FROM FATHER SMITH: FAITH & WORK

On three recent Sundays, the adult-education class heard presentations by six Saint Marians, who spoke about the relationship between faith and work in their lives, their professions, and their workplaces. We heard from a librarian and a newspaper editor; a human-resources professional and a pathologist; and from a high-school teacher and a psychiatrist. The presentations were uniformly good. Not surprisingly, some common themes emerged during the three-week series, but it was also very helpful to hear about individual experiences, problems, questions, and approaches.

FROM THE RECTOR: ISHMAEL AND ISAAC

Over the years we have altered the lessons we use at Daily Morning and Evening Prayer so that we omit none of the New Testament in our worship at Saint Mary’s. It makes a few services a little longer than usual, but I think it’s worth hearing it all. Occasionally I still hear things almost as if for the first time—and I can assure you I have read every word of the New Testament many, many times.

FROM THE RECTOR: LENT IS UPON US

The English word “Lent” derives from Old English lencten, that is, “lengthen”—in other words, the part of the year when the days are getting longer. We call it spring. The Latin name for this season is “Quadragesima,” that is, “forty.” Many may remember that in previous Prayer Books the three Sundays before Ash Wednesday were known as Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima for—

FROM THE RECTOR: EVANGELICAL WORSHIP

In 1789, the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church adopted its first Prayer Book. By then, the church had been disestablished in every state in which it had been the established church before the revolution. At the time, it wasn’t at all clear that the Episcopal Church, or the United States itself, would find a new way forward. However, just like the country, the Episcopal Church did just that.

FROM THE RECTOR: COLD, BUT NOT BLEAK

Some of the parish’s friends in the wider community may not realize how unusually cold it has been in the city this week. It’s not been easy to get around with the wind whipping around corners while the temperatures are in the teens. But I know I’ve had a spring in my step. One big reason: on Saturday morning, February 2, the Right Reverend Andrew M.L. Dietsche will become the sixteenth bishop of New York when our fifteenth bishop, the Right Reverend Mark S. Sisk, passes him the crozier during the service of installation at the cathedral. It’s a big weekend for the diocese of New York.

FROM THE RECTOR: JUST A CUP

With the beginning of Advent 2011, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States began using a new translation of its Latin liturgy. The issue of how to translate the liturgy from Latin to English has been controversial within that community since Pope Paul VI revised the Roman Missal in 1969. I remember stopping into a Roman Catholic parish not so long after the recent changes took place.

FROM THE RECTOR: CHRIST’S BAPTISM

The 1928 Prayer Book introduced some, but not so very many, changes to the worship of the Episcopal Church. One of those changes is easy for me to remember: brides would no longer promise “to obey” their husbands. Another change: Episcopalians would now pray for the departed, “grant them continual growth in thy love and service.” Less remembered is the introduction of a gospel account of Jesus’ baptism to Sunday worship—on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. Anglicans other than Episcopalians—and as far as I know, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics—never heard an account of Jesus being baptized until the calendar reforms of the 1970s.

FROM THE RECTOR: MORE THAN WISE MEN

This year the Epiphany falls on Sunday. The celebration begins with Evening Prayer on Saturday night with psalms and lessons appointed for the feast. The celebration concludes with Sunday Evensong, again with appointed psalms, lessons and the traditional hymn sung at this service, “When Christ’s appearing was made known,” a fifth century text. The Right Reverend Charles E. Jenkins, X Bishop of Louisiana, will preside and preach at the Solemn Mass. I hope you will be able to join us for many reasons. Along with Easter and Pentecost, Epiphany is the third of the greatest feasts in the church’s tradition.

FROM THE RECTOR: HAPPY CHRISTMASTIDE

At one point during the Solemn Mass on Christmas Eve, I leaned over and said to Bishop Frank Griswold, “My inner Benedictine is worried that tonight is almost too beautiful.” And it was—almost too beautiful. It was a very happy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the parish. Many, many people make special gifts of time, treasure and talent to make it so special.

FROM THE RECTOR: ANOTHER MIDWINTER

This past week has been a terrible one for the families of those murdered in Newtown, Connecticut—and for their wider communities. Every day now there are burials, and as I write, there are more to come. Our political and media establishments are consumed with discussions of gun control, violence in media, and mental healthcare. Some have raised questions about the nature and quality of family life. Religion is very much on a backburner in this dialogue. But, I can’t help wondering what our faith tells us about all this.

