FROM FATHER WOOD: PALMS & ASHES

The fullest early description of Holy Week services the church possesses dates to the late fourth century and a woman known to history as Egeria. Egeria kept a diary of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in which she gives an account of Holy Week in Jerusalem around the year 380. She describes the scene near daybreak on Palm Sunday in the Holy City:

They all go on foot from the top of the Mount of Olives, all the people going before [the Bishop] with hymns and antiphons, answering one to another: “Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.” And all the children in the neighborhood, even those who are too young to walk, are carried by their parents on their shoulders, all of them bearing branches, some of palms and some of olives, and thus the Bishop is escorted in the same manner as the Lord was of old.

Palm Sunday at Saint Mary’s begins with the Liturgy of the Palms (BCP, 270) featuring the reading of the “palm gospel” and a procession around the church with the faithful waving palm branches.

Many Christians take palm branches away from church on Palm Sunday to decorate their homes. They’re often tucked behind a religious picture or a crucifix, and the more creative among us sometimes fold them into palm crosses. More than just simple decoration, however, these palms serve as a constant reminder of Holy Week throughout the year. They are “sacramentals” or sacred signs of God’s blessing and presence.

We live in a disposable culture, but palms and other blessed “sacramentals” should be treated with reverence. Traditionally, anything that has been blessed should be burned (and its ashes buried) or simply buried rather than just tossed out with the rubbish.

The ashes for Ash Wednesday come from the burned palms which had been blessed the previous Palm Sunday. Please use the basket on the ushers’ table at the rear of the nave to return last year’s palms, and join us for Ash Wednesday on February 22 with Masses at 8:00 AM, 12:10 PM and 6:00 PM. — Sammy Wood

THE PARISH PRAYER LIST

We pray for those who are sick and for those in any need or trouble. We pray for those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries this week; for those living with drought, storm, frigid weather, flood, fire, and earthquake.

We pray especially this week for the people of Türkiye and Syria.

And we also pray for Willard, Virginia, Carole, Linda, Carl, Dianne, Don, Michele, Bob, Penny, Steven, Sharon, Pat, Lina, Charlotte, Ginny, Roger, Catherine, Tony, Pat, Gloria, Gladys, Luis, Liduvina, José, Lauren, Theo, Eric, Carlos, Christopher, Shalim, Greta, Quincy, Ava Grace, Bruce, Barbara, Robert, Suzanne, Abe, Ethelyn, Gypsy, Hardy, Margaret, and Ronald, pastor. We also pray:

For the work of the Saint Mary’s Search Committee and the Board of Trustees;
For the Chemin Neuf Community and the Community at the Crossing;
For the people of Ukraine and for an end to the Russian invasion;
For coadjutor bishop-elect, Matthew Heyd;
For all those suffering from COVID-19 and for all those recovering from COVID-19;
For all refugees and those seeking asylum;
For the work of Neighbors in Need and for its guests;
For those without food, shelter, or work; and for those seeking work;
For those troubled by depression, anxiety, or addiction;
For all those visiting Saint Mary’s and our neighborhood this week;
For an end to gun violence;
For the safety and welfare of our nation, city, and neighborhood.

From Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be moved, and though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea;

Though its waters rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble at its tumult.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Come now and look upon the works of the Lord, what awesome things he has done on earth.

It is he who makes war to cease in all the world; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire.

“Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

AN INVITATION TO HELP THE PEOPLE OF TÜRKIYE AND SYRIA

Episcopal Relief and Development (Website)

International Rescue Committee (Website)

Doctors Without Borders (Website)

PARISH PROFILE AND SURVEY

The search committee for our next rector has been working, in collaboration with the Diocese, on a parish profile that will describe the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin to potential candidates. A central part of this document is to accurately summarize our parish as we currently see ourselves as well as our hopes for where our community is headed. To incorporate the opinions of as many parishioners as possible, the committee has created a survey. The survey will be mailed very soon, but the electronic version is already available by clicking here. The more Saint Marians who fill out the survey, the better our profile will be. Please help the search committee with this important work!

CELEBRATING THE LIFE AND WORK OF BLESSED ABSALOM JONES

Saturday, February 11, 2023, 10:30 AM
Holy Eucharist at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Avenue at West 112th Street, Manhattan
and online via the Cathedral Website, the Cathedral YouTube Channel, and the Cathedral Facebook page.

