New Canons!

What's a Canon, you ask?

Canons of the Cathedral are those who have a formal or honorary affiliation voted on by the chapter and approved by the Bishop. They can be clergy, or lay people. This is a recognition of current office and/or previous service.  (See previous posts about our canons here.)

Canons wear purple cassocks (as do Vergers). They also receive a cross, with their name and office.

On Sunday at Evensong, we installed three new canons: Lisa Churchill, as Canon Verger; The Rev Dorothy Reed Curry, Honorary Canon; and the Rev Jeff Martinhauk , Canon for Congregational Life, and we celebrated the recognition of their talent, commitment, and service to our community!

Some of our Canons!  Lisa Churchill, Christine Spalding, the Rev Jeff Martinhauk,
Konnie Dadmun, the Rev Anne Chisham,  The Rev Dorothy Curry

More photos here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stpaulscathedral/albums/72157686265647955/with/35082537814/

The St George's Day Sermon: Jesus First

April 30, 2017
St. George’s Day Evensong
St. Paul’s Cathedral
Matthew 10: 16-22


Come Holy Spirit: Touch our minds and think with them, touch our lips and speak with them and touch our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. AMEN.

This is always quite a day. A bit of a parade, Banners, bag pipes, choirs, anthems, and such. I have so often encouraged folks who are not a part of the Episcopal Church to come to this service because of the pageantry, the fun and the beauty. I mean: how many times to you get to experience a slain bread dragon as a part of a church procession and then eat it at the reception following?

On this side of the pond, our commemoration of the patron of England and our rejoicing in all things Anglican is a celebration of what we see as good and hallowed in our heritage. A brief survey of the centuries would surely touch on Augustine of Canterbury, Julian of Norwich, and George Herbert. We would note the importance of the Magna Carta and common law. And we would certainly give thanks for common prayer and the Anglican worship and music that imbue this very service.

As a relatively new nation, with a great deal of pride in our own history, we anglophiles readily associate with British history, culture and custom. After all, which one of us would not die to live at Downtown Abbey? We take the Facebook quiz wondering which character we are most like! And now, even as we grieve the last season—what will we do without Cora’s rapier repartee, we now are saved by the first season of The Crown and Victoria. And so we do well to remember this day our shared English heritage and how it has blessed and given to our church and our culture. We are proud of our Anglican identity and association; we are proud of our heritage as citizen of these United States. Whether we are English, Welsh, Scottish, or United States citizens, it is good to love one’s country.

And yet, even as we rejoice in national heritage and identity on this day, there are troubling signs around the planet of a strident resurgence of nationalism which divides rather than unities. There are forces that are drawing factions and creating a withdrawal from common interests. In an age when so many challenges are global, we need to be very careful with national pride and ambition. Today, we celebrate our Anglican heritage. But we need to be careful that this does not weave into some of the darker chapters of both US and British history where this pride bleeds into a not so subtle sense of superiority of race which was at the heart of British Colonial oppression and at the core of US slavery, imperialism and Jim Crow. Throughout our shared history, we have much to celebrate, but we also have much to mourn. We need to be careful.

A quintessential part of being Anglican and Episcopalian is to love our country so much that we call each other and our leaders to our highest ideals. Think of William Wilberforce fighting the slave trade, Bishop George Bell’s speech on the floor of the House of Lords criticizing the bombing of German cities in World War II, Presiding Bishop John Hines marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. Think of our church standing up for LGBTQ rights at tremendous cost. Think of us standing up for neighbors who are fearful because of their immigration status. At the core of our heritage stands one who is not English, one who is not documented—a refugee and ultimately a convicted criminal—Jesus of Nazareth. We stand with him and all he teaches us—all he calls us to be.

We stand with him just as a saint of another age did. We remember St. George, not because he slayed a dragon, but because he stood up with Jesus and claimed his faith in face of brutal persecution. He was absolutely clear about his singular allegiance to Jesus as Lord. And so he was martyred in the Diocletian persecution. He was a man who could be described as a lover of country with loyalty to the emperor serving as soldier and tribune. But when Diocletian tried to purge the army of Christians through arrest and execution, George stood up for his faith and his Lord Jesus.

Where do we stand? Where are our allegiances? Parades and banners, political parties and pageantry are seductive. We can get caught up in passions of power and be overwhelmed with fear and suspicion of the other. Or we can say centered in Jesus and connected to the whole human family.

Today, we celebrate who we are as Anglicans. We love what we should love about this heritage. But let us rejoice and give thanks for the Asian, the Mexican, and the First Nations of this land. Let us rejoice in who we are but confess our own sins of pride and hubris. Let us stand with Jesus who calls us to love our neighbor.

