FROM THE ANTI-RACISM GROUP: FOUR WORDS OF BLESSING

Over the past three years, our weekly “Conversations on Race” (via Zoom) have evolved into a free-flowing process that always starts and ends with a prayer. These prayers are often unconventional and drawn, by Ingrid Sletten, from a wide variety of sources. Ingrid also facilitates the meetings. We prepare for each meeting by reading in advance from a pre-selected book (usually a chapter per session) that deals with race on a broad spectrum (click here for a list of the books we have read). We discuss our impressions, often interspersed by personal experiences or news of the day, but always with unconditional love and acceptance of each other’s views. We have been transformed by these conversations as they have instilled in us a deep trust and respect for one another, and a love that resonates through our daily lives and into our parish community.

Our process—as MLK said—we are “practicing” what it might be to be a “beloved community” where we center love for humanity, love as accountability, love as justice, love as community, love as belonging. How we do the work and relate is as important as the end result. We feel the frequency and regularity of our meetings enable us to strengthen our connection, resulting in trust, vulnerability, respect, love and change of heart. Our time together in prayer is central to our process; prayers are carefully and intentionally selected by Ingrid to reflect the text we are engaged in that week. This sets a prayerful tone for our discussions, and it centers us in what we consider kairos, God’s space and time. That is, it expands our perspective, gives us hope, and gives us courage.

Father Sammy’s sermons and Father Jay’s adult forums are currently based on a theme of conversion and transformation. We think what we are doing is this kind of work… a process of transformation… reading and learning, discussing, agreeing, disagreeing—in short, active engagement!

Our favorite prayer is a non-traditional blessing-written by Sister Ruth Marlene Fox, OSB. We share it with you below. Through it we are asking to be blessed with discomfort and anger, that we might live deep within our hearts, work for justice, freedom, and peace, that we be blessed with tears and foolishness so we might reach out to those who suffer and to believe that we might make a difference! There are four words in this Benediction that are precious to us: discomfort, anger, tears, and foolishness. In honor of this article, we offer our spontaneous, prayerful, and heartfelt response to those four words (see this link for a compilation of reflections). They are our offering to each of you as we walk this road together to justice as The Beloved Community.

May God bless us with discomfort…
Discomfort at easy answers, half-truths
and superficial relationships,
Discomfort, so that we will live deep
within our hearts

May God bless us with anger…
Anger at injustice, oppression, and 
exploitation of people,
Anger, so that we will work for
justice, freedom, and peace

May God bless us with tears…
Tears to shed for those who suffer
pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
Tears, so that we will reach out to
comfort them and turn their pain into joy

And, may God bless us with foolishness…
Foolishnesss to believe that we can make
a difference in this world,
Foolishness, so that we will do what others
claim cannot be done
Amen.

PRAYING FOR THE WORLD AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD

We pray for peace in Ukraine and Russia, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon.

We pray for the grace, courage, knowledge, and wisdom to practice what it means to be the Beloved Community.

We pray for the sick, for those in any need or trouble, and for all those who have asked us for our prayers. We pray for those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries this week; for those who are traveling; for the unemployed and for those seeking work; for the incarcerated and for those recently released from prison; for all victims of violence, assault, and crime; for all refugees and migrants, especially those sheltering in our neighborhood; for those struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction; for those whom we serve in our outreach programs, for our neighbors in the Times Square neighborhood, for the theater community, and for those living with drought, storm, punishing heat, flood, fire, or earthquake.

We pray for those for whom prayers have been asked Todd, Trevor, Jonah, Cara, Barbara, Carl, Robert, Hemmi, Chelsea, Dennis, Pat, Jennifer, Barry, Frank, Simon, Richard, Charles, Tatiana, Charlotte, Emily, Mary, Eleanor, Eugene, Steven, Quincy, Gigi, Claudia, June, Joyce, Sharon, Bruce, Robert, Carlos, Christopher, Harka, José, Brian, Susan, Carmen, Antony, Pablo, Abe, Bob, Gypsy, Hardy, Margaret, and John Derek; The Brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist; Robby, Allan, and Stephen, priests; and Michael, bishop.

We pray for the brothers of the Order of the Holy Cross as they celebrate the feast day of their founder, James Otis Sargent Huntington, on Saturday, November 25.

