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A WORD FROM THE RECTOR
Greetings in the
Name of our Lord, Jesus Christ!
By the time you read this a conference of
Anglican clergy and lay people held in
There are elements within the
Church at both ends of the theological spectrum on many issues. Labels are being thrown between camps, labels
like “revisionist,” “orthodox,” “fundamentalist,” etc. The labels themselves bespeak of our need to
remind ourselves always that, in St. Paul’s words, “There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call, one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all
and through all and in all” (Eph. 4.3-6).
When we are tempted to use labels we also need to remind ourselves that,
as written as early as the first century (in the letter of the martyr St.
Ignatius of
The use of labels is also
redolent of the possession of agendas.
Whatever change any party may seek in the Church and/or in the practice
of the the faith, and whatever the merits of any
agenda, it is important to “keep the main thing the main thing”: We are called to be Christ-centered,
not focused on any agenda or driven by any issue. When we are Christ-centered we participate in
one Body by one Spirit, and then our only “agenda” is to do the Lord’s will.
To do the Lord’s will we have
to listen more and speak less. We
need to be attentive. In the stories of
Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel and Isaiah in the Old Testament, and Ananias in Acts
9, each time God calls the response of His servant is “Here I am”. This phrase “Here I am,” is one word in
Hebrew, hineni, and it indicates readiness,
alertness, attentiveness, receptivity, and responsiveness to instructions. In other words, it indicates that the prophet
or disciple is available to God because he is listening to God, and available
to God’s will because when he hears it his concern is to do it, not to debate
it. As a Church, as a diocese, as a
parish, and as clergy and people, our call is to seek God’s will and to do it,
and when we speak loudest in favor of our own position or agenda, when we claim
a prophetic voice for ourselves, our own voice can prevent us from listening
and hearing.
So let us each focus on
listening first, then on hearing (internalizing the message), before we can
claim to speak to say how we are to live God’s will. When we center our lives and worship on Jesus
Christ, when we can say to our Lord “Here I am,” and in saying this make all of
ourselves available to receive and do His will, then the words we use will not
be labels but may in fact contain wisdom; wisdom that will allow us to remember
and live that as “Christians”–as those centered on Christ–our call in all times
(good and bad) is to be faithful.
Call for a Verger:
In the Episcopal Church the ministry of a verger involves insuring that
the liturgy of worship is conducted as it should be. A verger is a common minister in a cathedral
or larger parish, where he or she is a busy person on a Sunday morning, making
sure that the acolyte(s) are present, vested, and ready; that the procession is
assembled in a timely fashion; that there is a lector and a lay eucharistic minister present; that
ushers are in place, etc. The ministry
involves making the liturgy transparent, so that we can focus on the worship of
God.
In one sense this parish is
small enough that a verger may seem superfluous, but I wish to explore
commissioning this ministry, so that on a Sunday I can be available for Adult
Education, personal meetings with parishioners, etc. We have a splendid new facility that we can
use for Adult Education, but I cannot contemplate a focused class on a Sunday
morning if all details of the liturgy are left to the rector. I therefore will explore with the Vestry
whether we should have a member of the parish function as a verger.
If you are interested, let’s
talk. To be a verger means that you need
to be committed to be at all Sunday worship services, plus extraordinary
services (e.g., the Easter Vigil or a funeral). You will need to be detail-oriented as well
as people-oriented, to make sure that we all know what needs to happen, and
that what needs to happen will be organized by you but not done by you. Training is available through the Diocese.
The decision on how to
proceed, and who the right candidate may be, will be a decision taken with the
Vestry, with discussion scheduled for 21 July.
If you are interested and believe you may be called to this ministry,
please discuss the details with me before that date.
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Men’s Fellowship:
The Men’s Fellowship will meet on Monday, 14 July, at 6:30 p.m., at the guest house next to Kyle &
Grace Notes
Holy
Days: The Church calendar prescribes an optional special
observance for Independence Day. An
observance was first proposed in the draft Prayer Book of 1786, but General
Convention in 1789 voted this down, based in large part on the intervention of
Bishop William White (Pennsylvania), who argued such an observance to be
inappropriate in a church in which the majority of clergy had been loyal to the
British crown throughout the War of Independence. The Fourth of July was not included in the
church calendar until the 1928 Prayer Book.
On 11 July, Benedict of Nursia is remembered.
Benedict was a sixth century abbot who is considered to be the father of
western monasticism. The Benedictine
Rule for monks and nuns is observed in all of the monastic orders of the
Anglican tradition. Bishop William White
is remembered on 17 July, as the chief architect of the constitution of the
Episcopal Church. At the first general
Convention of 1789, Bp. White was the first Presiding Bishop.
Other notable observances in
July include those for prominent abolitionists on 20 and 30 July, Mary
Magdalene (July 22), St. James the Apostle (“James the Greater,” brother of
John), and William Reed Huntington on 27 July.
William Reed Huntington was
the sixth rector of Grace Church, New York City. He worked tirelessly from the mid nineteenth
century until the even of World War I to promote Christian unity, and was
responsible (largely through his 1870 book The Church Idea) for
promoting Anglicanism as a “middle way” around which Christians could come
together.
(1) The Holy Scriptures of the
Old and New testament as the revealed word of God;
(2) The Nicene Creed as the
sufficient statement of the Christian Faith;
(3) The two Sacraments–Baptism
and the Supper of the Lord,–ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of
institution and of the elements ordained by Him; and
(4) The Historic Episcopate,
locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of
the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.
Each one of the saints we remember has much to teach us. If you are interested in more information
about the life and witness of these spiritual giants, a good source can be
found in the hagiographies written by James Kiefer, which can be found at the
Daily Office website maintained by the Mission of St. Clare,
http://www.missionstclare.com/english.
Music Now that we are blessed with having an
organist every week (alternating between Sarah Pogue and Ben Orr), we are not limited to the hymns found in the Digital
Hymnal. This means that we will begin to
include hymns which may be old favorites, but which have not been used here in
some time. At the same time, we are also
including hymns from With One Voice, introducing these as choir
anthems. Every Sunday now there will be
a choir rehearsal at 9:30 a.m. Please
consider, seriously, how you can make a joyful noise to the Lord, as we work to
build our music ministry. You don’t need
to be able to read music. All hymns will
be rehearsed in parts as necessary.
The month begins with a very
old hymn, no. 516, Come down, O Love divine, from Bianco
da Siena (d. 1434), set to music by Ralph Vaughan
Williams, coupled with Isaac Watts’ famous Jesus shall reign wh’er the sun (no. 544), set to an English drinking
song. Other melodies this month range
from an old Irish ballad, “Slane” (in no. 482, Lord
of all hopefulness) to the high pre-Baroque of Henry Purcell, in no. 518, Christ
is made the sure foundation, which includes a 7th century Latin
prayer of praise translated by John Mason Neale (responsible for more hymns
than any other source in The Hymnal 1982).
Contrasted to well-known
melodies no. 709, Eat this bread, drink this blood (in With One Voice)
takes the form of a Taizé chant. The abbey at