FROM FATHER SMITH: THE SPIRIT HELPS US IN OUR WEAKNESS

The Wednesday Night Bible Study Class met for the last time two weeks ago and has now begun its summer break. Our studies will resume in October. Last night, to mark the occasion, the members of the class, Mother Mary Julia Jett, and I headed over to a local Thai restaurant. We spoke of many things, as Saint Marians tend to do; and we actually discussed Scripture over our green curry and Pad Thai.

FROM THE RECTOR: NEW SOUNDS

The new sound system was installed in the church this past week. As I write on Friday morning, May 17, it’s looking and sounding really good. It is not inappropriate that the new system is ready for this Sunday, the Day of Pentecost, on which we recall, among other things, the gift of speaking in tongues recounted in the New Testament. The new system cost $21,618 and has been paid for by the special gifts of the parish community at Easter. Every worshiper in this church will be thankful for these gifts for years to come.

FROM THE RECTOR: ALREADY HERE

Last Sunday, as I was working on my sermon, I was surprised to discover that the appointed gospel now heard on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, John 14:23-29 (“If anyone loves me, he or she will keep my commandments . . . ”) used to be part of the gospel passage Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics all read on Pentecost before the revisions of the 1970s. The historic reading for Pentecost, it turns out, is not the one most of us are used to: John’s account of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples on the evening of Easter Day and the gift of the Holy Spirit to them to forgive sins (John 20:19-23).

FROM THE RECTOR: GOING HOME

As I wrote in the newsletter last week, my mother, Barbara Knoeller, died on Wednesday, April 24, after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Her funeral was held at her parish church in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, on Saturday, April 27. Trinity Church sits on a cliff above St. Mary’s River, which flows into the Potomac just above that river’s entrance into the Chesapeake Bay. St. Mary’s City was the first town in colonial Maryland. The parish dates from 1638. There is no town there now, just Saint Mary’s College and the church.

FROM THE RECTOR: EASTER PASSAGE

My mother, Barbara Knoeller, died yesterday, Wednesday, April 24, at 5:25 AM at the nursing home in Fairfax County, Virginia, where she had lived for the last five years. She will be buried on Saturday, April 27, at her parish, Trinity Church, Saint Mary’s City, Maryland.

FROM THE RECTOR: ALWAYS EASTER

The church has been reading through the first six chapters of Daniel at Morning Prayer for the last two weeks. (Good, recent and short introductions to the content and textual issues of this and the other books of the Bible can be found in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With The Apocrypha [2010]). We will finish up these readings tomorrow.

FROM THE RECTOR: EASTER NOW

When I read Patrick Regan’s remark that none of the collects for what we now call the Third through the Seventh Sundays of Easter in the pre-Vatican II Roman Rite “use the word ‘paschal’ or contain or refer to any aspect of the paschal mystery” (Advent to Pentecost [2012] 258), I went right for my copy of the 1928 Episcopal Church Prayer Book. It turns out that what was true for the old Roman Rite was also true for the old Prayer Book rite. One can say that in a real sense, apart from Easter Day and“The First Sunday after Easter,” there really was no Eastertide in the old rites in the sense of prayers and lessons pointing to the death and resurrection of Jesus. There were titles, to be sure; and, surprisingly, all of the Fridays of Eastertide were days of abstinence.

FROM THE RECTOR: EASTER FORWARD

Joseph Fitzmyer in his commentary on Luke points to a major difference between the accounts in the four gospels of Jesus’ execution and those of Jesus’ resurrection. The former are far longer and more detailed, and there is far more agreement among them about Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion. He concludes, “The need for a continuous story of the appearances of the risen Christ neither emerged nor could have been seen as crucial”

FROM THE RECTOR: PASCHAL FEAST

Before I went to seminary, I did not pay much attention to what has become one of my favorite texts during the Paschal Triduum, the first anthem at the devotions before the cross on Good Friday. It’s an antiphon with verses from Psalm 67. The verses begin, “May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us.”

FROM THE RECTOR: HOLY WEEK 2013: PART III

Several years ago the short subtitle of an article in the liturgical journal Worship caught my attention. The article was by Patrick Regan, “Holy Thursday Reservation: From Confusion to Clarity,” (Worship 81 [March 2007] 98-120). The article is a really useful survey of the practices of Christians on Maundy Thursday in the cathedral and parish churches of Rome at the beginning of the Middle Ages. The subtitle has stayed with me as a point of reflection for many things. One example: How do we move from confusion to clarity in our lives?

FROM THE RECTOR: HOLY WEEK 2013: PART II

Patrick Regan is a senior liturgical scholar in the Roman Catholic Church. He is a Benedictine monk and served as abbot of Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Covington, Louisiana. Since his retirement he has taught at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm in Rome. I had the privilege of meeting him some years ago. For the last month I’ve been reading his book published last fall, Advent to Pentecost: Comparing the Seasons in the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite. It’s very much about his ecclesial community, but as we share a common heritage there’s a lot there for us.

FROM THE RECTOR: HOLY WEEK 2013: PART I

Let’s start with the big news first. The Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, XXV Presiding Bishop & Primate of the Episcopal Church, will be with us as celebrant and preacher for three of the principal services of the Easter Triduum: Maundy Thursday at 6:00 PM, Good Friday at 12:30 PM and the Great Vigil of Easter at 7:00 PM. (I will be the celebrant and preacher for the second service on Good Friday at 6:00 PM.)

FROM THE RECTOR: SICK AND TIRED

There are a couple of expressions I associate with my parents. My dad was fond of saying to me and my siblings when we were children, “Be aware of the world around you.” It made me think it was my job to be on top of things—not for other people to take care of me. Of course, they did. But it was the kind of statement that suggested I could do things for myself and didn’t have to wait for things to be done to me or for me.

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.