FROM FATHER MATT JACOBSON: ON HOLY CROSS DAY

Since Holy Cross Day, September 14, falls on a Sunday this year, the feast will be transferred to Monday the 15th. Many ancient feasts in the calendar of the Church, including Holy Cross Day, have their roots in the dedication of a church. On September 14, 335, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem—a large church complex built over the site of the Cross and Christ’s tomb—was dedicated. The origins of the feast and of this church go back even further to the year 326, when St. Helena first traveled there with her son, Constantine the Great.

FROM INGRID SLETTEN: STARTING SPIRITUAL DIRECTION, AN ONLINE CLASS

Conversations about God, with another person, trained in these conversations, is called spiritual direction. Richard Foster said direction is “simply a relationship through which one person assists another in attending to the presence and call of God in all of life.” But how does this work? “Me, talking with God?”, you might be saying. On one hand, this seems a tall order, conversing with the Divine. Yet our relationship with God is like all relationships; they begin with familiar yet intimate places of intersection.

FROM FATHER WOOD: SUMMER’S END

I’m just returning from vacation this week, and I owe a hearty “thanks!” to the staff and our amazing volunteers for all their faithful work that allowed me to take some time away. My family has had a wonderful summer, and I’m deeply grateful Saint Mary’s is the kind of parish that encourages her priests to seek restorative time away. Now it’s hard to believe summer’s almost over!

FROM CHRIS EDLING: THE STILL POINT OF THE TURNING CITY, A YEAR AT SAINT MARY THE VIRGIN

“I want to make this happen.” This is what Fr. Sammy said when, one year ago, I introduced myself at coffee hour and asked to join Saint Mary’s as a seminarian intern. It was not a small ask. As a seminarian, I’d not only be leaning on Fr. Sammy’s time as a supervisor, meeting with him several times each month. I was also asking for a kind of vocational adoption (or fostering, at least) by the Saint Mary’s family, who’d collectively take me in and nurture my clerical growth.

WHAT’S ON YOUR BOOKSHELF?

Steven Eldredge, what’s on your bookshelf?

This Homeward Ache by Amy Baik Lee (B&H Publishing Group, 2023)

How did you hear about this book?

I read about it first on Brenton Dickieson’s excellent blog: A Pilgrim in Narnia.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: ON THE TRANSFIGURATION

This past Wednesday, August 6, was the Feast of the Transfiguration, an event recounted by Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The feast was first celebrated in the east in the late fourth century and entered western monastic celebrations after the ninth century. It later became universally part of the Latin western calendar in the fifteenth century.

WHAT’S ON YOUR BOOKSHELF?

Elizabeth Wood, what’s on your bookshelf?

Why Can’t Church be More Like an AA Meeting?: And Other Questions Christians Ask About Recovery by Stephen Haynes (Eerdmans, 2021)

In my time at Rhodes College, I had the pleasure of taking two religious studies classes with Dr. Stephen Haynes. After taking “Bible and Mass Incarceration,” a course that greatly deepened my faith and understanding of myself, I knew I had to take his “Addiction, Recovery, and Spirituality” course.

FROM ALDEN FOSSETT: ALL THINGS CAN BE DONE FOR THE ONE WHO BELIEVES

I started my first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) about seven weeks ago at a hospital in Uptown New Orleans. CPE is “interfaith professional education for ministry” that “brings theological students and ministers of all faiths (pastors, priests, rabbis, imams and others) into supervised encounter with persons in crisis.”

FROM CHRIS EDLING: AN ARMENIAN PRIEST AND AN EPISCOPAL SEMINARIAN WALK INTO A ZOOM ROOM

One year ago, when I was serving as a Fulbright Scholar in Armenia, an English teacher friend at my appointed university told me there was someone I needed to meet. The teacher knew I was starting seminary in the fall and one of her adult students was Father Vardan Hayrapetyan, a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church, who was preparing for a church assignment in the USA.

FROM FATHER JOHN SHIRLEY: REFLECTING ON SAINT BENEDICT AND THE BENEDICTINES—ORA ET LABORA

When I was eleven years old, I read a book called The Door in the Wall, and in that book, a monk assisted a young boy during the English medieval period. This book captured my imagination and my heart. Oddly, it was not the life and experiences of the boy, Robin, that fascinated me, although from a literary perspective of a short book written for youth, he probably should have; rather, it was Brother Luke, the monk, and his characteristics and rhythms of life that enthralled me.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: SABBATH & LEISURE

We’ve been in New York for more than three years now, and I love it—the electricity of walking out into Times Square every morning; the overall energy of the whole city; the amazing food, art, entertainment, and opportunities. But I do still miss places I’ve lived in before. A huge part of my heart will always be in Boston, the first city this small-town Mississippi boy ever called home for an extended period of time.