Last summer, both major presidential candidates endorsed American exceptionalism, the belief that this nation has a special responsibility to the world. The new president in his inauguration echoed and amplified this notion with the phrase, “America First.” This is not a new idea but one that has warped both British and American core values of human dignity for generations. Rome First didn’t work, England First didn’t work, Britain First didn’t work, and America First will not work. As St. George demonstrated and witnessed with his life, for us it must be Jesus First! The Jesus Movement is a movement of love that does not divide but unites. It is selfless and giving. It is about hope not fear; love not hate.

On this day, we will sing two national anthems. We will remember the queen and a star spangled banner. Some of us may note that those rockets’ red glare were fired by the Royal Navy just weeks after burning the Capitol and White House. Don’t worry: all is forgiven!

It is good to love our country. After all, we pray for the queen, the president, and all in authority, even as we call them to goodness and generosity. God bless the queen; God bless the United States. And yet we then remember St. George and close with the immortal hymn, Jerusalem. William Blake’s anthem which has been appropriated as the veritable hymn of England is not satisfied with the way things are but rather calls us to a higher place, the image of New Jerusalem where creation will be made new.

And so, let us strive for that common place which brings together all the nations and peoples of this world into one. Let us seek a kindred understanding and heart that love our distinctive character as English, as African, as Native American, as Mexican as….whatever…and calls us to being neighbor, brother and sisters, the family of God. For St. George, for us and for all the saints, it is Jesus First.

The Rt Rev James R Mathes

Evensong under Water

There's an i-phone app called Waterlogue that takes photographs and makes them look like watercolor paintings.  I applied this to several of Sunday's evensong photos , giving a fun portfolio.  Enjoy!

--Susan, blogmaster & photographer

Photoessay: listening to lessons and carols

We have lots of traditional shots of the choir for the Evensong last week of Christmas lessons and carols (see them here).  But here are some more candid shots of those listening to the music.

St. George and the Dragon: Homily for St. George's Day Evensong

One of my earliest childhood memories is of taking family vacations in southern Austria. We always stayed in the same little town on the Worthersee lake, a place where my father had been one of the liberating Allied troops at the end of World War 2 and where he was always welcomed back as a hero. We frequently took the ferry across the lake to see the Lindwurm in the center of Klagenfurt am Worthersee. The Lindwurm is a great stone representation of the swamp-dwelling dragon that a millennium ago roamed the area around the Worthersee lake and which was eventually killed by a brave knight, allowing the establishment of the town. So you could say my association with dragons goes back a long way.

I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1960's, and the display of a St. George cross was a good way to get shot in some parts of the province, even if it was somewhat camouflaged by the overlay of other flags in the Union Jack. I remember having to learn the component crosses: St. Andrew's diagonal white cross on a blue ground; St Patrick's red diagonal Cross on a white ground; and the red St. George's Cross on a white ground, dominating the whole thing. Perhaps tellingly, the flag of Wales, which features a red dragon, is not represented in the Union Jack at all. The dragon has been completely vanquished by George. No wonder the other British peoples look a little askance at the union flag.

All the best adventure stories feature dragons. The ancient Greeks had the Kraken; the Bible has the Beast of Revelation; Tolkien has Smaug; and CS Lewis includes a dragon in one of his Narnia books, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Perhaps you remember the story: Eustace, an obnoxious, greedy, and imagination-challenged little boy, goes off on his own and gets predictably lost. Lewis describes Eustace's discovery through the boy's own eyes.

At the bottom of a cliff a little on his left hand was a low, dark hole the entrance to a cave perhaps. And out of this two thin wisps of smoke were coming, And the loose stones just beneath the dark hollow were moving just as if something were crawling in the dark behind them. Something WAS crawling. Worse still, something was coming out. Edmund or Lucy or you would have recognized it at once, but Eustace had read none of the right books. The thing that came out oft he cave was something he had never even imagined - a long lead-coloured snout, dull red eyes, no feathers or fur, a long, lithe body that trailed on the ground, legs whose elbows went up higher than its back like a spider's, cruel claws, bat's wings that made a rasping noise on the stones, yards of tail. And the two lines of smoke were coming from its two nostrils. He never said the word "Dragon" to himself. Nor would it have made things any better if he had.

Eustace witnesses the death of this dragon, and he takes a nap on top of the dragon's hoard of treasure. When he wakes up, he has been transformed into a dragon, and he instantly realizes why. "Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself."

