FROM FATHER MATT JACOBSON:
A GREAT AND HOLY SPECTACLE

During the Season after Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit is often in focus for me, I try to reflect on and pray about what God might be calling me to do. At a session on Saint Augustine at the North American Patristics Conference, which I attended last month in Chicago, I was reminded of some ways to ask these sorts of questions.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: PREFERENCE FOR THE POOR

This is the sixth in an ongoing series of articles unpacking the vision for our common life over the next three years here at Saint Mary’s. Today we have an opportunity to look more closely at our “preference for the poor.” In February, the New York Times said the number of New Yorkers living below the poverty line is nearly twice the national average.

FROM DR. DAVID HURD: SINGING SOLEMN MASS THIS SUMMER

The vitality and impact of liturgical worship is maintained and fortified by the interplay of those aspects which remain constant and those which change from occasion to occasion. Repetitive actions are the backbone of formative ritual and help to project and contextualize the particularities which distinguish one occasion from another.

FROM FATHER SMITH: LEARNING TO READ THE SYMBOLS

“[She] I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. [He] Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women” (Song of Songs 2:1–2)

During Eastertide lilies often make their appearance in our homes and in our churches. Saint Mary’s is no exception. The lily is an ancient flower.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: ELEVATION

“The goal is elevation.”
~ U2, lyrics to Elevation

In a little booklet called “Pray the Mass,” published by our very own Saint Mary’s Press back in 1953, our former rector Father Grieg Taber calls the Mass the “very core and mainspring” of the catholic Christian’s life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the Eucharist the “source and summit” of Christian life (CCC, ¶ 1324), and our Prayer Book calls it “the principal act of Christian worship” (BCP, p. 13).

FROM FATHER JAY SMITH:
ONE IN THREE

Saint Mary’s was imagined and then founded a few years after the end of the Civil War by those who had been moved into action by the ideas, and the accomplishments, of the Tractarians. That small cadre of priests of the Church of England, led by John Keble, John Henry Newman, and Edward Bouverie Pusey, began a revolutionary movement—it felt like a revolution to many at the time—in England’s Established Church.

This is the fifth in an ongoing series of Angelus articles exploring our vision here at Saint Mary’s and tracing out its implications for our life together. Today we come to the phrase “with our identity in Christ,” an element critical to who we are at Saint Mary’s, but apt to get lost among parts of our vision that may sound more exciting—we’re vibrant, we have a preference for the poor, we’re a witness in the heart of New York City. For our identity to be “in Christ” seems like a given, doesn’t it? I mean, isn’t that just what all Christians are about? Let’s think it through. 

FROM FATHER JAY SMITH: THE FEAST DAY OF GOD

At staff meeting recently, Dr. Hurd told us a story from his time working at All Saints Church, Sixtieth Street. He said that one of the priests on that parish’s staff back then had argued that the choir season should end not on the Day of Pentecost but one week later on Trinity Sunday. “Why?” the rector had asked. David’s colleague responded, “Because Trinity Sunday is the Feast of God!” This amused us for many reasons—budgetary, musical, liturgical, and theological. (It should be noted that, here at Saint Mary’s, the choir season ends on the Feast of Corpus Christi, two weeks after the Day of Pentecost.)

FROM GRACE MUDD: MOTHER OF GOD, QUEEN OF PEACE

In the lockdown spring of 2020, most of us scrambled to find different ways of keeping observances of the church year and so on the first Sunday in May, I set a sprig of flowers by a painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall of my little balcony garden. The sprig wasn’t at all a crown and there was no procession, no incense; I don’t remember if I sang anything or even prayed aloud, but I felt connected to my parish home and family, rooted in almost a century and a half of Marian devotion there.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: IN THE HEART OF NEW YORK CITY

This is the fourth in an ongoing series unpacking our vision here at Saint Mary’s:

Saint Mary's is a vibrant Anglo-Catholic witness in the heart of New York City. With our identity in Christ and a preference for the poor, we are an inclusive, diverse community called to love God and each other for the life of the world.

Last month, I wrote a little about our catholicity being key not just to our past but our future, and today we come to the element of being a witness “in the heart of New York City.”