We pray for the repose of the souls of Sheldon Harrison and of those whose year’s mind is on Sunday, November 19—Edith Chapin (1883); Clara Graham Wallace (1952); Irene Helen Williams (1959); and Beryl Ermine Whittle (1990). We also pray for the repose of the soul of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

WE ARE GRATEFUL AND WE THANK YOU

We received a grant this week from the Church of the Good Shepherd, Thirty-first Street, that will allow us to purchase cold-weather clothing for young children. We are very grateful to Father Stephen Morris and to the people of Good Shepherd for their continual friendship and for their great generosity.

We are very grateful to all of those who volunteered their time for today’s Drop-by Day. We could not provide the assistance that we do without their dedication and hard work.

Parishioners Robert Shard and David Khouri will be moving soon from New York City. We will miss them. They recently donated several large bags of clothing for our outreach program, as well as a beautiful large rug. Thank you, David and Robert, and Godspeed.

STEWARDSHIP UPDATE

Our 2024 Stewardship Campaign is now underway. We have received 39 pledges for a total of $245,455, which is 54.5% of the 2024 stewardship goal of $450k. We have a way to go, but this is a good start. We urge you to return your pledge cards before the end of November. Pledge cards will be received and blessed on Sunday, November 26, the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King. We are grateful to all those who continue to support Saint Mary’s so generously.

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S

Our regular daily liturgical schedule: Monday through Friday, Morning Prayer 8:00 AM, Mass 12:10 PM, and Evening Prayer at 5:30 PM. On Wednesdays, Holy Hour is also offered at 11:00 AM and an additional Mass is said at 6:00 PM. Thursday’s Mass includes anointing and prayers for healing. On Saturdays, Confessions are heard at 11:00 AM, Mass is celebrated at 12:10 PM, and Evening Prayer is prayed at 5:00 PM. On the third Saturday of each month, a Requiem Mass is normally celebrated at 12:10 PM in the Mercy Chapel. On Sundays, a Low Mass (Rite One) is celebrated in the Lady Chapel at 9:00 AM. Solemn Mass is offered at 11:00 AM and Evening Prayer at 5:00 PM. Evensong and Benediction (E&B) is normally offered on the first Sunday of every month and will next be offered on December 3 and January 7.

Saturday Confessions at 11:00 AM . . . The priest-on-duty can be found in one of the confessionals at the back of the church, near the 46th Street entrance, at 11:00 AM on Saturdays to hear confessions. Once nobody is left waiting, if it is after 11:15 AM, the priest will return to his office. If you arrive later, the sexton will be able to call him if it is not too close to the midday Mass.

Saturday, November 18, Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680, Confessions 11:00 AM, Mass 12:10 PM, Eve of The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Evening Prayer 5:00 PM.

Sunday, November 19, The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, Proper 28 (Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, 1231), Mass 9:00 AM, Adult Formation 9:45 AM, Solemn Mass 11:00 AM, Evening Prayer 5:00 PM.

Monday, November 20, Edmund, King of East Anglia and Martyr, 870, and the Eve of The Presentation of The Blessed Virgin Mary at Evening Prayer 5:30 PM.

Tuesday, November 21 The Presentation of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Morning Prayer 8:00 AM, Sung Mass 12:10 PM in the Lady Chapel, Evening Prayer 5:30 PM.

Wednesday, November 22, Weekday, Morning Prayer 8:00 AM, Holy Hour 11:00 AM, Mass 12:10 PM. Brown Bag Bible Study and Anglicanism 101 do not meet on November 22. Eve of Thanksgiving Day, Sung Mass 6:00 PM.

Thursday, November 23, Thanksgiving Day (Clement, Bishop of Rome, c. 100), Federal Holiday Schedule, Mass & Healing Service 10:00 AM.

Saturday, November 25, James Otis Sargent Huntington, Priest and Monk, 1935, Confessions 11:00 AM, Mass 12:10 PM, Eve of the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King, Evening Prayer 5:00 PM.

LIFE AT SAINT MARY’S: NEWS & NOTICES

National Public Radio (NPR) has posted a comprehensive list of organizations that are providing aid in Israel and Gaza. You can read the list and NPR’s analysis by following this link.

