From the Rector: Making It All Work

Since the 2009 General Convention ended, my colleagues and I have been preparing to use the new Episcopal Church version of the Revised Common Lectionary.  It’s already in use in most places.  We are now required to use this new lectionary beginning with the new Church year, despite our own Bishop’s efforts to get a general permission for the continued use of the original one. 

From the Rector: The Regular Worship of the Church

This Sunday morning, October 31, is the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.  Sunday evening, All Hallows’ Eve, we begin our celebration of All Saints’ Day.  The Reverend Peter Cullen, rector, Saint Paul’s Church, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, will be our guest preacher at Solemn Evensong & Benediction at 5:00 PM.

FROM THE TREASURER: STEWARDSHIP

My name is Charles Randolph Morgan but most people know me as Randy.  I have been a member of the Board of Trustees since December 2007 and I am currently our treasurer.  I have been asked to discuss stewardship and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to do so.

FROM THE RECTOR: FAITH, FEAR AND THE FUTURE

When I speak with younger adults, and our conversation turns to the present economic situation, I try not to talk too much about what it was like when I was twenty years old.  That was in 1974.  But there are many parallels.  The Vietnam War had been going on for over a decade.  Our country was living with the growing mismanagement of its economy by politicians, Democratic and Republican.  I was part of a generation that grew up in an anxious American society.

FROM THE RECTOR: MYSTERY OF GIFT

In the Episcopal Church, almost everywhere in the fall of every year, parish lay and clergy leaders begin to get members and friends of a parish to make the financial commitment for the new year.  It’s partly practical; churches need plans to stay in business.  But commitment for Christians is far more than just business.  Commitment is fundamentally spiritual, relational.  How we share with others what we have been given and what we earn with others shapes our lives as much as anything else we know or do.

FROM THE RECTOR: A NEW SEASON

There’s really no satisfactory name for the “season” that begins on the first Sunday of October at Saint Mary’s and most of the parishes in this city.  It’s New York Episcopalians’ version of the academic-year calendar.  But that phrase, the academic year, overlooks the origins of academic life in the Church’s life, its schools and universities.  I think it is also helpful to remember that the academic year and liturgical year were shaped for Christendom by seasons of harvest and war. 

FROM THE RECTOR: EVENSONG AT SAINT MARY’S

With many, many thanks to our organ curator Larry Trupiano, who has repaired the chancel organ console, we will embark on what I hope will be our most prayerful season for Evensong on Sunday, October 3.  I’m writing today to tell you what’s up with this service and to encourage you to come as you are able.

FROM THE RECTOR: LEADERSHIP IN MINISTRY

Twice a year since 1997 I have attended a conference for members of the clergy and other organizational leaders called “Leadership in Ministry.”  I’m just back from the fall meeting.  The conference’s theoretical framework is family systems theory.  I’ve been working with that theory for more than two decades.  I want to tell you about the conference.

FROM THE RECTOR: REDEVELOPMENT

Chicago was the first great city I ever lived in.  I still remember the date I arrived, September 19, 1976.  I was 22 and entering graduate school.  Chicago was a very different city then in many ways than it is now.  The first Mayor Daley was still in office.  The economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s that brought about a renaissance of urban America was in the future.  As part of the orientation for students at the University of Chicago, we learned about the dangers of the city and about the campus security phones located at the intersection of all the streets near the university.  It was a different time.  But I loved it.

FROM THE MUSIC DIRECTOR: “THEIR SOUND HAS GONE OUT INTO ALL LANDS”

I remember attending my first service at Saint Mary’s as a visitor just under four years ago.  I settled towards the back of the building, seeking refuge in an unoccupied pew during the recitation of the Angelus, just before a thrilling organ improvisation introduced Solemn Evensong and Benediction.  The service was excellent in so many ways—musically, liturgically, spiritually—and so, I expect, was the sermon, although despite my best efforts I distinctly remember how difficult it was to hear the preacher!

FROM DEACON REBECCA WEINER TOMPKINS: PREPARING THE ENVIRONMENT

Anyone who's been around Saint Mary’s will have witnessed the Rector’s enthusiasm for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS), the educational method for the spiritual formation of children developed by Sofia Cavalletti.  Saint Marians have recently been informed about our own CGS atrium, which will soon be open for children who are between the ages of three and six in what was formerly office space above St. Joseph’s Hall.  I use the words “our own” with special emphasis, since the words pertain to CGS becoming part of our identity as a parish.

FROM THE RECTOR: APPROACHING HOLY WOMEN AND MEN

We’re getting a new Lectionary beginning with Advent 2010.  This summer, our seminarian Rem Slone has been working to re-format all of the texts and files we will use for the first year of this new three-year Sunday cycle.  At Saint Mary’s, that’s a really big job.  It not only includes producing the readings we will use at the lectern, but amending what we call in the office “The Complete Information File” for every Sunday and Principal Feast of the year.  I’ve also asked Rem to replace the Sunday lessons on our web page with the new ones – another big job.

FROM THE RECTOR: CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF PRIESTHOOD

When I was invited to New York by the board of trustees to interview for this job I asked to meet with Father Edgar Wells.  I did so for many reasons, but one in particular.  I had learned very quickly in the parish I was serving in Indiana of the unique bond I had with my predecessor there.  There were things I could ask him and find out from him that no one else could know.  I knew that if I were to come to Saint Mary’s, like Father Wells, I would retire from Saint Mary’s.  That’s the pattern here and in many other great parishes.

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.