FROM FATHER LESH: A VOCATIONAL CALL TO HEAL

Many years ago, while visiting friends at Yale Divinity School, I attended a weekday Eucharist at Christ Church, New Haven. I knew no one present but was well acquainted with the parish. The experience of worshiping there reminded me of what I had grown to love about Saint Mary the Virgin: a deep sense of engagement with centuries of Christians who had gathered to do what our Lord had asked them to do in remembrance of Him. Neither faith nor piety was lacking as five or six strangers prayed together in a side chapel that beautiful fall morning. As I departed, the celebrating priest greeted me, and we talked briefly. I mentioned that I was visiting from New York, was an anesthesiologist at Columbia, and was discerning a call to Holy Orders in the Diocese of New York. He said, “Then, you must know Dr. Nick Greene.” An older gentleman standing nearby shook my hand, and said, “Hello, I’m Nick Greene.” While I had never met Dr. Greene, I certainly knew about him. His work on spinal anesthesia was legendary, and I had read his book on the subject; it was practically required reading for anesthesiology residents of my generation. We talked for a while before going our separate ways, but I will never forget the conversation that occurred between two Christians, freshly nourished by the Bread of Heaven and Cup of Salvation in a darkened church that gave witness to the recent use of incense and burning candles.

My hospital work is, I have often considered, an extension of my vocational calling to heal. During our brief conversation, neither Dr. Greene nor I spoke in theological terms, but we both acknowledged, as does New Testament Scripture, that healing in a Christian context is less about the cure of disease than about reintegrating a person’s health, spirituality and community. All practitioners of the ministry of medicine (not merely its technical arts) engage the deepest sufferings of humankind. As healers, all must find the courage to sit and to be present with others on their suffering benches, as Nicholas Wolterstoff writes in his moving book, Lament for a Son. This is the ministry of healing. Disease, sin, and hatred all rupture the unity of the Creation as originally envisioned by God. Healers, by their calling, work to restore that unity. Sometimes, by the grace of God, we make modest progress in restoring this gift of wholeness, wellness and peace in a human life. Dr. Greene, a faithful Christian and a wise and seasoned practitioner of medicine, understood this intuitively.

My chance meeting that morning, nearly two decades ago, with a fellow worker in the vineyards of the Lord initiated an ongoing meditation in my own mind about what my ministry in and to the world truly is. When strangers discover that I still practice medicine and work in the parish on Sundays, they occasionally register surprise at the convergence of such different lines of work. “No,” I reply, “my vocation is to healing—my tools are just different in the hospital and in the church.”

In our brokenness, God sent his Son, the Great Physician, to offer an example of healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. May God grant us all the grace to minister to those in need, to work tirelessly to bring health and wholeness to our brothers and sisters who suffer, and in doing so remember that “when we have done it for one of the least of God’s children, we have done it for Him.” (paraphrase of Mt 25:35-40).

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Lesh was a parishioner at Saint Mary’s from 1999 until 2002, when he began his seminary formation at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Saint Mary’s was his parish sponsor for ordination. Father Lesh served the Diocese of New York for many years as a priest at Christ Church in Red Hook, NY, while also continuing his vocation as a physician. He is currently serving at Saint Anne’s in Scottsville, VA, and is on the faculty in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Virginia.

THE PARISH PRAYER LIST

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 those struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction; and for those living amid violence, or with drought, storm, inclement weather, flood, fire, or earthquake.

We pray for peace throughout the world, and especially for the people of Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen, and Myanmar.

We pray for reconciliation among the churches and people of the Anglican Communion.

We pray for John, Humberto, Carl, Cooki, Steven, Bruce, Barbara, Robert, Sharon, Giovanna, Theo, Carlos, Christopher, Daniel, Liduvina, Richard, Chuck, Alexandra, Brendan, José, Carmen, Susan, Paris, Charlotte, Chelsey, Keith, Carl, Jennifer, Harka, Gigi, Julie, Carole, Suzanne, Greta, Quincy, Ava Grace, Phyllis, Jim, Abe, Bob, Gypsy, Hardy, and Margaret; for Monica Clare, Thomas and William, religious; and Stephen and Allan, priests.

