About Us
Summer at Saint Thomas
Just as life in the city slows down over the summer as many New Yorkers flee for the renewal that comes with time spent at the seaside and in the countryside, so too the pace of life at Saint Thomas slows in June through August. You'll notice on the calendar far fewer events, including only one Choral Service each week, Sundays at 11am, sung each week sometimes by a visting choir and other times by the Gentlemen of the Choir. You may see a Music List for Easter through Labor Day by clicking here. The boys of the Choir School, of course, are on vacation until September. [You may listen to a recording of the Graduation Ceremony here.]Yet, the core of our church life remains uninterupted, that core being to "worship, love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ." Yes, our worship services are less elaborate in summer, but we continue onward seven days a week: Morning and Evening Prayer in the Chantry each weekday, a Mass generally three times a day, and the church doors open every day for visitors who want to worship with us, or who choose to come between services to have a look or to sit and ponder and pray on their own at the altar of the Lord.
Volunteers continue to work in our Soup Kitchen each Saturday, and the Parish House reception desk remains open each weekday. Adult Education continues on Sunday mornings, but takes a summer break on weekdays. Sunday School and other youth activities resume in September. Many other activities, such as 20s-30s, 30s-40s, Senior Luncheons, Sunday Organ Recitals, and the Concert Series are also on hiatus until after Labor Day.
If you are just discovering Saint Thomas, you are welcome to join us anytime over the summer, and then please come back in the fall when the wide range of events resumes, the full staff is back from vacations, and a clearer picture of life at Saint Thomas re-emerges. In the meantime, we've kept a variety of audio webcasts available so that you can explore Saint Thomas as it is when it is full of activity. The webcast page is here.
We also encourage you to visit the parts of the website beyond the webcasts that you may have overlooked, but which are very helpful in understanding who we are, what we do, and how we worship. Some examples include:
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Did you know that the Rector (Fr Andrew Mead) and the Director of Music (John Scott) record weekly audio notes to help you understand the theology, liturgy and music of the church? Past audio files since January remain available on this website and we invite you to listen. The Rector's Messages are here; John Scott's music notes are here. The Rector's messages will continue throughout the summer. New Music Notes will return in the fall.
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The Sermon Archive is an excellent way to learn about Christianity and particularly Saint Thomas. If you are new to the faith, we invite you to explore. The archive currently has most of the Sunday sermons from the past few years, and throughout the summer we will be adding more from previous years until the archive goes back ten years. While written transcripts of all sermons are available in the archive, you will also notice that you can listen to audio files of any sermon since Christmas 2009.
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A few times a year, the Rector writes a chronicle which reviews some of the parish events of the previous few months and which looks forward to new things on the horizon. We've kept an archive of these chronicles from the past several years so that newcomers can get a sense of our parish life. You may find the archive of Rector's Chronicles here.
Enjoy the summer and we hope to see you at Saint Thomas soon.