Choral Services

We celebrate today our patron saint, Thomas, and rededicate ourselves to Christ and our mission as a parish. [We also remember Thomas on his feast day, December 21] . Our current church building was dedicated on the first Sunday in October in 1913.

The Feast of Dedication serves as the launch for the Every Member Canvass for 2012. We encourage you to pledge for 2012 during the months of October and November in 2011. You may pledge online here. Or, if you prefer, complete the card attached to the EMC Brochure and drop it in the offering plate or mail it in.

On Sunday, November 6, we will have a special EMC Coffee Hour in the Parish House, at which time we will display the "tiles" created as part of the EMC Tiles Project. Please consider participating. Even if you live outside the country and know us only via the webcasts, you can still participate and mail your paper tile to us.

Collect:

Everliving God, who didst strengthen thine apostle Thomas with sure and certain faith in thy Son’s resurrection: Grant us so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that our faith may never be found wanting in thy sight; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Priest, Translator
b. 1494
d. 1536

William Tyndale is one of many translators of the scriptures who we celebrate at this time of year. Recently, we remembered Jerome, and soon we'll remember Samuel Issac Joseph Schereschewsky and Henry Martyn.

Lesser Feasts & Fasts of the Episcopal Church (2000) summarizes William Tyndale as follows:

"Tyndale was determined to translate the Scriptures into English, but, despairing of official support, he left for Germany in 1524. From this point on, his life reads like a cloak-and-dagger story, as King Henry the Eighth, Cardinal Wolsey, and others, sought to destroy his work of translation and put him to death. He was finally betrayed by one whom he had befriended, and in Brussels, on October 6, 1536, he was strangled at the stake, and his body was burned.

William Tyndale was a man of a single passion, to translate the Bible into English; so that, as he said to a prominent Churchman, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more scripture than thou doest.” His accomplished work is his glory. Before his betrayal and death, he had finished and revised his translation of the New Testament, and had completed a translation of the Pentateuch and of Jonah and, though he did not live to see them published, of the historical books from Joshua through 2 Chronicles. His work has been called “a well of English undefiled.” Some eighty per cent of his version has survived in the language of later and more familiar versions, such as the Authorized (King James) Version of 1611."

If you prefer the Father's many mansions to his many rooms, you can thank Tyndale, and you might also enjoy Fr Austin's 2005 sermon With God, at Rest and not at Rest.

Collect:

Almighty God, who didst plant in the heart of thy servant William Tyndale a consuming passion to bring the Scriptures to people in their native tongue, and didst endow him with the gift of powerful and graceful expression and with strength to persevere against all obstacles: Reveal to us, we pray thee, thy saving Word, as we read and study the Scriptures, and hear them calling us to repentance and life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect:

Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always precede and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 23)

Bishop of Shanghai
b.May 6, 1831
d.October 15, 1906

A native of Russian Lithuania, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky went to Germany as a young man to study for the rabbinate, but there became a Christian.He emigrated to America and trained for the priesthood.

His ties to New York City are strong. After a stint in Pittsburgh, he entered the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan's West Chelsea. He received deacon's orders in St. George's Church, New York, July 7, 1859, from the first Bishop Boone, and was sent that same year to China, where he devoted himself from 1862 to 1875 to translating the Bible into Mandarin Chinese.

Returning to the United States, he received the doctorate in divinity from Kenyon in 1876, and from Columbia the following year. In 1877, he was elected Bishop of Shanghai, and he was consecrated in Grace Church, New York, by Bishops Bosworth Smith, Henry Potter, Bedell, Stevens, Kerfoot, and Lyman.

In Shanghai, he founded St John's University, and began his translation of the Bible into Wenli (another Chinese dialect). But along the way he developed Parkinson's disease, becomng mostly paralyzed. He resigned his position as Bishop of Shanghai, and spent the rest of his life completing his Wenli Bible, the last 2000 pages of which he typed with the one finger that he could still move.

Four years before his death in 1906, he said: "I have sat in this chair for over twenty years. It seemed very hard at first. But God knew best. He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted."

Collect:

O God, who in thy providence didst call Joseph Schereschewsky from his home in Eastern Europe to the ministry of this Church, and didst send him as a missionary to China, upholding him in his infirmity, that he might translate the Holy Scriptures into languages of that land: Lead us, we pray thee, to commit our lives and talents to thee, in the confidence that when thou givest unto thy servants any work to do, thou dost also supply the strength to do it; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God, who in Christ hast revealed thy glory among the nations: Preserve the works of thy mercy, that thy Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of thy Name; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 24)

Collect:

O God of the nations, who didst give to thy faithful servant Henry Martyn a brilliant mind, a loving heart, and a gift for languages, that he might translate the Scriptures and other holy writings for the peoples of India and Persia: Inspire in us, we beseech thee, a love like his, eager to commit both life and talents to thee who gavest them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and
reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 25)

King of the West Saxons
b. 849
d. 899

Collect:

O Sovereign Lord, who didst bring thy servant Alfred to a troubled throne that he might establish peace in a ravaged land and revive learning and the arts among the people: Awake in us also, we beseech thee, a keen desire to increase our understanding while we are in this world, and an eager longing to reach that endless life where all will be made clear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In 2001, the Rector gave a sermon entitled Clearing the Air on the Eve of the Feast of Saint Simon & Saint Jude.

Collect:

O God, we thank thee for the glorious company of the apostles, and especially on this day for Simon and Jude; and we pray that, as they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect:

Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may run without stumbling to obtain thy heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 26)