We pray for the repose of the souls of those whose year’s mind falls on July 2: Corinne Scott (1933), Estelle Masles (1944), Laura Malone (1974).

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S

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 anointing and prayers for healing. On Saturdays, 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 celebrated at 12:10 PM in the Mercy Chapel. On Sundays, Solemn Mass is offered at 11:00 AM and Evening Prayer at 5:00 PM.

Friday, June 30, 5:30–6:45 PM, The Centering Prayer Group meets in Saint Benedict’s Study.

Sunday, July 2, The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Summer schedule. Solemn Mass 11:00 AM. A cantor will assist the congregation’s worship. The readings are Isaiah 2:10–17; a portion of Psalm 89; Romans 6:3–11; and Matthew 10:34–42. The Reverend Dr. Peter Anthony, vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, United Kingdom, is our guest preacher.

Tuesday, July 4, Independence Day. Federal Holiday Schedule. The church opens at 9:00 AM and closes at 12:00 PM. There is a celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel at 10:00 AM. Morning and Evening Prayer are not said in the church. The parish offices are closed.

Wednesday, July 5, 11:00 AM, Holy Hour. A time for silent prayer in the Lady Chapel in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

Friday, July 7, 5:30–6:45 PM, The Centering Prayer Group meets in Saint Benedict’s Study.

Commemorations during the Week of July 2, 2023, at 12:10 PM. Weekday Masses are generally celebrated in the Lady Chapel:

Thursday, July 6, Jan Hus, Priest and Martyr, 1415
Saturday, July 8, Priscilla and Aquila, Coworkers of the Apostle Paul
Sunday, July 9, The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary Year A, Proper 9)

LIFE AT SAINT MARY’S: NEWS & NOTICES (AND REQUESTS FOR HELP)

Our guest preacher at the Solemn Mass on Sunday, July 2, is the Reverend Dr. Peter Anthony, vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, United Kingdom. Father Anthony is originally from Lancashire and first went to the Diocese of London to work as a pastoral assistant at Saint Paul’s, Tottenham. He studied Modern languages (French and German) as an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was formed for ordination at Saint Stephen’s House, Oxford. He ministered in Oxford as Junior Dean of Saint Stephen’s and as Junior Chaplain of Merton College. He served his curacy at Saint Mary and Christ Church, Hendon, in northwest London. He then served for seven years as parish priest of Saint Benet’s Church, Kentish Town, which is located about four miles north of central London. He was inducted as vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street in May 2021. In 2002, and before his ordination, Father Anthony served here at Saint Mary’s as a summer intern. It is a pleasure to be able to welcome him back to Saint Mary’s.

Milestones: Adrian Peña, the son of sexton Shalim Peña, graduated from IS 318 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn last week. He plans to attend Food and Finance High School on West 50th Street in Manhattan in the fall. Congratulations, Adrian! … Sister Debra Susannah Rhodes, CMMR, will be ordained priest at the Cathedral of Saint James in South Bend, Indiana, on Saturday, July 1, 2023. Deacon Rhodes is the wife of former seminarian, Father Rob Rhodes. Please keep her in your prayers.

Dr. Dennis Raverty, associate professor of art history at New Jersey City University, recently published an article in the July 9 issue of The Living Church entitled “The Quiet Alchemy of the Ordinary,” which discusses Rheingold by Roland Bierman, an art exhibit on display at Saint Mary’s. His article can be read by clicking here. The Rheingold exhibition has been extended and will now be in Saint Joseph’s Chapel until mid-October.

