FROM FATHER SMITH: A CHANGE OF PLANS

The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is always a wonderful day at Saint Mary's.  No matter how hot or humid the day, a large congregation always comes to Times Square to celebrate the feast.  Those of you who read the Angelus regularly know that this year's celebration is going to be a special one.  Our rector emeritus, Father Edgar F. Wells, celebrates his fiftieth anniversary of ordination to the priesthood on Monday, August 9; and some months ago he agreed to celebrate Solemn Mass with us on August 15 as a way of marking that anniversary.  Many of you have been looking forward to the day with great anticipation.

FROM THE RECTOR: Transfiguration

William Reed Huntington (1838-1909) was rector of Grace Church, New York City, from 1883 until his death.  He was among the most influential leaders of the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century.  His life and witness is commemorated in the calendar of the Church on July 27.  He was a leader in the revival of the order of deaconesses.  His writings on church unity formed the basis of what became the “Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral” (Prayer Book, 876-888).

FROM THE RECTOR: THE CATECHESIS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD

This fall Saint Mary’s will begin a new formation program for young children.  In June, Deacon Rebecca Weiner Tompkins began training to be a catechist in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  It is simply the very best thing I have ever known for Christian formation for children.  My own work with the program in Indiana continues to shape my fundamental understanding of God’s work in this world.  The Catechesis began in Rome over fifty years ago.  It starts with the conviction that God is present and active in the life of every child.  Our task as adult Christian leaders is to prepare an environment where the children can work on their relationship with God.

FROM THE RECTOR: SUPPORTING THIS TRADITION

I don’t know when I bought Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God (New York: Pueblo Publishing Company, 1988) by George Guiver, but I remember when I read it.  It was January 2001.  December had ended with a blizzard – people were cross-country skiing in Times Square – and I had the flu, the real thing, for the first and, I hope, the last time.  Guiver is a member of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, and a priest of the Church of England.

FROM THE RECTOR: WORLD CUP HOPES

As a resident of the Times Square neighborhood, I am used to certain kinds of loud crowd noises.  When the World Cup began this year, I was surprised by the cheering I heard on and off whenever a match was being played.  Soccer is a game I don’t know.  The pace of cheering that goes on is just different than that of our big American sports.  For the World Cup, restaurants and bars opened early in the city.

FROM THE RECTOR: KNOWING MORE

I recently came across a book by Oliver Wendell Evans, New Orleans (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1959).  It’s what I would call a travel book, an appreciation of the history and culture of the city before integration.  Sadly, it is the product of a very narrow view of the world, even, I daresay for its time.

FROM THE RECTOR: Bows and Genuflections

At an ordinary weekday celebration of the Eucharist, there will be a reader, a server and a priest.  During the course of the Mass, the celebrant will genuflect when he or she enters and leaves, at the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer, and three times during the Communion rite.  That’s six genuflections; but there are many more bows.  These are made mostly by the celebrant to the assembly, as a sign to the priest and to the congregation of whose servant she or he is.

From Father Smith: Breaking the Cycle

I don’t know a lot about opera and I know even less about medieval German literature; and so, when I picked up a recent issue of the Times Literary Supplement and read the following headline, “Before Wagner: The Song of the Nibelungs deserves a wider readership than students of German and lovers of opera,” I surrendered.  I’m not sure if I was surrendering to curiosity or to some kind of guilt about my ignorance, but surrender I did.  I read the review of a new English translation of the Song and discovered that the text of the Nibelungenlied had a long and complicated history “before Wagner.”  It turns out that this “greatest medieval German heroic poem” or “revenge saga” existed as oral poetry before it was written down around the year 1200 by an anonymous poet. 

From the Rector: Eucharistic Connections

This spring a lot of my reading has been focused on the history of the Eucharist.  It’s an enormous subject, and one that I will never master, but I am a person who went to seminary in large part because I thought I was called to preside at the Eucharist.  It’s still the foundation of my journey as a Christian person and my work as a Christian pastor.

FROM THE RECTOR: AMAZING GRACE

Growing up as a Southern Baptist whose father’s family was Roman Catholic made me aware in early childhood of differences among Christian denominations.  What shaped family religious observance I could observe further on the streets of the places we lived.  There were lots of different churches for different denominations.  In the South, there were churches for blacks and whites.  In later years I found out that because I’d grown up in the South, I’d never experienced things like rivalries among Italian, Irish, and Polish Roman Catholic parishes in adjoining neighborhoods.  Living with differences seemed fundamental to my childhood experience of being a Christian.

FROM THE RECTOR: TRINITY INVITATION

Parishioner Thomas Jayne writes a weekly online post for the magazine Interior Design.  This week his article was called, “Discovering Color in Historic Metalwork.”  It turns out that much metalwork we are used to seeing painted black was originally painted with a broader palette.  The last time I was in Colonial Williamsburg, the gates on the Governor’s Mansion were black; they are now off-white.

FROM THE RECTOR: INEFFABLE EASTER

I have been wrestling this Eastertide with what for me is a new realization of how little we know about the disciples and the resurrection.  This has struck me pretty forcefully this year.  Why wouldn’t we know more than we do about the most important thing, the resurrection?  I’m not thinking here about Jesus and the tomb.  I’m thinking about the encounter of the disciples with the risen Lord.

FROM THE RECTOR: Maintaining the Fabric

Last Friday I met with architects Michael Devonshire and Richard Pieper of Jan Hird Pokorny Associates.  I was put in touch with them during Easter Week by parishioner and architect Peter Pennoyer after small pieces of our façade had fallen to the street.  (Most thankfully, of course, no one was hurt.)  As you may know, a protective “sidewalk shield” went up that week across the 46th Street frontage of our complex.  Michael and Richard have made a very preliminary survey of the building.  I’ve asked them to outline a proposal for addressing our needs.

FROM THE RECTOR: Easter Thanksgiving

Last Saturday the terrorist parked his weapon by what is now the West 45th Street entrance of the Minskoff Theatre.  From December 8, 1870, until December 8, 1895, that address was the first home of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin.  If we were still at that location, we might not have been able to hold services last Sunday.  But since 1895 we have been on the other side of Times Square.  Our doors were open on Sunday morning at the usual hour.  All of the regular Sunday services were celebrated.  At different points in the morning I found myself thinking about Dom Gregory Dix’s famous meditation on the Eucharist.

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.