Grace Episcopal Church

May 24, 2026 11:00 am

Holy Eucharist in the Chapel

Reverend Gary Jones officiating

Coffee and refreshments follow each service so please plan to stay and enjoy.

This Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost! This is the day that we celebrate the Holy Spirit descending on the disciples in the form of tongues of fire. On that day, the Spirit gave them the gifts that they needed to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Because this is the day that those original disciples were sent out into the world, Pentecost is considered by some to be the birthday of the Christian Church.

We will celebrate by switching all of the banners and vestments from the white we have been using for the whole Easter season to red, symbolizing the fire of the Holy Spirit. This is where you get to join in the fun! It is a tradition for everyone to wear red on Pentecost Sunday, so come to church this week in your favorite red outfit. If you don’t have anything red, orange or yellow works too. We can be a fire of many colors!

This is also the last Sunday Gary will be with us til the end of the summer. We shall have a wonderful coffee hour wishing him well and catching up after our service!

Three buildings house our church and activities. The central building, currently our Parish house or Chapel as we call it these days, is the most historically interesting. Originally built in 1835 by General John Hartwell Cocke as a chapel for the enslaved persons on his Bremo plantation. It served as a place of worship and for learning until after the Civil War. The Cocke family donated the Chapel to the Bremo Bluff community for its church – and was moved 5 miles for that purpose.

A small building, it was outgrown and retired as a church in 1924. A new, larger brick church was erected (the current Grace Episcopal Church,) and the now Parish House/Chapel was moved yet again behind the new church. It is listed in both the National and Virginia Registers of Historic buildings.

The Ranson House, which is the small white house on the north side of the Parish House, briefly served the community children as a schoolhouse and currently houses our church office.

Thank you for the Homecoming Memories!

Thank you to all who attended our celebration of 100 years of worship in our church and 140 years in Bremo! Among our distinguished guests……

Bill and Carrie Ancell from Montana. Bill has ancestors buried at Grace. He is actively engaged in collecting genealogical information. Please reach out to us if you would like to contribute information .

Ashby and Merrit Shipp joined us from Northern Virginia. Ashby’s grandfather was the master carpenter for the church – no wonder it is so gorgeous!

Tom and Cathy Hendrickson came from Richmond. Tom was our Priest many good years in the early 2000’s. Always special to have Tom back with us!

Peter Way’s daughter Kristi also came from Richmond. Peter was our Priest in Bremo for many wonderful years in the 70’s and 80’s.

Wayne Cain our neighbor and glass artist celebrated with us too, with his wife Marcia. They were married in the Parish House. Wayne made two original windows for the church as well as cleaning and restoring all the windows and rebuilding our church steeple cross. We are so blessed to have such a great neighbor and friend of Grace!

Many grandchildren and great grandchildren of Howard and Hazel Ranson joined the celebration – they came from Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and throughout Virginia.

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