From the Rector: September at Saint Mary’s

Church life in New York City has a rhythm different from anywhere I’ve served before.  School starts in the city just after Labor Day, but that doesn’t mean summer is entirely over.  At Saint Mary’s and at many other parishes, the choir season begins on the first Sunday in October.  For us, Christian Education and other activities start up again in October.  Despite this, September is also a busy month.

From the Rector: Momentum at Saint Mary’s

At its meeting on Monday, August 21, 2006, the Board of Trustees approved proposals for two of our Momentum Fund projects.  These are the renovation of the fifth floor of the Mission House to be an apartment for two resident sisters from the Community of St. John Baptist and the fabrication and installation of new hand rails for all of the Forty-sixth Street doorways of the church.  As I write, papers have to be reviewed by our attorneys before yours truly signs on behalf of the parish.  But these are details not problems.

From the Rector: Security

When I was at the security check point in Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, on Monday, July 17, three things packed in my suitcase attracted the attention of the security team.  I had bought one small jar of honey and two small jars of date syrup.  During the first pass through an x-ray machine, a computer image was taken and sent to a second screening station.  There, with a computer image of the contents of my suitcase in front of her, the screener went right for the jars.

From the Rector: Saint Mary’s Legacy Society

As we go to press, the parish community will be receiving our Assumption mailing.  For as long as anyone around the office can remember there has been a special appeal to ask for donations to support the mission of Saint Mary’s at Assumption.  Included in this year’s appeal is an invitation to make a bequest to Saint Mary’s and to let your bequest be known.

From the Rector: Marion Elizabeth Freise, 1911-2006

Marion Freise died on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 at the House of the Good Shepherd in Hackettstown, New Jersey, where she had moved in 2003.  She was ninety-four years old and had been a member of Saint Mary’s for many years.

From the Rector: Summer at Saint Mary’s

I have clear memories of parish life being slower in summertime when I was first ordained.  I wonder if things are slower anywhere now.  Here we busy are preparing for the fall, winter and spring.  We are in the middle of a capital campaign.  Very soon you will be hearing about a new legacy society to encourage people to remember Saint Mary’s in their wills.  Final drawings are being prepared for the renovation of the fifth floor of the Mission House for the sisters.  Construction with all of its attendant challenges is on the horizon.

From the Rector: Bread and Truth

I returned on Monday, July 17, from a ten-day trip with friends to Israel and Jordan.  We were mostly in Jerusalem but we did spend one night in Tiberias just a couple days before it was shelled.  This was my first trip to the Holy Land.  I hope it won’t be the last.  The present escalation of the conflict was beginning when we left for Israel.  It got worse as we approached our departure.  I confess I was very anxious during the last few days, and only relaxed after the plane was in the air and well away from Tel Aviv.

From Father Mead: On The Scriptures

My grandfather spent his life working as a lobsterman; one of his sons was a lobsterman, the other a fisherman.  I know that sound advice, a number of nets, traps, and locations of fertile fishing grounds were passed from father to sons.  They were given the tried and true methods of fishing. 

From Father Mead: On The Scriptures

My grandfather spent his life working as a lobsterman; one of his sons was a lobsterman, the other a fisherman.  I know that sound advice, a number of nets, traps, and locations of fertile fishing grounds were passed from father to sons.  They were given the tried and true methods of fishing. 

From Father Beddingfield: Facing Down Demons

There have been a lot of demons in church over the last few weeks.  The Gospel for Sunday, June 25 included the optional verses of Mark 5:1-20, the story of the Gerasene man possessed of demons.  In that story Jesus drives the demons out of the man and the demons flee into a herd of pigs.  The pigs then run over the side of a mountain and are drowned.  Demons appeared again in Wednesday’s Mass reading, but this time from Matthew.  In this version of the story there are two people possessed by demons,

From the Rector: Perspective

The children’s formation program known as the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is called that because young children respond more deeply to the parable of the Good Shepherd than to any other proclamation of scripture.  In the Catechesis, scripture is read to the children from the Bible and there are materials that children work with to illustrate the lesson.  The Good Shepherd material is shown when John 10 is read.  The children invariably do something with it that the adults don’t do.  And that’s what I want to tell you about.

