We are pleased to announce that beginning this Sunday, the Patronal Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle and Independence Weekend, Jeffrey Parola will begin his duties as Organist at the Parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood. In addition to the weekly Sunday High Masses, Mr. Parola will accompany All Souls' Day Requiem Mass, Thanksgiving Eve Mass, Advent Lessons & Carols, Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, and Christmas Day High Mass.

In addition to playing the organ, Mr. Parola is a concert music composer of choral, vocal, chamber, and large ensemble works. His music has been presented by institutions such as the National Collegiate Choral Organization and the Oregon Bach Festival, by instrumental ensembles such as the Detour New Music Ensemble, the American Creators Ensemble, the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, and the SFCM New Music Ensemble, by choruses such as Choral Chameleon, the Ateneo Chamber Singers, and the San Francisco State Chamber Singers, and by conductors including Vance George, Andrew Mogrelia, Nicole Paiement, and Jonathan Velasco.

Mr. Parola is currently a doctoral student and teaching assistnat at the University of Southern California, where he studies composition and assists in undergraduate Aural Skills classes. He earned his master's degree in 2005 from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

We continue to work hard on getting the parking restrictions lifted.  This week the Vestry sent a letter to the City Council protesting the restrictions and educating the City Council on the great harm the restrictions are causing our parish, as well as the very special nature of St. Thomas.   In addition, a formal legal protest was sent by parishioner Julie Heimark, who is acting as our pro bono (free) legal counsel to the Church on this matter.  A copy of both letters will be available in the back of the Church on Sunday.  

Thank you very much to all parishioners who have signed the petition.  If you have not signed the petition as of yet, please do so in the next two weeks. 

Dear St. Thomas the Apostle family,

This day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. "Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." These martyrs had seen what they proclaimed, they pursued justice by confessing the truth, by dying for the truth.
 
The blessed Peter, the first of the Apostles, the ardent lover of Christ, who was found worthy to hear, "And I say to you, that you are Peter." He himself, you see, had just said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Upon this rock I will build the faith you have just confessed. Upon your words, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," I will build my Church; because you are Peter. Peter comes from petra, meaning a rock. Peter, "Rocky," from "rock"; not "rock" from "Rocky." Peter comes from the word for a rock in exactly the same way as the name Christian comes from Christ.

 
Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, "To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter's acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church's universality and unity, when he was told, "To you I am entrusting," what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained."

 
Quite rightly, too, did the Lord after his resurrection entrust his sheep to Peter to be fed. It is not, you see, that he alone among the disciples was fit to feed the Lord's sheep; but when Christ speaks to one man, unity is being commended to us. And he first speaks to Peter, because Peter is the first among the apostles. Do not be sad, Apostle. Answer once, answer again, answer a third time. Let confession conquer three times with love, because self-assurance was conquered three times by fear. What you had bound three times must be loosed three times. Loose through love what you had bound through fear. And for all that, the Lord once, and again, and a third time, entrusted his sheep to Peter.

 
There is one day for the passion of two apostles. But these two also were as one; although they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, Paul followed. We are celebrating a feast day, consecrated for us by the blood of the apostles. Let us love their faith, their lives, their labours, their sufferings, their confession of faith, their preaching.