Rector's News For October

The First Thursdays group will meet this week with a continuation of our look at how the elaborate and advanced highway system of the Roman Empire enabled Christianity to grow and thrive as quickly as it did.  See you at 7pm on October 3^rd.

Confirmation will be held on Saturday, October 5^th at 5pm.

Most of the membership of the parish has expressed, to one degree or another, some disfavor with the original color of the front doors of the church.  Certainly, I was surprised to discover the painters’ interpretation of the “firehouse red” that was to have matched the interior of the doors.  While I was hopeful that one of those who felt strongly about this would come forward, paintbrush in hand, I addressed the issue myself this past week.

As I am blessed with an abundance of guitar paint, due to one of my eccentric hobbies, I thought it might be nice to offer the parish and greater community something different.  Namely, we are now the only church I know that has doors in a classic rock and roll color.  If you think that Fender Guitar’s “fiesta red” looks great on a guitar wielded by Pete Townsend of The Who, Andy Summers of The Police, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, blues great Stevie Ray Vaughan, or even Eric Clapton, you should see what it looks like on a pair of church doors.

By the way, the reason that Episcopal Church doors are red is because of the traditional offering of "sanctuary".  The sacred space behind those doors is understood to be holy and permits, under traditional English law, those inside of them to be safe from legal authority.  The red color so marked that understanding.  Of course, the rite of sanctuary only works if honored by those in pursuit, as the martyr Thomas Becket so learned, so in recent times the red doors have come to represent a less legal and more spiritual designation.  Those within the red doors are safe from spiritual harm and may freely abide in a place set aside for one’s pilgrimage.

The Blessing of the Animals will be held during the Octave of St. Francis at noon on Saturday, October 12^th at the columbarium.  All animals and their stewards are invited.

What’s the most interesting feast day of the month, you ask?  There are quite a few, but I’ve always been partial to the life and witness of Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, who was our missionary bishop in Shanghai until his death in 1906. His feast is on October 14th.  Despite a crippling disease that bent and disfigured his hands and fingers, he used an early model of typewriter to translate Holy Scripture into the languages of China.  That, and he and I shared a dormitory room in seminary, albeit 100 years apart from one another.

O God, in your providence you called Joseph Schereschewsky from his home in Eastern Europe to the ministry of this Church, and sent him as a missionary to China, upholding him in his infirmity, that he might translate the Holy Scriptures into languages of that land. Lead us, we pray, to commit our lives and talents to you, in the confidence that when you give your servants any work to do, you also supply the strength to do it; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.