FROM THE INTERIM RECTOR: WHY SHOULD I SERVE AT SAINT MARY’S?

It’s never an accident when someone comes into a church. 

Everyone in a church family bears with them unique sets of needs and of gifts. That’s one reason God places specific people in specific families – because they have the gifts we desperately need, and we need a place to practice the gifts we have that the world needs. At Saint Mary’s, we need the gifts you bring into our family, and there are myriad ways to exercise those gifts to serve this parish and for the life of the world. 

So, how do I start?

First, ask God to show you what you’re called to do, which is often what you most like to do. Do you love our liturgy and want to understand the Mass more deeply? Consider joining the Guild of Altar Servers and learn about the Holy Eucharist by participating in it up close. Or perhaps you think you may have the gift of hospitality and enjoy making others feel at home. If that’s you, consider joining the Guild of Ushers. Encountering a visitor is a holy moment when God is at work, so serving as an usher is participating in God’s own mission to welcome all people and unite them in Christ. If you like flowers, try the Flower Guild; if you have a heart for justice, join a mission project. You may be skilled at administration, web design, writing, reading scripture, music, craftwork – whatever you’re cut out to do, we need you! 

So, is serving really for me?

Serving is a way to build the kingdom of God in Times Square, to be sure. But it’s also a great way to make deep friendships, learn new skills, and find your own distinct calling at Saint Mary’s. Ultimately, there’s an even deeper reason we serve. St. Paul wrote: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant . . . .  

In this parish, we serve because we want to be like Jesus.

In this short video, Saint Mary’s parishioners explain why they serve and invite others to join them. Take a look; ask God what you can do; then call the office or speak to a volunteer on Sunday. 

Come join the team at Saint Mary’s! — Sammy Wood

YOUR PRAYERS ARE ASKED FOR Emil, Melissa, Wendell, William, Marjorie, Mara, Marcia, Howard, Pat, Eloise, John, Karen, Shalim, Yuderka, Greta, Christian, Marilouise, Quincy, Florette, Peter, George, Abraham, Ethelyn, Gypsy, Hardy, Margaret, Robert, Damien Joseph, religious; and Amy, priest.

Your prayers are asked for all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit, especially the people of Ukraine; the sick; the dying; the poor and the persecuted; the unemployed and those looking for work; all refugees and migrants; those without food, shelter, or work; those who suffer from COVID-19; and those who mourn.

Your prayers are asked for peace in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe. Your prayers are asked for peace in all the troubled places of this world, remembering especially the people of Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Myanmar, Syria, and Yemen.

Your prayers are asked for all health workers and all those who work for the common good; for those who live and work in our neighborhood; for all those visiting Saint Mary’s this week; for all actors, artists, and musicians; and for all the benefactors, friends, and members of this parish.

Your prayers are asked for the work of Neighbors in Need, for its guests, its benefactors, and its volunteers, and for the success of AIDS Walk 2022.

We will not walk the Stations of the Cross on Friday, March 25, or on Good Friday, April 15.

SAINT MARY’S ONLINE CENTERING PRAYER GROUP . . . The Saint Mary’s Centering Prayer Group will not meet on Friday, March 25 (Feast of the Annunciation) or on Friday, April 15 (Good Friday). However, the Group does meet online on most Friday evenings 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.