FROM FATHER SMITH: REJOICE!

This week I received a Christmas card from a teacher of mine who is an Episcopal priest. Among his kind good wishes there was this sentence, “I hope you will manage the rigors of the season.” I was struck by that word “rigor.” I heard the voice of experience in his use of the word. Rigor: “a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable,”

FROM THE RECTOR: ADVENT SPEAKS

As I write on Thursday morning, December 6, I am an uncle again—my brother Ralph and his wife Ulrika’s third child was born yesterday. Sydney Lucia Gerth and her mother are fine. Ralph and Ulrika have been preparing for the birth of their daughter, of course. All went well during the last nine months. But families don’t celebrate the births of children early. Not a lot is easy about childbirth, even with modern medicine—and nothing is certain. Now, the celebrations can start. The baby has been born. I’ve been happy and thankful for months; now I can be happy and thankful in a new way.

FROM THE RECTOR: WELCOME, BISHOP DIETSCHE!

The Right Reverend Andrew M.L. Dietsche will be with us on Friday evening, December 7, for the Eve of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our patronal feast. As is our custom, the Solemn Mass will be at 6:00 PM. A reception will follow in Saint Joseph’s Hall. It will be the eve of the 142nd anniversary of the opening of the first church at 228 West 45th Street in 1870 and the 117th anniversary

FROM THE RECTOR: OVERPLUS

I learned a new word today: overplus. I discovered it in a footnote in the 1928 Prayer Book. It’s a word that makes its first Prayer Book appearance in the English book of 1662. It continues in use in the American books of 1789, 1892 and 1928. “Overplus” means “surplus”—and I don’t think that I’ve ever come across it before. I found it in a rubric that tells us how to cope with the uneven number of Sundays that happen every year in what we now call the Season after Epiphany and the Season after Pentecost.

FROM THE RECTOR: CHANGING CHANGE

One upside from having an inflamed rotator cuff diagnosed (this medical episode is just about over as I write) is finding time to catch up on my reading in waiting rooms—and the time to reflect on what I have read while walking home from the East Side where all my doctors seem to be.

FROM FATHER SMITH: ANOTHER STORM & ANOTHER UPDATE

In last week’s edition of The Angelus, Father Gerth gave a report on the state of things here at the parish, in our neighborhood and city, and in the surrounding communities, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. As the rector noted last week, New Yorkers and their neighbors and friends have had to assess how things are going on a day-to-day basis as the situation becomes clearer and more accurate information becomes available. E-mail,

FROM THE RECTOR: WE ARE OPEN

As I write, lots of things are still on a day-by-day basis here in New York City in the wake of the hurricane. Devastation in low-lying areas continues to be revealed. Tragic stories of deaths are heard. A newswoman this morning remarked that the view south last night from her apartment in midtown reminded her of being in South Korea and looking north across the border: all dark, no lights at all.

 FROM THE RECTOR: ESSENTIAL PURPOSE

I’ve been thinking about our parish’s observances of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and about questions like, “Why do we worship as we do?” Very few parishes now celebrate All Saints’ Day on November 1—instead the celebration is transferred to the following Sunday. Even fewer parishes make much of the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, commonly called All Souls’ Day, on November 2. But here at Saint Mary’s we follow the ordinary calendar of the church year and these are important days in our common life. If parishes can have a spiritual patrimony, Prayer Book worship is ours.

FROM SISTER LAURA KATHARINE:

INTEGRITY, SELF-KNOWLEDGE & SELF-FORGETTING

The three traditional vows, poverty, chastity, and obedience, are one aspect of the religious life that has attracted a good deal of attention down through the centuries. There are many studies of the three vows already in print, so I thought it might be useful to speak about the religious life by discussing three other facets of that life, facets which are not unrelated to the traditional vows, but which are nevertheless quite distinct. My thinking about these things —

FROM THE RECTOR: TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

As I headed out to a routine medical appointment the other day, I grabbed a volume of writings by the late Edwin Friedman, The Myth of the Shiksa and Other Essays (2008). Ed died in 1996. He was a gifted thinker and teacher. He continues to be influential with congregational ministers and rabbis through his writing. He used to like to quip that he had worked in all three professions that are concerned with “saving” people: religion, government and therapy.