FROM FATHER JACOBSON: THE BODY OF CHRIST, VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE

In our second reading at Mass last Sunday, as well as this coming Sunday, we hear passages from the fourth chapter of Ephesians. This portion of the epistle includes Saint Paul’s well-known imagery of the “body of Christ,” of which we are “members.” While not all scholars agree that this epistle is one of the letters truly written by Paul, the imagery is also found in his undisputed writings (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12).

If Paul didn’t author Ephesians, which may well be the case, I would say that this chapter shows us how Paul’s description of the body of Christ was already resonating with the early Church. In fact, the uncertainty around the authorship isn’t all that important to me, and I am far more interested in how the metaphor itself has been fundamental to the tradition since the early Church. Saint Augustine’s understanding of the love of neighbor, for example, was rooted in Paul’s description of the body of Christ.[1]

As Augustine also understood, the body of Christ isn’t just a way to describe a functional ideal for the Church as a well-oiled machine that runs properly when the different members of the body serve their various roles. While this is an aspect, Paul is talking about a mystical body that’s bound together through baptism, where members live into their roles by being in relationship with God and with each other through God’s grace.

In Colossians, where Paul’s authorship is also disputed, the letter speaks about Christ being the head of the body and reminds us that “in him all things were created . . . visible and invisible . . . and in him all things hold together.”(Colossians 1:16-18) Reflecting on this mystical body, I have been thinking lately about those at Saint Mary’s who are somewhat “invisible” to many of us, the virtual members of the body whom God has bound to us through Christ, who holds us all together.

Our livestream ministry has grown over the last few years to the point where fifty to sixty people typically log in on Sunday to watch Solemn Mass online. We also stream Evensong & Benediction on the first Sunday of the month during the program year. There are some who also watch the sermon videos that we post on our website and on Facebook. These aren’t the only ways, however, that people connect remotely with Saint Mary’s. This newsletter, The Angelus, is another good example of a way in which people engage with the parish remotely. There are also those generous supporters from around the globe who donate to our outreach programs such as Neighbors in Need or AIDS Walk.

Father Sammy recently hosted a virtual coffee hour after Solemn Mass and along these lines, I would also like to extend an invitation to people who connect remotely with Saint Mary’s in one way or another to send me a brief note via email (mjacobson@stmvnyc.org) to let me know a little bit about you and your relationship with the parish. We use the summer months to plan for our upcoming program year, which starts on Michaelmas. As we do so, we want to have both the in-person and virtual members of the body of Christ in mind.

Are you a former in-person parishioner who has moved away, but still feels connected to Saint Mary’s? Do you stay up to date with us though this newsletter or are you regularly logging in for Solemn Mass? Are you a local New Yorker who is homebound and should we be bringing you the Sacrament? Are you a parishioner at another parish, which serves your sacramental needs, but are drawn to Saint Mary’s online due to our music or liturgy?

I’ll admit that I don’t have a great sense of who is tuning in week to week and so it would be great to learn a little bit about you all. What can we do as a parish to make sure that we are bound tightly together? How can we better serve you so that we can all live into God’s call for us as members of the body of Christ? Please drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you! — MDJ

PRAYING FOR THE CHURCH & FOR THE WORLD

We pray for an end to war and violence, especially in the Middle East and in Ukraine. We pray for justice and for an end to violence and division in our neighborhood, city, and nation.

We pray for those who have asked us for our prayers, especially Ingrid, Julie, Tom, Charles, Eleni, Andrew, Maria, Lynn, Dennis, Susan, Darwin, Donald, Steve, Noa, Shan, Martin, Frank, Susanna, Rolf, George, Richard, Joyce, Leroy, Christine, Donald, Richard, Josh, Maddie, John, Robert, Tony, James, Dorian, Carl, Hattie, Nettie, Chrissy, Jan, Mark, Pat, Marjorie, Carole, Luis, Sharon, Quincy, June, Carlos, Chris, José, Manuel, Abe, Suzanne, Hardy, Giovanna, Gypsy, Liduvina, Margaret, and Rita; Jack, James, Curtis, Barbara-Jean and Eleanor-Francis, religious; and Julie, Robby, and Stephen, priests.