From the Rector: Momentum at Saint Mary’s

Late last spring Sister Barbara Jean, superior of the Community of St. John Baptist, approached me about the possibility of her order having a home for two or three sisters at Saint Mary’s.  A conversation and period of discernment began.  Her order started in England but its first work in the United States was here in Manhattan.  The sisters’ motherhouse is now in Mendham, New Jersey, and they are well known to many in our parish community.  From the beginning of the conversation the Board of Trustees and I have been very excited.

From the Rector: Corpus Christi

In the high Middle Ages the Mass became a sacrifice and not a meal.  Looking back, it seems almost impossible that any Christian community could learn to experience the Mass primarily as something other than a sacred banquet – an action that necessarily implies eating and drinking.  But the Church in those days acquired what Peter and the others did not have in the Acts of the Apostles: silver, gold and political power.  As a consequence, the Church almost lost the Lord’s Supper.

From the Rector: Trinity Sunday

In New Testament communities and in the first centuries of the Christian era, Christians struggled for the right language to speak about God.  Around the year 200 AD, if I recall correctly, we have our first record of someone using the word “Trinity” to refer to God.  For all of the differences among those who call themselves Christians, confessing God as Trinity defines the Christian community at its broadest and most inclusive.

From the Rector: Pentecost

This Sunday we gather to celebrate “The Day of Pentecost,” the last day of the Easter Season.   Pentecost is one of the great ancient Hebrew pilgrimage feasts.  It was a “week of weeks” – “seven” weeks – connected to the cycle of harvests.  The Church began to use a period of fifty days to celebrate its central belief, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  This earlier understanding of a fifty-day Eastertide began to break down as centuries passed.  This breakdown went so far that some formularies suggested that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit were entirely absent from the Christian community between the fortieth and fiftieth days after the first Easter.  One of the great accomplishments of the liturgical revisions of the last fifty years has been the recovery of the integrity of Eastertide.

From the Rector: Urban Christian Ministry

Often when I meet people they ask, “What kind of ministries does Saint Mary’s do?”  My answer is sometimes one they don’t expect.  I say simply, “We do church.”  They continue, “Do you have a soup kitchen, a clothing closet?”  I say, “No, we do church.”  And then I usually end up saying something like, “Our doors are open all day, every day of the week and we have at least five services – every day of the week.”

From the Rector: Anniversary & Ascension

This Sunday, May 21, the Right Reverend Richard F. Grein, XIV Bishop of New York, will celebrate and preach at the 11:00 AM Solemn Mass to celebrate his twenty-fifth anniversary of consecration to the episcopate.  I know I speak for the parish community when I say we are so honored by his presence on this occasion.

From Father Beddingfield: Living into Generosity

Almost every weekend people in Central Park are raising money.  At the end of April several of our parishioners participated in the Parkinson’s Unity Walk.  Last weekend others were a part of the Revlon Run/Walk for Women to fight women’s cancers.  Next Saturday is the Healthy Kidney Run, and on Sunday is the AIDS Walk/Run, in which a whole team from Saint Mary’s will be participating.  The various cycling, running, rowing, swimming and walking events continue through the summer, not to mention the CROP Walk for Hunger, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and others in the fall.  How do we determine what to support?  What does faithful generosity look like? 

From the Rector:  Meaning and Discipline

I think it was during Eastertide before the beginning of the present war in Iraq that someone asked Father John Beddingfield whether we might have a special shrine and candle dedicated to prayers for peace.  His response included a remark about the paschal candle that was standing by the altar and reference to the prayers of the Mass and of the Offices.  Every service at Saint Mary’s, every Mass and every Office, Morning, Noon, and Evening, includes real prayers for peace, for justice and for the increase of the Kingdom of God.

From the Rector:  Easter Priorities

For the first time I can recall I recently have had some trouble remembering to add one or more “alleluias” to things during Mass – much to the delight of my colleagues.  I think it is fair to say that I’m pretty reliable and regular as a celebrant.  I’m not an automaton but my body, as it were, has a good liturgical memory both of word and gesture.  As I write on Thursday morning of the Second Week of Easter, I think I’m on track now.  No promises, but missing some of this stuff at weekday Masses and Offices has gotten my attention.