Eustace the dragon quickly realizes how horribly lonely it is to be a terror. He is utterly miserable and pathetically grateful when his human friends accept him in his new form. His dragon experience is mercifully brief, as Aslan the lion soon comes to him and invites him to strip away his scaly armor. Eustace is unable to do the whole job by himself, and the last layer has to be removed, very painfully, by the lion. Eustace tells the story:

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.... Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off ... and there it was lying on the grass. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch... Then he caught hold of me and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment... I had turned into a boy again."

Eustace the dragon is restored, even reborn, as Eustace the boy, and in that rebirth he has begun a spiritual transformation into someone much more lovable than he was before. Maybe you know someone who needs to be undragoned. Maybe you need to be undragoned yourself. Maybe there are layers of armor or scales on each of us that need to be stripped away by divine power. Maybe St. George himself, the pure and virtuous knight that he was, slew a dragon within himself when he gave himself to Christ. According to historians, the real dragon in the story of St. George is the Emperor Diocletian, who had George put to death for his Christian faith.

There are dragons in our world today: dragons of hatred, poverty, greed. The center of Africa is filled with the dragons of greed: their hoard includes blood diamonds and so-called conflict minerals, including minerals that my iPad uses in its touch-screen. We feed the dragon with our appetite for new technology. Meanwhile the people who live in Congo are devastated as the rule of law breaks down and greedy individuals and factions form armies and lay waste the towns and farms, just as deadly as any dragon breathing fire out of the sky.

We Americans hoard so much of the world's wealth: does that make us into dragons? Who will slay the dragon of greed in our lives? Like Eustace, it is impossible for us to strip off that layer of dragon's skin: we will have to ask God to do it for us. And having done it, having been reborn in the character of George, courageous, pure, and loving, perhaps we will find the grace to go out and slay other dragons.

May the memory of St. George and the cross of courage be our companions in the battle.

The Very Rev. Penelope Bridges

May 4, 2014 

Photos from St George's Day

The Dragon awaits the parade, skewered by a sword 

Look closely at the gravity-defying thurible!

Multiple images of St George

Hard working children carry the dragon

Verger Almira shepherds the choir

Verger Stephanie leads the flagbearers

Loose canons?  Cathedral Canon Christine and Diocesan Canon Howard

Last but not least, Head Verger Lisa, Bishop's Chaplain Roger, Dean Penny and Bishop Jim

The streamers lead the way in the church

Choir in excellent voice

Dean Penny shows off a dragon on the pulpit

Finishing off with a sumptuous feast!

More here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stpaulscathedral/sets/72157644108516197/

Honors and Privileges

Sunday evening at Evensong, I was installed (sort of sounds like a kitchen appliance) as a verger at St. Paul’s Cathedral. I am deeply honored at being asked to join this august group of worker bees who keep the services humming at the cathedral. The ceremony promised to be brief during which I switched from my black cassock to a cathedral purple one and then donned a white vest called an anthem. They then gave me a ‘virge’, a ceremonial stick, with which I led the procession out of the nave at the conclusion of the service.

Ah, but that’s not all. Next week we celebrate the Festal Evensong of St. George, an annual tribute to our Anglican roots, and in that parade, I get to carry the Union Jack. Why, you may ask, is someone with my last name presuming to carry the banner of the British Empire, representing the Queen and all the pomp and circumstance that has been handed down to us from our British forebears?

Well, I’ll tell you. My mother’s maiden name is Allison, a part of clan McAllister, and according to her oldest brother (long deceased) who researched our roots, our clan arrived on these shores sometime around the 1680s or 1690s, supplied troops for the Revolutionary War, gave us such distinguished ancestors as Daniel Boone (I have no idea how he fits into this), and later, a renegade named Morgan who staged raids into Ohio during the Civil War. There was also some whiff of a bank robber who showed up at family reunions before he was caught and hanged in Kentucky. All stemming from clan McAllister, a Scottish family of worthy reputation and colorful descendents.

If that’s not enough, my adopted family name is related in some mysterious way to the Wellendorfs of Saxe-Coburg who were distant cousins to the Hanovers, the family that spawned Queen Victoria and the current reigning monarch of what remains of the British Empire. This last piece of astonishing news came from my paternal grandfather, who was wont to talk on grandly about this connection to anyone who would stay still long enough, often begging the question from my grandmother, looking askance at him, as to why we hadn’t been invited to the coronation nor to any of the royal weddings.

With such upstanding credentials as these, I take up my duties as flag bearer alongside a splendid US Naval officer who will be carrying the Stars and Stripes. I won’t cut as fine a figure as he will, but we will each in our own way be proud to be a part of what has become a St. Paul’s Cathedral tradition, even if my name doesn’t seem to be British in the least. But now you know the facts that should curb any disdainful whispering among the congregation next Sunday evening as I swan down the aisle toting the Union Jack.