We pray for the repose of the soul of Kathleen McGrath and the souls of those whose year’s mind is on August 4: Clara Louise Ross (1891); Jessica Braidford (1931); Louise Mudgett (1941); Carrie Stringham (1959); Doris H. Thomas (1960); and Harold A. Warrell (1966).

WE ARE GRATEFUL

We are grateful to Katherine Hoyt, Clark Mitchell, and Brother Thomas Steffensen, SSF, who attended the conference of the College for Congregational Development in Queens this week along with Father Sammy. Thank you for your commitment and all your hard work.

We are grateful to our musicians who have sustained our worship so beautifully this summer, Dr. David Hurd, Clark Anderson, and our cantors, Danny Santiago Castellanos, Joe Chappel, Emma Daniels, Christopher Howatt, Muir Ingliss, Charlotte Mundy, Kirsten Ott, and Joy Tamayo—and there are more to come. The summer’s not over yet!

We want to thank Pat Ahearn, Ruth Ann Berkowitz, Dorothy Rowan, and Marie Rosseels who are often leading Evening Prayer or reading the lessons at the Office. It is good to hear all their voices. We are grateful to them for their commitment to this ministry.

Thank you to all those who have been bringing cookies for Sunday’s Coffee Hour! We can never have too many cookies.

We are grateful to Blair Burroughs, who continues to run the livestream Sunday after Sunday. His expertise, good humor, and commitment to this ministry are inspiring. (Please let us know if you’d like to learn how to run the livestream. Blair would be happy to teach you.)

Thank you to our sexton, Shalim Peña, who went above and beyond the call of duty in recent days to help the members of the staff and their families.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO VOLUNTEER?

Have you been coming to Saint Mary’s for a while, but have been unsure about how to get more involved?

We’d love to talk to you about that.

During 2024–2025 we hope to recruit more volunteers for the following ministries:

Neighbors in Need (our primary outreach program) ● Acolytes & Readers ● Ushers ●
Hospitality Teams (to host Coffee Hour and Holy Day receptions) ● Livestream Broadcasters

To do what we do, we need your help.

We urge you to pray about this, asking God to help you discern how you are being called to serve here at the parish.

For more information, speak to Father Sammy or Father Matt.

NEWS & NOTICES

Please join us for Bible Study, Sunday, August 4, 2024, 9:45 AM, in Saint Benedict’s Study, led by Andrew Raines. This will be the last class in Andrew’s series on the Letter to the Ephesians.

We hope that many members of the parish will be able to be with us on Sunday, August 4. Brother Thomas Bushnell, BSG, will preach at both Masses that day, and then at Coffee Hour after the Solemn Mass we will say goodbye to our seminarian intern, Andrew Raines.

As many of you know, we’ve been seeing a good deal less of our fellow parishioner, Jennifer Stevens, because she is now working full-time—including Sundays—at the Church of the Epiphany on East Seventy-fourth Street. We miss Jennifer a lot but are very happy to hear that she is doing well on the East Side. The following notice from Epiphany’s rector, Father Matthew Dayton Welch, recently appeared in Epiphany’s newsletter, “In a couple of weeks we’ll give thanks to Jennifer Stevens for her stewardship of this year’s Vacation Bible School. But I want to take this moment also to thank her for her thoughtfulness in preparing our children at Sunday School. Each week she creates a children’s newsletter that, honest to God, is one of my go-to sources of information about each Sunday, and I’m the rector! It’s filled with stories and photos and tidbits about how we worship, and, like her, it’s awesome.”

Ten members of the Saint Mary’s Young Adult Group met in the Mission House apartment on Tuesday evening, July 30, hosted by our seminarian intern, Andrew Raines. The members of the group spent time conversing, sharing stories, getting to know each other a bit better, and then they ate dinner—pizza was on the menu. They ended the evening by praying Compline together. Stay tuned for news of upcoming meetings. We’re grateful to Andrew for hosting the meeting and to all those who came to spend time together—and to all those who brought various beverages to drink and helped with hospitality. Click here to read more about the group in last week’s issue.

