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. I am very grateful to Richard for his contributions to the church and to our common life.

Richard sometimes sends us jewels out of his treasure chest of Anglican culture and history. In recent weeks, he’s e-mailed us a couple of things written by the Reverend Grieg Taber, who served as Saint Mary’s sixth rector between 1939 and April 1964. Father Taber was a prominent leader of the Anglo-Catholic movement within the Episcopal Church during that time, and he often wrote essays, not only for Saint Mary’s, but also for Anglo-Catholic organizations like the National Guild of Churchmen and the American Church Union. The purpose of these organizations was, it appears, to promote orthodox doctrine and catholic practice, to combat theological liberalism, to maintain a catholic presence in the Episcopal Church, while providing sound teaching and useful spiritual guidance. I suspect Father Taber would have supported all those efforts, but the focus of the essays of his that I’ve read is the last item in that list. He is much more a pastor than a controversialist.

Father Taber’s photograph hangs in a hallway of the rectory along with most of the parish’s other eight rectors. In the photo, he appears to me to be a stern and ascetic man, perhaps a bit forbidding. But his essays suggest something different. He has a sense of humor and a tolerant understanding of human nature. He believes that people are flawed but capable of change. He writes for churchgoers, but he is not unaware of the world beyond Saint Mary’s. He does not preach fire and brimstone, but he does write in a style that might be construed today as brusque, sometimes almost to the point of insensitivity. He means to challenge as well as comfort. He writes in short declarative sentences. He writes as a pastor called to tend his sheep, and he thinks the sheep need tending. His milieu is the Christian church in mid-century America, and he is, as far as I can tell, unconcerned with meditation, liturgical experimentation, interfaith services, or perhaps even ecumenism. He died before the Second Vatican Council had ended and well before the new Prayer Book. It seems unlikely that he anticipated the social and cultural revolutions in the last third of the twentieth century that would so transform American churches, including our own. And so, to read him is to enter a world that is both familiar as well as sharply different from our own, and because that is true, we can still learn from him.

The essay that Richard sent to us last week is a piece that Father Taber wrote in 1961 for the American Church Union entitled surprisingly, at least to me, “Cheerfulness: The Safeguard of Spiritual Health.” “Cheerfulness” is not, I think, a word much heard in either the media or the pulpit these days. Indeed, the usage of the word has declined steadily in both American and British English over the past 200 years. By the year 2000, it was not much used at all, though in 1960 it was not particularly common either. So, what was Father Taber getting at?

To me, “cheerfulness” is something rather superficial, a Disneyfied sort of thing. It is a “whistle-while-you-work” emotion, something quite different from joy, happiness, blessedness, tranquility, or peace. But for Father Taber it is a very particular emotion, the potential for which is conferred at baptism, a gift that unites us to Jesus Christ, “for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising its shame” (Hebrews 12:2). The cross, therefore, is not meant to trigger sorrow or grief. It is a sign of victory that inspires joy, yes, but for Father Taber this is a kind of workaday joy, perhaps a bit prosaic, but it is joy for the long haul, nothing rare or uncommon, and it is certainly not the ecstasies of the mystic. Arguing for the importance of cheerfulness, Father Taber advises his readers to avoid those who are relentlessly negative—he calls them “Calamity Janes”; to focus on blessing and not just on defeat; to seek out and foster relationships that support and encourage; and to resist the temptation to wallow in guilt or surrender to fear. He writes,

We must not resent temptation. We must not resent our human limitations. Rather we must gladly accept these as God’s will, since everything is the will of God except sin. That is our will! Even when we fall on the battlefield of life by committing sin, we should cheerfully get up and go on toward the next fight, seeking further grace from God for a new victory. It is not falling on the battlefield that is so bad, but rather staying down. We owe it to God to be cheerful. We owe it to ourselves as precious in His eyes to be cheerful. We owe it to those with whom we come into daily contact, since they are precious in God’s eyes, to be cheerful.

What one begins to see here is that Father Taber is writing to encourage a set of habits and a particular orientation to life. One is tempted to say that he is promoting  a kind of “positive outlook” (a phrase—and a concept?—almost unknown in 1960, but one that has become frequent in the past sixty years.) However, the banality of those words does not really do justice to Father Taber’s vision, which is rooted in a deeply biblical experience of God, the world, and human nature.