Worship at Saint Mary’s—Customs & Traditions: Starting on Sunday you will notice some additional little ✠ signs scattered throughout the bulletin at different places—at the Opening Acclamation and in the Gloria, at the proclamation of the Gospel*, during the Creed and at the Absolution, and at the words “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” during the Sanctus. The ✠ symbol indicates a specific point in the liturgy where it is appropriate (though certainly not required) to make the “sign of the cross” by touching your right hand first to your forehead, then to your chest or stomach, and then the left and right shoulders. This manual action has been around for a long time, and the church fathers interpreted each action to mean something particular—for instance, the forehead symbolizing heaven, the stomach the earth, and the shoulders the place of strength. Indeed, it can be a primer on Christian doctrine because we remember the Incarnation—when God “came down”—when we move our hand from forehead to breast, and we sign the Trinity in the three-fold nature of the act itself. Pope Francis has suggested that this sign is at the heart of our worship, when he says, “Mass begins with the sign of the Cross [because our] whole prayer moves within the space of the Most Holy Trinity—in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” In If Your Mind Wanders at Mass, Thomas Howard has written, “Hell cannot speak this formula . . . It is a formula not to be spoken lightly. It opens out upon the liturgy for us where, by word and ceremony, we begin to taste and to learn how to behave in heaven.”

By making this sign, we acknowledge ourselves to be crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) in our thoughts, our affections, and our actions. The sign of the cross is a marker of Christian identity, a reminder of our baptism, and it is a prayer, because in it we offer ourselves to God to transform us into a cruciform, or “cross-shaped,” people. “Let us not then be ashamed to confess the Crucified,” wrote Cyril of Jerusalem in the fourth century, and “let the Cross be our seal made with boldness by our fingers on our brow, and on everything; over the bread we eat and the cups we drink; in our coming in, and goings out . . . It is the Sign of the faithful, and the dread of devils: for He triumphed over them in it.”

Of course, the practice will not be uniform in this or any church but will be as varied as our own individual pieties. Thomas Howard again: “There are no rules here — only customs,” so the signs scattered throughout the bulletin are merely invitations to this small act of personal devotion during our prayer as a family at Saint Mary’s. — Sammy Wood

* The sign at the beginning of the Gospel differs slightly and comprises three Crosses in one. With the thumb of the right hand, trace a small Cross on the forehead, then on the lips, and on the breast, which reminds us that we are redeemed as whole persons: mind, spirit and body. When we hear the Gospel, we pray to understand it with our minds, speak it with our lips, and believe it in our hearts.

Sources: Thomas Howard, The Liturgy Explained (Wilton, Connecticut: Morehouse-Barlow, 1981): 42-43; Howard, If Your Mind Wanders at Mass (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995): 48–49; “The Mass for Millennials: Sign of the Cross” (https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-mass-for-millennials-sign-of-the-cross/);“Why Do We Do That?” from the Mission Anglican Church: 12; Pope Francis, “Mass Begins with the Sign of the Cross” (https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/mass-begins-with-the-sign-of-the-cross-7431).

Neighbors in Need . . . Our next Drop-by Day is Friday, December 15, 1:00–3:00 PM. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact MaryJane Boland or Father Jay Smith.

Urgent Needs: We need warm-weather jackets and coats in all sizes—though we especially need sizes Large, XL, and XXL—for both men and women. We also like having some jackets and coats for children, toddler to adolescent in ages. We would also gratefully receive new or lightly-used shoes and sneakers in all sizes for men and women.

We also depend on cash donations to support this work. Please speak to MaryJane about how to make a donation. You may also call the parish office and speak to Chris Howatt if you would like to set up a recurring donation. We are so grateful to all those who support this ministry with such generosity.

Please join us for a field trip! . . . The Morgan Library and Museum is currently hosting an exhibition entitled, Morgan’s Bibles: Splendor in Scripture. A group from Saint Mary’s will be going to see the exhibition on the afternoon of Saturday, December 9, at around 1:00 PM.

One of the museum’s docents will guide the group through the exhibition. There is room for 10 in the group and there are still a few spots left. Please contact Father Sammy if you’d like to join us for this event. He is managing the RSVP system and making arrangements with the Morgan. To read more about Morgan’s Bibles, please visit the Museum website.

Advent Quiet Day with Ruth Cunningham and Tuesday Rupp
Saturday, December 2, 10:00 AM–3:00 PM

In our hemisphere, Advent takes place in the darkest season of the year, anticipating the light of God-with-us.
What are the gifts the darkness brings, and how do these gifts help us welcome the light of Christ?

