FROM DEACON ALDEN FOSSETT

Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides. (Psalm 26:8)

Dear People of God at Saint Mary’s,

Grace and peace to you from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The last few weeks of my life have been filled with significant moments of transition, including my graduation from Yale Divinity School, being ordained to the diaconate, and moving back to Massachusetts. There is still more change on the horizon as I will begin my new job as curate at Saint Paul’s Brookline in a couple of weeks. In this season of beginnings and endings, Psalm 26:8 has been an anchor for me, and it makes me think of you and of the interior of the church. For it was with you in that place that I was blessed enough to encounter God’s glory during worship over the past two years.

When I first reached out to the clergy here about feeling called to Saint Mary’s for my field education placement, I knew that I wanted to grow in liturgical leadership and be shaped by this community’s great attentiveness to worship. As I think about my time as your seminarian, I see the ways that I was also being formed to boldly proclaim the saving work of God in my heart and my life through the Sacraments. Learning how to serve at the altar has instilled in me a more profound reverence for the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the great treasure of liturgy. I will miss the smells, the sounds, the sights, and the feeling of Solemn Mass, but my time with you has given me new confidence to say that I love the house where the Lord dwells and the place where the Lord’s glory abides. I rejoice that we will never be separated in the sacred duty we have as Christians to worship and adore the Blessed Trinity, not simply in our common liturgical life, but in our daily actions.

This world and this Church need your witness! Every day, Mass is celebrated here. Every day, while we are confronted with the chaos of human brokenness, the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin points with arresting clarity to the face our Lord Jesus Christ and the saving power of His Cross. Gazing up at Him, we can recognize the mercy that is flowing freely from the His pierced side. We can taste and see that the Lord is good.

I thank God for you and for your love, support, prayers, and hospitality the last two years. I will recall memories of my time here with joy. I pray that God will continue to richly bless you and your ministry to the city and to the world. Until we meet again, may Christ’s peace be with you always! — AF

PARISH PRAYERS

We pray for our sister parish, the Church of All Saints’, Margaret Street, London, and for the Scottish Episcopal Church in the Anglican cycle of prayer.

We pray for those who are preparing for ordination, especially Monica Clare, religious.

We pray for Ephrem, religious, who was recently elected the next superior at the 316th Chapter of the Order of the Holy Cross.

We pray for those who have asked us for our prayers, for Nathaniel, Riccardo, Marva, Heather, Maria, Elise, Jeff, Sara, Joe, Derick, Harley, John, Malany, Jim, Phil, Laura, Marley, Sue, Sumar, Christine, Emilie, Sharon, Monique, Cassius, Lisa, Sue, Ruth Ann, Rosemary, Holly, Becky, Bill, Grady, Chris, Violet, Pat, Allen, Nadia, Giovanna, Ronald, Jose, Ben, Russell, Robert, Sandy, Desarae, David, Tony, Jan, Carlos, Quincy, Leroy, Margaret, Bob, and Robert; James, Victoria, and Laura Katherine, religious; Lind, deacon; and Luigi, John, James, Beth, Jay, and Stephen, priests.

We pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died, especially Caroline and Louis, and for those whose year’s mind is on June 7: Lydia Ann Pancoast (1884), Sabrina Glynn Knowton (1919), Pauline Lewis Groesbeck (1950), Agnes Schuster Paltz (1950), Floranelle Waugh (1957), and Edgar Wells, Jr., priest and rector of this parish.

IN THIS TRANSITORY LIFE

We were sorry to learn of the recent death of Louis Keith Nelson (May 9, 1941 – May 19, 2026). A Requiem Mass for the repose of his soul will be offered at Saint Mary’s on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in the Lady Chapel. All are welcome. Please keep Louis and all who mourn his death in your prayers.

AROUND THE PARISH

Corpus Christi this Sunday! — Join us this Sunday, June 7, when we will celebrate Corpus Christi (which we transfer from the Thursday following Trinity Sunday). Weather permitting, we will process with the Blessed Sacrament to Times Square at the conclusion of the 11:00 AM Solemn Mass. After returning to the church, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament will be offered. Our celebration of Corpus Christi also marks the end of the program year at Saint Mary’s.

Young Saint Marians Picnic — Pack your favorite picnic blanket and join us for an afternoon in the sun! The Young Saint Marians will be having a casual afternoon picnic on Sunday, June 28. We plan to meet in the Lady Chapel immediately following the Rosary Guild after the 11:00 AM Mass and walk down to Bryant Park together, weather permitting.  Don't forget to bring your bagged lunch! Feel free to email youngstmarians@gmail.com with any questions.

Dr. Hurd’s Concert Opera — The concert opera Great Awakenings: John Henry Hobart and America, composed by our music director Dr. David Hurd, made its debut at Trinity Wall Street last Sunday, and a recording can be viewed here. Dr. Hurd discusses the project beginning around minute 27, and the opera follows. An article on the debut was published in The Living Church, and the project was also discussed in a recent podcast. Congratulations, David!

Neighbors in Need — As we enter warmer weather, you may have lost interest in your winter coat, but we have not. We can store coats until next winter—and we would love to! Please bring us your lightly-used coats and jackets. We accept all kinds of casual clothing: jackets, pants, tops and shoes, but we do not need professional clothing or children’s clothing. Thanks to many wonderful cash donations, we are able to purchase toiletries and underwear. Please speak to MaryJane Boland or Marie Rosseels for more information or send an email to neighbors@stmvnyc.org.

