

Active Principle of Divine Law Observed
On the morning of Saturday, August 1, 2015, in recognition of the thirty-third observance of the Manifestation of the New Light of God, which appeared over the sun on this date thirty-one years before to confirm the Active Principle of Divine Law, The Right Reverend Gene Savoy Jr. officiated a special sunrise Divine Service at the Church of New Pentecost with concelebrant Reverend Canon Robert Petrovich and assisted by canons Roger Weld and Ted Staver and the Reverend Mother Carol Ann Crabb.

God’s Confirmation of the Active Principles of Divine Law first occurred on August 1, 1982. That event is recorded in Second Advent Scripture in The Book of God’s Revelation with commentary relating the event to the revelation received by the Church on April 18th, Easter in the Second Advent Calendar, and the further revelations received on June 6th, the Day of Pentecost.

Among the Revelations received on June 6th, 1982, the Church received instruction on the New Act of God, God’s conception of the Newly Created Light, a New Light that renovates the whole of creation. The Church also received instruction on the Four Newly Created Intermediary Lights that manifest through this conception.

Scripture tells us that through the manifestation of these Four Intermediary Lights, God has fixed the Four Newly Created Tables of the Law to be taught to the Ordained in the Holy Institutions of Learning; and, so that the unwritten Code of the Law may be codified on earth for the emancipation of the human race, God has decreed Twelve newly created Active Principles of Divine Law of Hid New Covenant, which are subordinate to the Lights of God and to the Tables of the Law, yet are instruments of the Divine Plan for human redemption.

With the revelation given on June 6th, God decreed these Twelve Active Principles to be in force upon confirmation. And on the first day of August in 1982, “The New Light of God appeared over the face of the sun, confirming the Active Principles of Divine Law.” The event of confirmation that on this date is the purpose of the special commemoration each year.

The final paragraph of The Book of God’s Revelation describes that event:

And on the first day of August, it being the eighth Sunday following the giving of the Revelation at Pentecost on the sixth day of June, the New Light of God appeared over the face of the sun, confirming the Active Principle of Divine Law. And the whole congregation, gathered at sunrise, saw and felt the gift of the Spirit manifest out of the sun.

The Church has observed this date since 1982 in a variety of liturgical forms. At the Divine Service performed on August 1, 1987, a new composition titled “The New Light of Divine Law” was introduced to the liturgical music usually accompanying Divine Service. The piece commemorates the confirmation of the Active Principle of Divine Law.

* * *

The religious tradition and astronomical calendric attached to this date are significant. First Dispensation churches know August 1 as Lammas Day or the Day of the Loaf Mass. The date was celebrated by Christians in England, where the first bread of the harvest was taken to mass for blessing. The Christian feast has even earlier roots in the Celtic Lugnasaid, which hailed the beginning of the wheat harvest.

August 1 marks the beginning of the calendric period known as the “dog days.” The period is named for the Dog Star, Sirius. The span of time between late July and mid-August is an astronomical period when Sirius rises each morning with the sun. For the ancient Egyptians, August 1 was a calendric marking for the rising of the Nile and was celebrated by an important religious feast. This date also held significance for other ancient solar cultures.

The Sacred Calendar of the Second Advent Church also holds August 1 as a significant date. When counting from February 2, Second Advent New Year’s Day, the semiannual cycle, or 180-degree cycle of the earth around the sun, falls on August 1.