In the New Testament, there is a set of important and related Greek words that are translated in the following ways: to take heart (Acts 27:22); to be cheerful (James 5:13); to do something difficult in a cheerful manner (Acts 24:10); to give sacrificially, not stingily or grumpily, but in a cheerful manner (2 Cor 19:17); to be encouraged (Acts 27:36); and, crucially, to take heart or have courage: “But when the disciples saw [Jesus] walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out for fear. But immediately he spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart, it is I; have no fear.’” (Matthew 14:26–27; see also Matthew 9:2, Mark 6:50; John 16:33, and Acts 23:11). Taken together, these verses suggest an attitude towards life, founded on faith, that seeks the good and refuses to surrender easily either to evil or to despair. On some deep level, the model for this is to be found in Jesus’ passion, some of which, in Luke’s version, we will hear at Mass this coming Sunday. It is the acquired habit of seeing blessing veiled and hidden within or beyond the hardest of circumstances. It is the grace-inspired ability to believe in resurrection in the face of death, that last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). It is euthymia, the well-ordered will, wish, inclination, desire, or passion that has been oriented to the good, even to the “positive.” And it is, sometimes, that light, bright emotion called “cheerfulness.”

Father Taber wrote at a different time than our own, and it is true that sometimes he seems to miss things that we regard as important. In this essay at least, he overlooks the fact that those suffering from depression, anxiety, or compulsion are not heartened by a species of cheerfulness that refuses to listen. The grieving widow is not strengthened by platitudes designed to short-circuit grief. Those in need—physical, mental, or spiritual—are not aided by panaceas like “have a good attitude” or “you should just move on.” Still, he has lived through the Great Influenza Epidemic, the Great Depression, two World Wars, and he has led a beautiful parish where financial difficulties never quite manage to disappear. And yet, he argues for “cheerfulness.” We should respect him enough to take him at his word, but, in the end, I think what he is really talking about is a life with hope at its center.

Michael Gerson, who was President George W. Bush’s speechwriter and then a columnist for the Washington Post, died yesterday of cancer at the age of fifty-eight. Gerson struggled for much of his life with the malady of depression. In 2019, Gerson, a moderate evangelical Christian, delivered a sermon at the National Cathedral in which he spoke honestly about his depression, the battle against meaninglessness, and the search for hope. It is a beautiful thing to read. He writes,

At [the bottom of my recent depression], realism seemed to require hopelessness. But then you reach your breaking point—and do not break. With patience and the right medicine, the fog in your brain begins to thin. If you are lucky, as I was, you encounter doctors and nurses who know parts of your mind better than you do. There are friends who run into the burning building of your life to rescue you, and acquaintances who become friends. You meet other patients, from entirely different backgrounds, who share your symptoms, creating a community of the wounded. And you learn of the valor they show in lonely rooms. Over time, you begin to see hints and glimmers of a larger world outside the prison of your sadness. The conscious mind takes hold of some shred of beauty or love. And then more shreds, until you begin to think maybe, just maybe, there is something better on the far side of despair.

In nine days, we begin the season of Advent, that great season of hope, a season in which time is anything but simple. We look to the past and consider Zechariah, John the Baptist, and Mary, who point to the Savior who is to come. We listen to the prophets as they consider the broken present  and passionately point toward a better future. And in the center—the One who dwells in past, present, and in the reality to come—stands the One who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, Jesus Christ, Incarnate Love, who sustains us during our Advent preparations, who celebrates with us our Christmas joy. As Michael Gerson writes,

Fate may do what it wants. But this much is settled. In our right minds, we know that love is at the heart of all things. Many, understandably, pray for a strength they do not possess. But God’s promise is somewhat different: That even when strength fails, there is perseverance. And even when perseverance fails, there is hope. And even when hope fails, there is love. And love never fails. So how do we know this? How can anyone be so confident? Because we are Lazarus, and we live.

