Thank You from the Rector

I want to offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks for your presence and prayers on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. I was truly overwhelmed and touched by your gestures of love and support.

I simply cannot believe how fast the years have gone. It has been an honor and privilege to serve as a priest in God’s Church. At times, I have fallen woefully short of my ordination vows, God's desires, and my own expectations. Yet, God is always present, always faithful, always loving, and somehow, through most imperfect vessels, Good News is proclaimed.

Again, my dear friends, thank you! Forward in faith, we go!

Peace & blessings to all,

The Rev. Paul Jeanes, Rector

We’re All Part of the Body

Last week, our lectionary started treating us to a fortifying dose of reality. In our Epistle readings, we hear passages from First Corinthians, where Paul describes the complicated and frankly messy unity that the church receives in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We hear a letter that reveals just how quickly and just how easily groups of people can succumb to the divisions with which they have become accustomed — and more often than not, with which they feel a strange sort of comfort. Misery and bitterness can be comforting in a horribly addictive and toxic kind of way.

Just after the Hallmark season of Christ's birth, just after the season of warmth and togetherness, the lectionary presents us with this letter to a church that is at each other’s throats over which leader’s team they’re on: Team Paul, Team Apollos, or Team Cephas.

The platform where St. Paul was taken before the Roman governor.

Our own Sonia Waters recently returned from a trip to Corinth, and she took some wonderful pictures.

In response, Paul moves into one of his most well-known, memorable, and effective metaphors of Christian community: the image of the body. Being a member of the body of Christ, being part of the church, means being absolutely, out-and-out conjoined with one another, in the same unseverable way that one limb is joined to another. When we’re members of the same body, find that we cannot participate in division, because to do so is to dis-member ourselves, to cut parts of ourselves off. But neither can we participate in a crushing uniformity, without the joys of difference within that unity. Unity is not sameness.

Without the body, without our other limbs, without each other, we find ourselves cut off from who we truly are and we cannot live out our own calling. To be who we are called to be, we need everyone – we need all the members of the body – to live out your calling too. We are all connected. This year, as we walk forward together as the body of Christ in Trinity Church, I invite you to discern what your role in this body is and to participate in that body ever more deeply. We need you – each one of you – and we’re not complete without you.

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

Christian Mystics

Dear Beloved Ones,

I began to write this reflection on New Jersey transit as I made my way to the city for my last day of in-person classes for my Doctor of Ministry program at General Theological Seminary.  (But, there is much more work, writing, and research yet to be done!) It has been a wonderful week gathering with colleagues, our beloved Nancy Hagner being one of them, as we brought this part of our three-year journey to an end. What a gift it was!  We ended our time together with the same voices with which began our journey – Christian Mystics.  The wisdom of St. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna, Francis of Assisi, Hildegard of Bingen, Thérése of Lisieux, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, and Bernard of Clairvaux to name only a few.

The task of Christian mysticism is “to point out to us how our view of the world, including ourselves, is limited and then to assist us in overcoming this limitation so we might see the world as God sees it.” ¹

Further stated, Carl McCorman notes:

Based on the witness of all great mystics over 2,000 years of Christian history, the message of mysticism can be reduced to a single paragraph:

God is love. God loves all of us and wants us to experience abundant life. This means abiding in love – love of God, and love of neighbors as ourselves.  Through prayer and worship, meditation and silence, we can commune with God, experience his presence, have our consciousness transformed by his Spirit, participate in his loving nature, and be healed and renewed in that love. This new life (what the New Testament calls “the mind of Christ”) will not only bring us joy and happiness (even when we suffer), but will also empower us to be ambassadors for God, to bring God’s love and joy and happiness to others. There is much work to be done, and the task is overwhelming, even our own need is very great, for we tend to resist God’s love, even as we hunger for it. Yet God continually call us back to his love and continually empowers us to face the challenge of bringing hope to our broken world. ²

We are in the midst of an important transitional period in the church and the world.  As we live into this new era, Christian Mysticism will be a key companion and guide as we find our place and purpose in the years to come. The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner once said, “In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all.” William Johnston writes in his book, Mystical Theology: The Science of Love, “Authentic Christian mysticism is nothing but a living Gospel at a deep level of consciousness.” He continues on to say, “The task of a modern mystical theology is to convince the world that the death and resurrection with Jesus, far from being irrelevant, is the ultimate solution to our overwhelming problems.” ³

Forward we go, fellow mystics “[t]here is much work to be done, and the task is overwhelming, even our own need is very great, for we tend to resist God’s love, even as we hunger for it. Yet God continually call us back to his love and continually empowers us to face the challenge of bringing hope to a broken world.” ⁴

Peace & Blessings on the Way,

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III, Rector

Thursday visit to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin for Confession and Noon Eucharist.