The Rt. Rev. Andrew ML Dietsche, celebrant
Dr. Catherine Meeks, Executive Director, Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing, preacher

Click here to learn more about Absalom Jones.

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S

On Saturday, February 11, 2023, Saint Mary’s resident orchestra, the New York Repertory Orchestra will present a concert in the church at 8:00 PM. Admission is free. A $15.00 donation is welcome. The concert includes the following music: Rautavaara: Adagio Celeste; Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4, Sheryl Staples, violin; Tubin: Symphony No. 5.

At the Solemn Mass on Sunday, parishioner Clark Anderson will play the service and conduct the choir. David Hurd will be in Boston this weekend, teaching a master class for the members of the local chapter of the Anglican Guild of Organists (AGO) and playing the Sunday service at Boston’s historic Old South Church.

Tuesday, February 14, Drop-by for Recent Immigrants, 2:00–3:00 PM.

Wednesday, February 15, 1:30 PM–4:30 PM, The New York Service & Justice Collaborative (the Diocese of NY’s branch of Episcopal Service Corps) meets at Saint Mary’s for formation and volunteer service.

Friday, February 17, Drop-by for others in need in the Times Square Neighborhood, 2:00–3:00 PM.

Our regular daily liturgical schedule, Monday through Friday, is Morning Prayer 8:00 AM, Mass 12:10 PM, and Evening Prayer at 5:00 PM. Holy Hour is offered on Wednesday at 11:00 AM and Thursday’s Mass includes a Healing Service. On Saturdays, Mass is celebrated at 12:10 PM and Evening Prayer is prayed at 5:00 PM. On Sundays, Solemn Mass is offered at 11:00 AM and Evening Prayer at 5:00 PM.

Commemorations February 12–18:

Monday, February 13, Absalom Jones, Priest, 1818

Tuesday, February 14, Cyril, Monk, 869 & Methodius, Bishop, 885, Missionaries to the Slavs

Wednesday, February 15, Thomas Bray, Priest and Missionary, February 15, 1730

AROUND THE PARISH

On Saturday, March 4, at 2:00 PM, a Requiem Mass for Emil Bretzger will be celebrated in the church. A reception will take place following Mass in Saint Joseph’s Hall.

On Sunday, March 19, Dr. David Hurd, organist and music director, will be away from the parish. He will be in Rochester, New York, playing a recital at Rochester’s Third Presbyterian Church. The following day, Monday, March 20, he will be speaking at the Eastman School of Music.

NEIGHBORS IN NEED: ANSWERING THE CALL TO SERVE

We Need Volunteers! We need one or two people for several hours once a week to partner with Marie Rosseels and MaryJane Boland in sorting and hanging donated clothes.

We need a few bilingual volunteers—Spanish and English—to join us join us on a weekday afternoon once a month from 1:45 to 2:15 PM to work with our asylum-seeker visitors from South America.

We also need one or two strong people (with good knees!) for an hour or two twice a month to carry bags and clothing on hangers up the stairs from the undercroft and into Saint Joseph’s Hall for set-up in preparation for distribution of clothing the following day.

And we especially need donations of shoes, boots and men’s and women’s pants and tops as well as coats (in all seasons).

The coming week, February 13–17, is this month’s busiest week: Set-up will take place on both Monday, February 13, and Thursday, February 16. Distributions will take place on both Tuesday, February 14, and Friday, February 17.

Please contact us at neighbors@stmvnyc.org for more information about volunteering on any or all of those days or about the goals, work, and methods of Neighbors in Need.

LIVING LENT, PREPARING FOR EASTER

Quiet Day led by Mother Deborah Lee at Saint Mary’s on Saturday, March 25, from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Mother Deborah will lead reflections and will be available for spiritual direction. Mass will be celebrated at 12:10 PM and lunch in Saint Joseph’s Hall will follow. There will be opportunities for prayer, quiet, journaling, and reading in the church and chapels and in Saint Joseph’s Hall between conferences.

Please RSVP if you plan on attending the Quiet Day on March 25.

