I receive this medal with thanks, personally and on behalf of the generations of dedicated vestry who founded and nurtured the Parish.
Our Parish history is replete with examples of daring, of vision, and of stalwart determination. That daring, that vision, and that determination are deep in the DNA of this Parish.
We think of the vision of the twenty-three original parishioners who first established St. Thomas in a rented room, and who went on to build the first Church building on Houston Street, then the northern fringe of populated Manhattan. We think also of the vision and daring of the Parish and its rector, Dr. Morgan, to build a new church on 53rd Street, which in 1867 was described as being “in the country”.
We are reminded of the determination evidenced when the Parish re-grouped and re-built when our first Houston Street church burned in 1851, and again when our first church building on 53rd Street burned to the ground in 1905.
We think of the Parish’s vision in establishing and building its choir school, and then the determination to rebuild it and then to rebuild it again.
That vision and that determination continues to the present, and is distilled in our unique evangelism. At St. Thomas the beauty of the Gospel is made evident to people from the city, and around the world. Evangelism is expressed here in our preaching and teaching. in our liturgy, and in the incomparable beauty of our architecture and our music.
I am put in mind tonight of the words of St. Paul… “seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight… and run with patience the race that is set before us.”
As we carry forward our traditions of vision, daring and determination, I know that the best days for the Parish are the days that lie ahead.
God bless St. Thomas Church!
