FROM THE RECTOR: Connecting with our past

The Annual Meeting of the congregation will take place on Sunday, May 2, following the 11:00 AM Solemn Mass.  At this meeting, the Board of Trustees, parish organizations and staff present reports on the work of the past year.  Members of the parish elect our two representatives (and two alternates) to the annual convention of the Diocese of New York.  The meeting is a small celebration of what we do all year.  2009 was a year of significant transition at Saint Mary’s. 

FROM THE RECTOR: Good Shepherd Sunday: 1967 – 2010

On Maundy Thursday, I made two changes in the liturgy for that night.  An ordinary form of bread and wine were used for Communion.  And, there was only one elevation of the Gifts, at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, followed by one genuflection.  Beginning this Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday 2010, ordinary bread (actually a communion bread recipe from Saint Gregory’s Abbey, Three Rivers, Michigan) and wine will be used for all Solemn Masses.  And beginning this Sunday, there will only be one elevation of the Gifts and one genuflection during the Eucharistic Prayer at all Masses.

FROM THE RECTOR: MOVING AHEAD

This issue of the Angelus is being written in web page format.  In the past, we wrote first for the paper version that we send out by United States mail.  The reason for this is simple.  Recent upgrades in our word processing program and in our web host mean that it takes far less time to prepare the newsletter in this new way.

From the Rector: Easter Graces

On Easter Day as I arrived for a short rehearsal before Solemn Evensong, I learned that a few very small pieces of stone seemed to have fallen from the front of our building to the sidewalk.  We couldn’t find any obvious source of a problem.  On Tuesday we had an engineering firm here.  On Wednesday, they returned with equipment to evaluate a couple of areas of concern.  As I write on Thursday morning, a “sidewalk shed” is going up across the front of Saint Mary’s complex of buildings on West 46th Street.  The great Easter grace is that we know we have a problem and no one was injured in its discovery.  For this, I am very, very thankful.

From the Rector: Easter Renewal

I write during the last hours of Lent.  It’s Maundy Thursday.  The sun is shining this afternoon in New York City after the rainiest March on record here.  There is some activity in the church, but it is quiet activity as the final preparations are made for the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper.  Our rainy March seemed to go too slowly, but I feel as if Lent has passed very quickly.  It ends tonight at sunset as the Easter Triduum begins.

From the Rector: Holy Week Faith

The first time I attended all the services of Holy Week was 1980, the year I went to seminary.  Before then, I had never been in a parish that offered all those services.  Since then, apart from three years of service, two in a parish that didn’t offer everything and my first year in Indiana, I’ve been in communities where the liturgies of this week were the center of everything.  That said, I know it’s taken me a long time to get a handle on how it all fits together.  The richness and beauty of Christian worship can be very seductive. But I think I’ve finally got it: Sunday Christian worship is the foundation of it all, even in Holy Week.

From the Rector: Inheritance and Vision

Many people in our parish community are busy right now with preparations for Holy Week and the Easter Triduum.  It all seems so easy once we get to the services on these days; but that’s because so many have been giving generously of their time and treasure.  When the great days come, this kind of preparation makes it possible for us to eat and drink with a special richness in remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Thank you to all who have helped and who will be helping as the days approach.

From Father Smith: “Rejoice, O Jerusalem …”

Longtime readers of this newsletter are probably acquainted with the section of our prayer list entitled “Grant them peace…”  We developed and started to publish that section of the list a couple of years ago after our archivist, Dick Leitsch, and a small group of volunteers, had finished a long-term project working with the parish’s burial registers.  Those registers, which go back to the parish’s founding in the last third of the nineteenth century are, it turns out, a gold mine of historical, sociological, genealogical, and ecclesiastical information.

From the Rector: When Eucharistic Signs Signify

If any of us were to walk into an assembly hall that was completely empty except for a table and what appeared to be a small empty pool, few of us would immediately think we were in a Christian church.  But a table and a pool are the fundamental signs that we are in a place where the Body of Christ gathers.  What’s going on?  What’s happened?  If table and pool, things that are primary and fundamental for the Christian assembly, no longer signify, then something is amiss.

