News from Saint Thomas Church for April 26, 2020

The Paschal Candle in front of the reredos

In this week’s news…

The Rector’s Message
An Easter Meditation
Thursday Evening Prayer and Meditation
St. George’s Society Initiative
Sunday’s Virtual Coffee Hour
Children and Families’ Zoom gathering
This Week’s Service

The Rector’s Message

Rector Turner — The Reverend Canon Carl Turner

Dear Friends,

I have invited Fr. Moretz, our Associate Rector, to write to you this week. I am grateful for the many messages of support and encouragement that my colleagues and I are receiving. In particular, as we reach out to those in need – please let us know of anyone who needs practical help. April 23 is St. George’s Day and, as the St. George’s Society is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, we share a little project of that society to support elders.

Here are some music notes for Sunday:

This Sunday’s Eucharist, again, includes music that you can join in; those who regularly attend the 9am Sung Eucharist will enjoy the chance to sing Healey Willan’s congregational setting of the mass. Healey Willan was born in England in 1880 and was admitted as an Associate of the Royal College of Organists at the age of 17. He became a Fellow at the age of 19. After a short period as an organist in London, he emigrated to Canada in 1913 where he remained for the rest of his life. The mass setting Missa de Sancta Magdalena remains a ‘war-horse’ of Episcopalian repertoire which he composed in 1928.

Willan was Head of the Theory Department of the Toronto Conservatory of Music and Vice-Principal 1920-1936. From 1921 until his death in 1968, he was Precentor of the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Toronto, which became a magnet for church musicians. He was appointed Lecturer and Examiner for the University of Toronto in 1914 and in 1937 became Professor of Music, a position he held until his retirement in 1950. In 1953 he was asked to write an anthem for the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II titled, ‘O Lord our Governour’. in 1956 he received the Lambeth Doctorate in Music from Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A pious Anglo-Catholic, Willan was humorously described by his colleague Robert Hunter Bell as “English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption!”

In addition, we will sing the Easter Anthems to Anglican Chant, a little bit of plainsong, and Nicolas Haig will play music of J.S. Bach, and Buxtehude. Many of you commented on the insertion of archival recordings and we will hear our Choir of Men and Boys sing two anthems by Palestrina and Tallis.

Dr. Filsell and I are happy to receive requests for congregational music and hymnody, though not everything works with just a handful of us in Church and the organ.

Happy Easter to you all,

Carl,
your priest and pastor.

An Easter Meditation

Easter is like Yellowstone National Park in that there is no way you can experience it properly in two or three weeks, let alone on a single Sunday. And like that park with its geysers, canyons, and glorious hikes in the Great Outdoors, Easter is full of breathtaking sites, vistas, and experiences, each one worth the price of admission, so to speak. A good deal of Easter happens outdoors: among the tombs, by the seashore, on the road. But, during this time when travel is out of the question, and sheltering at home is our vital contribution to the current health crisis, I find my thoughts consistently returning to one set of the Easter stories that happen indoors, specifically the ones in the Upper Room, or, to use a more evocative word derived from the Vulgate, the Cenacle.

“Cenacle” essentially means the dining room, and this refers to its having been the location of the Last Supper, along with the washing of the disciples’ feet, at the close of Jesus’ earthly ministry. But this dining room and meeting place for Jesus’ disciples was also one of the places where Jesus’ risen ministry began. He appeared to all of the disciples on a Sunday, save Thomas. And then made another appearance the following Sunday for our patron Thomas’ sake. It would also be the same room where the Holy Spirit would fly through the windows and descend upon so many at Pentecost, beginning the flame of a new age.

It is mind-bending to think about how one place, just one room, could be the stage for so many emblematic moments in the great drama of our Easter faith. The Cenacle both framed and staged Easter, hosting the Before, the After, and the Event itself. Just one room for the Last Supper, Easter and Pentecost? Was it a room, or a hall? There is no way of knowing, since no trace of it remains (the present site now in Jerusalem was built sometime between 1100-1350). No matter the size, I feel like any normal room should collapse under the weight of such immense gravity. And yet, the Cenacle was able enough.

