Jeremy Jelinek is a musician—and a professional singer. Presently he’s a organ student at the Juilliard School. Dr. David Hurd was not well last weekend. He was delighted that Jeremy was available to play the service and conduct the choir on the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King, November 21, 2021. Jeremy stepped away from a Sunday position to prepare for a degree recital here at Saint Mary’s. So he was able to take the service. He and his partner, Matthew Lobe, are regular members of the congregation. Jeremy is usually here when he is not working on a Sunday. Click on any photo to enlarge.
Photo: Marie Rosseels

FROM THE RECTOR: ADVENT LIGHT

I experienced “Manhattanhenge” in the summer of 1999, my first summer in New York City. Before and after the summer solstice, the sunset on two days in May and two days in July aligns with the east-west street grid in Manhattan. As a result, there are intense sunsets these days.

My gym reopened the day after Labor Day 2020. Since then, I try to get there by 6:00 AM. I missed the phenomenon known as “Reverse Manhattanhenge” last year. But I saw it this year. As the winter solstice approaches, the fierce light of sunrise will align with the east-west street grid in the city. Farmers’ Almanac at this link explains the phenomena.

The American Museum of Natural History website tells us: “In total, there are four days of Manhattanhenge to look forward to, two in May and two in July. During the first day of Manhattanhenge half of the sun can be seen on the grid. The next day, spectators can see the full sun. After the summer solstice in June, Manhattanhenge happens in reverse. While you’ll see the full sun on the first day, the day after shows you half the sun again.” Here’s a link to a photograph posted by ABC News on Thursday, November 24. It was truly glorious. The sun invited me to check out what was going on, and it made me think of the canticles associated with Advent.

Following the practice I knew from Nashotah House days, the canticle we use after the first reading at Morning Prayer is always the Song of Zechariah from Luke’s gospel (Canticle 16, page 88). Zechariah is the father of John the Baptist. Speaking to his new-born son, he says, “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (page 92).

Most weeks of the year after the second reading at Morning Prayer, “The Third Song of Isaiah” (Canticle 11, page 83) is used after the second reading on Wednesdays. It’s taken from Isaiah 60. It begins, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you” (Canticle 11, page 87). [Checking the Hebrew text, I learned that the word given in the Prayer Book for YHWH is another instance where respect for the Jewish tradition of reverence for the never-spoken Hebrew name for God is not indicated in this passage. There is no reason not to indicate this by using small caps as I do above.]

In previous Prayer Books, the canticle we know as “A Song of Creation” (Canticle 12, page 84) was printed with the first line of its Latin text, Benedicite, omnia opera Domine. It was called “Benedicite” (page 47 for the Rite One text). Like the Third Song of Isaiah, it is used on Saturdays most weeks of the year.

The Rite Two text begins, “Glorify the Lord all you works of the Lord, praise him and highly exalt him for ever” (page 88). The Prayer Book labels the text’s subsections: The Cosmic Order; The Earth and its Creatures; and The People of God, living and departed. It is taken from the Song of the Three Young Men, a text belonging to the Apocrypha, and placed with another text, the Song of Azariah. However, in Advent, except on major feasts, one of these two canticles is used every day of the season.

I think I’m going to try to begin to think of Advent, not as a darkening time, but a time when creation itself points reminds us of the Dawn that already shines on us, Jesus Christ our Lord. —Stephen Gerth

YOUR PRAYERS ARE ASKED FOR Lee, Stephen, Burton, Emil, John, Karen, Hardy, Shalim, Margaret, Brian, Penelope, Greta, Larry, Pat, Liduvina, Jonathan, Emerson, Marilouise, Quincy, Florette, Peter, George, Abraham, Dennis, Ethelyn, Gypsy, and Robert; Randall and Louis, priests, all who work for the common good, all the friends and members of this parish; and for the repose of the soul of the Reverend W. Pegram Johnson  . . . GRANT THEM PEACE . . . November 28: 1881 Henry Edgar Denny; 1896 Thomas Reeves Ash; 1921 Margery Irving Hoffman; 1924 Henry Lincoln Case; 1928 Edmund Rausch; 1953 Paul Recousie; 1961 Mary Richards; 1962 Maude Hoppin Smith; 1962 James Eastman, Frances Schmidlapp.

