Anno Domini 2025 April 5

Beloved of the Lord:

Today is Saturday, 5 April, in the year of our Lord 2025. The scheduled services are as-follows:

• Sunday: (tomorrow): 8:30 & 10:00 AM, Mass, Passion Sunday (Lent V).
• Monday: 10:00 AM, Mass, Monday in Passiontide.
• Tuesday: 5:30 PM, Mass, Tuesday in Passiontide.
  6:30 PM, Sung Evensong.
• Wednesday: 12:10 PM, Mass, Wednesday in Passiontide.
• Thursday: 8:00 AM, men's monthly Morning Prayer & Breakfast.
  6:30 PM, Mass, Thursday in Passiontide, Soup and Study.
• Friday: 9:00 AM, Sung Mass, Compassion of the BVM, with Gregorian Canon.
  Immediately following; Stations of the Cross, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
• Saturday: 10:00 AM, Holy Communion, Saturday in Passiontide.
• Sunday: 8:30 & 10:00 AM, Mass, Palm Sunday.

Tomorrow afternoon, at 4:00, the Susan and Joseph Graif foundation will host a concert of silent movie accompaniment, and a showing (with said musical enrichment) of My Best Girl, a film starring Mary Pickford. Joe was our interim organist at S. Matthew's, before Michael Gibson joined us. I will be attending the concert, and encourage everyone in the Parish to do so as-well.

I thought that I might mention a few of the peculiarities attached to having a Bishop in one's Parish. Customarily, when the Bishop recesses from the Altar and through the nave, he gives Apostolic Blessings, alternating from side-to-side of the center aisle. As he passes, those who are able genuflect, and make the sign of the Cross as he faces and blesses them.

During the Blessings given by the Bishop from the Altar, the Bishop makes the sign of the Cross three times ~ center, his right, and his left. Again, for those who make the sign of the Cross as a regular part of their worship, you wait for the Bishop to make the sign over you, before you make your sign in-response. Thus, the center blessing is typically for the choir and servers ~ anyone who is in-service at or near the Altar. The right-blessing is for those sitting on the Gospel side of the nave; that on the left for those on the Epistle side.

These are not do it or-else matters, but they are important means for us to recognise, participate-in, and perpetuate the customs that sustain and inform our faith. A Bishop is, ideally, an heir to the Twelve; a Prince of the Church, the Breath of the Apostles. We celebrate this most important of ministries, the servant of the servants of God, through these small acts of recognition. I remain

His devoted servant,

The Rt. Rev'd T. L. Crowder

Pastor, Saint Matthew's Parish