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S . . . Friday, March 25, The Feast of the Annunciation, Organ Recital 5:30 PM, Dr. Nathaniel Gumbs, recitalist; Solemn Mass 6:00 PM. . . On Sunday, March 27, The Fourth Sunday in Lent, the Adult Education class will meet from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM in the Arch Room, on the second floor of the Mission House. Access is via 133 West Forty-sixth Street. The class will be led by Father Peter Powell. Solemn Mass is celebrated at 11:00 AM. Evening Prayer is said in the church at 5:00 PM . . . Tuesday, March 29, Racism Discussion Group Meeting, 7:00 PM via Zoom. For more information about this ongoing weekly meeting, please call the parish office, or speak to one of the current members of the group, such as Charles Carson, Charles Morgan, Marie Rosseels, or Ingrid Sletten . . .  Sunday, April 3, The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Adult Education 9:30 AM, Solemn Mass 11:00 AM, Evening Prayer 5:00 PM . . . Holy Eucharist and the Daily Office: The Angelus is recited Monday through Saturday at 12:00 PM and 5:00 PM. Evening Prayer is normally said in the church Monday through Saturday at 5:00 PM, except on Federal holidays and certain holy days. Solemn Mass is celebrated at 11:00 AM on Sunday morning and Evening Prayer is said at 5:00 PM in the church on Sunday afternoons.

AROUND THE PARISH . . . Clark Anderson, who is a faithful member of the parish, is also an accomplished organist. He has kindly agreed to play at Solemn Mass on Friday, March 25, at 6:00 PM, and on Sunday, March 27, at 11:00 AM. We are grateful for his ministry and his artistry . . . Our interim rector has a blog page that he posts to around once a month. You can visit Father Sammy’s blog by clicking here… We welcome donations for flowers on the altar and around the church for the following dates: Sunday, May 15, the Fifth Sunday of Easter; Sunday, May 22, the Sixth Sunday of Easter; Sunday, June 5, the Feast of Pentecost; Sunday, June 12, Trinity Sunday; and other dates until the end of 2022. Please contact the parish office for more information.

THE AIDS WALK IS BACK… After a hiatus due to the pandemic, AIDS Walk New York returns to Central Park this year for an in-person event on May 15 and Saint Mary’s is again forming a team for this important fundraiser. We have six members so far and are growing. One week after kicking off our effort, we have raised $26,950, out of our goal of $40,000, and are currently the overall top fundraising team! Maybe we were too conservative with our initial goal?

Click here to join the team or to donate. Donations via check, payable to “AIDS Walk New York,” can be given to one of the team leaders: MaryJane Boland, Clark Mitchell, or Father Matt Jacobson. Feel free also to contact us with any questions about the Walk. Additional details and history of our participation can be found on the parish webpage here, including a video about this important ministry. Any support, large or small, matters and is very much appreciated! —MaryJane, Clark, and Father Matt

GRANT THEM PEACE . . . March 27: 1883 Sister Louise Gardner; 1890 Mary Ann Rebecca Rice; 1896 Theresa Unger; 1917 Albert Heald Thwaite; 1922 Elmer E. Lagen; 1924 Anna Cecelia Everard; 1932 Clarence Gerow Winter; 1934 Edward Selwyn Moffett.

PRAY FOR PEACE . . . As we hear daily the terrible news of what is taking place in Ukraine, we continue to pray:

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

 Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: kindle, we pray, in the hearts of all, the true love of peace and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth that in tranquillity your kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

NEIGHBORS IN NEED . . . The next Drop-by Day is scheduled for Friday, April 22. Volunteers work from 1:30 PM until 3:30 PM. Our guests are invited into the church a bit before 2:00 PM, and we close our doors at 3:00 PM. We need at least 6 volunteers for each Drop-by. If you would like to volunteer, please send an email to neighbors@stmvnyc.org or call the Parish Office at 212-869-5830. The May Drop-by will take place on Friday, May 20.

With the onset of warmer weather, we are now eager to receive donations of lighter clothes such as shirts, blouses, T-shirts, slacks, shorts; jeans, socks and athletic shoes remain popular items year-round. However, if you are cleaning out your winter closets, we will gladly accept your unwanted coats, clothes and shoes to keep in reserve for next winter.

