Rogation Sunday draws a crowd

Unlike last year, the celebration of Rogation Sunday at Kings Landing took a new route, and as a result, drew a good crowd of participants and onlookers.

Sunday, June 11 saw St. Mark’s Chapel of Ease full, with both Kings Landing staff in costume, and visitors to the historical village. 

After a hymn and several readings, Kings Landing’s vicar, the Rev. Canon Walter Williams, led the crowd out of the chapel. He took a path that brought him around the village with several stops. Between each stop, the entourage sang hymns.

At the old oxen barn, he blessed the animals, represented by a couple of cows in the pasture. 
Down the path from the barn, Walter blessed the plow. Further on, he blessed the farmyard — including the farmhouses, tools, dogs and families. At each stop, a staff member read scripture appropriate to the day.

The next stop was the village store, where another blessing was bestowed. 

At the nearby spring, a reader read the words of John 7:13-14 – “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of that water that I shall give him will never thirst;  the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.’”

The final stop was at the churchyard, where the readings summed up the event. At the end, Walter offered a blessing to all gathered. 

This is the second year Walter has led a rogation service at Kings Landing. 

St. Mark’s hosts a service of Evening Prayer most Sundays at 2 p.m. until Thanksgiving, other than the third Sunday of each month where a service takes place at the Presbyterian church onsite. Admission is free for those attending the service only. Directions: take exit 253 off the Trans-Canada Highway, 20 minutes above Fredericton.

PHOTO CAPTIONS: 
1.  Vicar Walter Williams leads the congregation from St. Mark's Chapel of Ease around the farms in the village at Kings Landing during Rogation Sunday June 11.

2.  A staff member reads scripture during the livestock stop, at which time the animals were blessed.

3.  Gerry Crawford, left, who plays Timothy Killeen at Kings Landing, reads scripture at the plow.

4.  Vicar Walter Williams leads the congregation of staff and visitors to the village to bless the spring and the store during Kings Landing's Rogation Sunday service June 11. St. Mark's Chapel of Ease is seen in the background.

McKnight photos