ADVENT QUIET DAY . . . On Saturday, December 11, Sister Monica Clare, C.S.J.B, will lead a Quiet Day in person here at the church. Her theme will be the virtue of hope. Based on the scriptural foundations of Christian hope, her reflections will suggest some ways of keeping hope alive even in times of despair. The day will begin at 9:30 AM. There will be two reflections in the morning and one in the afternoon. Mass is at 12:10 PM, followed by lunch. Opportunities for prayer, reflection, and journaling will be provided. Reservations for the Quiet Day may be made by sending an e-mail to Father Jay Smith.

DIRECT CHARITABLE GIFTS FROM IRAs: IRA gifts are not recognized as income and will reduce your 2021 tax liability. If you are 70.5 or older, you can make a gift from your traditional IRA account. And if you are 72 or older, your IRA donation is a compassionate way to fulfill your required minimum distribution for the year. Please be sure to consult with your tax professional. In addition, many friends of this parish contribute in this way.

STEWARDSHIP 2022 . . . This year’s Stewardship Campaign has gotten off to a pretty good start, though we have a ways to go. As of November 17, 2021, we have received 41 pledges for a total of $114,208.00 has been pledged for the coming year. This is 28.5% of our goal of $400,000.00.

We urge all members and friends of the parish to return their 2022 pledge cards by this coming Sunday, Commitment Sunday, November 21. For information about making a pledge online, please get in touch with the parish office. —The Stewardship Committee

THE FLOWERS OF THE FIELD . . . We welcome donations to support the work of the Flower Guild, particularly at this time of the year. The members of the Guild will be creating the Advent Wreath next week, and they are already making plans to decorate the church for Christmas. Many Sundays in the New Year are available for donations for flowers to mark an important anniversary or to remember a departed loved one. For more information, speak to Brendon Hunter or call the Parish Office at 212-869-5830.

NEIGHBORS IN NEED . . . On Friday, November 19, 2021, our parish volunteers welcomed and assisted fifty-three guests. The volunteer team has been excited that several new volunteers have joined the team in recent months, John Heffernan, Clark Mitchell, Mark Risinger, and Leroy Sharer. They were particularly excited that Chisa Takagi was at the Drop-by on Friday. Chisa is a jewelry designer and a teacher of design, who discovered Saint Mary’s during a business trip to the Diamond District. She attends Evening Prayer here when she can and is eager to support the parish. If you are thinking about volunteering for Neighbors in Need, you should know that not all our volunteers are able to help out every month. Our goal is to have a team of volunteers who can share the work on this important outreach program . . . We hope to receive donations of new or lightly used winter coats during the winter months. The coats should be clean. Their pockets should be empty, and the zippers, if any, should be in good repair . . . At our monthly Drop-by Days, we distribute clothing, toiletry, and hygiene items—and Metro Cards when they are available—to those in need in the Times Square neighborhood. Our next Drop-by Day is scheduled for Friday, December 17. Volunteers work from 1:30 PM until 3:30 PM. Our guests are invited into the church at 2:00 PM, and we close our doors at 3:00 PM. We need six (6) volunteers for each Drop-by. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Marie Rosseels, MaryJane Boland, or Father Jay Smith. You may reach them by calling the Parish Office at 212-869-5830.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION . . . This Sunday, November 28, the Adult Education class will meet in the Arch Room on the second floor of the Mission House. Access is via the sextons’ lodge at the east end of the narthex (vestibule) of the main entrance to the church . . . On Sunday, Father Peter Powell will continue his series on the Holiness Code, Leviticus 17–27. Father will teach until mid-December, and then we will take some time off for the Christmas Break . . . After the break, Adult Education will resume on Sunday, January 9, 2022, when the class will study and discuss the gospel lesson appointed for that day. This series, Reading Sunday’s Gospel and Getting Ready for Mass will continue until mid-February (January 9, 16, 23, 30, and February 6 and 13). The class will be taught by Father Jacobson, Father Smith, and Father Powell, who will take turns leading the class . . . Then on February 20 and 27, VK McCarty will lead a two-part series, Women Witnessed in the Ministry of Saint Paul, in which she will talk about women such as Lydia, Prisca, Phoebe, Euodia and Syntyche. VK’s book, From their Lips: Voices of Early Christian Women, was recently published by Gorgias Press . . . Father Powell will resume his series on the Holiness Code on the Sundays in Lent.