Mother Deborah Lee is an Episcopal priest, spiritual director, and retreat leader. She graduated with a Master of Divinity degree and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from General Theological Seminary. She is an ecumenical spiritual director in private practice and also offers spiritual direction through the Annand Program for Spiritual Formation at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and the Center for Christian Spirituality at General Theological Seminary. She served as associate rector at Saint Bartholomew’s, Manhattan; priest-in-charge at Saint Paul’s Church, Chester, New York; as assisting priest at Christ Church, New York; and was formerly the Program Manager for Pastoral Care and Community at Trinity Church, Wall Street. She holds a master’s degree in Clinical Counseling and served as a mental health counselor and educator, both internationally and within the U.S. Deborah is a member of Spiritual Directors International (SDI) and subscribes to their ethical standards and practices.

Also at Saint Mary’s on Sunday, March 12, at 12:45 PM. The Saint Mary’s Book Club invites you to join them for a discussion of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2023, Failure: What Jesus Said About Sin, Mistakes and Messing Stuff Up by Emma Ineson. From the publisher’s website, “In 2019, Emma Ineson wrote about ambition and what it means for Christians to be successful. And then there was a global pandemic . . . Suddenly failure began to feel very much more familiar than success. But what is failure? What did Jesus think of it? What did he say about sin, mistakes and generally mucking things up? At the start of this wonderfully humorous and encouraging book - which will end at the cross—it’s suggested that our tendency to lump all kinds of failure together could be a bit unhelpful. A more nuanced understanding of what sort of failure we're dealing with might just allow us to make friends with it and respond more appropriately. This idea leads us ‘Towards an (Imperfect) Theology of Failure,’ based on key Christian thinking, and Emma poses the question of whether sin is an individual or corporate thing. Looking at the church, we consider, what is God's purpose for it? And in the light of key concerns such as safeguarding and racial justice, how might we re-examine concepts of success and recognize and measure failure? As the book draws to an end, we are reminded of our calling to live life to the full, to take risks despite our fears. We are bound sometimes to fail! Yet gazing at Jesus - who looked like the greatest failure of all - we may discern in the heartache, vulnerability and humility of failure, the glory of the cross.”

ABOUT THE MUSIC ON THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY: FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Sunday’s voluntaries are by Olivier Alain (1918–1994), of the famous musical Alain family. Both his father Albert and elder brother Jehan were composers and organists, and his younger sister, Marie-Claire, was one of the most renowned organists of her generation. Olivier studied at the Paris Conservatoire at the same time as Messiaen and Aubin and went on to become director of the conservatory in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the École César Franck, and finally the Conservatoire National de Région in Paris. His music clearly shows the tonal and rhythmic experimentation emerging in the second half of the twentieth century. The prelude is the first movement of his Suite for Organ (1951, dedicated to Marie-Claire). This compact movement is built around a six-note figure he varies chromatically throughout, adding a sustained chromatic descending scale above. The postlude is a setting of the introit for the second Sunday after Epiphany. Alain sets the introit around a jagged, dramatic texture in the hands, with the pedal declaiming the chant. The result very effectively captures the text: “Let all the earth adore Thee, O God...Shout with joy to God, all the earth...” Alain’s expert use of modality, atonality and the organ's more striking colors heightens the drama. — Clark Anderson

The setting of the Mass on Sunday is Canterbury Mass by Anthony Piccolo. Piccolo’s note on the 1996 published edition reads ‘Written in 1978 for Dr. Allan Wicks and the Choir of Canterbury Cathedral, these settings were intended for use in the Cathedral’s resonant Nave during the rebuilding of the organ. They are here presented somewhat revised and in accordance with current liturgical practice.’ The Mass is scored for unaccompanied mixed choir, mostly in four parts but with occasional further division of voices. The text is disposed efficiently with occasional overlapping of text phrases. Piccolo grew up in New Jersey and completed a master’s degree at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. During a subsequent nine-year residence in England, he sang with cathedral choirs of Litchfield, Canterbury and St. Paul’s, London, and performed extensively as a pianist. Returning to the United States, he has remained very active as a composer, pianist, and conductor in a variety of venues. 

