FROM THE RECTOR: OPPORTUNITY

In the Angelus for Sunday, October 3, 2021, I wrote about the ministration of Communion at Trinity-by-the Cove Church, Naples, Florida. I didn’t mention the parish’s name and its rector, the Reverend Edward Campbell Gleason, because I didn’t have a chance to be in touch with Father Gleason before the Angelus was due to go out. He and I are both graduates of Nashotah Seminary. We were both curates at Saint Luke’s Church, Baton Rouge. I was the first curate called by Saint Luke’s then-new rector, the Reverend Charles E. Jenkins, III, later the tenth bishop of Louisiana. It was the late Bishop Jenkins who ordained Edward deacon and priest. I repeat here Father Gleason’s words to me after the service, “The celebrant shouldn’t be the only person to receive the Wine.”

FROM THE RECTOR: SEEING, HEARING

We had many helpful comments about the first live-stream with the new video and sound system on Sunday, October 3. Last Sunday, October 10, the new video system was set to operate, but, for reasons not entirely clear, our system did not connect to the new Verizon Wi-Fi. Fios was chosen for broadcasting because the fiber-optic cable is more stable than wireless internet. Last Sunday, Blair Burroughs, videography team leader, arrived to find that he could not turn on the connection to the live-stream. Ian Ruben-Schnirman, director of technical services, adi: audible difference inc., has been working this week to solve the problem. He and the folks at ingenuIT, our IT service, seem to have solved the problem. The system is now up and running, and the live-stream from Sunday, October 10, is uploaded to Saint Mary’s Vimeo page. The Burial of the Dead for Michael James Joseph Merenda, October 2, 2021, was also recorded and is available for viewing. It is our hope that the live-stream will work on Sunday morning.

FROM THE RECTOR: LOOKING AHEAD

The annual letter for All Souls’ Day prayer requests will be in the mail early next week—it’s already at the FedEx copy center at 125 West 47th Street. The letter will bring news that, after consulting with colleagues and parishioners, I’ve decided that this year there will be Said Masses on All Saints’ Day, Monday, November 1, and on All Souls’ Day, Tuesday, November 2. Also, this year, there will be no Sung Requiem on All Souls’ Day. Saint Mary’s has a tradition of not celebrating All Saint’s Day on Sunday unless November 1 happens to fall on a Sunday. However, at the suggestion of Dr. David Hurd, we will take advantage of the Prayer Book’s permission to celebrate Solemn Mass for All Saints’ Day on the Sunday after All Saints’ Day, November 7, at 11:00 AM.

FROM THE RECTOR: WHY NOT?

The last two Sundays, I was in Naples, Florida. I attended the early service both weeks at a parish I’ve known for many years. It was a straightforward Episcopal Church Prayer Book service. However, there was one surprise for me: there was a chalice on the altar and four small cruets for the Great Thanksgiving. It made me wonder, “What’s next?”

A CONVERSATION WITH ZACHARY ROESEMANN:

Zachary Roesemann is a parishioner and the resident iconographer at Saint Mary’s. He works in a studio in the Mission House and has done so for several years. He works there full time as an iconographer, painting icons by commission for individuals, churches, and religious orders. For over a year now he has been working on a large, life-size icon of the Archangel Michael. He recently completed it, and it will soon be blessed at a weekday Mass here at Saint Mary’s, after which it will be sent to Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York, where it will be placed in the Chapel of Saint Michael, in the crypt of the monastery church, near the tomb of the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross, James Otis Sargent Huntington (1854–1935).

FROM THE RECTOR: LITURGY IN ROME c. 700

In their book The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation, Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson write, “We possess the detailed ceremonial directions for papal liturgy stemming from around the year 700 in a document known as Ordo Romanus Primus” (London: SPCK Publishing [2012], 201).

FROM THE RECTOR: NARVEL JAMES CRAWFORD, JR., NOVEMBER 11, 1929–SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

Narvel James Crawford, Jr., known to everyone as Jim, died early on Friday morning, September 10. He was ninety-one years old. He was born and grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. When his work as a property manager no longer took him on the road, he returned and lived in Asheville for the rest of his life. He was an only child. I know his parents are buried in the churchyard of Calvary Church, Fletcher, North Carolina, and I presume he will be buried there too.

FROM THE RECTOR: CLOTHING, NOT COSTUMES

In 2012, the Right Reverend Charles E. Jenkins III, X Bishop of Louisiana (1951–2021), arranged for two sets of vestments, given to Saint Luke’s Church, Baton Rouge, while I was a curate there, to be moved to Saint Mary’s. The sets were made by Joanna (Jenny) KilBride, a member of the Guild of St. Joseph and St. Dominic. The guild was a group of Roman Catholic artists and craftsmen. Jenny’s father, Valentine KilBride (1897–1982), was an early member of the guild. He was a dyer and weaver. He made vestments in their historic shape called a “conical chasuble.” His daughter Jenny, also a dyer and weaver, and his grandson Ewan Clayton, a calligrapher, were still members of the guild when it disbanded in 1989.

FROM THE RECTOR: THE LORD’S PRAYER

One of the essential books in my library is a copy of The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (1950) by the Reverend Dr. Massey H. Shepherd (1913-1990), professor of Liturgics at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific from 1954 until his retirement. The Reverend Dr. Louis Weil succeeded him in that position in 1988. The commentary is no longer shelved but on the corner of a shelf where I can easily reach it. Because earlier Prayer Books contained the lessons for Holy Communion on Sundays and feast days, Shepherd’s commentary includes remarks on the meaning and history of readings. I wrote on the inside cover of the book, “Stephen S. Gerth, Jr., 1982, The gift of the Marmion Library, Church of the Incarnation, Dallas.”

