News from the Congregation January 21, 2022
‘Comprehensiveness’; ‘The Elephant and the Rider as Cathedral and Congregation’ | Giving Statements, All In-Person Worship Goes Online, Memorial Tribute for Desmond Tutu Hybrid Service, Volunteer at CCC’s Sunday Soup Kitchen, St. Saviour Annual Meeting ONLINE Feb. 6, 2022 | Sunday Programs: 8:30 am Genesis Bible Study (Zoom), 10:30 am Worship Service - Online |Weekday Programs: M-S Morning and Evening Prayer (Zoom), Wednesday: 7:30 pm Romans Bible Study (Zoom)
Canon Lee
In her memoir A Backward Glance, Edith Wharton describes the culture of "old New York":
Apart from some of the old Dutch colonial families, who continued to follow the “Dutch Reformed” rite, the New York of my youth was distinctively Episcopalian; and to this happy chance I owe my early saturation with the noble cadences of the Book of Common Prayer, and my reverence for an ordered ritual in which the officiant’s personality is strictly subordinated to the rite he performs.
In Wharton's youth, Sunday service consisted of Morning Prayer, the Great Litany, and Ante-Communion, combined without interruption. These are familiar services. We still pray Morning Prayer, and the custom at the Cathedral is to chant the Great Litany at the beginning of Advent and Lent. The Cathedral's current online service is Ante-Communion.
Over one hundred and fifty years after Edith Wharton was a child in New York, we find ourselves in the same city praying in a similar pattern. What a witness to the staying power of the liturgy of the Episcopal Church.
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But there are other, less desirable, persisting patterns in our Church. William Reed Huntington, rector of Grace Church during Edith Wharton's life, described the Episcopal Church's difficulty in widening its social reach:
We gather in the rich and the poor, but the great middle class that makes the staple and the strength of American society stands aloof.
In Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence, the main character Newland Archer is married in Grace Church. Wharton writes that “in a world where all else had reeled on its foundations the 'Grace Church wedding' remained an unchanged institution.”
Contrast this description of the Episcopal Church's success among Wharton's social peers with Huntington's description of its failure in Lowell, Massachusetts:
Nowhere in this country, for instance, has the Church had a better opportunity to show what it could do for American people than in the city of Lowell, where cotton spinning had its first large development. It was a virgin soil: the Episcopal Church, as rarely happens, was earliest on the ground: and not only so, but it enjoyed for some years the friendly protection of the proprietors of the new settlement, almost a religious monopoly... And yet notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding the patient and unintermitted toil through more than fifty years of perhaps the most laborious parish priest on the American clergy list, the Episcopal Church has to-day but a comparatively slender hold upon the affections and loyalty of the people of this largest of the manufacturing cities of New England.
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Huntington was a trustee and supporter of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. On Sunday, January 22, 1899, he preached a sermon from the Cathedral crypt, which had been completed and opened to the public just two weeks earlier. In this sermon, he spoke of a vision for the Cathedral that could equal the building's architectural ambitions:
The symbolism of a Cathedral is two-fold; as the Church of the Chair, for that is what the word Cathedral means, it stands for the principle of authority; as the Church of the whole city, it stands for the principle of comprehensiveness. It is the Bishop's Church and it is the People's Church. When this great building shall have been completed according to the design, there will radiate from the apse, in the crypt of which we are now gathered, certain chapels to be known as the Chapels of the Tongues because of their representing and, in a way, commemorating the various nationalities which have contributed to make New York the cosmopolitan city it is.
Huntington spoke of a vision for the Cathedral that broke away from the narrow confines of Wharton's "old New York." It was a vision to gather the whole breadth of the social diversity found in this city under the Cathedral's roof. It is a vision that still inspires today.
A Message from the Wardens
Bob Deming’s Final Three Reflections (Second in Series):
The location and the words themselves—Morningside Heights—are suggestive of something uplifted in the morning that might carry through the day.
That encapsulates my experience at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. I encountered the Cathedral in my late 20s and it, along with the worshiping community of the Congregation of Saint Saviour which was formed in the early 1990s, has helped me through quite a few decades of my adult life.
This Morningside Heights story takes as its origin something quite specific. I zoom in on a store with a long history. I am referring to Labyrinth Books, which was located on 112th Street mid-block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. I used to walk by regularly, but I never went in. In 2007, Book Culture took its place, and the name of the bookstore I found appealing, and I browsed and shopped there.
I discovered Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (2006) at Book Culture’s website (https://www.bookculture.com/) under staff recommendations: in this case, connected to Chris D., who is the owner. I purchased the book at Book Culture at 112th Street about a year or two ago and have thoroughly enjoyed reading and rereading it.