Being Hospitable, Welcoming Our Guests . . . Hospitality is an important ministry at Saint Mary’s, since it is our privilege to welcome guests from near and far almost every Sunday morning. Coffee Hour and other receptions are an important part of that ministry, but the cost of hosting such events continues to rise. We are seeking your help. We invite the members and friends of the parish to volunteer to “host” a Coffee Hour or reception. That can be done in one of two ways: you can make a cash donation, or you can provide food and beverages for the event. If you make a cash donation, the suggested amount is $100.00. If you would like to do this, please contact the Parish Office or speak to Father Jay Smith.

In order to prevent duplications, and therefore waste, if you plan to bring food for a Coffee Hour, please let us know a week ahead of time. That way we can work with Marcos Orengo, our weekend sexton, to prepare for that day’s event. We are grateful to all those who have already made donations to support this ministry.

Neighbors in Need: Next month’s distribution will take place on Friday, July 21, from 1:30 to 3:00 PM (volunteers work from 1:00 PM until 3:30 PM). Please contact us at neighbors@stmvnyc.org for more information about volunteering, making a donation, or about the goals, work, and methods of Neighbors in Need.

Donations for altar flowers. If you would like to make a donation to cover the cost of flowers to be placed on the high altar and at the shrines on an upcoming Sunday or holy day, there are many available dates coming up: Sunday, July 23, and 30; and, in August, the following Sundays are available: August 13, 20, and 27. The suggested donation is $250. To reserve a date and make your donation for the altar flowers, please contact Chris Howatt. If you’d like to explore other dates or have questions about the flowers or the Flower Guild, please contact Brendon Hunter.

Father Matthew Jacobson is away from the parish on vacation until Thursday, July 6. He’ll be back in the office that Friday and will be the celebrant at Mass on Saturday and Sunday.

Father Jay Smith will be away from the parish on vacation between July 4 and August 2.

ABOUT THE MUSIC AT THE SOLEMN MASS ON THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, JULY 2, 2023

The organ prelude on Sunday morning is Fantasia on Wondrous Love by David Hurd, organist and music director at Saint Mary’s. It was composed in the spring of 2016 for an anthology of organ pieces entitled Let All That Hath Breath, published in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Association of Anglican Musicians. It is dedicated in thanksgiving for the lives of David and Cecile Hurd, parents of the composer, who had died in the previous year. The Fantasia is based on a melody from Wm. Walker’s Southern Harmony, 1835, and sets three stanzas of the hymn continuously. The first stanza, “What wondrous love is this,” is a gentle trio with the melody in the alto register played on the pedals. The second stanza, “To God and to the Lamb,” finds the melody in the tenor register, and this is a stronger and more dramatic section. In the third stanza, “And when from death I’m free,” the melody is in canon at the fourth in the alto and soprano registers against a gently undulating accompaniment. A brief coda revisits the opening trio material and brings the Fantasia to its conclusion.

The name of Healey Willan (1880–1968) is well known to Episcopalians because of his Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena, composed in 1928, which appeared in The Hymnal 1940 and was retained in The Hymnal 1982. This setting, which we will sing at the Solemn Mass on Sunday, has been sung widely throughout the Episcopal Church, as well as in other denominations, for decades. Willan’s career and reputation, however, went far beyond composing this beloved Mass. He composed more than eight hundred works including operas, symphonies and other music for orchestra and band, chamber music, and music for piano and organ, in addition to a great quantity of choral music. His liturgical music includes fourteen choral Masses, occasional motets, canticles, and hymn settings. Willan was born in England and began his career as an organist in London parish churches. He joined the faculty at Toronto University in 1914, later becoming professor of music there. In 1921, he was named organist at Toronto’s Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, a position he retained until his death. Said to have described himself as “English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption,” Willan was a champion of historic liturgical chant and the aesthetic of Renaissance church music. He incorporated these influences and mingled them with an appreciation of the rich harmonic palette of the late nineteenth-century masters. Through his compositions and choral direction, he significantly set the standard for North American Anglo-Catholic church music in his time. In 1956 Willan, became the first non-English church musician to be awarded the Lambeth Doctorate, Mus.D. Cantuar.