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S . . . November 28, The First Sunday of Advent (Year C; Year Two for Daily Office). Adult Education 9:30–10:30 AM in the Arch Room on the second floor of the Mission House. Solemn Mass, 11:00 AM. The readings are as follows: Zechariah 14:1–9; Psalm 50:1–6; 1 Thessalonians 3:9–13; Luke 21:25–36. The celebrant and preacher at the Mass will be Father Jay Smith. Evening Prayer will be said, though not sung, in the church at 5:00 PM on Sunday . . . Tuesday, November 30, Racism Discussion Group Meeting, 7:00 PM via Zoom. For more information about this ongoing weekly meeting, please call the parish office . . . Next Sunday: December 5, The Second Sunday of Advent 2C. Adult Education 9:30–10:30 AM in the Arch Room on the second floor of the Mission House. Solemn Mass, 11:00 AM. The readings are as follows: Baruch 5:1–9; Psalm 126; Philippians 1:1–11; Luke 3:1–6. The celebrant and preacher at the Mass will be Father Matthew Jacobson. Evening Prayer will be said, though not sung, in the church at 5:00 PM on Sunday.

AROUND THE PARISH . . . We are very grateful to Jeremy Jelinek, who played the service last Sunday on very short notice. Dr. David Hurd was ill and asked Jeremy to fill in for him. Jeremy worships with us when he is able. He will play his degree recital here in February 2022 . . . Christopher Howatt, parish administrator, will be away from the parish this weekend. He returns to the office on Tuesday, November 30 . . . Father Jay Smith will be away from the parish next week for work. He will be back in New York on Friday, December 3, and in church on Sunday, December 5.

ABOUT THE MUSIC . . . Sunday’s organ voluntaries are two of the three settings of Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland from the Great Eighteen Leipzig Chorales of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The chorale (54 in The Hymnal 1982) is Martin Luther’s sixteenth-century adaptation of the fourth-century Latin hymn Veni Redemptor gentium attributed to Ambrose of Milan (55 in The Hymnal 1982). BWV 659, played for the prelude, presents a poignant ornamented version of the chorale melody above a walking bass and two accompanying voices. BWV 660, played for the postlude, is an animated trio featuring an ornamented version of the chorale melody above two quasi-canonic accompanying voices played by the left hand and on the pedals.

The setting of the Mass on Sunday morning is the Missa in contrapuncto a 4 vocibus by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (c. 1656–1746). Fischer was recognized in his day as one of the finest German composers of keyboard music. He was strongly influenced by the French composer, Jean Baptiste Lully, with whom he may have studied, and he conveyed French influences to the Italian-influenced German music of his time. Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel were the two most notable musicians who knew and were influenced by Fischer’s work. Unfortunately, the record of Fischer’s life and career seems best documented in writings devoted to others and which only mention him in passing. Of Fischer’s works which were published in his lifetime are collections of sacred music from 1701 and 1711. His Mass for four voices begins with a fugal Kyrie which references the opening phrase of the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (“Come now, Savior of the Gentiles”) and is therefore particularly appropriate for Advent. While evidencing aspects of the stile antico (“antique style”), this Mass also clearly embraces German baroque style.

During the administration of Communion at the Solemn Mass on Sunday, the choir will sing Laetentur coeli by William Byrd (1543–1623). Byrd, like the slightly older Thomas Tallis, enjoyed the favor of Queen Elizabeth I and composed extensively for both the Anglican and Latin rites of his time. This Latin motet from Byrd’s Liber primus sacrarum cantionum of 1589 is in five voices. The text of the motet is derived from Isaiah 49:13 and Psalm 72:7. It is, both textually and musically, an exuberant expression of hopeful expectation.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR . . . Wednesday, December 8, The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Celebration of the Founding of the Parish and the First Mass in the First Church on December 8, 1870 . . . Sunday, December 19, The Fourth Sunday of Advent & Father Gerth’s Final Day at Saint Mary’s . . . Tuesday, December 21, Saint Thomas the Apostle . . . Friday, December 24, Christmas Eve. Music for Congregation and Choir 4:30 PM and Procession & Solemn Mass 5:00 PM . . . Saturday, December 25, Christmas Day, Solemn Mass & Procession to the Crèche 11:00 AM . . . Sunday, December 26, First Sunday after Christmas Day, Solemn Mass 11:00 AM . . . Monday, December 27, Saint Stephen, Deacon and Martyr (transferred), Mass 12:10 PM . . . Tuesday, December 28, Saint John the Evangelist (transferred), Mass 12:10 PM . . . Saturday, January 2, The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Said Mass 12:10 PM.