THE PARISH PRAYER LIST

We pray for those who are sick and for those in any need or trouble. We pray for those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries this week; for those living with drought, storm, flood, fire, and earthquake; and we pray especially for:

Gigi, David, Julie, Carole, Helga, Gina, Maria, Pat, Ava-Grace, Alejandra, Stacy, Opal, Charlotte, Greg, Eric, Carlos, Christopher, Larry, Luis, Barbara, Shalim, Greta, Liduvina, Quincy, Laverne, Andrea, Dan and the Morris Family, Abraham, Gypsy, Hardy, Margaret, Emil, Robert; Lind, deacon; Nicholas, religious; Matthew, Scott, and Rick, priests, and for the repose of the soul of Lindsey Kessler.

We give thanks for God’s many blessings, especially for the gifts of life; of abundance; of prayer; of music, art, and beauty; of this parish community; and for the many volunteers—both members and friends of this parish—who gave of their time this week in support of this parish’s ministries.

THIS WEEK AT SAINT MARY’S

Sunday, November 20, The Last after Pentecost (Proper 29C), Adult Education 9:30 AM in Saint Benedict’s Study in the Parish House; Solemn Mass 11:00 AM. The readings at the Solemn Mass are Jeremiah 23:1–6, Psalm 46:1-8, Colossians 1:11–20, and Luke 23:35–43. Father Wood will preach. The Saint Mary’s Book Club meets in Saint Benedict’s Study at 12:45 PM.

Commemorations this week: Sunday, November 20, The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King (Proper 29C). During the Prayers of the People on Sunday we will commemorate Edmund, King of East Anglia and Martyr, 870; Wednesday, November 23, Clement, Bishop of Rome, c. 100; Wednesday, November 23, Eve of Thanksgiving Day; Thursday, November 24, Thanksgiving Day, Federal Holiday Schedule; Friday, November 25, James Otis Sargent Huntington, Priest and Monk, 1935; Sunday, November 27, The First Sunday of Advent.

AROUND THE PARISH

On Wednesday, November 23, The Eve of Thanksgiving Day, Sung Mass will be celebrated at 6:00 PM in the church. Father Sammy will preach. Thanksgiving Day, Mass will be celebrated at 10:00 AM in the Lady Chapel. Please note earlier time. We will be experimenting with this earlier time on other Federal holidays. We hope to encourage increased attendance at Mass on those days.

This coming Sunday, November 20, is the last Sunday of the church year. The following Sunday, November 27, the First Sunday of Advent, a sober time of preparation for Christmas, during which the readings at Mass and at the Daily Office are appropriate for this time of attentive, even joyful, expectation. The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the church year. The Eucharistic Lectionary will be Year A (BCP 889) and the Daily Office Lectionary will be Year One (BCP 936). Note well: at Saint Mary’s we do not use the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for the Eucharistic lectionary. We use the lectionary which appeared until recently in all Books of Common Prayer 1979. Recent editions of the Prayer Book contain the RCL. You may always access the readings on our website if you are uncertain. Any member of the clergy would be happy to help you navigate the online lectionary in order to find the desired readings.

Christmas Masses: The last Mass of Advent will be celebrated at 9:00 AM on Saturday, December 24. There will be one celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Christmas Eve: Christmas Music and Carols at 9:30 PM and Solemn Mass at 10:00 PM. On Christmas Day, a Solemn Mass will be celebrated at 11:00 AM.

Three members of the clergy will celebrate the anniversaries of their ordination to the priesthood in December: Father Sammy Wood, December 8, 2007; Father Jay Smith, December 9, 1989; and Father Peter Powell, December 18, 1976.

We are grateful to our neighbors at US Trust, who have been giving us food, some of which we are able to distribute to those in need and some of which is used by the members of the staff. We are also grateful to our friends at Morgan Stanley, under the guidance of parishioner, Clark Anderson, who have sent us very able (and bilingual!) volunteers to help us with our outreach efforts.

PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND: A DEADLINE APPROACHES

For twelve days in March 2023, Renee and I are again leading a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and to many other sites in the Holy Land. For information, please see this brochure. If you have questions, send me an email or speak with me in person on a Sunday. The deadline, December 14, is fast approaching, so I would be glad to speak to you about the pilgrimage and I would love to share these holy sites with you during Lent, as we prepare for Easter. — Father Sammy Wood

FROM THE FLOWER GUILD

Volunteers are needed for Christmas flowers and decorations. Preparations will begin on Saturday, December 17, with work continuing daily through December 24, with particular need for people of any skill level (no flower arranging happening) to help unpack deliveries, move materials into place, and hang greenery on Saturday, December 17 from morning through afternoon; Sunday, December 19 in the afternoon; and Tuesday, December 21 in the morning. Anyone interested in creating flower arrangements, of any skill level, is also welcome during the production week. Please contact Brendon Hunter if you are able to help or have any questions.

Many Sundays and feast days in 2023 are available to donate the altar flowers, including the Epiphany and Baptism of Our Lord, January 6 and 8; Sundays January 15, 22, and 29; Candlemas, February 2; Sundays February 5, 12, and 19; and the Annunciation, March 25. Please contact Chris Howatt if you would like to make a donation for one of the available dates.

ADULT EDUCATION 2022–2023

This coming Sunday, November 20, at 9:30 AM, in Saint Benedict’s Study (Parish Hall, 145 West 46th Street), Father Peter Powell will continue his series of classes on several of the so-called Deutero-Pauline Letters. This Sunday, Father Powell will continue to provide some background and give members of the class some interpretive tools for reading these letters before turning to the biblical texts themselves. This week, Father Powell plans to undertake a closer look at the Letter to the Colossians.

We hope you’ll be able to join us in Saint Benedict’s at 9:30 AM on Sunday. Coffee available. All are welcome. Questions and discussion encouraged.

Also this Sunday, November 20, at 12:45 PM, in Saint Benedict’s Study, the Saint Mary’s Book Club will discuss Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. This nonfiction book is a brilliant, compelling, and moving reflection on grief, mortality, family, marriage, motherhood, illness, and death. The book will be a fitting continuation of our November meditations on life, death, and resurrection following All Souls’ Day. And sandwiches and beverages will be provided. You are invited to join the discussion even if you haven’t read the book!

To find Saint Benedict’s Study, please enter Saint Joseph’s Hall via the entrance at 145 West 46th Street, bear right and head down the long hallway which takes you past the rest rooms, the windows, and then head toward the Sacristy. The classroom is located on your left, just short of the doors to the Smoke Room, the Control Room, and the Sacristy.

ADVENT QUIET DAY

On Saturday, December 3, Father Sammy Wood will lead a Quiet Day here at the parish. The theme of the day will be “All Things Well.” The day will begin around 9:00 or 9:30 AM, will include the Holy Eucharist, lunch in Saint Joseph’s Hall, several talks by Father Wood, and time for prayer and reflection in the church and in the Hall. If you would like to attend, please send an e-mail to the parish office.

NEIGHBORS IN NEED, SAINT MARY’S OUTREACH MINISTRY

There will be two Drop-by distributions of clothing and hygiene items in November. The first, which took place on Tuesday, November 15, was designed primarily for families with children, especially for the asylum seekers now sheltering in our neighborhood. The second will take place today, Friday, November 18, will be primarily for the guests, mostly single adults, whom we’ve served for some time now.

This two-part distribution system will allow us to prepare somewhat different items for each group and also to provide Spanish-speaking interpreters for those who have come from South and Central America, many of whom have limited English.

If you would like to ask questions about volunteering for any of our Neighbors in Need activities or if you would like to volunteer, please send us a message at neighbors@stmvnyc.org.

ABOUT THE MUSIC AT THE SOLEMN MASS ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20

This Sunday’s organ voluntaries are based upon the chorale Nun danket alle Gott (“Now thank we all our God”). Both prelude and postlude are by German composers, but they are two centuries apart in origin. The chorale itself, now sung internationally and interdenominationally, was authored in 1630 by Martin Rinckart (1586–1649), archdeacon in Eilenburg, Saxony. Johann Crüger (1598–1662) is credited with composing the melody for Rinckart’s words which appeared in the 1647 third edition of his Praxis Pietatis Melica. This text and melody combination, in English translation by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878), has been in Episcopal hymnals since 1871. The prelude by J. S. Bach is one of his Leipzig Eighteen Great Chorales. Each phrase of the melody is introduced in turn by three accompanying voices before being presented in unornamented form in the soprano register. The postlude, from Sigfrid Karg-Elert’s Choral Improvisationen, Opus 65, is one of the composer’s most popular organ pieces. It is subtitled Marche triomphale and marked Pomposo e con brio. The chorale melody is not stated literally and is not immediately conspicuous, but a spirit of exuberance and joy is clearly present in the opening and final sections of this setting.

