We invite you to visit us and see whether this parish might become your spiritual home. We are a community that looks to the life and ministry of Jesus to better understand and enter into the heart of God. Jesus spoke out against injustice and poverty, he healed friend and foe, he broke bread with the rich and poor. Jesus points to the wideness of God’s compassion.

We celebrate the wonderful diversity of humankind and we seek to do that in faithfulness to our baptismal vow to respect the dignity of every human being. St. John's strives to include a place for everyone around God’s table and believes there should be no outcasts in the Episcopal Church. Our campus is completely accessible and barrier free.  

NEWS

​Canon Lucinda Ashby elected next bishop of El Camino Real: The fourth bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real has a name: the Rev. Canon Lucinda Ashby. You may read about her here.

Pentecost and the season after Pentecost/Ordinary Time

Pentecost is the great festival that marks the birth of the Christian church by the power of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost means “fiftieth day” and is celebrated fifty days after Easter Sunday. The Day of Pentecost is one of the seven principal feasts of the church year in the Episcopal Church (BCP, p. 15), and is identified by the BCP as one of the feasts that is “especially appropriate” for baptism (p. 312).
​The season after Pentecost, according to the calendar of the church year (BCP, p. 32), begins on the Monday following Pentecost, and continues through most of the summer and autumn. It may include as many as twenty-eight Sundays, depending on the date of Easter. This includes Trinity Sunday which is the First Sunday after Pentecost. The BCP provides proper collects and readings for the other Sundays of the season. These propers are numbered and designated for use on the Sundays which are closest to specific days in the monthly calendar, whether before or after. For example, Proper 3 is designated for use, if needed, on the Sunday closest to May 25. Proper 29 is designated for use on the Sunday closest to Nov. 23. Prior to the 1979 BCP, Sundays in this long period of the church year were identified and counted in terms of the number of Sundays after Trinity Sunday instead of the number of Sundays after Pentecost. This period is also understood by some as “ordinary time,” a period of the church year not dedicated to a particular season or observance.
Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven, the twelve apostles, Jesus’ mother and family, and many other of His disciples gathered together in Jerusalem for the Jewish harvest festival that was celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover. While they were indoors praying, a sound like that of a rushing wind filled the house and tongues of fire descended and rested over each of their heads. This was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on human flesh promised by God. The disciples were suddenly empowered to proclaim the gospel of the risen Christ. They went out into the streets of Jerusalem and began preaching to the crowds gathered for the festival. Not only did the disciples preach with boldness and vigor, but by a miracle of the Holy Spirit they spoke in the native languages of the people present, many of whom had come from all corners of the Roman Empire. The apostle Peter seized the moment and addressed the crowd, preaching to them about Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. The result was that about three thousand converts were baptized that day. The account can be found in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-41.
Red is the liturgical color for Pentecost Sunday, which falls on June 4 this year. The liturgical color during Ordinary Time (the Season After Pentecost) is green.