News from the Congregation December 3, 2021

Dec 3

Written By Steven Lee; Marsha Ra & Bob Deming

‘Thanks and Praise for the Stewardship sponsored Coffee Hour’; ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ | Volunteer at CCC’s Sunday Soup Kitchen | Sunday Programs: 8:30 am Genesis Bible Study (Zoom), 10:30 am Worship Service - In-Person and Online, Virtual Coffee Hour |Weekday Programs: M-S Morning and Evening Prayer (Zoom), Wednesday: 7:30 pm Romans Bible Study (Zoom), Thursday: 7:30 YESS Bible Study (Zoom)

Canon Lee

Last Sunday, the Congregation's Stewardship and Communications committee hosted the first coffee hour in the Cathedral since March 2020. I want to thank Christopher Clowdus, Sharné Jackson, Scott Klein, Oliver Mahrdt, and Karl Taps for their excellent work. I also want to thank Laura Freseman, a member of the Congregation's Admin Team, and Marsha Ra, our Senior Warden, for their help.

This week, the Cathedral clergy and staff have hosted several European members of the religious community Chemin Neuf. It has been a whirlwind few days, full of long and intense planning meetings, as the intentional community project, developed under the vision and leadership of Sub Dean Malloy, takes shape.

This Sunday, the Congregation will have a chance to extend its hospitality to one of our guests, Sister Hannah Spiers. Currently living in Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille, France, Sister Hannah is a member of the Church of England, a lay religious, and a presumptive member of the first Chemin Neuf cohort at the Cathedral. I look forward to joining you in warmly welcoming her to our community.

A Message from the Wardens

Senior Warden Marsha Ra on Advent:

49 years ago I experienced my very first Advent. I didn’t have a clue what Advent was. In the late afternoon I attended a service of Lessons and Carols and remember the whole congregation (which was rather small in those days) joining in a procession with stops in various bays. I don’t know why we were marching around and this practice was never repeated. However, at the end of the service, the choir boys handed out apples. As I remember it, scaffolding had just been erected to repair problems with the dome.

I had been coming to the Cathedral for a little over a month, having been drawn by an overwhelming need to worship God. While the liturgy filled this need, there was also a distinct loneliness. I hadn’t come for community, but it is apparent, looking back, that I really needed it. To be a believer in the late 20th century was lonely enough. Worshipping with strangers and then returning home to my very secular world—I remember clearly the sad feelings I had as I walked down Amsterdam Avenue. Ushers were always friendly. The new dean had noticed me and had asked me to read. Still, instead of feeling joyful as I left church, I would experience anxiety and was actually a little miserable. I was very much an outsider, not yet baptized, and decidedly a “stranger in the land of Egypt.” Gradually these feelings abated as Dean Morton began to build up a community at the Cathedral. I was baptized, could receive Communion, and I became an acolyte. Thursday mornings there was the weekly early mass, the dean’s mass, followed by breakfast in Cathedral House. Connections were made, friendships followed. Community thrived.

I’m afraid feelings of loneliness returned to a certain extent when in-church services began in September. Why? Much like my very early experiences, we have been praying together and then just going home. There is a joke that Coffee Hour is actually a sacrament in the Episcopal Church. I think that is a profound truth. A community is built around food. Last Sunday the Stewardship Committee put on a glorious coffee hour. The back of the nave was filled with people chatting and laughing and getting to know one another again. Members who had moved away from New York were there as well as a good number of new comers and visitors. It was so exciting to talk to new people, to share the space with them and hear their stories. Was it the coffee? The cookies? The presence of a table with people behind it being friendly? I don’t know, but it was wonderful. Evidence of a community healing from the long exile could also be found in the toy drive box which was filled to overflowing. I’m no Polly Anna. I know that community can also lead to discord and arguments. But this community, the Body of Christ, must always move away from discord and focus on building each other up. Sunday after Sunday we stand next to one another praying and singing with a single collective breath straining to see and hear God, sharing His Body—all of our senses focused in the same upward direction. Then we grab a cup of coffee, chat, welcome the stranger and strain to find Christ in one another.

Happy Advent!

NEWS FROM THE CATHEDRAL - Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (stjohndivine.org)

NEWS FROM THE DIOCESE Home - Episcopal Diocese of New York (dioceseny.org)

NEWS FROM THE VESTRY

GIVE/SERVE

Questions about Realm
Christopher Clowdus and Neil Reilly invite your questions about Realm, the Congregation's giving database, at this email address: stewardship@saintsaviour.org.

CCC - Volunteer Opportunity at Sunday Soup Kitchen
Join us at CCC's Sunday Soup Kitchen (8:30 am - 11:00 am) to help prepare and distribute food and to staff Saint Saviour's Table. Please CLICK HERE to sign up! Shifts are open through the third week in February. Thank you so much for volunteering!