The beloved English priest and poet George Herbert (1593–1633) offered his reflection and prayer to Jesus as the way, truth, and life in “The Call” (The Temple, 1633). Herbert’s prayer-poem has inspired many musical settings over the years. One of the most well-known is from Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), which has been distilled into many modern hymnals. (See 487 in The Hymnal 1982.) The setting of Herbert’s “The Call,” sung today as the Communion motet, is by Richard DeLong (1951–1994), a prolific American composer who life was unfortunately cut short. Born in Mansfield, Ohio, DeLong flourished as an organist, harpsichordist, conductor and composer in the orbit of Dallas, Texas. He served the Roman Catholic parish of Saint Mark the Evangelist, Plano, for the last twelve years of his life. Many of his choral compositions were first given voice by the choir of that parish. Published in 1992, DeLong’s Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life for unaccompanied mixed voices was commissioned by Barbara Ilacqua in honor of her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. It is dated 16 June 1987. — David Hurd

ADULT EDUCATION 2023

The Eucharist: the Gifts of God for the People of God
February 12, 19; April 23, 30; and May 7, 14, at 9:30–10:30 AM

This Sunday in Saint Joseph’s Hall: On the first three Sundays in February, Father Jay Smith will teach a series of three classes in which he will continue last fall’s conversation about Eucharist as Presence, discussing some medieval ideas about the “real presence,” focusing on Thomas Aquinas. He’ll talk about Aquinas as teacher, reader of Aristotle, and philosopher-theologian. But he’ll also talk about Aquinas as poet and author of Eucharistic hymns that we still sing here at Saint Mary’s today.

Two weeks after Easter Sunday, and following Father Powell’s Bible Study during Lent, Father Matthew Jacobson will bring us back to the Holy Eucharist as he discusses the Mystagogical Catecheses of Ambrose of Milan and Cyril of Jerusalem, who wrote during a golden age of patristic thought in the fourth century.

Lent Comes and Bible Study Returns

On Sundays in Lent (February 26, March 5, 12, 19, 26, and April 2), Father Peter Powell will lead a Bible Study at 9:30 AM. This year he and the class are studying some of the New Testament’s later epistles in the Pauline tradition.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, LAST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY & WORLD MISSION SUNDAY

World Mission Sunday is a time when the church comes together to focus on the global impact of our call to “seek and serve Christ in all persons” (Baptismal Covenant, Book of Common Prayer, p. 305).

From the website of the Episcopal Diocese of New York: The Episcopal Church’s World Mission Sunday is an annual observance on the last Sunday after the Epiphany—the Christian feast that celebrates the light of Christ falling upon and illuminating the entire diversity of the world’s nationalities, cultures, races, languages, and ethnicities. In the Bible, the Epiphany is symbolized in the star which guided the Magi to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus (Matthew 2:1–12).

From the website of the Episcopal Church: This year, The Episcopal Church is also launching a brand new Global Mission Digital Toolkit. The toolkit development was funded by a Constable Fund Grant and done in collaboration between The Episcopal Church’s Office of Global Partnerships, The Standing Commission on World Mission, and The Global Episcopal Mission Network. The toolkit is intended for individuals, small groups, congregations, dioceses, and our partners across the Anglican Communion. The lens of the toolkit will focus on The Way of Love practices for a Jesus-centered life and the Standing Commission’s Guiding Principles for World Mission.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Monday, February 20, Washington’s Birthday (Presidents’ Day). Federal Holiday Schedule. The church opens at 9:00 AM. Mass is celebrated in the Lady Chapel at 10:00 AM. The church closes at 12:00 PM. The parish offices are closed. Morning and Evening Prayer are not said in the church.

Friday, March 24, The Eve of the Annunciation of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Organ Recital 5:30 PM. Solemn Mass 6:00 PM. Timothy Pyper, music director at the Church of the Holy Apostles, will play the recital. Mother Anna Pearson, rector of the Church of the Holy Apostles, will preach.

April 2, Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, Blessing of Palms, Procession in the Church, and Solemn Mass 11:00 AM, Evening Prayer in the Church at 5:00 PM.

CONCERTS AT SAINT MARY’S

In addition to the concert already mentioned in this newsletter on Saturday, February 11, Saint Mary’s resident orchestra, the New York Repertory Orchestra, will also present concerts in the church on March 25 and May 20. Admission is free. A $15.00 donation is most welcome. Click here for more details about the 2022-2023 season.

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.