THE DIOCESE AND WIDER CHURCH

Ordination of Sr. Monica Clare, CSJB — Good friend of the parish and former residential member of our community, Sr. Monica Clare, CSJB, will be ordained to the priesthood on Saturday, June 20, at 10:00 AM at the Community of Saint John Baptist’s convent in Mendham, NJ. All Saint Marians are welcome to attend, but please do RSVP via email to Sr. Monica Clare, CSJB, so that the convent can prepare.

Pride at the Cathedral — The Cathedral will host a Pride Evensong service on Sunday, June 21, at 4:00 PM featuring LGBTQIA+ composers and performance by the Cathedral Community Choir. No registration required. On Pride Sunday, June 28, the celebrant at the 10:30 AM liturgy will be The Very Reverend Winnie Varghese, Dean, and the preacher will be The Reverend Paul Raushenbush.

Cocktail gathering for Episcopal Charities’ feeding programs — In celebration of their work and partnerships with food access programs and local farmers, join Episcopal Charities for a cocktail gathering on Wednesday, June 24, 6:30 to 8:30 PM, at Inside Park at St. Bart’s (325 Park Avenue). Learn about Episcopal Charities’ feeding programs and partnerships with nearly 50 food access programs across the 10 counties. Tickets for this celebration are $125 each and can be purchased online via GiveSmart. For $250, you can purchase a ticket for yourself and sponsor a ticket for one of the program partners. If you can’t attend, you can also make a donation to Episcopal Charities and support their work.

ABOUT THE MUSIC ON CORPUS CHRISTI

The organ prelude this Sunday is a chorale prelude on Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness) by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The chorale itself is found in the “Holy Eucharist” section of The Hymnal 1982 at #339 with a harmonization by Johann Cruger (1598–1662) and will be sung as today’s offertory hymn. This Eucharistic hymn by Johann Franck (1618–1677) appeared as a single stanza in Cruger’s Geistliche Kirchen-Melodien, published in Berlin in 1649. It has been sung widely in English translation by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878) and entered the Episcopal hymnal in 1940 having previously appeared in The English Hymnal, 1906. Bach’s organ setting of the Cruger chorale is an expression of serene spiritual confidence. Found within the “Great Eighteen” Leipzig chorales of Bach’s mature period, this setting features the chorale melody, in an elegantly but simply ornamented form, singing above the bass line and two accompanying voices.

The Introit on Sunday is William Byrd’s setting for four voices of the antiphon Cibavit eos. This antiphon and its customary companion verse are derived from Psalm 81, verses 16 and 1 respectively. Byrd’s setting, published in his 1605 Gradualia I, is structured to be the Introit for the Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ; the antiphon is followed in turn by the verse in a reduced voicing, Gloria Patri, and finally a repetition of the antiphon.

The setting of the Mass is Mass for Five Voices by William Byrd. Byrd composed settings of the Latin Mass for three, four and five voices. The Mass for Five Voices probably dates from about 1594 and was the last of the three to be composed. Its voicing is the most expansive, having two tenor parts, but its movements are the most concise of the three Byrd Masses. The whole business of Latin Masses in post-Reformation England needed to be a somewhat clandestine matter to protect those involved from the possibility of arrest. This being the case, Byrd’s part books were undated and without title page or preface, nor was the printer (Thomas East) identified. Fortunately, Byrd’s settings survived the period in which their performance—if not their very existence—was illegal, and now they rightly are regarded as great treasures of Western music. Composed with the Continental Tridentine liturgy in mind, Byrd’s Masses were also influenced by pre-Reformation works of English masters John Taverner (c. 1490–1545), Christopher Tye (c. 1505–c. 1573), John Sheppard (c. 1515–1558) and Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585). The several movements of Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices are linked by recurring freely composed themes.

The communion Motet is a four-voice setting of O Sacrum convivium by William Byrd. The text O sacrum convivium, often attributed to the theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), found a home in the Roman liturgical cycle as the antiphon for Magnificat at second Vespers of Corpus Christi, but is also very much at home in any Eucharistic celebration. It has been set in Latin, as well as in vernacular translations, by distinguished composers of every generation. Byrd’s setting of O sacrum convivium is one of the most often sung settings of this classic liturgical text.

The Benediction hymn O salutaris hostia is sung to a six-voice setting by Larry Long (b.1954). Larry long is currently the organist and music director at Saint Paul’s Church, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, having previously served at the Church of the Epiphany in Manhattan. He has been especially active in Episcopal and Lutheran musical circles and has composed extensively for the liturgy. The text of this hymn, attributed to Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), is found in The Hymnal 1982 at 310 and 311. Larry Long’s unpublished setting was composed in 2022.

Click below, where you can make a one-time or recurring donation.
We are very grateful to all those who make such donations and continue to support Saint Mary’s so generously.

Saint Mary’s is a vibrant Anglo-Catholic witness in the heart of NYC. With our identity in Christ and a preference for the poor, we are an inclusive, diverse community called to love God and each other for the life of the world.

This edition of The Angelus was written and edited by Father Matt Jacobson, except as noted. Father Matt is also responsible for formatting it on the parish website and distributing it via mail and e-mail, with the assistance of parish volunteer, Clint Best. If you have an idea for an article that you would like to publish in an upcoming issue of The Angelus, Father Matt would be happy to discuss it with you.