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.

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!