FROM THE RECTOR: SOME SEPTEMBER CELEBRATIONS

There are two feast days in September that may be celebrated on a Sunday when they fall on a Sunday. They are Holy Cross Day, September 14, and Saint Michael and All Angels, September 29. This year Holy Cross Day is a Saturday, and as is our custom, there will be a Sung Mass on the eve, Friday, September 13, at 6:00 PM, and the 12:10 Eucharist on Saturday, September 14, will be for Holy Cross Day. Saint Michael and All Angels, commonly called “Michaelmas,” falls on Sunday this year. The Sunday Vigil Mass on Saturday, September 28, and the Offices and Eucharists on September 29 will all be Michaelmas celebrations.

FROM FATHER SMITH: AT THE CROSS HER STATION KEEPING

Stabat Mater is a thirteenth-century hymn, the text of which consists of a meditation on Mary’s experience of the suffering and death of her Son. Its author may be either the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi (1230–1306) or Pope Innocent III (1161–1216). Here at Saint Mary’s we mostly associate the hymn with the season of Lent, when we sing the hymn on Fridays as we walk the Stations of the Cross.

FROM THE RECTOR: SHADOWS OF ROME

In 1996, Paul Bradshaw published “The Liturgical Consequences of Apostolicae curae for Anglican Ordination Rites” (Anglican Theological Review 78 [1996], 75–86). When I came to the diocese of New York, it was then the practice at our cathedral to ignore the placement of the Prayer Book rubric that says, “The new priest is now vested according to the order of priests.” Instead of following the prayer of consecration as ordered by the Prayer Book (page 534), the prayer itself was stopped after the bishop laid on hands and said, “Therefore, father, though Jesus Christ your Son, give your Holy Spirit to N.; fill him with grace and power, and make him a priest in your Church” (page 533). After vesting all of the ordinands, the bishop completed the prayer. The problem, of course, is that theologically for Anglicans, there is no “moment of consecration” in the celebration of our Sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist) or sacramental rites (Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Reconciliation of a Penitent, Unction of the Sick, and Ordination). This is an example of the long shadows, as it were, taken on by Anglicans after the 1896 papal encyclical Apostolicae Curae: On the Nullity of Anglican Orders.

FROM THE RECTOR: MARY’S ASSUMPTION

Peter Brown, the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History Emeritus, Princeton University, is credited with recognizing the period of A.D. 250 to A.D. 800 in Western Europe as a unit: late antiquity. He is also recognized by Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson in their book, The Origins of Fasts, Feasts and Seasons (2011) for his book The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (1981) for demonstrating the importance of popular religion in the development of Christianity in late antiquity. Brown’s short curriculum vitae states: “His principal concern is the rise of Christianity and the transition from the ancient to the early medieval world.” In Bradshaw and Johnson’s Origins, the last two chapters are “The first martyrs and saints” and “Mary: devotion and feasts.” The book concludes with these words, “Again, as with devotion to the martyrs and saints, the building blocks of a later popular and liturgical Marian piety appear quite early” (page 214).

FROM THE RECTOR: SESQUICENTENNIAL COMING

On Sunday, December 8, 2019, Saint Mary’s will celebrate the beginning of our one-hundred-fiftieth year of ministry. The doors of the first church, located at 228 West Forty-fifth Street, opened for worship on December 8, 1870. It was a Thursday and was kept as the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1895, December 8, was the Second Sunday of Advent. Though not strictly rubrical, it was celebrated in the new building as the Feast of the Conception of Mary. Newbury Frost Read’s The Story of St. Mary’s (1931) is available online at Project Canterbury. The bishop of New York consecrated the church on December 12, 1895. The December 1895 issue of the The Arrow, a parish magazine then published by a men’s group, the Sons of St. Sebastian, from October 1891 through March 1899, is an important record of the services celebrated that month.

FROM THE RECTOR: UPDATES AND AUGUST CELEBRATIONS

The best news of the week is that the new lighting for the nave of the church was installed over three nights this past week, July 22, 23, and 24, by IMCD Lighting. Joe Saint and his team have done a wonderful job. Adjustments can be made. We’ve asked Joe to help us with some additional lighting issues in the church—take a look at Stations of the Cross IX and X on Sunday.

FROM DR. DAVID HURD: A RICH OFFERING OF MUSICAL GIFTS

The Association of Anglican Musicians (AAM) was born out of a gathering of three prominent American cathedral musicians in 1965 who founded the American Cathedral Organists and Choirmasters Association (ACOCA), modeled on the existing Association of English Cathedral Organists. By 1973 it had become apparent that an American association of Anglican musicians, not limited to musicians serving in cathedrals, was desirable. The new name (AAM) was officially adopted the following year. The AAM Annual Conference in 1978 was hosted at the headquarters of the Royal School of Church Music, Addington Palace, Croydon, England. Since that time the Association has held annual conferences throughout North America and returned to the UK for a conference every ten years.