SAINT MARY’S ONLINE CENTERING PRAYER GROUP . . . The Saint Mary’s Centering Prayer Group continues to meet! The group meets online, via Zoom, every Friday at 6:30 PM. If you are interested in participating, please send an e-mail to this address. The convenors of the group will then send the link to the Zoom meeting.

THE THEATER AT ST. CLEMENT’S . . . On Wednesday, November 17, the Wall Street Journal’s theater critic, Terry Teachout, reviewed the current production of the Peccadillo Theater Company at St. Clement’s Church, 423 West 46th Street. Dan Wackerman is the company’s artistic director and a regular member of our Sunday congregation. Teachout wrote, “Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven is a great American play that is not widely recognized as such. The original 1939 Broadway production was a flop, running for only forty-four performances, and even though Morning’s at Seven has since received two successful Broadway revivals, in 1980 and 2002, it has still never quite managed to establish itself as the modern classic that it is. I have heard of only one professional revival in the past fifteen years, by Philadelphia’s People’s Light in 2018, and that one, while it was outstanding, did not lead to a wider renewal of interest in the play. Now Morning’s at Seven is being performed off Broadway in a staging that features a highly distinguished cast and is directed by Dan Wackerman, whose Peccadillo Theater Company (which co-produced this revival) specializes in American plays of similar vintage and quality . . . If, as seems more than likely, you’ve never seen Morning’s at Seven, I recommend this revival, from which you will surely come away wondering, as I did back in 2018, why so fine and powerful a play is not better known.” The play continues through January 9, 2022.

CONCERTS AT SAINT MARY’S . . . Saturday, December 4, 2021, 8:00 PM, New York Repertory Orchestra, Saint Mary’s Resident Orchestra, David Leibowitz, music director. The program includes the following music: Mauer, Women on a Journey (Kin Janabarhi Vra), NYRO Commission/World Premiere. In memoriam of Marguerite Iskenderian; Dello Joio, Meditations on Ecclesiastes; Still, Symphony 2 (Song of a New Race), Stephan Fillare, conductor.

Marguerite Iskenderian was a musician, librarian, and teacher, who worked for many years at Brooklyn College. She was killed in a hit-and-run car accident on April 24, 2021, near the Brooklyn College Campus. She was a cellist with the New York Repertory Orchestra. Women on a Journey was composed in her honor and memory. May she rest in peace.

AT THE MUSEUMS . . . The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, through January 9, 2022. From the Museum website, “Every holiday season, the Morgan displays Charles Dickens’s original manuscript of A Christmas Carol in J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library. Dickens wrote his iconic tale in a six-week flurry of activity beginning in October 1843 and ending in time for Christmas publication. He had the manuscript bound in red goatskin leather as a gift for his solicitor, Thomas Mitton. The manuscript then passed through several owners before Pierpont Morgan acquired it in the 1890s.

Beginning a few years ago, the Morgan started advancing the Christmas Carol manuscript by one page each season. This year the manuscript is open to the finale of Scrooge’s quarrel with his nephew over the value of Christmas. Through his increasingly vexed refrain of “Good Afternoon!,” Scrooge rebuffs his nephew’s invitation to share a holiday meal before carping at the seasonal cheer of Bob Cratchit, “who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge.” The line about Cratchit’s wages (“fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family”) [is an allusion to] Dickens’s own salary as a sixteen-year-old solicitor’s clerk, thereby emphasizing the dramatic injustice of Cratchit’s employment. The page concludes with Scrooge’s first mention of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who “died seven years ago, this very night.”

The Morgan requires proof of vaccination for entry.

This edition of the Angelus was written and edited by Father Stephen Gerth and Father Jay Smith. Father Matt Jacobson is responsible for posting the newsletter on the parish website and distributing it via mail and e-mail, with the assistance of Christopher Howatt, parish administrator, and parish volunteer, Clint Best.