Summer Transitions

Father Matthew Weiler leaves for vacation on Saturday, July 12.  He will return for one more week with us in August.  He will celebrate and preach the 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM Masses on August 10.  His last day with us will be Friday, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption.  Father will begin an S.T.M. program at the Yale Divinity School in September.

Father Jay Smith comes back from vacation on Monday, July 14.  He will be with us as our part-time assistant until September.  Father is also returning to New Haven.  He’s working on his dissertation.  Being in New Haven this fall and winter and working full-time on it will enable him to finish.  Father has a bit more flexibility in his schedule and is going to assist us with weekday Masses as he is able until Father John Beddingfield is ordained priest on Saturday, September 20.

We have been advertising the positions of curate and administrative assistant for several weeks now.  I will be conducting the first round of interviews for the administrative assistant position this coming week.  I hope very much to welcome a new staff member in this position very soon.  On Monday, I will begin to review the applications we have received for the position of curate.

Part of my own learning as rector of a larger church has to do with defining positions and to hiring people.   Like many things in life, this is something one learns on the job.  But it is not something one has to discover entirely on one’s own.  I’ve sought some coaching in this area.  I’m going to try to do my job as well as I possibly can.  The work of this church needs the very best people we can find.  If Saint Mary’s is going to continue to grow we need people working for us at every level who appreciate the congregation’s history and vision.   I’m going to look for people who can help us continue to move forward to where and how we are being led by God to serve in our future.

There will always be transitions in any church community.   There are almost always things about our present and our past that we will want to retain.  As the readings for Morning Prayer have reminded us this week, Saint Peter tried to keep the religious traditions of his youth, but for him and the other disciples, the advent of Christ brought them into new relationships with God and with other people.  The Holy Spirit did not permit a closed or narrow perspective.  The Holy Spirit still does not permit this.  Christian communities must (I choose this word deliberately) always be looking for treasure that is old and new or they cease to be, by the Lord’s command (Matthew 13:52).

This doesn’t mean that I don’t miss the past.  I remember the houses of my childhood, the places where my own family lived and the houses of my grandparents.  I miss them and the routines of life in those places that were once so familiar.  I always will.  There are many little things that I do or do not do that I associate with parents, grandparents, siblings and friends.  These bring me joy.  But I would almost never refuse to try something new.  I want to live today and tomorrow.  I cannot live in the past.  I believe that the Christian gospel always moves us to the present and the future.  All but one of the disciples may have wanted to linger in the Upper Room.  Instead, they sang a hymn and went to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:30).  They moved into the future with Jesus.  Stephen Gerth

 

PRAYER LIST . . . Your prayers are asked for Alice who is gravely ill, for Jonah, Gracie, Susan, John, Michael, Lois, Virginia, Bart, Brett, Nicole, Jack, Thomas, Annie, Patricia, Paul, Robert, Gloria, Jerri, Margaret, Marion, Olga, Rick, and Charles, priest; for the members of our Armed Forces on active duty, especially Timothy, Jonathan, Patrick, Edward, Keith, Kevin, Christopher, Andrew, Joseph, Mark, Ned, Timothy, David, John and Colin, and for the repose of the soul of Kimball . . .

GRANT THEM PEACE . . . July 15: 1986 Peter A. J. McGrane; 1987: Allen C. Satterfield; 1989: Robert Fox Davis.

 

I PUBLISH THE BANNS of marriage between Emma Macdonald of New York City and Alexander Paul Gordon Corner of New York City.  If any of you knows just cause why they may not be joined in Holy Matrimony, you are bidden to declare it.  This is the third time of asking.  S.G.

LITURGICAL NOTES . . . The Sunday Proper: Amos 7:7-15, Psalm 85:7-13 Ephesians 1:1-14, Mark 6:7-13 . . . Confessions will be heard on Saturday, July 12, by Father Gerth, and on Saturday, July 19, by Father Smith.