FROM FATHER SMITH: WE MAKE OUR SONG

During my sermon at the Solemn Mass last Sunday, I talked a bit about James Weldon Johnson's great anthem, "Lift every voice and sing," which we then sang at the Offertory. At Coffee Hour, I spoke with Gregory Eaton, who was visiting with us that day. Gregory was the greatly respected director of music and organist at the Church of Saint Ann and the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights for twenty-one years, between 1993 and 2014. He now serves as organist-choirmaster at All Saints' Church, Austin, Texas. Gregory is a good friend of Saint Mary's, and he knows the parish well. While we drank our coffee, Gregory and I were joined by two or three parishioners, and we ended up sharing with each other what we knew about the brilliant African-American author, composer, and activist, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and his iconic hymn. At one point, Gregory reminded me that Johnson is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. (Father Thomas McKee Brown, first rector of Saint Mary's, is also buried there.)

FROM THE RECTOR: NEGLECTED TEXTS

Last week I came across two biblical narratives that I would call “neglected texts”—at least from the point of view of worship. I came across a reference to Judges 19. In a note, the editors of The New Oxford Annotated Bible: Revised Standard Version (1973) call this chapter, “The appalling crime of the Benjaminites” (pages 319–20). Judges 20 is “The punishment of Benjamin” (pages 320–23) and  Judges 21 is entitled, “Two devices to secure wives for the Benjaminites” (pages 323–24). While reading through Judges 21, it suddenly occurred to me that I had learned about this narrative while reading Phyllis Trible’s Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives [(1984), 65–92.] It’s a horrific tale of domination of women by men. It is never appointed to be read in worship. That’s why I would consider it a “neglected text.”

FROM THE RECTOR: PRIDE

A year ago, two events occurred very close to each other, united in different ways to “pride.” On June 28, 2018, we celebrated the Burial of the Dead for Richard Joseph “Dick” Leitsch. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, what came to be known as the Stonewall Uprising began. I did not know until I saw the movie Stonewall Uprising with Dick Leitsch and Father Edgar Wells, that Dick was presiding at the meeting at which it was decided to have the first Pride March.

FROM THE RECTOR: CORPUS CHRISTI 2019

During the Middle Ages in the Christian West, lay people attended the Eucharist but received Communion very infrequently, usually only at Easter. The feast of Corpus Christi developed in this context as seeing --- --- not eating --- --- the Eucharistic Bread became the focus of devotion and blessing in the thirteenth century (Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year [1990], 169 --- 74). Somehow, the Anglo-Catholic revival, which brought so much renewal to so many areas of Anglican tradition, latched on to this medieval development that was unknown to the early church: Masses where Communion would not be received by anyone but the celebrant. On Sunday, May 5, 1965, Saint Mary's new rector, Father Donald Garfield (1924 --- 1996; rector 1965 --- 1978) offered communion to everyone at the main Sunday service, Solemn Mass, for the first time. It marked a new beginning of our common life and witness.

FROM FATHER SMITH: GOD'S GRANDEUR

Last week, Father Matthew Jacobson and I attended a conference at Fordham University, Lincoln Center. The conference was organized by the university's Orthodox Studies Center, and its topic was a grand and unabashedly theological one, "Faith, Reason, and Theosis." Theosis is a Greek word, sometimes translated as "deification," or "divinization." The word refers to an ancient teaching concerning the nature, and possibilities of, the Christian life. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) defined theosis in this way, "Deification is the attaining of likeness to God and union with him so far as possible" (Exhortation to the Greeks I.3).

FROM THE RECTOR: NEW UNDERSTANDING

The title page of my copy of Prayer Book Studies 29: Introducing the Draft Proposed Book: A Study of the Significance of the Draft Proposed Book of Common Prayer for the Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of the Episcopal Church (1976) has my signature and a date: 1977. It's by Charles P. Price (1920 --- 1999), a priest of the church, chairman of the Standing Liturgical Commission's Theological Committee, and professor of theology at the Virginia Theological Seminary.

FROM BROTHER DAMIEN SSF: CHAPTER IN ARIZONA

Last week, Brother Thomas and I joined the other brothers of the Society of Saint Francis in the Province of the Americas for our annual Chapter in Scottsdale, Arizona. "Chapter" is the decision-making body of the community, or it is a meeting of that body.