FROM FATHER WOOD: OUR SISTER PARISH IN LONDON

In March 2022, not long after I arrived in New York City to serve as interim rector at Saint Mary’s, I received an email from the Rev’d Dr. Peter Anthony, who had been named vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, not long before, in December 2020. I was delighted because I’d been intrigued by All Saints for years. Designed by famed British Gothic revival architect William Butterfield, the gorgeous red brick All Saints church was completed in 1859.

DID YOU KNOW?
SAINT MARY’S HAS PLEDGERS FROM ALL OVER

When Saint Mary’s was founded in 1868, it was intended to be the parish church for the new residential neighborhood known as Longacre Square—the name of the area before it was changed to Times Square in 1904. That original church community has certainly grown dramatically since those early days, both in number and in geography.

FROM JOHN DEREK YARED ANDEMIKAIL NORVELL: PINKSTER AND AFRICAN AMERICAN NEW YORK

“Pinkster” is the Dutch term for the fiftieth day after Easter, which closes the Paschal season. Bantu African captives from Congo and Angola brought their celebration with them when they were taken as captives to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (now Manhattan) in 1626. They were the first Catholics to reach New York shores, and they were using a liturgical rite known as the Congolese rite that had begun in the fifteenth century.

FROM FATHER SMITH: “THE GOVERNING AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE”

At our recent Annual Meeting, Father Wood asked the congregation to consider these questions:

1. Why do we exist as a congregation (“mission”)?

2. What do we contribute to our community or our world in a unique way?

3. What purposes or principles must we protect as central to our identity (“core”)?

4. What are we willing to let go of so the mission will continue?

FROM FATHER WOOD: BEAUTY CAN SAVE THE WORLD

I was reminded the other day listening to my friend Fr. Wesley’s podcast, the first in a three-episode arc about the need for a New Renaissance. I was reminded again this week when our Morning Prayer readings included Wisdom 13:3, calling God “the author of beauty.” I was reminded when MaryJane and Daniel took me birding for the first time on Tuesday, and I saw Yellow-throated Warblers and a Scarlet Tanager “up close” through borrowed binoculars. I was reminded standing slack-jawed in the Sistine Chapel a few weeks ago, and I’m reminded every time I walk through our nave, stare up at the mural behind our high altar, and listen to our choir (and you!) sing on a Sunday. 

DID YOU KNOW?
SUPPORTING THE FREE CHURCH OF SAINT MARY’S

The actual legal name the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is “The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in the City of New York.” The term “Free Church” was an important part of the name because, unlike other Episcopal churches in New York in the nineteenth century, Saint Mary’s did not charge pew rents. That is, you didn’t need to pay to have your family’s name on a little plaque in order to sit on that bench. This designation and practice established Saint Mary’s as a parish for all comers—something we may recognize as a sign that now appears on all Episcopal churches: “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!”

FROM DR. DAVID HURD: SOME THOUGHTS ON MUSIC AND THE THEMES OF THE EASTER SEASON

One access point to the common themes of the Easter season which have generated liturgical foci in scripture, preaching, and musical expression, is found by looking at the collects assigned to the seven Sundays from Easter Day until Pentecost.

FROM BROTHER THOMAS STEFFENSEN, SSF: TO SEE THE PATH GOD HAS LAID OUT FOR US

This January, I was once again offered the opportunity to work with the Episcopal Service Corps. Each year, a handful of individuals move from different parts of the United States to New York for a year of intentional community, service, spiritual growth, and social justice in a program that is supported in part by the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: ON THE FOURTH CENTURY & EASTER WEEK INSTRUCTION

The fourth century was a dynamic period for the Church. Though it began with the Great Persecution of Diocletian in 303, the status of the Church was about to change significantly as Christianity went from being the faith of a persecuted minority to the religion of the Empire. This change began in 306, with Constantine ordering the return of Christian property taken during the persecution, but really gained momentum in earnest after his victory at the Milvian Bridge in 312.

