FROM RICHARD MAMMANA: REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST & PRESENT

I have never been a member of Saint Mary’s, but it has been one of my spiritual homes for almost thirty years. The chance to unpack that sentence in a few paragraphs is an invitation to write a thank you note to the pile of living stones that are a congregation and its building.

FROM FATHER WARREN PLATT: A NEW HISTORY OF SAINT MARY’S

My monograph on the history of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin has a perspective and approach similar to my studies on the history of the Church of the Transfiguration on 29th Street, where I assist, and Saint John’s in the Village on 11th Street, where I have preached on occasion. Only one other book has been written on the history of Saint Mary’s, The Story of St. Mary’s by Newbury Frost Read, a member of the parish’s Board of Trustees. But this work, published in 1931, is largely devoted to administrative and financial matters.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: THE INCARNATION, ICONS & US

While reviewing and updating our Solemn Mass files ahead of Christmas Eve, I was struck by an instruction in the master of ceremonies’ binder which says, “the image is placed in the Crèche,” after arriving at the first station during the procession. The choice of the word “image,” rather than “the statue of the newborn Jesus,” or something else, seemed perfect to me as I also happened to be reading On the Divine Images by Saint John of Damascus (c. 675–749).

FROM FATHER WOOD: THE BLESSING OF CHALK AT EPIPHANY

Everybody knows that Christmas lasts twelve days and is followed by the Feast of the Epiphany, a celebration that puts the Magi front and center in our imagination. At Saint Mary’s, they are making their way around the church and will finally take their place with the Holy Family on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. But St. Matthew's gospel tells us that when the Magi arrived in Bethlehem to visit Jesus, they came to him with his mother in a house, not the stable where the family had first found temporary shelter. This is a clue—a hint that our Epiphany celebration should encompass our own houses, and a centuries-old custom is to bless houses on Epiphany.

ABOUT THE MUSIC ON CHRISTMAS EVE, DECEMBER 24

A Selection of Choral & Congregational Carols at 9:30 PM

Arnold Bax (1883–1953) was a British composer, poet, and author, who was born into a prosperous London family which encouraged his musical development. He was educated at the Royal Academy of Music and eventually, in 1942, he was appointed Master of the King’s Music. Bax is remembered for his songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is probably best regarded for his orchestral music which has grown in favor in recent decades.

FROM FATHER WOOD: 100 DAYS OF DANTE

For me, 2022 will go down as the year I fell in love with Saint Mary’s — and Dante. 

Back in the summer, I joined “100 Days of Dante,” billed as “the world’s largest Dante reading group.” Each day, I’d read one canto of Dante’s Divine Comedy, his fourteenth-century epic poem universally recognized as one of the marvels of world literature, and then watch an eight- or nine-minute video of some academic explaining to me what on earth I’d just read. Within a few days, I was hooked.

FROM FATHER PETER POWELL: ON STIR UP SUNDAY

This coming Sunday, December 11, is of course Rose Sunday. It is also known as Gaudete Sunday. But it is also Stir Up Sunday, and I’d like to say a few words about why this is so. The term comes from the opening words of the collect appointed for the Third Sunday of Advent in the Book of Common Prayer 1979.

FROM DR. DAVID HURD:
THE CHOIR OF SAINT MARY’S 2022-2023

For most of the documented history of the Church, singing has been integral to its gatherings for worship. We at Saint Mary the Virgin, where Solemn Mass is the primary Sunday morning expression, have experienced on a week-by-week basis and participated in the great song of faith which has been offered in praise and thanksgiving through the ages to the Giver of all gifts.

George Herbert (1593-1633)
Gratefulnesse

THou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a gratefull heart.
See how thy beggar works on thee

By art.

He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And sayes, If he in this be crost,
All thou hast giv’n him heretofore

Is lost.

FROM FATHER JAY SMITH: BUT JOY COMES IN THE MORNING

Richard Mammana is a friend of Saint Mary’s and the founder of Project Canterbury, “a free online archive of out-of-print Anglican texts and related modern documents…” Richard is, among other things, an archivist. He understands the importance of primary sources: the pamphlet, the obscure essay, the parish magazine, the out-of-print volume by the long-forgotten theologian. These documents can sometimes seem to be of only limited or local interest. But suddenly there they are on the website, authentic voices from the past, just waiting to be heard, prepared to answer the very question that needs answering today.

