Tag Archives: saints

Blessed Pauli Murray

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Feast of Pauli Murray.  9 July. 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Sirach 15:1-6. They will lean on her and not fall.
  • Galatians 3:23-29. There is no longer Jew or Greek…slave or free…male and female.
  • Mark 12:1-12.  The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone [or keystone]; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing.

O God of reconciling love, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today is a long-anticipated, special day at Emmanuel Church because we are celebrating the Feast Day of The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray with the unveiling of a statue of her, beautifully rendered by our Artist-in-Residence Ted Southwick. The statue is installed on the sanctuary pulpit, from which Dr. Murray preached. We are thrilled and honored to welcome her niece Rosita Stevens-Holsey, who will speak with us after the service. While Dr. Murray’s feast day is July 1, the day that she completed her earthly mission, today is the 112th anniversary of her baptism at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Baltimore. Just prior to being ordained, she had described herself as: woman, Christian, seminarian, poet, lawyer, person of color, and senior citizen. Last week in Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in the bigoted-website case, she recalled Murray’s pioneering work with regard to public accommodations.[1] I want to assure you that Pauli Murray is still speaking to us all. Continue reading →

2020

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  • March 7. 10th anniversary of our 12th rector’s installation.  On its eve, we feasted with dinner, speeches, poetry, and song.  Thanks to the efforts of our deacon The Rev. Robert Greiner, Mayor of Boston Martin J. Walsh proclaimed it Reverend Pamela L. Werntz Day.  Pictured in the banner of this post are Pam Werntz, Amanda Grant-Rose, Rebekah Rodrigues, Joy Howard, Grace McElroy-Howard, Laura Simons, Bob Greiner, Rabbi Devon Lerner, Gennifer Sussman, The Rev. Tamra Tucker, and Jaylyn Olivo.
  • Bill Wallace seen on a Sussex Directories Inc site

    The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace

    June 28.  Our 11th rector, the Rev. William Blaine-Wallace, read for Chapel Camp from his book When Tears Sing:  The Art of Lament in Christian Community (Maryknoll NY:  Orbis, 2020).

  • July. Before he left to study at Virginia Theological Seminary, our Candidate for Holy Orders Joshua Padraig (Paddy) Cavanaugh compiled a liturgical customary, an illustrated manual which is used by our Altar Guild in its preparations for services throughout the year.
  • Oct. 21.  Parish Operations Manager Kevin Neel set up our YouTube Channel and with video equipment bought by Emmanuel Music, Brad Dumont and Matt Griffing began to livestream our services.
  • Nov. 1. A Saint for All Saints, a conference about the legacy of our own saint, Pauli Murray, organized by a committee led by Jr. Warden William Margraf, was held via Zoom.  The Rev. Dr. Yolanda A. Rolle, Episcopal Chaplain of Howard University, whom we sponsored for the priesthood,

    The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline Murray

    moderated a panel comprised of Assoc. Dean Melissa W. Bartholomew of Harvard Divinity School; the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, rector of St. Aidan’s Church, San Francisco; and the Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Canon Theologian of the National Cathedral and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary.  Please see our page for the program and more.

 

All Saints Sunday

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All Saints Sunday, (26B), November 4, 2018; The Rev. Susan Ackley

Ruth 1:1-18 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land…
Hebrews 9:11-14 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come.
Mark 12:28-34 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another.

When I was a little Catholic girl I was invited by some church friends to meet a saint. We met on a rainy Saturday at church and walked a mile or so to the saint’s house. She was lying in bed. I remember she was plumpish and very pale and that the room smelled odd.
Continue reading →

It’s a miracle!

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Sunday in the Octave of the Feast of All Saints’, November 5, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L Werntz

Revelation 7:9-17. These are they who have come out of the great ordeal.
1 John 3:1-3. See what love [God] has given us.
Matthew 5:1-12.  Blessed… .blessed… .blessed.