EASTER
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844–1899)

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day.

DID YOU KNOW?
BUDGET TIME AT SAINT MARY’S

The third week of January, the Board of Trustees adopted the 2023 parish budget, a document developed each year by the treasurer, the parish administrator, our bookkeeping firm, and other trustees and members of staff. This document anticipates our income and outlines funding for staff, operations, physical plant, and mission programs (music, hospitality, education, outreach, etc.)

FROM THE CLERGY: SOME LITURGICAL PECULIARITIES OF LENT AND HOLY WEEK

In the coming days, the Church will enter upon its annual commemoration of the central events of history. All human history will converge upon a single week—Holy Week, with its Palm Sunday pomp and circumstance and the Sacred Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter. Culminating in the celebration of Easter Day, these rituals funnel us into the heart of salvation history.

FROM FATHER SMITH: ON CONSOLATION

To “tell” sacred time means paying attention to dates, times, seasons—and lots and lots of numbers—and never more so than during Lent. In the West, for instance, our preparation for Easter lasts forty days, but not so very long ago, within living memory for some Saint Marians, forty days wasn’t quite enough. There was a period of preparation for the season of preparation—those three so-called “gesima” Sundays.

FROM BROTHER THOMAS BUSHNELL, BSG: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?” — Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum, 7

In our day, we might look for the target of Tertullian’s famous attack not so much in the school philosophy of the Middle Ages, or the twentieth century, but the vagaries of the “spiritualities” practiced around us in a pluralistic and individualistic age. His rhetorical question follows upon a recitation of the shifting sands of Greek philosophy, saying now this, now that: one says the soul is immortal, the next not. One says the true god is fire; the next, matter.

DID YOU KNOW?
ENDOWMENTS AND LONG-TERM INVESTMENTS

There are many Episcopal churches in America with endowments. Is Saint Mary’s one? The answer is yes. Saint Mary’s has several investment accounts which were funded many years ago, many for very special purposes. These accounts are designed to be self-perpetuating through investment policies and the income from them directed and restricted to the intended purpose.

FROM FATHER WOOD: AN INVITATION TO A HOLY LENT

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and mediating on God’s holy Word. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 265)

Some years ago, I remember talking with a friend who was not a Christian. She was interested in maybe becoming a Christian, she said, but she was worried. Wouldn’t she have to “clean up” her life before Jesus would accept her? At the time, the only thing I could think to say to dissuade her of that misapprehension was: “Do you have to ‘get cleaned up’ to take a bath?” 

FROM FATHER POWELL: THE CHURCH IS IN CRISIS

I know that some people wonder if it’s really worth it, spending so much time reading the Bible. I find it endlessly fascinating doing just that, and I know many of you feel the same. And so I’d like to invite you—as well as those of you who still have your doubts—to join me for a Lenten Bible Study of two New Testament letters, Ephesians and the Second Letter to the Thessalonians. I doubt it’s ever occurred to you that knowing more about these two slender books in the Bible would enrich your life. My challenge will be to convince you that you will benefit from the experience.

FROM FATHER WOOD: PALMS & ASHES

The fullest early description of Holy Week services the church possesses dates to the late fourth century and a woman known to history as Egeria. Egeria kept a diary of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in which she gives an account of Holy Week in Jerusalem around the year 380.

DID YOU KNOW?
SAINT MARY’S UNIQUE GOVERNANCE

It’s hardly worth noting that Saint Mary’s is unique. It’s obviously unique in many ways, but did you know that from a governance and organizational perspective, Saint Mary’s is set up unlike any other parish in New York (and most of the country)? Saint Mary’s doesn’t have a vestry and wardens like most Episcopal churches. Instead, it has a Board of Trustees with officers.

A SONNET FOR CANDLEMAS
by Malcolm Guite

They came, as called, according to the Law.

Though they were poor and had to keep things simple,

They moved in grace, in quietness, in awe,

For God was coming with them to His temple.