1. John R. Mabry, Growing into God: A Beginner’s Guide to Christian Mysticism, p. 56

2. Carl McCorman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, p. 66-67

3. William Johnston, Mystical Theology: The Science of Love, p.7

4. Carl McCorman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, p. 67

Beyond Resolutions: One Word

— BEYOND RESOLUTIONS —

If you’re like me, you come to January 1 every year with a fistful of good intentions. This year, I tell myself, I really will fix all my bad habits at once! And of course it never works. We all struggle with the ways that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, as St. Paul says. Or the ways that we do what we do not want to do - again, one of Paul’s struggles. The deformation of our will is part of our fallen nature. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for us to change. I invite you to read Curtis Hoberman’s article below, and to join me for the next two weeks in the Adult Forum as we talk about ways to grow in virtue and holiness of life in ways that go beyond the futility of New Year’s resolutions. I’ll see you then!

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

— ONE WORD —

Curtis Hoberman

Forget resolutions. What is your one word for 2023?

What is the one word that will lead you, guide you. encourage you, and propel you for this year?

I was introduced to the idea of one word in an F3 workout in Philadelphia in late 2018, prior to the start of F3 Princeton in April 2019. The F3 Brother from Charlotte who led the workout that day shared the impact it had in his life in giving him clarity of mind, focus on direction, and help in his interpersonal relationships.

In each of the last four years I have had one word: 2019 – Integrity; 2020 – Fearless; 2021 – Hope; 2022 – Fortitude. In each year, my one word has challenged me to be a better person, to be a man of prayer and of action and to grow in resilience and durability. Little did I know on the choice of “Fearless” in January 2020, how I would be challenged every day to be “fearless” after the middle of March with the onset of the pandemic. My faith in God grew very much that year, as I sought to “live by faith, and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

The process to discover your one word:

1. Prepare your heart. Take the time to shut down the media sources around you and disengage from them. Allow yourself time of quiet reflection: What do I need now? What is in the way? What needs to go?

2. Discover your word. Ask God for discernment of your word. In my case, it occurred to me at unlikely times, yet I sensed immediate confirmation. “That’s it. That’s my one word.” Sense the confirmation of the Holy Spirit within you with your one word. Be alert to be ready to recognize it and receive it.

3. Live your word. Live it out and be stretched by it as you live it out. You may easily see immediate opportunities to live out your one word (low-hanging fruit”) and difficult areas of application of it can come later. Own your word. Personalize it. Internalize it. Create visible reminders of it. Share your word with your “stretch team” (close family and friends), the persons who stretch you and can help you grow. Give them permission to check in with you on progress or challenges in living out your “one word.”

My One Word for 2023: PREPARE

As an older guy, I have been delaying taking actions to prepare for the future, and my dear and loving sister, Nancy, has gently prodding me to take these actions. (Last will and testament, the “everything notebook” of accounts and locations of important items, the preparation of my preferences for the memorial service, etc.) With the word “Prepare,” I want it to move me to take action.

At Trinity Church, we started this process as a church family in year 2020, but our efforts and attention to it withered out with pandemic that year.

Let’s try again…

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

This Terrible Joy

Jay DeFeo, The Annunciation, 1957/59.

Why do you leave the ordinary world, Virgin of Nazareth… / Why do you fly those markets, those suburban gardens, / You have trusted no town with the news behind your eyes. / You have drowned Gabriel's word in thoughts like seas / And turned toward the stone mountain…to the treeless places.

— Thomas Merton

On the fourth Sunday of Advent this year, the Lectionary tells us the story of Jesus’ birth from Matthew’s gospel: “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” While Luke gives us our familiar nativity scenes of manger and shepherds and friendly animals, Matthew confronts us with the reality of a what a surprise pregnancy meant in Jesus’ time and place: shame, ostracism, and as our reading says, “disgrace.” But what Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts share is that the angel of the Lord appears to announce God’s plan for the world, a plan that is set into motion because Mary said “yes.”

At this point in Advent, as we look towards Christmas, we are in the time of Mary, the time of the Magnificat. In Luke’s gospel, we rejoice as we hear Mary’s joy, in what C.S. Lewis famously called “a terrible song,” meaning a “dreadful, frightful, and fearsome” song.  The Magnificat shakes the foundations of all we know, or all we think we know, as Mary reveals that the cosmic events she’s gotten caught up in are nothing less than the pivot of the ages. God visits Mary and Joseph with news so stunning it would take the rest of their lives to understand it all. The reversal of wrenching circumstances, the lifting up of the lowly, the exaltation of the humble that Mary sings about shows us that this is how God works.

Christmas is a time to rejoice in the glory of the Lord, but it’s also a time to be confronted by the very human reality of the story of Jesus’ birth. Neither Mary, nor Joseph, nor Jesus, are two-dimensional figures acting out a sentimental tale. They are real people, caught up in the most real situation possible – the situation of God’s action towards us in the Word made flesh. It is a time of awe. It is a time of joy.

May the blessing of our newborn Savior
be with each of you this season,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector

All I Want for Christmas

Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007)

I love Christmas music. I’m one of those people who could listen to it all year long. Deck the Halls, Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Joy to the World, I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas, and of course, everyone’s favorite … All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth).

Well, maybe that’s not your favorite, but I have been thinking about the song because, frustratingly, I can’t get it out of my head. As a result, I’ve been pondering over and over that since I have my two front teeth … What do I really want for Christmas? To ask for more “things” seems ridiculous. I already have all that I need and, in fact, more than I need.