Neighbors in Need participates in a citywide program called refashionNYC. This allows us to recycle donated clothing that we are unable to distribute for later use at other programs in the city. Please be assured that we use almost all of the clothing donated here for distribution. Still, some clothing—for example, most children’s clothing and some formal wear—is not usable here at the moment. Once we’ve gathered such clothing and placed it in the bin in Saint Joseph’s Hall, we place a call to refashionNYC and they send one of their partners, in our case, Housing Works, for pickup. Housing Works then processes the clothing and distributes it to their centers around the city. Any remainder is shredded and recycled. We recently received a summary of our participation from refashionNYC, which read:

“Thank you for your participation in refashionNYC! refashionNYC is now serving over 200,000 households, that’s over 520,000 residents! Since the program started, over 26 million pounds of clothing and textiles have been recycled through the program.”

“During 2021, you have kept 1260 pounds of textiles out of landfills. We thank you for your participation in our program!”

And we thank all those who continue to support this important ministry.

FRIDAYS IN LENT . . . We will walk the Stations of the Cross each Friday in Lent, except March 25 and April 15, at 5:30 PM, following Evening Prayer, which begins at 5:00 PM. We ask that masks be worn during Stations, and we recommend that everyone attending Stations (and Sunday Mass) be vaccinated.

OUR MUSIC DIRECTOR’S RECITALS . . . We are blessed that our organist and music director, Dr. David Hurd, is an accomplished composer and musician, whose work is known throughout the church and beyond. David is in demand at churches and other venues as a recitalist. This weekend he will be playing an organ recital at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His upcoming recital dates include Thursday, May 5, 2022, 7:30 PM, at Saint Mary’s Chapel, Saint Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, Maryland; and Sunday, October 16, 2022, 6:00 PM, at Grace and Saint Peter’s Church, Baltimore, Maryland (Organ Rededication Recital). We are very grateful that David is able to represent Saint Mary’s in this way.

CONCERTS AT SAINT MARY’S . . . Tuesday, March 29, 2022, 7:30 PM, and Tuesday, June 7, 20022, 7:30 PM, Grammy award-winning organist Paul Jacobs will perform two All-Franck recitals celebrating César Franck's 200th Birthday. Additional details and a link to purchase tickets can be found here… Saturday, April 2, 2022, 8:00 PM, The New York Repertory Orchestra, David Leibowitz, music director. Admission is free. Suggested donation $15.00. Program: Ponchielli, Elegia; Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 5; Kashperova, Symphony in B minor (North American Premiere).

ABOUT THE MUSIC . . . The setting of the Mass on Sunday morning is Missa Iste Confessor by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–1594). Palestrina is often regarded today more as a source and inspiration for many of the composers who followed him than as a practitioner of already established musical practice. However, it may be said that Palestrina stood on foundations largely laid by the Netherlandish composers Guillaume Dufay (c. 1397–1474) and Josquin des Prez (c. 1450–1521). He is responsible for setting the canons for Renaissance polyphony and the standards for Catholic liturgical music which pertain even in our time. Among his hundreds of compositions are over one hundred Masses, most of which were published in thirteen volumes between 1554 and 1601. The Missa Iste Confessor is from the fifth book of Masses published in 1590. It is based upon a plainsong melody for the eighth-century hymn for the commemoration confessors, originally understood as those who had suffered persecution short of martyrdom for their faith. Eventually, the category of confessor came to include bishops and others who lived a holy life and died in peace and did not fit into other saintly classifications. The Mode 8 chant melody which Palestrina utilized in his four-voice Mass setting was found at 228 in The Hymnal 1940 with the text “Only begotten, Word of God eternal,” intended for the Consecration of a Church. (That text appears in The Hymnal 1982 but with different music.) Palestrina’s Mass is mostly for four voices. As is often the case in Masses of this time the Benedictus has reduced voicing and the final Agnus Dei calls for an additional voice. 