It may have been a sturdy room, but this room was in no way a shelter, at least from God bursting inside. As John’s Gospel tells us in the twentieth chapter, after Jesus’ death the disciples, despite their grief, continued to meet in the Cenacle. They locked the doors in fear of being arrested and then being killed like their dear Jesus had been. The locked doors were an outward and visible sign of their bone-chilling fear. Despite these protective measures, God personally made his way into the disciples locked room, breezing past the doors to unlock the meaning of their lives: nothing less than to be at peace and to forgive sins.

Thanks to the Cenacle, we can begin to grasp how very much God can do indoors. And for we who are now sheltering in our rooms (like the disciples, in prudent fear) with our own various dining tables, we would do well to dwell on how very much God can do with even one room. Like the most extraordinary Upper Room, each of our homes will prove to be the stage for a significant and wide-ranging spiritual drama as we make our way through this crisis, perhaps without really moving much at all. Whether singly or with others, our homes will prove to contain the Before, the During, and the After, the full scope of our various walks with each other and with God. It will be an interior journey, in many cases, hidden from the surface.

Whether God makes it to you through the window, through the phone, or through the screen of your computer, God will make it to you. We may be separated from one another, at least physically, in our various rooms. We may feel separated from our own lives, at least how we expected them to be, locked away from them by circumstance. But no four walls can stop our prayers! No closed door can lock out the many creative ways we can reach out in love to each other. And we are never separated from God, that most inventive of Locksmiths! For in every room that receives Him, as at the first Easter, God’s coming will unleash both peace and forgiveness, unlocking the doors to our rooms and to our hearts, releasing us for these holy purposes in both the During and the After.
I close with an expressive little prayer-poem by George Herbert from 1633 that has given me some measure of resolve in this time that demands so much of us.

Bitter-sweet

Ah my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.

In the name of the Risen Christ,

Fr. Matthew Moretz

Evening Prayer and Meditation

Thursdays at 6:30pm via Zoom

Saint Thomas Church has begun a regular 6:30pm Thursday service of Evening Prayer and Meditation that you can join online, led by Fr. Adam Spencer, Associate for Pastoral Care, and Sr. Promise Atelon, Deacon and Seminarian. This service will take place over the Zoom platform.

Please join us for this time of peace and prayer together.

For log-in access to these worship services, please contact Fr. Spencer.

Fund a Care Package for just $40

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, St. George’s Society has been doing everything possible to support seniors during this critical time, and now more than ever we need your help.

For just $40 you can fund a care package with enough food and supplies for two weeks for our most vulnerable and isolated beneficiaries. Your generous gift will help us ensure that our seniors can remain safe in their homes with the provisions they need to survive.

“Thank you for all that you’ve done. I will not be afraid because this too shall pass. Everything I needed was in the package. Thank you for your blessings.”
~Joan, 71, Brooklyn

Sponsor A Care Package Here

“Virtual” Coffee Hour, April 26 at 12:30pm

This coming Sunday, we will continue hosting our “Virtual Coffee Hour” which will use the conferencing program “Zoom” to host a virtual meeting. This meeting will start well after the webcast of the service on Sunday, April 26 at 12:30pm and will last no longer than an hour.

It will start with a short prayer and will continue with checking in and conversation, as best we can. The pacing and scope of the online gathering will very much depend on the amount of people who join in. We will continue to experiment with Breakout Rooms, which will allow for smaller groups to talk together. The hour will be moderated by Fr. Moretz and you can contact him to learn more and receive login credentials.

Please click here to learn more about Zoom, an extraordinary tool for communication and community.

I look forward to joining all of you who can make it for “Virtual” Coffee Hour this Easter Day!

Children and Families’ Sunday Zoom Gathering

In place of our regular Nursery and Sunday School gathering, we are meeting via Zoom this Sunday, April 26, at 10:15am.

If you know a child or family that would like to participate in this half hour gathering, before joining the 11am Webcast of Mass, please contact Email Mother Turner for the required invitation codes.

As we discover new ways of being a church community during in this new chapter of our lives, we will be producing an additional weekly newsletter for families Be Faithful, Be Creative and Be Connected.

If you know a family who wishes to be added to the distribution list for children and families, please also contact Mother Turner.