The cantor on Sunday, the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, is baritone, Muir Ingliss. During the administration of Communion, he will sing a setting of The Call from George Herbert’s 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). Vaughan Williams’s The Call is the fourth of his Five Mystical Songs for baritone, chorus, and orchestra, all composed between 1906 and 1911 for texts by George Herbert (1593–1633). The Call is the simplest of the Five Mystical Songs, having the melodic innocence of a folk song, yet the elegance of a strophic art song in which the third of the three stanzas ventures briefly away from the home key without abandoning the essential melodic shape of the previous stanzas. Herbert has built his poem as a prayer meditation on the “Way, Truth, and Life” characterizations of Jesus presented in the Gospel according to Saint John. (14:6)

More about the Cantor: Baritone Muir Ingliss, a native New Yorker and graduate of Bard College, has been a member of the choir of Saint Mary’s since January of 2022. During the 2022–23 season, he has appeared with Amore Opera as Marcello in La Bohème; with Opera Magnifico in New Jersey as Bob in The Old Maid and the Thief and as Belcore in L’elisir d’amore; with SAS Performing Arts as Alidoro in Cenerentola and as Marco in Gianni Schicchi; with Bronx Opera as Kendall Nesbitt in Lady in the Dark; and with Barn Opera in Vermont as Musiklehrer/Truffaldino in Ariadne auf Naxos. Muir is also a frequent soloist in sacred music. He has having performed in Handel’s Messiah, Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Faure’s Requiem, and Mozart’s Requiem. Later this month, on July 16, Muir will appear with SAS Performing Arts in a double bill as Bob in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief and as Sam in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. He will return to Opera Magnifico this fall to sing the role of Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.

SUMMER AT HOLY CROSS MONASTERY, WEST PARK, NEW YORK
A Silent Retreat: Contemplative Days, led by the Monastic Community

When: From the afternoon of Tuesday, July 4, 2023, until after the Holy Eucharist and then dinner on Sunday, July 9, 2023. Suggested Donation: $580.

Where: Holy Cross Monastery, 1615 Rte. 9W, West Park, NY 12493, on the west side of the Hudson River, a few miles northwest of Poughkeepsie, the last stop on the Hudson Line of the Metro-North Railroad. The monastery is located about 85 miles from New York City.

What: You are invited to join the Holy Cross brothers in this time of complete silence, with no programs or spiritual direction offered and a reduced worship schedule.

To register, please contact the Monastery’s Guesthouse Office by phone (845-384-6660, ext. 3002) or e-mail (guesthouse@hcmnet.org).

SUMMER IN THE CITY

Capital One and the City Parks Foundation present the 37th season of the SummerStage Festival, with 80 free and benefit performances in parks across the five boroughs. You may download the SummerStage brochure and schedule here.

SUMMER READING LIST AT SAINT MARY’S: A FEW SUGGESTIONS & NO QUIZZES

Saint Augustine, The Confessions (Father Matt recommends Maria Boulding’s translation, published by New City Press, 1997)

Day, Dorothy, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day (HarperOne, 2017)

Gioia, Luigi, Saint Benedict’s Wisdom: Monastic Spirituality and the Life of the Church (Liturgical Press, 2020)

Lewis, C. S., Mere Christianity (HarperOne; Reissue edition, 2023)

Olsen, Derek, Inwardly Digest: The Prayer Book as Guide to a Spiritual Life (Forward Movement, 2016)

Radcliffe, Timothy, O.P., What Is the Point of Being A Christian? (Burns & Oates, 2005)

Taylor, Barbara Brown, Leaving Church: A Memoir (HarperOne, 2012)

McGrath, Alister, C. S. Lewis–A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet (Tyndale Elevate, 2016)

COMING UP

Tuesday, July 4, Independence Day, Federal Holiday Schedule
Saturday, July 15, Monthly Requiem Mass, 12:10 PM in the Mercy Chapel
Saturday, July 22, Saint Mary Magdalene
Tuesday, August 15, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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.