From the Rector: Cleaning Up

One of the funniest movies I know is Cold Comfort Farm, made in 1995.  Based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Stella Gibbons (1902-1999), it’s the story of a young modern woman who helps her country relatives get unstuck.  She’s sophisticated, well-educated, but with no money.  She did inherit an interest in the family farm. 

From the Rector: New Direction

Chuck Metzger, the gym director where I work out, has been encouraging me to for a long time to exercise in the morning.  While Father Smith was away on vacation, I realized that the only way I could make time to get myself on the treadmill was to be on it by 7:00 AM.  So I got up and went.  The results were unexpected.  Chuck was right.

From the Rector: Humbly and Daily

It was our former organist and music director Robert McCormick who put me on to a word change in one of my favorite hymns, “Only-begotten, Word of God eternal.”  The hymn text is based on a ninth century song for the consecration of a church.  Maxwell Julius Blacker (1822-1888), a priest of the Church of England, was the basic translator and author of the text we now use.  It was sung at the preparation of the gifts at the Solemn Mass on Candlemas.  This hymn came into use in the Episcopal Church in The Hymnal 1940. 

From the Rector: Buttons and Oil

Last Saturday I unlocked the gate to the baptistery so I could get a small table.  As I went in I noticed what I thought was water on the floor all around the font.  As I looked to see if there was a leak I realized it wasn’t water.  It was oil.  It was sacred chrism.  Fortunately, Sister Laura Katharine was in the chancel too.  She cleaned up the chrism (and left the towel she used to be burned by the thurifer when he prepared coals for incense the next morning).  The young man we baptized at the Solemn Mass on the Feast of the Baptism of Christ knew he had been washed and knew he had been anointed.

From Sister Deborah Francis, C.S.J.B.: The Long Retreat and Saint Teresa

Once each year the Sisters of the Community of Saint John Baptist have a silent retreat that lasts five days.  We call it the “long retreat” and it is an important element in our Rule of Life.  This year, we increased the time devoted to prayer and reflection by reducing the number of offices to two per day, Lauds and Comp line, and by eliminating non-essential work from the daily schedule.

From The Rector: Biblical Unity

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, observed between the Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter, January 18, and the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, January 25, sprang from the vocations of two Episcopal Franciscans of the Diocese of New York, a priest, Paul Watson, and a nun, Lurana White.  They were cofounders of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement at Graymoor in 1899.  The observance is dated from 1908.  In 1909, the Graymoor Franciscans became Roman Catholics and have continued a particular witness and prayer for Christian unity.

From The Rector: Tragedy

It is hard to comprehend the scope of the tragedy that has hit the nation of Haiti.  Most of the towns and cities of that nation have been leveled.  The Roman Catholic archbishop has died.  His cathedral and our own cathedral, Holy Trinity, are in ruins.  The suffering is unspeakable.  One senses from news reports the enormity of the disaster.

From The Rector: Learnings

In my office I have a collection of bulletins from the Sundays I was away last winter on sabbatical.  Since then, I’ve been mulling over what I learned as I visited different parishes week by week.  Only once did I attend the same parish twice, that was to check out the early and the late services at the same place.  Much varied from parish to parish, but much was the same.  Mostly I was in California, but there were three Sundays in Europe and two Sundays in New York.

From The Rector: Christmas & Epiphany

As the fourth century of the Christian era began, Christianity was an illegal religion in the Roman world.  Some may have foreseen the inevitability of this new faith.  Few could have foreseen that when the century ended it would be the only legal religion in the Roman Empire.

From The Rector: Merry Christmas

As I write on Wednesday morning, the first signs of Christmas are appearing at Saint Mary’s.  The smell of freshly cut greens is far stronger than the customary smells of candle wax and incense.  Our Sunday Advent vestment set is put away for another year; vestments for Christmas are now hanging in the sacristy.  Many members and friends of the parish are giving time and energy so that our celebrations can be the best that they can be.

From The Rector: Christmas at Saint Mary’s

At Saint Mary’s we guard the days of Advent so we might enjoy the whole season fully.  We do the same thing during the Christmas Season.  If you come by the church before Christmas Eve, you may catch musicians practicing Christmas music.  You may see the Flower Guild at work or dozens of candlesticks being polished.  But it won’t be until Christmas Eve that our celebrations begin.