FROM BROTHER THOMAS STEFFENSEN, SSF: ON HIS LIFE PROFESSION

I never meant to become a friar. If you had asked me when I was younger, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” I assure you that friar was not on my list. Growing up in the evangelical church, friars were not exactly part of my childhood landscape. So how did I end up becoming a life professed Franciscan Friar in the Episcopal Church?

FROM GRACE MUDD: I WILL GO UNTO THE ALTAR OF GOD

Before every Solemn Mass at Saint Mary’s, the servers and clergy gather in the sacristy to prepare ourselves by praying together. By 10:50 AM or so, many of us have been running around for much of the morning, taking care of practical matters, and this is our chance to refocus on why we are together in the first place. I have known the Preparation for Mass for more than 20 years and no matter where I go, I carry the same phrase (from Psalm 43) in my heart: I will go unto the altar of God, even unto the God of my joy and gladness.

FROM FATHER SAMMY WOOD: UNITY

This past Sunday we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost and commemorated the dramatic event when the Apostles “were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” (Acts 2.4) Pentecost is often linked to Babel, the story in Genesis 11 where people united to “make a name for themselves” and build a tower to heaven, but God came down and confused their language to divide and scatter them.

WHAT’S ON YOUR BOOKSHELF?

Rodney Hale, what’s on your bookshelf?

Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind by Maura O’Halloran (Thorsons Publishers, Harper-Collins, 1995)

Can you tell us a little bit about this author?

In 1979, Maura O’Halloran went to Japan at age 24 after earning degrees in mathematical economics and statistics from Trinity College Dublin. Educated by the Loretto Sisters, she was passionate about volunteer social work and meditation.

FROM THE STEWARDSHIP COMMITTEE: MIDYEAR CHECK-IN

Why am I hearing from the Stewardship Committee in June?! This isn’t stewardship season! Well, I hate to break it to you, but it’s always stewardship season. At the annual congregational meeting and in the May 18 issue of TheAngelus, Father Sammy shared a lot of numbers with the parish. Almost all of them are headed in the right direction which is just thrilling.­

FROM THE AIDS WALK TEAM: THE FORTIETH NYC AIDS WALK!

It rained most of last week, and there’s a forecast for days of rain this week, yet Sunday, May 18, the day of the 40th NYC AIDS Walk, was cool, sunny and with a brilliant blue sky that showed us puffy white clouds. We all said a prayer of thanksgiving for the glorious day.

FROM FATHER WOOD: REPORT TO THE ANNUAL MEETING

Thanks to everyone who participated in our Annual Parish Meeting on May Crowning Sunday. I start with gratitude, as in past Annual Meetings when I’ve thanked the staff, the clergy, and volunteers at length. I am indeed grateful to them all—Chris Howatt, our Parish Administrator; David Hurd, our Organist and Music Director; Father Matt Jacobson, our Associate, and Fathers Stephen Morris and John Shirley, assisting priests (I got to thank Fathers Jay Smith and Pete Powell when we celebrated their ministries among us). We are so dependent on this staff and Saint Mary’s couldn’t run without them.

WHAT’S ON YOUR BOOKSHELF?

Steven Eldrege, what’s on your bookshelf?

Almost Catholic: An Appreciation of the History, Practice & Mystery of Ancient Faith by Jon M. Sweeney (Jossey-Bass, 2008)

How did you hear about this book?

I can’t quite say, but I think it points to the idea that books talk to other books, and one book will somehow lead me to another. I am forever rooting around in book lists, and this title immediately caught my attention in that it spoke to my lifelong feeling and identity of being “almost” Catholic.

FROM FATHER JACOBSON: TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Last Sunday at Mass, we heard how “many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles.” (Acts 5:12) The Acts of the Apostles is a dynamic account of the early Church during the period just after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. It is Luke’s second volume, where he continues to tell the story of Our Lord, now manifest to the world through the body of Christ. While the New Testament contains four different Gospel accounts, there is nothing else quite like the Acts of the Apostles in scripture. It is fast-paced and exciting.