Haidt’s metaphor of the elephant and the rider appears in Chapter One, “The Divided Self.” In Chapter Five, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” the metaphor is applied to flow. Haidt writes:
The elephant (automatic processes) is doing most of the work, running smoothly through the forest, while the rider (conscious thought) is completely absorbed in looking out for problems and opportunities, helping wherever he can. (p. 96)
I apply this metaphor to the Cathedral and the Congregation. The Cathedral corresponds to the elephant doing much of the work via automatic processes; the Congregation corresponds to the rider, who is absorbed in looking out for problems and opportunities. Someone might argue that the Cathedral does not do things automatically: the Chapter is making decisions and proceeding step by step. I would counter that generally the congregants are unaware of the basis of the Cathedral’s decision making and things just happen. The Congregation is left helping with wherever it can, and such is a good description of what the Congregation’s Vestry tries to do.
In Chapter Nine, “Divinity With or Without God,” Haidt writes: “The mind is a rider on the elephant” (p. 181). The situation has added complexity when I take into consideration the image on the book’s cover.
The elephant appears largely submerged in water, and the rider needs to remain afloat and in the light. I return to this unusual yet beautiful image in my last reflection which will be posted on February 4th.
NEWS FROM THE CATHEDRAL - Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (stjohndivine.org)
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Memorial Tribute 2/13 - Hybrid Service.
Join the Cathedral and the global community on Sunday, February 13 at 4:00 PM for a memorial in tribute to The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, anti-apartheid activist, theologian, rights advocate, and humanitarian (1931-2021). Joined by The Most Reverend Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, The Right Reverend Andrew Dietsche, Bishop of the Diocese of New York, and The Right Reverend Clifton Daniel, Dean of the Cathedral, this hybrid memorial service will celebrate Archbishop Tutu’s legacy and prophetic voice for justice.
Cathedral Closings — All GROUP IN-PERSON activities are temporarily suspended or have gone online.
Out of an abundance of caution, and following guidance from New York City and federal health experts, this year’s New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace has been rethought, and will be livestreamed from the Nave without an audience. No tickets will be needed to livestream the performance, which will be posted on our website, Facebook, and YouTube channel.
To further safeguard the health of our wider New York City community, all in-person events are suspended for the month of January, including:
The Cathedral’s weekday 12:15 pm Holy Eucharist services.
The Sunday afternoon 2:00 PM New Community services.
All in-person concerts, events and gatherings, including Great Music in a Great Space, outdoor groups using spaces on the Close, and group tours.
The Sunday morning 10:30 AM services will be a service of Ante-Communion, livestreamed from the Cathedral, but absent a congregation.
NEWS FROM THE DIOCESE Home - Episcopal Diocese of New York (dioceseny.org)
NEWS FROM THE VESTRY
* NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING *
The Annual Meeting of the Congregation of Saint Saviour will be held on Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 1:00 PM on the Congregation Zoom link. Information about the Annual Meeting, including biographies of vestry nominees, can be found on the Congregation website.
https://www.saintsaviour.org/annual-meeting
The Annual Report will be posted to the website a week before the Annual Meeting.
ADMIN ANNOUNCEMENT - 2021 Giving Statements
Thank you to all the generous donors who gave directly to the Congregation of Saint Saviour this past year. Your 2021 Giving Statements will be sent to you via email on Monday, January 24th. The email will come from “The Congregation of Saint Saviour” and is generated by Realm, the Congregation’s database. You will see a cover letter that includes a blue link to “View your giving statement.” Click on that link to download a pdf version of that statement from Realm, and, then, save it for your tax files. If you have trouble downloading your statement, please email Laura and Bob at info@saintsaviour.org; they are eager to help. (These statements only reflect gifts given directly to the Congregation, not to the Cathedral.)
GIVE/SERVE
Questions about Realm, the Congregation’s Online Hub for Giving, Volunteering, and Reaching Out to One Another
The Admin team would love to hear from you. Whether you need help making the shift to online donations, setting up your account, or just want to know what Realm can do for you, please contact Laura and Bob at this email address: info@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!
THIS SUNDAY, January 16, 2022
In-Person Worship at the Cathedral has been canceled. Instead, there will be a livestream, online Ante-Communion “Service of the Word.”
Online Ante-Communion Service - 10:30 am
On Facebook: http://facebook.com/StJohnDivineNYC
On the Cathedral website: http://www.stjohndivine.org
WEEKLY CATHEDRAL CONGREGATION PROGRAMS
Monday-Saturday | 8:30 AM Morning Prayer | 5:30 PM Evening Prayer
Wednesday 7:30 pm Bible Study | Paul’s Letter to the Romans | Congregation Zoom Link
Sunday 8:30 am Bible Study | Genesis| Congregation Zoom Link