FROM THE RECTOR: SERMON FOR THE BURIAL OF EDGAR FISHER WELLS, JR., priest & rector, August 21, 2021

No words in John’s gospel are ever very far from the verb “believe.” So, today’s gospel lesson from John’s account of the supper before the Passover, we read, “Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1–3).

FROM THE RECTOR: AN IMPORTANT WEEK

On Sunday, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we will resume a weekly celebration of Solemn Mass at 11:00 AM, the first Solemn Mass since March 8, 2020. A quartet from the parish choir will sing the Mass ordinary and the minor propers. As is our custom, the gospel is sung at Solemn Mass. Since it is a principal feast day for us, the epistle will also be sung. I plan for the gospel to be proclaimed in the midst of the congregation. One modification that will continue is to have a basket at the front of the central aisle to collect offerings. So, there will be no procession of the gifts for now.

FROM THE RECTOR: LEARNNG CONTINUES

I’ve never read Joel Marcus’s two-volume commentary on Mark from start to finish. That said, I’ve used it a lot since I ordered it in August 2012. It is full of pencil marks. But just because I underline, make a check, or give a sentence of a paragraph a few stars, that doesn’t mean I understood what I read. As I prepared for the Feast of Transfiguration, I realized that, though underlined, I did not appreciate the significance of how those who heard or read this gospel in the last decades of the first century of the Christian Era understood the Hebrew word rabbî.

FROM THE RECTOR: A SPECIAL AUGUST

Beginning Sunday, August 15, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we will return to our traditional principal Sunday service: Solemn Mass at 11:00 AM. On Assumption Sunday, a quartet from the choir will sing the Mass ordinary and the Latin minor proper for the day. Though I wrote in The Angelus for Sunday, July 11, 2021, that congregational singing would return on August 1. I now think the right Sunday for us to start will be Assumption Sunday. I continue to be in touch with colleagues in the city and Westchester. Singing has resumed in many parishes already.

FROM THE RECTOR: ENRICHING THE LECTIONARY

Since the pandemic began, your clergy, though we continued to pray Daily Evening Prayer together in the church, have prayed Daily Morning Prayer on our own. I have been praying Morning Prayer using a small size two-volume travel version, Daily Office Book (Church Publishing, 1986). Our 1979 Prayer Book only requires a total of three lessons for Daily Morning and Evening Prayer. So, when I travel, I use Derek Olsen’s online St. Bede’s Breviary (this link will give you a choice to choose your platform) so that I can have two lessons at Evening Prayer without having to carry two books.

FROM FATHER SMITH: YOU ARE GOD, WE PRAISE YOU

During the announcements at Mass last Sunday, I mentioned that this week the gospel reading is to be the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Mark 6:30–44) and that next week we will hear the story of Jesus walking on the water, a passage which includes Jesus’ words, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear” (Mark 6:45–52). I then pointed out that on three out of the five Sundays in August we will hear a significant portion of the sixth chapter of the gospel of John, which contains Jesus’ words, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). (Normally, in Year B we would hear even more of John 6 during the month of August. This year, however, the Feast of the Assumption falls on Sunday, August 15, so on that day we will be hearing the readings appointed for the feast, and not John 6:53–59.)

FROM THE RECTOR: TWO SPECIAL SERVICES

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary falls on Sunday, August 15, this year. I plan for us to have a Solemn Mass for Assumption Sunday. I will be the celebrant and preacher. A quartet from the parish choir will sing. Assumption last fell on a Sunday in 2010, when we gathered to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Father Edgar Wells’s ordination to the priesthood on August 9, 1960. This year, I plan to have time for fellowship after the Mass on Assumption Sunday. We can do this in Saint Joseph’s Hall—and in the church if we need more space to feel comfortable.

FROM THE RECTOR: THE OLD BALL GAME

The Reverend Canon George W. Brandt, Jr., shared an article with me on Thursday, July 1, from a British website I didn’t know, UnHerd Daily. The article in question is by the Reverend Canon Dr. Giles Frazier, rector of St. Mary Newington, London. It’s called “My Shamefully Silent Church.” Its subtitle is “As football terraces [soccer stadiums] sing out, compliant Bishops surrender to Government dictat.” What Canon Frazier is talking about, of course, is the stricture forbidding congregational singing.

FROM THE RECTOR: OPENINGS

First, I want to tell you about new guidance for in-person worship. Last Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo “lifted [COVID-19 restrictions] across commercial settings, including retail, food services, offices, gyms and fitness centers, amusement and family entertainment, hair salons, barbershops, personal care services, among others,” for individuals who are fully vaccinated. Our next steps for in-person worship are these:

FROM THE RECTOR: CHANGES AHEAD

On Friday night, June 18, the New York Yankees didn’t beat the Oakland Athletics, but the stadium was open for full capacity. Masks and safe-distancing were not required for the first time since the pandemic arrived. New York State is now following the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.

FROM THE RECTOR: FUNERAL FOR EDGAR FISHER WELLS, JR., PRIEST

The Reverend Canon Edgar Wells served as rector of Saint Mary’s from January 1, 1979 through December 31, 1997. He died at home on Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2020. Because of the epidemic, his funeral has, unfortunately, been long delayed. On May 21, 2021, Father Edgar Wells’s cousin, Robin Clifford, and his companion, Evan Wong, wrote me to ask if Father Wells’s funeral could be scheduled for Saturday, August 21, 2021. Putting it on the parish schedule was no problem. It will take place at 10:00 AM that day here in the church. The service should be over by 11:00 AM. What I needed to find out was whether an interment of his ashes could take place on Saturday at 11:30 AM. It took me a while to get in touch with the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine—my delay, not theirs—but I’ve now been informed that that timing will not be a problem.