Neighbors in Need . . . If you would like to volunteer or make a cash donation, please speak to MaryJane Boland. We are also eager to receive donations of new or lightly used sneakers and shoes, in all sizes, for both men and women. The next Drop-by will take place on Friday, August 16, 1:00–3:00 PM. We are looking for a few more good volunteers. Please speak to MaryJane Boland or Father Jay about our work and how you might help.

Helping those in Need: We’re all in this together . . . When you encounter someone in need on the subway or on the street, do you wonder how you might help? One thing you might consider doing is printing out this Street Sheet and carrying a few copies with you (click for the file in English and Spanish). The Sheet lists resources for the hungry, the unsheltered, and those in need. Sometimes this is one thing you can do to help: direct a person in need to available resources. You can’t promise people that negotiating these services will be easy, but it is something concrete that you can do.

Bring a box of cookies . . . Beginning last Sunday, and for the rest of the summer, on most Sundays we will have a simple Coffee Hour: coffee and tea, of course; but also lemonade and cookies. You’d be helping our hospitality budget if you bought a box of your favorite cookies—or baked your favorite cookies—and brought them to the parish kitchen (or gave them to Marcos, our weekend sexton). And some of you have already done so! Thank you so much to those who have already supported our hospitality ministry in this way!

Members of the Flower Guild will be available to arrange flowers for many Sundays in August and September. The following Sundays are still available: August 11, 18, and 25, and September 1, 8, 15, and 22 The customary donation requested is $250. Please call the Parish Office for more information (212-869-5830).

Coming Up: The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Tuesday, August 6, 2024, Morning Prayer 8:00 AM; Mass 12:10 PM in the Lady Chapel; Evening Prayer 5:30 PM . . . The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thursday, August 15, 2024, Morning Prayer 8:00 AM; Sung Mass in the Lady Chapel 12:10 PM; Procession & Solemn Mass 6:00 PM in the Church, with the Choir of Saint Mary’s; Reception 7:30 PM in Saint Joseph’s Hall.

Our good friends at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York, founded and for a time ran, the Holy Cross School in Grahamstown, South Africa. Completed in 2011, the school now continues due to an intercontinental partnership between the brothers of the Order of the Holy Cross (OHC) in North America and their brothers in South Africa. As many Saint Marians will know, OHC is an Anglican Benedictine order for men founded in 1884 by Father James Otis Sargent Huntington, who once wrote, “Love must act as light must shine forth and fire must burn.” The work of the Holy Cross School is now supported by a foundation named, “Love Must Act.” From the foundation’s website: “Holy Cross School, a primary educational institution, emphasizes holistic education according to the highest international standards. It serves an overwhelmingly disadvantaged community: nearly all of its seventy-five students come from households making less than the national living wage, and nearly one-in-five come from households with at least one deceased parent. Through its utilization of a world-class educational model and its rooting in communities of love, however, it consistently performs to standards on par with, or even exceeding, schools in the developed world. For more information, please visit the website of Love Must Act. If you would like to make a donation, you may visit this portion of the foundation’s website.

Father Jay Smith will be on vacation August 8–24.

ABOUT THE MUSIC AT THE SOLEMN MASS ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Sunday’s organ voluntaries are two of the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, a set of concise organ pieces traditionally attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). More recent scholarship suggests that they might actually have been composed by a Bach pupil, very likely Johann Tobias Krebs (1690–1762), or Krebs’s son, Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713–1780). The uncertainty of the origin of these works notwithstanding, these well-known eight Preludes and Fugues have figured largely in the instruction of generations of organists and are very suitable as voluntaries in liturgical settings. BWV 555 in E minor, played for the Prelude, is the third of the set of eight. It begins in a rather introspective mood. The fugue subject skillfully employs chromaticism. BWV 557, in the relative major key of G, played for the Postlude, is a more extroverted work and is the fifth of the set of eight. It begins grandly and then takes on the free spirit of the keyboard toccatas of its time. The fugue is stately and is a study in melodic suspensions. The remaining six of the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues will be offered as voluntaries on subsequent Sundays in pairings by relative major and minor keys.