As Advent begins, we invite you to join master musician Ruth Cunningham and the Reverend Tuesday Rupp for a day of quiet, of healing sounds, and of meditation as together we explore the gifts of this holy season in the beauty of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. The Quiet Day will include Mass at 12:10 PM, which will be followed by lunch. Please RSVP to Father Jay Smith so we can plan for the day, and especially for lunch. We hope that you can join us!

Tuesday Rupp is an Episcopal priest and a classically trained singer and music director. She is the co-founder of two women’s vocal ensembles, In Mulieribus and The Julians, both in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Tuesday is blessed to bring her love of music, literature, art, and performance to her role as Rector at Saint Paul’s Church in Woodbury, CT. She has an M. Div. from Yale Divinity School, with certificates from the Institute of Sacred Music and Berkeley Divinity School, an M. Mus. from Portland State University, and a B. Mus. from Boston University.

Ruth Cunningham is a founding member Anonymous 4 and a sound healing practitioner. She specializes in early music performance as well as improvisational sacred music from varied spiritual traditions in both liturgical and concert settings. She works with individuals and groups on using the voice and music as tools for healing.  With Anonymous 4, Ruth performed in concerts and festivals throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East and made thirteen recordings.  Ruth’s own CD releases are Light and Shadow: Chants, Prayers and Improvisations and Harpmodes: Journey for Voice and Harp. She has released two CDs of multi faith chants with colleague Ana Hernandez: Blessed by Light and HARC: Inside Chants. She has been the musician for a number of summer courses for Ubiquity University in Chartres France. She has also performed and recorded renaissance music with Pomerium and is a regular member of the professional choir at Church of Our Savior in New York City. (Ruth’s website and YouTube page) 

Sunday, November 19, the Adult Formation class in Saint Joseph’s Hall, 9:45 AM to 10:40 AM, will be taught by Father Pete Powell, who will continue his series on Isaiah 1-12 (every Sunday in November; December 3 & 10; Sundays in Lent).

Before the pandemic, our normal practice for many years was to celebrate a Sung Mass at the High Altar on Wednesdays at 12:10 PM. We haven’t been able to do this for quite some time. Please join us on Tuesday, November 21, at 12:10 PM for a Sung Mass on the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Lady Chapel, a traditional feast newly added to our calendar. David Hurd will play the service, using the organ now installed in the Lady Chapel.

Brown Bag Bible Study and the Catechumenate: Anglicanism 101—These classes will not meet on November 22, the Eve of Thanksgiving. They will resume on Wednesday, November 29.

We received news this week that our former sexton, Harka Gurung, recently underwent surgery to deal with the issue of chronic vertigo. He tells us that the surgery seems to have been successful and that he continues to recuperate at home. He sends greetings to his friends at Saint Mary’s.

Bring a mug, save a tree . . . The new dishwasher for the parish kitchen arrived a couple of weeks ago. It is working well and has been very helpful. Now that the dishwasher is here, we invite all of our members and friends to donate a mug to the church to be used at Coffee Hour so that we need no longer use paper or plastic. Bring it to the kitchen this Sunday and we’ll take it from there: the goal is to be able to have enough mugs on hand for the use of everyone who joins us on Sunday morning.

We invite you to help us decorate the church for Christmas.  To make a donation, please contact Chris Howatt or donate online. Once on the donation page of our website, click the “Donate” button to open the form. Inside the form, there is a “Fund” dropdown, where you may direct your donation to the Flower Fund. If you’d like to find out about dates in November and January that are available for making a donation of flowers on a Sunday or feast day or have other questions about the Flower Guild, please call the Parish Office.

ABOUT THE MUSIC AT THE SOLEMN MASS ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
NOVEMBER 19, 2023

David Hurd is away this weekend, playing an organ recital at Market Square Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The service on Sunday morning is played by Clark Anderson. Clark is a member of the parish and also a member of the Board of Trustees. We are very grateful to him for his assistance this weekend.