Amid this pondering, I came across a beautiful Advent poem by Saint John of the Cross, whose feast day is December 14.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the Holy and say,
“I need shelter for the night.
Please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul,
you will witness the sublime intimacy,
the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever,
as she grasps your hand for help,
for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yes, there, under the dome of your being,
does creation come into existence eternally,
through your womb, dear pilgrim,
the sacred womb of your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help:
for each of us is His beloved servant never far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street,
pregnant with Light, and sing!

— Advent Poem, St. John of the Cross

In these holy days, if you want … the Virgin comes, the Holy comes, God comes, Light comes, Love comes and says, “Please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.”

What do I really want for Christmas? I want a heart that is open and ready to receive the Holy One and within my soul “to witness sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ, taking birth forever, as she grasps [my] hand for help, for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.”

That’s what I say that I want, but when the Virgin comes “walking down the road pregnant with the Holy and [says], ‘I need shelter for the night. Please take me inside your heart, my time is so close.’” Will I say — Yes? I pray I say — Yes!

Advent Blessings,

The Rev. Paul Jeanes III,
Rector

Expectancy

In the expansive realm of religious belief, there are so many Biblical stories into which we can delve, about which we can debate, stories we can research and refute. Passages of Scripture one can exaggerate, de- mythologize, or critique historically, literally, structurally, or theologically. Verses which inspire one to moralize, spiritualize, or from which to extrapolate great apothegms.

And then there is this beautiful narrative we are preparing ourselves to tell — One special child’s birth. A marvel. A puzzlement. A story of breathtaking proportions that no amount of the usual rhetoric can undo: The child is born, the angels sing, and every day people gaze on the newborn face of God. The prophecies of Isaiah are fulfilled. The promises of archangel Gabriel have come true. The Messiah, the Christ has been delivered into the world by a young woman in an unassuming spot.

What a curious way for the Almighty God to behave. What a modest means to move the world towards redemption. God in flesh appearing as a helpless baby boy bundled up on a bale of hay. Not much of an entrance for a Savior, is it?

So I have to wonder, Why do we need these days of Advent to abide in anticipation of this story we long to tell? What is it about these days of waiting that have the power to shatter and rebuild our whole world of faith? What is it that the coming of a newborn baby Jesus can do that God Almighty can’t?

Perhaps we need time to anticipate His birth because it promises us a new life. Jesus will redefine humanity by living within it from his very beginning. Perhaps we need time to accept that the Holy One promised to us will be born of a woman in absolute humility. Might this impress upon us the vulnerability of holiness, and the sweetness of God?

There was a time when Jesus was entirely dependent on human beings to come into this world, survive in this world, and that time has not come to an end yet.

As Mary carries the child, it is we who are expecting. Expecting the disruption and radical rearrangement that the birth of any child brings — reassessment of our priorities, of our beliefs about what is important, our beliefs about who is important. Expecting to love, really love, — painfully, poignantly, powerfully love — the sacred nature of all humanity with a delight and joy unlike any other. Expecting reason to hope for ourselves, and all that we cherish. This Advent may our hearts abide in Hope and may our Spirits stand transfixed, expecting. Expecting to recognize that our attention to all that which is Holy is most urgent.

The Rev. Joanne Epply-Schmidt, Associate Rector

The Too-short Season

I have an Advent calendar that gives you a little pot of jam for every day. I had the same one last year, and it’s really one of the better options out there. (It came from Bonne Maman in case you’re still looking for one. They have not paid me for this advertisement…) I confess that while I love it, and I always enjoy getting an unexpected flavor like lavender-pear-yuzu-whatever, by the last week in Advent I am tired of eating toast and jam for breakfast. It gets old.

But for me, the season of Advent never gets old. In fact, it always feels like it’s too short - especially since Christmas encroaches upon it by the time we get to the fourth week. I would like to linger in it a little while longer. So, even though this week we anticipate Christ the King, and Advent won’t begin for another eight days, I’m already ready. Advent is a season of quiet, a season of deepening winter and fading daylight. It’s a season of unadorned holly and pine, wrapped around the wreath. It’s a time of lighting candles and longing for what has not yet happened, but which has also already happened. It’s a time when we experience the thrill of saying “Aslan is on the move,” as we read in C.S. Lewis’ classic Chronicles of Narnia.

Advent is the Janus-faced season, in which we look back so that we can look forward. We look forward to the final coming of the Kingdom of God, we look forward to that day when Jesus will come again to judge the quick and the dead, to make right all that is not right. It’s a time when we look around, and look within ourselves, and say “Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come quickly and fix all this.”

But who is the one who comes? This Sunday, the day of Christ the King, tells us who. He is the king of glory, but he is also the Prince of peace. He is the one precisely because he is the other. His reign is one of mercy. He has come as a powerless infant, he has been crucified as the one who refuses violence, he will come again as the one in whom love, justice, and mercy are one and the same.Will you wait with me? I invite you to spend this season in prayer and anticipation, and hopefully in quiet as you can find it, so that every heart may prepare him room.

Aslan is on the move.

Yours in anticipation of the coming of the King,

The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector