From Father Mead: The Language of Lent

My son Liam, who is not quite two and a half years old yet, is learning to speak English at a rate that I find quite surprising.  For the past few days he has thoroughly enjoyed climbing up on the couch cushions so that he can look out the window in our living room.  Once settled on his perch, he exclaims: “Look at my up here!”. 

From Mr. Kennerley: Come, let us sing unto the Lord!

One may well be surprised that a member of the lay staff at Saint Mary’s is writing this week’s Angelus article: indeed, looking back over the archives of past articles, I think this may be the first time that a Music Director has written one!  I am grateful to my colleagues, the curates, for giving me the opportunity, and I hope that it might offer them some relief during Father Gerth’s sabbatical.  I want to write about singing, and how we might use this distinctly personal gift as part of our Lenten journey towards the glory of Eastertide.

From Father Smith: A Prayer for Lent

In the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian has traditionally been said at each weekday service during Lent.  The prayer goes like this: “O Lord and Master of my life!  Take from me the spirit of laziness, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.  Give instead to your servant the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love.  Yes, O Lord and King!  Let me see my own errors and let me not judge my brothers and sisters.  For you are blessed unto ages of ages.  Amen.”

From Father Mead: Something about the Scriptures

One of the features of daily life at Saint Mary’s is the occasional overlap of lectionaries that are used.  For instance, right now the Gospel according to Mark is being read at Sunday Mass, at Evening Prayer, and at daily Mass.  Because each of these three services follows a different lectionary the Gospel is being read at differing paces, and we are at three different places in the narrative.  This Sunday we continue to read from the first chapter of Mark, and we will crawl through the narrative all year. 

From Father Powell:  Enjoying the Gift

I never intended to become a regular at St. Mary the Virgin.  I knew the church existed and had read about it from time to time but I figured it was a precious anachronism that would never appeal to me.  I was wrong.  From the first Sunday I dropped in, I have been hooked on St. Mary the Virgin and worshiping here, even as infrequently as I do, has deepened my faith.

From Father Smith:  The Holiness of Beauty

One of our parishioners is a “gemologist” and a recent graduate of the Gemological Institute of America.  She recently found work at one of New York’s famous jewelry stores.  (You will recall that Saint Mary’s is only a couple of minutes’ walk from the city’s Diamond District.)  Our parishioner was in class last Sunday morning when we were discussing Revelation 4–5; her observations, when we arrived at Revelation 4:2-3, were very helpful.  The verses go like this, “At once I was in the Spirit, and lo, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne!  And he who sat there appeared like jasper and carnelian, and round the throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald.”  

From Father Mead:  What a difference every pledge makes!

My wife, Nicole, was laid off in early November from her job at Redbook magazine.  With another baby on the way (due in May!) and our two-year-old son, Liam, rapidly outgrowing all of his clothes, the loss of her salary has been difficult to deal with, but we are doing our best to budget and prioritize.  The difficulty of finding a new job in this economic climate is increased due to the fact that she is five months pregnant – it’s difficult to hire someone who is going to take a significant amount of time off in just a few months time.  For the time being she is collecting unemployment and seeking freelance work. 

From Father Smith: Mission and Outreach at Saint Mary’s

The newly constituted Mission & Outreach Committee has now met twice, once in December and again last Sunday, and so this may be an opportune time to tell the friends and members of the parish what the Committee has been doing and what its plans are for the future.  First of all, it should be said that the Committee is merely the latest incarnation of an effort that has taken on different forms over the years.  At the moment, we are building on the efforts of my predecessor, Father John Beddingfield and a number of parishioners in recent years. 

From Father Mead: Through the rhythms of times and seasons

This past Tuesday evening the parish community celebrated the Epiphany with a Solemn Mass.   The feast marks a wonderful conclusion to Christmastide while also offering a glorious reminder of the riches of the upcoming liturgical year – the solemn singing of The Proclamation of the Date of Easter at the conclusion of the Solemn Mass.   Because our assisting deacon, Jedediah Fox, was swamped with Canonicals (exit exams required of all Seminary Seniors that for some odd reason are always scheduled at Epiphany), I had the pleasure of singing the Proclamation this year. 

From Father Smith: Christmas without Nostalgia

Last week, on Christmas Eve morning, Father Gerth, Father Mead, Deacon Jed Fox, and I met in the Rectory shortly after Morning Prayer to review plans for the day.  Just before 10:00 AM, somebody realized that one of the local radio stations was about to begin its live broadcast of the Service of Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge.  The Rector went and got his portable radio and quickly tuned it to WNYC.  Moments later the service began with the elegant bidding prayer and, of course, the well-known first hymn, “Once in royal David’s city.” The single soprano voice with which that hymn begins seemed to have a particularly calming effect on all of us on that busy morning. 