O God of All Saints, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

From time to time I feel the need to confess things to you, that you probably already know, but I still want to say them. Today I have two such confessions. First, I am a Church geek. I love the Bible, warts and all. I especially love Jesus, although I don’t always understand him, and he often takes me where I do not wish to go. I love the feasts and fasts of our liturgical calendar, especially All Saints’ Day. I love singing hymns and sharing bread and wine when we gather for worship. I also love vestry meetings and annual parish meetings, and overly full Diocesan Conventions like the one we had yesterday at our Cathedral on Tremont Street. In spite of the energy it exacts from this introvert, I love the wide and wild assortment of folks that come together to lead the church in the most crazy, messy, democratic way. I love budget deliberations. I love raising money for and spending money on things that matter, things that promote the well-being of our common life. I love resolution debates about our affirmations of and aspirations for the common good. I love people who express their incredulity, saying to me, “budget and resolution debates? Really, Pam?” Really.
Continue reading →

2017

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  • Feb. 5.  At our annual meeting we voted to update our Parish By-Laws.
  • Oct 15.  Rabbi Howard Berman preached about the 13th anniversary of our relationship with Central Reform Temple (formerly Boston Jewish Spirit).
  • Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray by Rosiland Rosenberg is published by Oxford U. Press.  Amazon’s record describes her contribution:  “Throughout her prodigious life, activist and lawyer Pauli Murray systematically fought against all arbitrary distinctions in society, channeling her outrage at the discrimination she faced to make America a more democratic country.”  

    Book jacket, Oxford U. Press

Its last chapter deals with Pauli’s call to ordained ministry. On p. 356, Rosenblatt notes that in 1967 Pauli began to attend Emmanuel, where then rector Alvin Kershaw advised her and referred her to The Rt. Rev. John W. Burgess, who was our diocesan bishop and the first African American episcopal bishop.  

See also Timeline entries for Pauli Murray: 1944, 1951, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1987, 2012 & 2015.

See also Timeline entry 2007 about the restoration of our former organ:  Casavant Frères Opus 700.

 

Spiritual Infrastructure

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All Saints’ Day (with alt second reading), November 1, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God
Revelation 7:9-17 Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!
John 11:32-44 Come out!…Unbind him and let him go.

O God of all, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Some days on the church calendar are really big – Christmas Eve, Easter Day, Pentecost and All Saints are generally the four biggest for us. Today is the great Feast of All Saints; it’s a day to celebrate the saints, known and unknown. Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day – the day set aside in the church calendar for commemoration of all those who have departed this life, whether they were saints or sinners or both. So this is a Sunday to remember the present as well as the past – to honor all those who go and have gone before us – all saints and all souls. Continue reading →

2013

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  • March.  With support from the Lilly Foundation, our rector Pamela Werntz left on her sabbatical pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland, several sites in the Holy Land, and Ste. Maxime, France, where she sought inspiration from Mary Magdalene. The Rev. Susan Ackley became our  Sabbatical Priest/Artist in Residence.
  • April 13.  Faculty from Leslie University’s Expressive Arts Therapy Program spoke after the service about how their students might assist with such programs as Emmanuel Cafe and Common Art.  Our Leslie interns have described their experiences since then in Musings from the Margins.
  • April 15.  Two bombs exploded on Boylston Street near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others. Leslie students joined people at Emmanuel in creating memorial flags in an event called “When Words Are Not Enough.”
Participants in "Words Are Not Enough" carry prayer flags to the Boston Marathon bombing memorial site in Copley Square.

The Rev. Susan Ackley, our Sabbatical Priest/Artist-in-Residence, and participants in “Words Are Not Enough” carry prayer flags down Newbury Street to the Boston Marathon bombing memorial site in Copley Square.

2012

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Photo credit: UNC. Carolina Digital Library and Archives via WikiCommons.

Photo credit: UNC. Carolina Digital Library and Archives via WikiCommons.

The 77th General Convention of The Episcopal Church resolved to add The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline Murray to Holy Women, Holy Men and the Calendar of the Church Year, which now commemorates her life on the day of her death, July 1.

Murray attended Emmanuel in the early 1970s and served on our vestry (1973-75).  In her autobiography (1987) , she credits former Rector Al Kershaw with encouraging her to leave her faculty position at Brandeis University and pursue ordination in The Episcopal Church.  In 1977, at the age of sixty-six, she became The Church’s first black-woman priest.

See also

 

 

 

1985

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  • March 31. Our own composer John Harbison preached on the 300th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.
  • July 1. The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline Murray died in Pittsburg PA at the age of 75.  She is buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, beside her partner Irene Barlow, whose death in 1972 had led Murray to discern a call to the priesthood at Emmanuel. The Episcopal Church has designated July 1st as her feast day.

See also:

1944

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Pauli Murray Roots & Soul Mural, Durham NC
credit: Brett Cook & Pauli Murray Project

Pauli Murray, first African American woman to attend Howard U. School of Law and later a vestry member of Emmanuel, received her J.D..  For its sesquicentennial Howard is hosting a TEDx conference on 9/15/1917: Singing of a New American”: Pauli Murray’s Legacy and Justice in the 21st Century.

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