Holy Week Notes

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday . . . The principal liturgy is at 11:00 AM.  We will be generous with the distribution of palms.  I encourage you to be willing to share them with persons we will pass in Times Square who ask for them.  There will be more palms in the church if you give all of yours away.  Despite the solemnity of the day, there is an element of purposeful joy in the procession.  Don't try to impose a sense of northern European order on Mediterranean devotions. 

Easter Triduum II

I know it was the Reverend Jeffrey Lee, now rector of Saint Christopher's Church, River Hills, Wisconsin, who got my attention one day when he said, "I wonder what it would be like if the people took the role of Jesus on Good Friday."  We had been at Nashotah House together.  I can no longer recall when the conversation took place, but it was before my first holy week as rector of Trinity Church, Michigan City, Indiana.  When I first had the chance as a rector to assign the role of Jesus in the Passion to the congregation I did.  There were complaints but they were of the kind that confirmed the insight of this decision.  The people take the part of Jesus on the Sunday of the Passion and on Good Friday.  The purpose of the Easter Triduum is for us to share in Jesus' death and resurrection and to help us live as members of his body.

Easter Triduum I

I begin to write newsletter articles this time of year about Holy Week.  In the past I have always begun at the beginning.  This year I want to say something first about the Easter Triduum, the three days at the heart of the year.  I write primarily with the local parish community in mind.  I want to try to tell you something of what I understand our Christian (and Catholic!) tradition to be.

Trouble

While taking a long walk by myself during my vacation in Houston I found myself thinking about newsletter articles I had written over the years.  I wrote more than 500 newsletters for Trinity Church, Michigan City, Indiana, and I remember three that got me in trouble.  In one, as a young rector, I wondered in print in the gentlest way whether our community really was doing the right thing in baptizing the third child in two families that had no real connection to any church community.

Money

I went to a program about “Funding Current Ministry” at the conference I attended recently in California.  I asked one question of the presenter during the program and it seems to have gotten me in trouble.  At the end of the session I was the recipient of an examination from the presenter about my understanding of the sacramentality of money.

More than One Thing

The most obvious changes that occurred in the wake of the adoption of a new Prayer Book in 1979 were experienced in our worship.  The theological movement of our common worship also affected our understanding of the Church.  Especially in the areas of Baptism and membership.  The Book of Common Prayer states simply, "Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's Body the Church."

Planning

A few weeks ago Father Shin and I met with the parish musicians and part of our sacristy leadership team to begin to look at the liturgies for Holy Week and Lent.  I know I will be whining in June about how long the season is (Corpus Christi is the last Sunday in June), but right now I am delighted to have a relatively late start to Lent.

Formation for Mission

One of the things that has surprised me about Saint Mary's is how small our congregation really is.  When I looked at the statistics before becoming rector I had a nagging suspicion about how small we really were, how few members of the congregation would regularly be able to be here on Sunday.  I continue to be amazed at how few people have committed themselves financially to supporting Saint Mary's.

Servant

In January I had a meeting with Father Shin and with Chuck Carson and Winston Deane, who had been assigned to serve as MCs at the liturgy on Candlemas.  These things just don't happen and I've expressed before how thankful I am for the great love and work given by so many to worship in this parish church.  There were lots of details to discuss and I'm glad we discussed them.  The liturgy turned out to be wonderful in so many ways.  I haven't yet really had a chance to write about a change I made in the pattern of censing and that's what I want to tell you about today.

Job One

Last year I recall hearing more than a few genuinely helpful comments about the parish's tradition of having a bishop present to be celebrant for the Great Vigil of Easter.  We didn't have one because I was too new to get it organized in time.  This year we are honored that the Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, will be with us to celebrate and preach.  But I don't want you to think that it seems normative to me that a parish church, even Saint Mary's, should have a bishop present for the Easter Vigil - although it is splendid when it can happen.

Pastel

I don't know when I learned to use the word 'pastel' as a negative comment, but I have used it that way for years (along with the word 'beige').  I am making this public confession because I think I now understand the pastel colors in a way I never did before.

ANNUAL MEETING

I am looking forward to the annual meeting of the parish community this Sunday, January 30. A year ago I was in New York on the last Sunday in January but I had not begun work as your rector. At the request of the trustees I did not attend Mass here and I did not attend the annual meeting; I was not unhappy about having the opportunity to worship at Saint Thomas Church and at Saint Bartholomew's Church that day. On January 31 I will have completed a year as your rector.

Winter

It finally arrived, without snow so far but winter is here.  Cheeks are cold; feet are cold.  There seem however to be fewer tourists in Times Square, but I haven't noticed any great reduction in traffic noise at night on West 47th Street when the theaters let out.  At Saint Mary's, the church is a comfortable 64 degrees, so people wear their coats during Mass.  Flowers last longer, but the incense doesn't hang in the air.

Some Reflections

The profile of the Paramount Building in Times Square has recently lost the sky as its background for me and for everyone else who was used to looking at it from the northern end of the square.  New York is very much in a building boom right now and even someone who has lived here only one year sees much that was becoming familiar evolving and changing.

Decisions

When I was a young priest I was set up by the fourth graders at Saint Luke's School to settle the question about whether Santa Claus was real or not.  They didn't ask their own teacher; they asked me.  I was a thirty-one year-old at the time with little experience of nine and ten year-olds.  They brought the subject up in such a sly way that I was never conscious that I was being put on the spot.  Of course it never occurred to me that children in the fourth grade would "believe" in Santa Claus; first grade was the universal line of demarcation when I was a child.

The Word Made Flesh

One of the things that most distinguishes the history of worship within our parish community is that it has been a part of a movement within the wider Christian church that has been working to recover the liturgical act.  Christians worship in many ways, but in their most ancient tradition Christians gathered for liturgy, to do the work of the people.

Christmas in the Present

I am looking forward to the first Christmas since 1979 that I have been with a members of my own family on Christmas Eve.  I entered seminary in the fall of 1980.  From that time forward I have always been with my parish community on Christmas Eve - frankly, in the Anglo-catholic world of the Diocese of Chicago it was never suggested to me that there was any other option for a person studying to be a priest.

Christmas at Saint Mary's

For a month or more now I have been asking people at our weekly church staff meeting, "What happens here at Christmas time that I need to know about?"  Week by week more is remembered and your new rector is slowly being brought up to speed.  Bulletins and service registers are checked.  Memories are checked with others.  I think I am up to speed about what is going to take place and I am very thankful for the help I am getting from my colleagues on the parish staff.

God Can Use You

Sometimes it may be useful to state the obvious.  I hope that to many what I am going to try to say in this short article will be obvious and useful.  The regular parish community of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is a small one by any standard.  There are almost unlimited opportunities for every member or friend of this community to be useful for Christ's ministry in this place.  I think you and I should have a strong sense of the possibility that God can and wants to use us for the service of the gospel in this place.  I think this is probably true for almost everyone this newsletter will reach.

Eight and Nine

It's been a very long time since two rectors of this parish have been together for a major liturgy here.  Perhaps some of our long-time parishioners or members of the wider Saint Mary's community can recall the last occasion.  It never happened during Father Wells's (Number Eight) tenure.  Because of the long tenures of rectors of this parish and because two of our rectors, Father Brown and Father Taber, died while serving, it just doesn't happen very often.  I am very glad it is happening this week.