The musical setting of the Mass on Sunday is the Missa Simile est regnum caelorum of Tomás Luís de Victoria (c. 1548–1611). Victoria is considered the most important Spanish composer of Renaissance polyphony. Born in Avila, the seventh of eleven children, he began his musical education as a choirboy at Avila Cathedral and began his classical education at San Gil, a Jesuit school for boys founded in 1554. By 1565, Victoria had entered the Jesuit Collegio Germanico in Rome, where he was later engaged to teach music and eventually named maestro di cappella. Victoria knew and may have been instructed by Palestrina (1525–1594) who was maestro di cappella of the nearby Seminario Romano at that time. During his years in Rome, Victoria held several positions as singer, organist, and choral master and published many of his compositions. He was ordained priest in 1575 after a three-day diaconate. There are twenty authenticated Mass settings of Victoria in addition to two Requiems. The Missa Simile est regnum is one of Victoria’s twelve parody Masses in which he quotes musical ideas from pre-existing musical composition. In this case, Victoria’s musical quotes are from a motet by his friend and contemporary, Francisco Guerrero (1528–1599). Guerrero’s motet on Matthew 20:1–4 likens the Kingdom of God to a landowner justly hiring laborers for his vineyard. Victoria’s Mass skillfully reutilizes distinctive melodic features of Guerrero’s motet, such as the rising perfect fifth which begins most of its movements. With the exception of the Benedictus in three voices, Victoria’s Mass, like Guerrero’s motet, is voiced in four parts. However, the final Agnus Dei spectacularly employs two choirs of four voices each which sing in strict canon.

Clifford Maxwell (1917–1999), a native of Barbados, grew up in Brooklyn and was very active in the New York community of church musicians for many years. He served various Episcopal and Lutheran congregations in Brooklyn and Manhattan as organist and choirmaster for decades and spent several summers traveling and studying in France and Germany. In retirement he was active as a volunteer in Trinity Parish’s noonday music ministry. He composed his setting of two stanzas from George Hugh Bourne’s powerful hymn Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (307 in The Hymnal 1982) in 1949 while under the tutelage of Harold Friedell at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Manhattan. Maxwell’s setting, which will be sung on Sunday during the administration of Communion, is more reflective than triumphal in responding musically to the image of the risen enthroned Christ.

COMING UP

Sunday, November 27, The First Sunday of Advent.

Saturday, December 3, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Advent Quiet Day, led by Father Sammy Wood.

Saturday, December 3, Special Convention to Elect a Bishop Coadjutor for the Diocese of New York, Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

Thursday, December 8, The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mass 12:10 PM, Organ Recital 5:30 PM, Solemn Mass 6:00 PM.

Sunday, December 11, Third Sunday of Advent, Solemn Mass 11:00 AM. A Service of Lessons and Carols will comprise the Liturgy of the Word at the Solemn Mass.

CONCERTS AT SAINT MARY’S

On Saturday, December 3, 2022, The New York Repertory Orchestra (NYRO) will play an all-Wagner Concert:  Das Rheingold, Entry of the Gods into Valhalla and Die Walküre, Act I (complete). David Leibowitz, music director; Sarah Cambidge, soprano, and Kyle van Schoonhoven, tenor. Saint Mary’s parishioner Mark Risinger, bass, will also sing at this concert.

There is no charge for admission to NYRO concerts. However, a $15.00 donation will be much appreciated.

This edition of the Angelus was written and edited by Father Jay Smith, except as noted. Father Matt Jacobson also edits the newsletter and is responsible for formatting and posting it on the parish website and distributing it via mail and e-mail, with the assistance of Christopher Howatt, parish administrator, and parish volunteer, Clint Best.