Palestrina’s works include more than three hundred motets. His setting of Ego sum panis vivus will be sung during the administration of Communion during the Solemn Mass on Sunday. The text is from the Gospel according to Saint John, Chapter 6:48–51. This text has been chanted as a Eucharistic Song for Corpus Christi as well as a canticle antiphon for Lauds on Corpus Christi and for Ember Wednesdays. Palestrina’s setting of this text for four voices is particularly suitable for Eucharistic devotion in Lent. —David Hurd

We will pause our Lenten journey for some refreshment this coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent. I invite you to use Sunday morning’s voluntaries by Jean Langlais for contemplation of the season and of the day’s lessons. Despite his blindness, Langlais (1907–1991) was a formidable performer and prolific composer. His more than 300 organ works explore a full range of styles and themes, bridging the musical eras his lifetime spanned. The prelude, from Neuf pièces pour Grand Orgue (“Nine Pieces for Grand Organ”), he calls simply “Song of Sorrow” (Chant de peine). An extended flute solo sounds slowly over a sequence of dissonant, polymodal chords. Without a time signature, the work meanders seemingly without structure. The focus is deeply inward. The postlude, by contrast, looks outward, to “amazing grace.” Langlais used folk music in several of his works, and this piece comes from a collection of six American “folk-hymns” he published in 1986. He reportedly chose “Amazing Grace” after hearing Joan Baez sing it at Notre-Dame in Paris. Around a deceptively simple setting of the tune, written in 1835 by American composer, William Walker, Langlais weaves a series of short interludes, each one a thought on or reference to the respective verses of the text. Some are quiet, some more impassioned. They lead to a concluding reiteration of the melody, to a peace in response to grace. —Clark Anderson

ADULT EDUCATION . . . This coming Sunday, March 27, Father Peter Powell will continue his series on the Holiness Code, Leviticus 17–27. (Father Powell will also be teaching on April 3 & 10.) The class will meet in the Arch Room on the second floor of the Mission House. Access is via 133 West Forty-sixth Street or the sextons’ lodge at the east end of the narthex (vestibule) of the main entrance to the church . . . Coming Up after the Easter Break . . . On Sundays, May 1 and May 8, Father Warren Platt will give presentations on the early history of Saint Mary’s. Father Platt writes, “My two lectures will focus on the development of the ritualist movement in the Episcopal Church, with particular attention to the Diocese of New York and those parishes within it which were exponents of high churchmanship. There will be a discussion of Bishop John Henry Hobart and Hobartian high churchmanship in the Diocese of New York.

“This was the prelude to the reception of the Oxford Movement in the Episcopal Church, and there will be an analysis of the doctrinal and liturgical emphases of same. In the mid-1860s the somewhat restrained and moderate high churchmanship of the early followers of the Oxford Movement was superseded by the ritualist movement which introduced an elaborate ceremonial and usage to underscore belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. There will be an extended discussion of Saint Alban’s Church, the first avowedly ritualistic parish in the Episcopal Church.  It was founded in the year 1865 and was located on Lexington Avenue. This will then lead to an examination of the founding of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in 1868 under the leadership of the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown.”

This seems like a timely and appropriate topic for this interim period, during which the parish will consider Saint Mary’s past, present, and future. All are invited and encouraged to attend.

COMMITTEE TO ELECT A BISHOP . . . The Diocese of New York is preparing to elect a bishop coadjutor. The Committee to Elect a Bishop is holding its next listening session on Saturday, March 26, at 4:00 PM (this session will include Spanish Interpretation). The session will:

•           include a short introduction to some of our committee members;

•           provide an opportunity for you to share your thoughts, opinions, and ideas;

•           include an introduction to the Committee's process and next steps; and

•           be held via Zoom.

Please note that registration is required: click on this Zoom link to register.

LOOKING AHEAD . . . Holy Week: Sunday, April 10, The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday . . . Thursday, April 14, Maundy Thursday . . . Friday, April 15, Good Friday . . . Saturday, April 16, Easter Eve . . . Sunday, April 17, Easter Day . . . Easter Week, Monday–Saturday, April 18–23 . . . April 24, The Second Sunday of Easter.

This edition of the Angelus was written and edited by Father Sammy Wood and Father Jay Smith. Father Jacobson also helps with editing and is responsible for posting it 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.