From the Rector: Christmas Letter

This will be the last article I write to the parish community before I begin my sabbatical leave on January 1.  I’m writing on Tuesday afternoon, December 23.  Decorating in the church is well underway – a small army of volunteers is hard at work.  Even with greatly reduced expenditure, our flower guild has made extraordinary use of their resources – assisted by a few special donations.  The church already looks great and they aren’t finished yet.  Brass has been polished today and Father Mead will “candle up” the altar tomorrow.  The choir will be rehearsing tonight.  The wonderful festival which is Christmas will be here very soon.

From the Rector: Mostly Christmas

This coming Sunday is the last Sunday of Advent.  The focus of the day is our final Sunday preparation for the great festival of Christmas.  Sunday is the ancient, weekly celebration of the resurrection.  By the end of the first century, a Sunday in the spring comes to be celebrated as the Sunday of the Resurrection, which we English speakers call “Easter.”  By the beginning of the fourth century, a celebration of Jesus’ birth has emerged near the shortest day of the year.  We English speakers call this feast “Christmas Day” – the day of the Christ Mass.  In the darkness of the year, the true Light comes into the world.

From the Rector: Mostly Advent

A few well-known feast days happen at the beginning of the Advent Season.  These are Saint Nicholas’s Day on December 6, Saint Ambrose’s Day on December 7, the Conception of the Virgin Mary on December 8 and Saint Lucy’s Day on December 13.  December 21 is the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle.  Yet, in this parish church, Advent is still Advent for the four weeks before Christmas Day.

From the Rector: The Story of St. Mary’s

In 1931, Newbury Frost Read, a member of the parish and a trustee, wrote a history of this parish, “The Story of St. Mary’s: The Society of the Free Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York City, 1868-1931.”  What was to become the Great Depression was well underway.  Frost records that at the beginning of 1930 the trustees were surprised Saint Mary’s had ended 1929 with a positive balance, even though it was only $8.34.  Money was far from the only challenge the parish faced.

From The Rector: Retrenchment

The Board of Trustees at its meeting on November 17 reworked the operating budget for the remainder of 2008 and made decisions shaping the operating budget for 2009.  The collapse in the United States equity markets in September and October cost Saint Mary’s approximately 1.2 million dollars.  This was money the trustees had set aside two years ago to fund deficits in the annual operating budget as we continued our steady growth to a balanced budget.  The trustees have made substantial and difficult cuts in personnel and program to keep the parish on a prudent path.  None of these cuts would have been made if the financial situation were not what it is.

From The Rector: Christ the King

The last Sunday of the Church year, since the liturgical renewal of the 1960s, is observed as a commemoration of the kingship of Christ.  An embattled and defensive bishop of Rome instituted this feast in 1925.  Remember that this was before the Vatican became a city-state through a treaty with Mussolini’s Italy in 1929.  Since 1870, the bishops of Rome had turned themselves into “prisoners” within the Vatican’s boundaries.  Pope Pius XI believed that a feast to commemorate Christ’s lordship would fight the “plague of anticlericalism” of the day.

From The Rector: Sabbatical

Just after Easter Week 2008, several lay leaders and I began to work on a proposal to the Lilly Endowment, Inc. for a grant that would fund a three-month sabbatical for me this winter.  I’m very pleased and proud to say that the Lilly Endowment has awarded Saint Mary’s this grant.  The award will provide money for study and travel and to cover some of the expenses the parish will incur for assisting clergy while I am away.  I will be away from the parish from January 1, 2009 through March 31, 2009.  My first Sunday back will be Palm Sunday.

From Father Smith: The Gift of Gratitude

As some of you who are reading this know, I studied theater in college and in graduate school.  The reason I moved to New York over thirty years ago was to “seek my fortune” as an actor.  When I arrived in the city in 1977, I had just received a Master of Fine Arts degree from an upstate university with a small, intensive, conservatory program in acting.  My fellow students and I – there were about fourteen of us, seven in each year – spent much of our time together.  During the day we studied acting, voice, movement, and related disciplines; at night we attended rehearsals.  We were a motley crew,

From the Rector: Voices and Dirt

In September my siblings and I began the process of cleaning out my mother’s house in southern Maryland.  She has Alzheimer’s disease and will never return home.  While there we visited the graveyard at Trinity Church, St. Mary’s City, where my stepfather, Bill, was buried.  None of us had been there since his funeral on February 19, 2007.  His gravestone had just gone up and we wanted to see it.  Yet I think we were drawn there by something much greater than the stone, memory or love.  I think about our human biology that does not allow us to forget our parents, those who have gone before.  And I think there is something in our biology that does not allow us to forget God.

From Father Mead: All Saints’ Day

One of the things that I like most about Saint Mary’s is that all major feasts are celebrated when they actually occur.   There is a venerable tradition of moving some feasts to Sunday so that everyone can be present for the feast, and in many churches this seems appropriate sometimes.  Saint Mary’s is a special place, where it’s possible to celebrate every feast on the date on which it falls, and I am thankful for that.   Our celebration of any major feast begins, whenever possible, the night before.  This is commonly referred to as the Eve of the particular feast.  This year, All Saints’ Day, November 1st , falls on a Saturday, and it will be observed at our noonday services that day, but our primary celebration will be Friday night, October 31st, the Eve of All Saints’ Day.