 

NOTES ON MUSIC . . . This week at the Solemn Mass, the prelude is Vater unser im Himmelreich, BuxWV 219 by Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 1637-1707) and the postlude is Fuge in g-moll, BWV 542 by J. S. Bach (1685-1750).  Our singers today are Ms. Ruth Cunningham, soprano, and Ms. Sarah Blaskowsky, soprano.  Ms. Cunningham is one of our newer choir members, though she has sung at Saint Mary’s in the past.  For ten years, she was a member of the acclaimed women’s vocal quartet Anonymous 4, and she also is proficient as a pianist, flutist and medieval harpist.  Currently, she is a practitioner in “sound healing,” using her skill at improvisation to connect people to the healing and spiritual power of music.  Ms. Blaskowsky is beginning her second year as a regular member of our choir.  She is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, and currently is a graduate student in vocal performance at the Manhattan School of Music.  She is equally proficient at opera and early music/choral singing.  The piece at Communion is Eins bitte ich vom Herren by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672).

 

AROUND THE PARISH . . . Kenny Isler was in New York last week to replenish our stock of incense.  He was also gracious enough to serve as thurifer at the Solemn Mass on Sunday.  Many, many thanks to him . . . The wedding of Alexander Corner and Emma Macdonald will be celebrated on Friday, July 18, at 4:00 PM.  Alex and Emma attend both the 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM Sunday Masses . . . Robert McDermitt, our assistant organist, is conducting the Marsh Singers, a choral society of business people who work in Midtown.  He is preparing them to sing at the dedication of a September 11 Memorial later this week . . . The Rector has received a letter from Father Rob Rhodes, our seminarian these last two years who is now an assistant priest at Saint Martin’s Church, Ellisville, Missouri.  He and his wife, Lisa Copland, are doing well, but they miss Saint Mary’s in all the appropriate ways . . . Another former seminarian, the Reverend Mary Haddad, assistant priest at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, New York City, will be with us as guest celebrant and preacher for the Sung Mass on Michaelmas, Monday, September 29, at 6:00 PM . . .

 

 

Volunteers are needed to help with the coffee hour after the 10:00 AM Mass.  Volunteers are also needed to help in the nursery during both the 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM Masses.  See or speak with Father Beddingfield if you are interested in either of these opportunities . . Altar flowers are needed for Sundays, July 27, and August 3.  If you are interested in dedicating the flowers for one of these Sundays, please call the parish office . . . Attendance last Sunday 158.

 

WEDNESDAY NIGHTS AT SAINT MARY’S . . . As you begin to think about your schedule for the fall, plan on coming to Saint Mary’s for Christian Education on Wednesday nights, following Evening Prayer and Mass.  Highlights for the fall include a study of the Gospel According to Mark led by Bishop Grein, a study of Wisdom Literature led by our member Joe Pearson, and a study of Mary Magdalene in art history, led by our friend Joan Baldridge.

 

VESTMENT FUND APPEAL . . . As we go to press, $6,530.81 has been received.  $15,000.00 is needed.  Please make your checks payable to the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin and mark the check for “vestments.”  Thank you very much!

 

BRASS CLEANING , Saturday August 9Willing hands are needed from 10 A.M. until 2 P.M. There's nothing more

invigorating than the smell of Basso on a hot August morning.

 

The Calendar of the Week

Sunday               The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Monday                     Weekday

Tuesday                     Bonaventure, bishop

Wednesday               Weekday

Thursday                  William White, bishop

Friday                        Weekday                                                                      Abstinence

Saturday                   Of Our Lady

 

 

The Parish Clergy

The Reverend Stephen Gerth, rector,

The Reverend Matthew Weiler, The Reverend John Beddingfield, curates,

The Reverend James Ross Smith, assistant, The Reverend Rosemari Sullivan, assisting priest,

The Reverend Canon Edgar F. Wells, rector emeritus.