FROM MARYJANE BOLAND & CLARK MITCHELL: KEEPING THE DOORS OPEN

With little fanfare, during Holy Week we installed the Open Doors Campaign plaque in the narthex to celebrate and thank again the almost 200 people who donated to the Open Doors Campaign. After some fourteen years living behind a sidewalk bridge, we think it worth reliving a bit of history.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: THEOSIS AND REFLECTING ON OUR TRANSFORMATION

Now I say to you, “You are gods, *
and all of you children of the Most High”
(Psalm 82:6, Book of Common Prayer)

What could it possibly mean for us to become gods (that is, gods with a lowercase “g”)? This provocative verse from Psalm 82, along with several other passages from the Old and New Testaments, can be used to support a theological concept known as theosis (θέωσις).

SOME EASTERTIDE CUSTOMS

The word “alleluia” and the joyous sense of praise associated with that word was not heard in our liturgies during the forty days of Lent. Alleluias return and are conspicuously present, during Eastertide. You will hear them in the Opening Acclamation and in the Dismissal at Mass, and it also makes an appearance at the conclusion of Morning and Evening Prayer. “Alleluia” is also beautifully interpolated into Psalm 117, which we chant at the conclusion of Eucharistic Benediction at 5:00 PM on the first Sunday of most months—including this coming.

SOME EASTERTIDE CUSTOMS

“Eastertide” is the fifty-day period that begins on Easter Day.

What’s an “octave”? An octave is the eight-day period during which [a solemnity, that is a particularly important holy day, such as Christmas or Easter] is celebrated, and includes the actual feast. The eighth day is also called the octave or “octave day,” and days in between are said to be “within the octave.” The feast itself is considered the first day, and it is followed by six days called “days within the octave.”

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: SECRET PRAYERS

I learned to say the Mass at the Church of the Ascension & Saint Agnes (ASA) in Washington, DC, where I was a curate. My rector, Father Lane Davenport, and I would have “Mass practice” a few times a week in the months leading up to my ordination, and I served as deacon at every Mass I could to spend time at the shoulder of Father Lane or Father Ron Conner, another one of my early mentors at that church. ASA was a “missal parish,” which meant we used the American Missal at all our Masses, rather than the Book of Common Prayer with which we’re so familiar at Saint Mary’s.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: SAINT MARY’S IS AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC WITNESS

This is the third in an ongoing series I’m writing to unpack our vision here at Saint Mary’s, and today we come to the element of being an “Anglo-Catholic witness.” Saint Mary’s traces her Anglo-Catholic roots to her first priest, the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown, who described the church he founded as “a Free Church in this City of New York, to be worked upon a thoroughly Catholic basis.” When the church opened in 1870, Father Brown instituted daily celebration of the Holy Eucharist, put music near the top of his list of liturgical priorities, celebrated Solemn High Masses with deacon, subdeacon, and incense, and committed the young community to restoring to its worship those “outward adornments which are called the Beauty of Holiness.”

FROM ZACHARY ROESEMANN: ABOUT HOLY ICONS

What is an icon?

“Icon” means “image” in Greek. It is the same Greek word used in Genesis 1 (humans are made “in the image [eikon] of God”) and in Colossians by Paul when he speaks of Jesus as being the “image [eikon] of the invisible God.”

“Icon” in the sense of a holy painting has many definitions, but one I like is “a sacred traditional Christian image used for prayer and worship.” This brings in elements essential to understanding the nature of icons—that they are worthy of veneration like other holy things in the church, such as the Cross or the Gospels; that they are deeply traditional, with roots going back to the origins of Christianity; and that they are made for only one purpose: to help guide people to God in prayer and worship.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: THE TWELFTH STATION

On Fridays during Lent, we walk the Stations of the Cross together each week at 6:00 PM. Last Friday, I led our journey around the church, and ever since I’ve been reflecting on the Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the Cross. The passage read at this station, which comes from the Book of Occasional Services, is a condensed version of John 19:26–30, with a supplemental verse from Luke 23:46.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: SAINT MARY’S IS VIBRANT

This is the second in a series of articles in which I hope to unpack Saint Mary’s concise vision statement. You’ll remember that the Board of Trustees adopted this statement last fall to guide our common life during the next three years:

Saint Mary’s is a vibrant Anglo-Catholic witness in the heart of New York City. With our identity in Christ and a preference for the poor, we are an inclusive, diverse community called to love God and each other for the life of the world.

FROM FATHER PETER POWELL: WORSHIPING & FOLLOWING THE HOLY ONE

Isaiah 6:4: “The sound of their voices made the foundation of the Temple shake, and the Temple itself became filled with smoke.” (Good News Bible)

Did Isaiah in the eighth century BCE predict the establishment of Smoky Mary’s? This verse from the Prophet Isaiah would at least give us the impression that he approved of our style of worship. We have a mighty organ that brings the building alive and we’re famous for our smoke!