Come join this wonderful Evensong, and don’t forget to bring your sandwiches (or whatever Anne Walter got you to sign up for) to the reception afterward.

Robert Heylmun

On behalf of a grateful nation…Veteran's Day sermon (Evensong)

It is wonderful to be gathered together in this cathedral to honor and to give thanks to God for the men and women who answered the call of their country by serving the cause of freedom in the Armed Services. I’d like to ask all our veterans to stand and be recognized. Would you please stand so we may know who you are?

Thank you for your service. We are honored to be in your presence and are humbled by the sacrifices you and your families have made. Thank you.

You know, we’re in the season of the church calendar that I call All Saints. We celebrated that great feast on Nov. 1 and last Sunday. And I simply want to lift this season of All Saints into our awareness as we reflect tonight on Veterans Day. This time of year does funny things to me. Beginning with All Saints Day, continuing through Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Advent, and into Christmas I experience a heightened awareness of what Celtic Christians call the thin places. Thin places are those occurrences or times or events in our lives when the veil between this visible, tactile, physical world and the invisible, spiritual, eternal world is stretched very thin. Thin places occur when the curtain or veil between heaven and earth is somehow made more permeable or porous—thinner—and communication between heaven and earth passes back and forth more easily. It’s as if the two worlds draw closer in those moments, and we are made hyper-aware of life’s deeper meaning, of God’s nearness to us in the here and now, we get a sense of how interconnected we all are: of how everything that has come before has led to this present moment and how this moment is part of a larger, unfolding future. Thin places are mystical experiences. You can’t create them; they simply happen. They come from God. Who knows, perhaps tonight we will be blessed to have the veil stretched thin tonight as we pay tribute to our veterans.

We who live in military towns know all too well the austere, formal dignity of a military funeral. At the end of the burial service, taps is played, the American flag which is draped over the coffin is carefully folded into a triangle by an Honor Guard, and is presented to the next of kin. The Officer-in-Charge kneels down before the spouse, parent, or child, or closest family member and says these words: “On behalf of the President of the United States and the people of a grateful nation, may I present this flag is presented as a token of appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service.”

Those words stick in my mind: “on behalf of a grateful nation,” and “honorable and faithful service.” “On behalf of a grateful nation”…that’s what we do on Veterans’ Day…we come together as a “grateful nation” to give thanks for “honorable and faithful service.”

 From the beginning of our nation, from the Revolutionary War, through the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, the Mexican War, Civil War, the Spanish American War, the two World Wars, Korea, Viet Nam, right through the Gulf War, Somalia, up through Afghanistan and Iraq over 43 million men and women have served our country in the Armed Forces—43 million war-time veterans. 660,000 Americans have been killed in battle. An additional 2 million Americans have been wounded in battle. Those are physical wounds. Emotional/spiritual wounds are not recorded. But you and I know veterans who are still haunted by the demons of what they experienced in combat. Today, there are over 26 million veterans living among us today who have answered our nation’s call to military duty. We will never be able to thank these people, over half of them have entered into the larger life. Yet, we are the recipients, the beneficiaries, of their willingness to defend and protect this land you and I call home.

“A grateful nation”…“honorable and faithful service.” 

This time of year, I’m filled with gratitude for all of God’s blessings. High among those blessings are sacrifices these nameless and faceless veterans Sometimes I feel their presence quite close as the veil stretches thin. They speak out to me saying, “Yes, freedom, democracy, looking out for the down-trodden are principles worth defending and protecting.”

Who are these multitudes who answered the call and from whence did they come? They came off the farms…and out of the cities. They came from colleges and universities… and from the bread lines and unemployment lines. They came from the mansion…and from the servants’ quarters. They came—white, black, red, yellow; some with Polish names, Italian names, Jewish names, Russian names, African names, English names, Arabic names. Some came early in the day, some came at mid-day, some came late in the afternoon. It doesn’t matter. They answered the call from every quarter and every section of our American life because they shared this nation’s vision of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They answered the call and their lives were forever changed.

Many of them served during popular wars and were aided with strong civilian support. When they returned home victorious, they were greeted with a hero’s welcome. Many of them served in unpopular wars over which the nation was severely divided and victory was never claimed. Their homecomings were hardly noticed at all and certainly not celebrated.

But each of them served honorably and faithfully in their day, and a grateful nation remembers.

