Hello, Folks! This was my last week at common art and Boston Warm until the New Year; and what a wonderful final week it was! On Wednesday we had the world premiere of Richie’s play with our very own Reverend Pam portraying the Voice of God! It was a great performance; it all came together very well. The whole cast really committed to their parts and brought the play to life with passion and joy. We also had a full house for the performance, and there was lots of good energy and excitement in the room. Continue reading
Tag Archives: sermons
2025
March 30. We continued our annual meeting, which had begun in February via Zoom due to a snowstorm, with a celebration of the 15th anniversary of our rector’s installation. Actually Pam came to us as priest-in-charge 17 years ago and preached her first sermon on March 2, 2008.
Wardens Pat Krol & Rebekah Shore were joined by Jill Silverstein of Central Reform Temple in congratulating our rector Pam Werntz.
May 4. Our rector presided at a memorial service in Lindsey Chapel for benefactor James Theodore Bartlett (2/13/1937 – 11/7/2024). A beloved member of our congregation, Jim served for years as chair of our Finance Commission.
May 11.We dedicated our third pulpit statue to the Rev. Dr. Suzanne Radley Hiatt: theologian, prophet, priest, professor, and advocate.
Ordained as one of the Philadelphia 11 on July 29, 1974, this “bishop to the women” served as an inspirational mentor to many, including our rector, whose dedicatory sermon can be watched about 28 minutes into our recorded service. For Dr. Hiatt’s connection to Pauli Murray, please see We’ve Come This Far by Faith. We thank Ted Southwick and the friends of the late Dr. Hiatt for supporting this project.
Sculptor Ted Southwick smiled while our rector asperged his figure of the Rev. Dr. Suzanne Hiatt. Photo: JG Bullitt
Marianne Iaucco, vestry member (2007-08), Clerk of Vestry (2009-10); Mary Blocher, Treasurer (1995), vestry member (2007-11); Anna Pauline Zeusler, vestry member (1990-93)
Dec 21. We bade farewell to Mary Blocher and Marianne Iauco as they joined our diaspora in order to be closer to family after their four decades of service on our vestry and Worship Commission. Pauli Zeusler, who had known them when she served on our troubled vestry in the early 1990s, came to the luncheon they gave the parish before their departure.
Dec. 22. The Rt. Rev. J. Clark Grew II, Bishop of Ohio (1994-2004) and our Associate Priest for many years, died in Boston. Born 20 Dec. 1939, he was the namesake of his great uncle J.C. Grew, US Envoy to Denmark & Switzerland, Ambassador to Turkey & Japan, then Undersecretary of State during WWII. The Grew family held Pew 62 from the foundation of Emmanuel, and Annie Clark (Mrs. Henry) Grew held the deed for Pew 51 from 1897-1925.
1988
- June. Organist Michael Beattie joined Emmanuel Music for rehearsals in our Music Room of Peter Sellars‘ version of Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro, which played that summer in the PepsiCo Theater in Purchase NY. Craig Smith conducted; Frank Kelley sang the part of Basilio; Jayne West, the Countess; and Susan Larson, Cherubino.
- In her “Peace Pentecost” sermon at our Cathedral Church of St. Paul, poet Denise Levertov (1923-97) emphasized the connection between contemplation and action: “If we neglect our inner lives, we destroy the sources of fruitful outer action.
Thanks to U. of California Press for this image.
But if we do not act, our inner lives become mere monuments to egotism.” At Emmanuel she founded a Peace Group to foster the links between spiritual thought and action among her fellow parishioners.
Earlier in the decade she had been attracted to Emmanuel by our social-justice activities, beautiful music and liturgy, and rector Al Kershaw, who counseled her. “He assured her that doubt was part of spiritual growth and the darkness she encountered might increase her sense of dependence and lead her to God,” says her biographer Dana Greene citing Denise’s diary entry for June 13, 1988.
Denise’s father, Paul Philip Levertoff (1878–1954), born in Belarus, an early proponent of Messianic Judaism, took holy orders in the Anglican Church and preached wearing an alb with a tallit and kippa.
The Rev. Paul Philip Levertoff
In 1922 he had become director of what is now the London Diocesan Council for Work among the Jews and edited its quarterly journal, The Church and the Jews. He was a prolific writer on theological subjects in Hebrew, German, and English and translated into English the Midrash Sifre on Numbers (1926) and the Zohar (1933).
See also:
- Dana Greene. Denise Levertov: A Poet’s Life. Urbana IL: U. of Illinois Press, 2012.
- Denise Levertov. Making Peace. Breathing the Water. NY: New Directions, 1987.
- Donna Hollenberg. A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov. Berkeley: U of California Press, 2013.
- Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, eds. The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov. NY: New Directions, 2013.
- Paul Philip Levertoff. Love and the Messianic Age.
- Timeline: 1994
1973
- Pauli Murray, who was a vestry member, left her tenured position at Brandeis U. and entered the General Theological Seminary. The Rev. Alvin L. Kershaw had helped her discern a call to ordination.
Once I admitted the call of total commitment to service in the church, it seemed that I had been pointed in this direction all my life and that my experiences were merely preparation for this calling. In spite of my own intellectual doubts and the opposition to women’s ordination which was widespread within the Episcopal Church at the time, I took the fateful step of applying to The Rt. Rev. John Melville Burgess, Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, for admission to holy orders. (Autobiography, 1989, p. 427)
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Organ built by James Ludden, given by Priscilla Rawson Young in 1973
4 Nov. Priscilla Rawson Young gave a portable pipe organ, built by James Ludden, which is still used for rehearsals in our Music Room.
See also:
1936
December 13. Celebration of our 75th Year
The Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts (1893-1927). Photo credit: WikiCommons
Our fifth rector, The Rev. Dr. Phillips Endecott Osgood, said in his sermon: “We are stewards of an inheritance, interpreters of a tradition”. Organist Dr. Albert Snow composed an anthem for the service. Bishop Emeritus William Lawrence praised our first four wardens:
- Edward Sprague Rand (1st senior warden), a trustworthy, public-spirited lawyer
- William Richards Lawrence (1st junior warden), who had bought the land for our church. was his uncle.
- Benjamin Tyler Reed (2nd senior warden), who founded in Cambridge the Episcopal Theological School, which became the Episcopal Divinity School
- Enoch Reddington Mudge (2nd junior warden), who later built St. Stephen’s Church, Lynn
For more detail, see Boston Globe, Dec. 14, 1936, p. 4: “Bishop Lawrence in Tribute to Early Emmanuel Wardens. Services Celebrate 75th Birthday of Church. Dr. Osgood Views Future”.
1916
- 6 Feb. The Rev. Dr. Elwood Worcester delivered a sermon entitled “A Plan Providing for the Prosperity of Emmanuel Church”. In his appeal to increase the number of pledging parishioners from 300 to 500, he expressed confidence that the congregation would respond with faithful and systematic support for the parish.
Emmanuel stands for as much as any church I know. It was built and it has been maintained by the love and sacrifices of its people. Countless blessings have come from it to us. Some of the best things of our lives have come to us here. Some of the holiest associations hover around this building. Let us then do our part…to continue these blessings to our children.
1890
Feb. 8. Under the direction of the Rev. Walter E. Smith, Chapel of the Ascension moved to 1906 Washington St. and was consecrated by Bishop H. Paddock as Church of the Ascension. Our founding rector F.D. Huntington, by then Bishop of Central New York, returned to preach the inaugural sermon. At that time its Sunday School had 15 teachers and 200 registered students, and there were 175 congregants.