FROM ANGELINE BUTLER: ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

I am Angeline Butler. My parents were teachers: the Reverend and Mrs. Isaac Bartley Butler, a Baptist minister, a principal of the Crossroads School in Eastover, South Carolina, a farmer, and a community leader. College for me was Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. I was only fifteen. I was favored by Dr. John W. Work II of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and Dr. and Mrs. Nelson Fuson, who were American Friends. We went to the First Baptist Church to see the Rev. James Morris Lawson, Jr., speak about Jesus Christ, Gandhi, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the practice of nonviolence, a creative strategy for changing segregation in the South.

FROM BLAIR BURROUGHS: CENTERING PRAYER

Centering Prayer is a method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God's presence within us, closer than breathing. This is the official definition of Centering Prayer from Contemplative Outreach, the organization that was founded to promote Centering Prayer. In essence, Centering Prayer is a Christian form of what we usually think of as meditation.

FROM FATHER WOOD: ON STEWARDSHIP

When I arrived as your interim rector back in February, I couldn’t know I’d come to love this place so much so fast! And I had no idea the treasure I’d discover Saint Mary the Virgin to be.

Here’s one reason Saint Mary’s is so very important. Back in May, a New York Times article said 300,000 people are visiting Times Square every day — still 20% under the pre-pandemic high, but that’s over 50 million visitors this year!

FROM DR. HURD: FEAST DAY ORGAN RECITALS 2022-2023

The organ at Saint Mary’s, Aeolian-Skinner Opus 891, dates from 1932 with additions in 1942 and 2002. It is a legendary instrument due to its high rear-galley installation and the resultingly rich musical voice it has given to the legendary worship tradition of Saint Mary’s, its sonic refinement (in contrast with its strikingly unfinished appearance), its thrilling engagement of the lively acoustics of the church, and the remarkable musicians, too many to name, who have brought it to life, performing on it through the years in the liturgy, in recital, and on recordings.

FROM MARYJANE BOLAND: ALL OUR NEIGHBORS IN NEED

For many years, Saint Mary’s Neighbors in Need program has provided gently-used clothing, newly-purchased underwear, and toiletries to neighbors in need. Some of our clients are just that: people who live nearby; others are homeless. Some have jobs, some do not, all find it difficult to make ends meet. They all come to us seeking the sort of assistance that we offer.

FROM FATHER WOOD: TO WHOM THAT WATER CAME WERE HEALED

If you've been at Sunday Mass recently, no doubt you’ve noticed the return of the Asperges. This rite, which precedes the Mass, is the practice of sprinkling worshipers with holy water as a reminder of our baptisms, and the name comes from the Latin version of Psalm 51, “Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop.”

FROM FATHER WOOD: ON PROGRAMS AND COMMUNITY

I’m writing this looking out on Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, where I’m on my annual clergy Covenant Group retreat — a group of men, mostly priests, who cycled through the same little parish church on the North Shore of Boston back when I was in Seminary.

FROM DR. HURD: THE CHOIR OF SAINT MARY’S RETURNS

Following the choir’s customary summer break, fully choral Sunday Solemn Masses will resume on 2 October. For the fourteen Sundays between Corpus Christi and the end of September, individual cantors, all members of the choir, have provided musical leader at Sunday Masses.

FROM FATHER WOOD: HOLY CROSS DAY & THE HOLY LAND

This past Wednesday was Holy Cross Day, a feast the Church keeps every September 14. In the East, it is called the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It is said that Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor, traveled to the Holy Land in search of lost holy sites and relics, and she ordered the excavation that uncovered the true cross of Christ.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: COMMUNITY AT THE CROSSING

A few weeks ago, in the July 31 issue of the Angelus, Father Wood wrote to us about Christian unity on the occasion of the Lambeth Conference, where unity even within Anglicanism seemed challenging. Of course, despite these challenges, we need to be even more ambitious and pray not just for unity amongst ourselves, but pray for and work towards unity of the entire Body of Christ.