Léon Boëllmann (1862–1897) studied at the École Niedermeyer and then became titular organist at St-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris before his untimely death at the age of 35. Best known today for his famous Suite Gothique for organ, he actually wrote some 160 compositions for keyboard, chamber groups, and orchestra. Sunday’s voluntaries come from a collection of one hundred short works he composed specifically for church musicians to use in services. Titled Heures mystiques (“Mystical Hours”), these charming pieces reflect the elegant urbanity of the Belle Époque and the traditions of Saint-Saëns, Franck, and Gigout (Boëllmann’s father-in-law). They also reflect a fashion of the time in that they can be played either on the pipe organ or on the harmonium, a type of “free-reed” organ pumped with the feet that saw its heyday during this period in both France and the U.S. On the Saint Mary’s organ, they invite exploration of the instrument’s wonderful French colors, as well as the judicious addition of the pedal (no pumping required!). Sunday morning’s prelude consists of four of the collection’s fifty “versets”—short works suitable for use as interludes or preludes in a service. The postlude is one of the collection’s lively sorties (“recessionals”). — Clark Anderson

The setting of the Mass on Sunday is Missa brevis in F, Opus 117, by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839–1901). Rheinberger was a prodigy of his time; at the age of seven he was already serving as organist of the parish church in his hometown of Vaduz, a small town along the Rhine River, and compositions of his were performed shortly thereafter. In 1851, he entered the Munich Conservatorium where, not long after graduating, he was appointed professor of piano and composition. Influences upon Rheinberger include his more famous contemporary Johannes Brahms and earlier notable German composers, including Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Franz Schubert. Rheinberger’s works include two operas, two symphonies, songs, piano works, chamber works, and assorted other compositions. His twenty sonatas for organ, the next most significant body of organ pieces after Mendelssohn, continue to stand at the center of German romantic organ literature. Rheinberger’s sacred choral works include a Christmas cantata, fourteen Masses, three Requiem settings, two settings of Stabat Mater, as well as motets and miscellaneous other compositions. Missa brevis in F is for four-voices unaccompanied. This Mass is subtitled “in honor of the Most Holy Trinity.” All of the movements of this Mass begin either with an ascending or a descending triad. While Rheinberger labels the key of this Mass as F, the Credo (not sung this morning) begins in D minor and ends in D major. The Benedictus also shifts the key to B-flat major. The texts of the Mass are set efficiently yet expressively in this relatively compact setting.

The beloved English priest and poet George Herbert (1593–1633) offered his reflection and prayer to Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and Life (John 14) in “The Call” (The Temple, 1633). While the setting of Herbert’s prayer-poem for solo voice from Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)—distilled into many modern hymnals, including our own—is probably best known, Herbert’s poem has also inspired a great many fine choral settings. Harold Friedell (1903–1958), composer of the four-voice choral setting to be sung on Sunday morning during the administration of Communion, was born in Jamaica, Queens. He studied and later taught at The Juilliard School. He served several New York area parishes as organist and choirmaster and was eventually appointed to the sacred music faculty at Union Theological Seminary. From 1946 until his unexpected and untimely death, he was organist and choirmaster at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Park Avenue. Come, my Way is one of the many fine choral anthems written by this distinguished New York composer and church musician. — David Hurd

CONCERTS AT SAINT MARY’S

New York Repertory Orchestra, December 2, 2023, 8:00 PM. Program: Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question; Mieczysław Weinberg: Cello Concerto, Matt Goeke, cello; Ruth Gipps: Symphony No. 3. Admission is free. A donation of $15.00 is welcome.

Saturday, December 9, 2023, 8:00 PM, The Tallis Scholars 50th Anniversary, While Shepherds Watched. Celebrating their 50th year this season, the renowned Tallis Scholars make their annual New York City appearance with a unique holiday program that offers a fresh perspective on the Christmas story, examining it through the eyes of the shepherds who came to worship at the manger. Anchored by the Flemish composer Clemens non Papa’s popular Mass Pastores quidnam vidistis? (“Shepherds, what did you see?”), the evening features a selection of works by other notable composers of Renaissance polyphony including Tomàs Luis de Victoria, Pedro de Christo, and Peter Phillips. Tickets may be purchased here. 

COMING UP: MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Saturday, December 2, Quiet Day with Ruth Cunningham and Tuesday Rupp

Sunday, December 3, The First Sunday of Advent

Friday, December 8, The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Our Patronal Feast)
Organ Recital 5:30 PM, Solemn Mass 6:00 PM

Sunday, December 17, Third Sunday of Advent
Lessons and Carols & Holy Eucharist 11:00 AM

 We need your help to keep holding our services.
Click below, where you can make one-time or recurring donations to support Saint Mary’s.
We are very grateful to all those who make such donations and continue to support Saint Mary’s so generously.

This edition of The Angelus was written and edited by Father Jay Smith, except as noted. Father Matt Jacobson also edits the newsletter and is responsible for formatting and 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.