Category The Parish Paper

Vol. 57 No. 32 | Fifth Sunday after Trinity | July 5, 2026 How Christ Builds the ChurchThe Prayer for the Church asks first for the church as a whole, its unity in truth and love, and then for the rulers of society. But then in the third petition it turns to the outward means by…

Vol. 57 No. 31 | Fourth Sunday after Trinity | June 28, 2026 The Church in the World One of the striking features of the Prayer for the Church is how quickly it turns our attention away from ourselves. In the opening petition, we ask God to unite his Church in truth of God’s Word and…

Vol. 57 No. 30 | Third Sunday after Trinity | June 21, 2026 Praying Our Mission A mission statement says what an organization exists to do, what it hopes to become, and what principles guide its life. In the Prayer for the “whole state of Christ’s Church” in the service of Holy Communion, we have a…

Vol. 57 No. 29 | Second Sunday after Trinity | June 14, 2026 The celebration of the feast of Pentecost that is completed on Trinity Sunday is not the end of the Church’s year but the beginning of its longest season. The green months from Trinity Sunday to Advent occupy nearly half the Christian year. They are the…

Vol. 57 No. 28 | First Sunday after Trinity | June 7, 2026 I have now been your rector for twenty years—a milestone that rather crept up on me. Had the congregation not so kindly marked the occasion, I might have let it pass with little comment, but your acknowledgment has prompted some reflection. On…

Vol. 57 No. 27 | Trinity Sunday | May 31, 2026 On Whitsunday, or Pentecost, the Church commemorated the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples for the sake of their mission in the world. Today, on Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the end toward which that mission is directed: that we may “see”…

Vol. 57 No. 26  Pentecost Sunday (commonly called Whitsunday) May 24, 2026 The modern world is full of connection and starving for communion. We are flooded with words, images, opinions, outrage, and distraction – and yet so many live with a sense of inward emptiness, loneliness, and unreality. We know more and more about one another,…

Vol. 57 No. 25  Ascension Sunday   May 17, 2026 This Sunday falls between Ascension Day and Whitsunday – between the ascent of Christ to the Father’s right hand, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon his disciples; between his commissioning of them to bear witness unto the ends of the earth, and his empowering of…

Vol. 57 No. 24  The Fifth Sunday after Easter (Rogation Sunday) May 10, 2026 There are moments—often small ones—when something in our ordinary experience seems to exceed itself: the quality of light after a storm; the sound of birds after rain; the satisfaction of work well done; the strength of love. And yet, alongside these moments,…

Vol. 57 No. 23  The Fourth Sunday after Easter     May 3, 2026 In the yearly commemorations of the Apostles, the feast of Philip and James on May 1st falls in Eastertide; and like the gospels of Eastertide, the Gospel is drawn from the Gospel of John—from our Lord’s discourse at the Last Supper (John 14:1–14). Its…

Vol. 57 No. 22  The Third Sunday after Easter     April 26, 2026 Last Sunday at Evensong, Fr. Andrew Mead, OBE, and Rector Emeritus of St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, offered these reflections on the occasion of the Admission of five new Choristers to the Girls’ Choir of St. John’s. Our lessons today (Exodus 33, John 21) each…

Vol. 57 No. 21  The Second Sunday after Easter     April 19, 2026 Those who attended the concert of the Tallis Scholars this past Sunday evening at St John’s heard unaccompanied vocal music of astonishing purity, beauty, and power. I confess, it gave me goosebumps. They sang works from the golden age of Renaissance polyphony—well-known works by…