The musical setting of the Mass on Sunday is New Plainsong by David Hurd. This setting was composed in 1978 at the request of the Standing Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church as the revision of The Hymnal 1940 was gaining momentum. The Commission desired a setting which would be for the “Contemporary” Eucharistic texts what John Merbecke’s 1550 setting had been for the “Traditional” English words, that is, it would express the liturgical texts with simplicity and naturalness. As such, New Plainsong, like Merbecke’s setting, is chant-like and almost entirely syllabic, that is, only one pitch is sung per syllable. Although modest keyboard accompaniments are provided, New Plainsong’s movements may be sung unaccompanied when desired. Since its first publication in Congregational Music for Eucharist—Church Hymnal Series V in 1980, New Plainsong has been published in The Hymnal 1982 and in the worship resources of several other denominations. A revised edition of New Plainsong issued in 2018 also accommodates more recently revised Roman Catholic liturgical texts.

The Twenty-Third Psalm is probably the best known and most quoted of all the psalms. It fits all occasions and speaks to our understanding of the nature of God and our relationship to God. It is regularly recited at baptisms, at marriages, and at funerals, and the lectionary prescribes its recitation more than once a year as the Gradual for Sunday Mass. During the administration of Communion, mezzo-soprano, Kirsten Ott, will sing a setting of Psalm 23 by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1901). In March 1894, while Dvořák was living in New York City, he composed a cycle of ten Biblical Songs, Opus 99, of which God is my Shepherd is the fourth. These ten songs all derive their texts from the Psalter and were first published in Czech with English and German translations in 1895. Scored originally quite simply for piano and voice, Dvořák orchestrated only the first five of the songs in a manuscript which was published posthumously in 1914. These Biblical Songs are notable for their simplicity of means and effectiveness of expression. They are often performed as a cycle or in select groupings as well as offered liturgically.

Kirsten Ott, mezzo-soprano, has been a member of the Choir of Saint Mary’s since the fall of 2021. She sings frequently with Libero Canto, an organization which stages both opera and song programs, and she has also produced several of her own recital programs. She has previously sung with local groups such as Vox Vocal Ensemble and the Manhattan Chamber Choir. Before joining the choir at Saint Mary’s, she had sung for many seasons in the choirs of the Church of the Holy Apostles, Chelsea, and the Church of the Epiphany, Yorkville. Kirsten has extensive acting training and has coached both classical and musical theater performers. She studied oboe at Manhattan School of Music and is also a pianist.

AWAY FROM SAINT MARY’S

The New-York Historical Society, 77th Street and Central Park West
Lost New York, First Floor, The Robert H. and Clarice Smith South Gallery
Until September 29, 2024

From the Society’s website, “Behold a bygone New York! This exhibition invites you to explore the landmarks, vistas, pastimes, environments, monuments, communities, and modes of transportation that once defined this city. ‘Losses’ include river swimming, high-wheel bike riding, elevated railways, the original Penn Station, the old Croton Reservoir, the Chinese Theater, Seneca Village, the Central Park Hooverville, the fake window decals of the 1980s, and Bowling Green's monument to King George III. Throughout, community voices bring these lost sites to life. A woman recalls attending the Old Met Opera House in 1939. A Broadway carpenter thinks back to a photograph of his father in front of the Hippodrome Theatre. And a young choir singer imagines the demolished Harlem Renaissance monument Lift Every Voice and Sing. Showcasing treasures from the New-York Historical Society’s trove of historical objects, Lost New York speaks to both the dynamism of an ever-changing city and the importance of preserving pieces of our otherwise vanishing past.

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.

Saint Mary’s is a vibrant Anglo-Catholic witness in the heart of NYC. With our identity in Christ and a preference for the poor, we are an inclusive, diverse community called to love God and each other for the life of the world.

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.

[1] Allan D. Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 106.