I encountered a “thin place” a few years ago while performing my Navy Reserve drill at the Naval Air Station at Mayport, Florida. There was a shipmates’ reunion of a ship which had served during three wars: WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. They came to the base chapel to have a brief memorial service for those shipmates who had died since their last reunion. There were about 40 men aged from mid-80’s to mid-60’s. There were some spouses and a few grown children accompanying these former sailors. The chaplain leading the service asked each shipmate to state his name, home state, what his duty aboard ship was, and when he had served the ship. The eldest man went first. In his 80’s, he was in a wheelchair with his wife beside him. She was stooped, hunched, and used a walking cane to get around. From Idaho, he joined the Navy at 18 years old and served during WWII. He married his high school sweetheart one week before shipping out. His wife of 60+ years was with him as was their youngest daughter. He had been a boatswain’s mate. The next person was from Chattanooga, Tennessee and had served as the ship’s Executive Officer in Viet Nam. The next person was Zeb Zibrinski, from Chicago. He’d served during the Korean War as a signalman. There was a sonar man, a few gunners’ mates, a radio man. On and on…name, state of entry into service, job description, and when they served. The veil got stretched thin as I listened: “Johnson, Oregon, engineer, 1944-46; Roberts, California, firefighter, 1951-53; O’Brien, Massachusetts, 1959-61; Smith, Alabama, cook, 1964-67, Owen, Florida, medical corpsman, 1960-62.

I closed my eyes as I listened to each speaker and in my mind’s eye I could see them in their youth, full of vim and vigor, these now older, senior veterans. What hopes, dreams, and visions they had as they answered their nation’s call. What heart-break they felt as they left careers, girl-friends, parents, children! I saw them in their former youth…and I think they saw themselves momentarily back in their youth as they recited their name, state of entry into the service, job description, and time aboard ship. The chaplain thanked these sailors for their service. He talked about how they had been a part of something larger than themselves—that the ship couldn’t operate without a boatswain’s mate, couldn’t function with out an engineer, couldn’t sail without the sonarman and radioman, couldn’t accomplish its mission without the gunners’ mates and cooks and corpsmen. He spoke of how all of our common life depends upon this sense of teamwork and sacrifice.

The veil started becoming very thin for me. And I began “seeing” all those nameless and unknown millions of veterans who lived in past and present centuries and who placed themselves on the line for our sake. This freedom we enjoy, this abundance of life, these liberties we so easily take for granted were paid for at a huge cost—43 million people have offered themselves for this freedom. 660,000 have paid the supreme sacrifice of their own lives. 2 million have lost legs, or arms, or became paralyzed, or otherwise permanently disabled due to battle wounds. As the Navy chaplain said, “Our common life depends upon this sense of teamwork and sacrifice.” And in that moment in that Navy chapel, I could sense their presence, and I was filled with gratitude. Words fail at times like that.

We are all of us so much more interconnected than we know. The actions of a veteran in the 1860’s impact our common life in 2006.

“On behalf of a grateful nation…” 

So, dear friends, in this season of All Saints, on this Veterans’ Day weekend, let us acknowledge this “thin place” in which we find ourselves surrounded—surrounded—by so great a cloud of witnesses. Can you sense their presence? Many of them have sat in these pews and worshipped in this place. Let us be thankful…for those who have gone before…but also for those 25 million veterans who are still living in our midst may we truly be “a grateful nation.” Amen.

Veterans’ Day Evensong, 11 November 2012
St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego
The Rev. Edward Harrison, CDR, CHC, USNR (Ret.)

Remembering 9/11

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

If you have been attending to the media this week then you know that our country is working hard to make sense of 9/11. We are remembering, reflecting, and once again sharing our feelings about that horrific crime as well as the decisions and events of the decade that followed. This Sunday at Saint Paul's we will be doing something just a bit different, i.e., praying our way through that trauma and wondering together what it is that God is doing in our midst even now. What others intended for evil God intends for good - that is a line from the first lesson this Sunday and a central tenet for all baptized believers. We are resurrection people who trust that God can take the worst situation (betrayal, torture, and crucifixion, for instance) and turn it in a way that is life giving.

At the core of our proclamation is the call to forgiveness - you will hear that call strongly enunciated in all of the readings appointed this week. The morning liturgy will honor the departed, pray for all affected, and call us to a deeper commitment to being agents of reconciliation in the world. The forum will be given over to a more detailed parsing of our shared concerns. Evensong will feature a homily by Bishop Mathes and Faure's entire requiem. The yin/yang rhythm of grief and hope will influence all of these offerings. I sincerely hope that you will be able to join us for some or all of this as we present ourselves again to God as prisoners of hope.

Peace be with you, 

 

(The Very Rev.) Scott E. Richardson

(Image of St Paul's Chapel on 9/11/01, from Trinity Wall Street).

St George's Day

Visit the Cathedral Flickr site for more photos from today's grand event!