Reel Spirit - Well for the Journey

Led by the Rev. Ben Smith and Kathy Schnurr, reel spirit is sponsored by Well for the Journey, Inc.
 ,a non-profit ecumenical organization offering spiritual nourishment for daily living.  Participants gather on the evening of the first Sunday of the month at the Charles Theater and stay after each movie for a free discussion. No registration is required. To learn which movie has been selected, call The Well office (410-377-9520) or check the website, not more than one week in advance. 

Sunday, April 3, 2011 | 4:00pm   

The Cathedral's partner public school Waverly EMS located at 3400 Ellerslie, across from the Weinberg YMCA is looking for volunteers to tutor kindergarten and first grade students. Tutors should be available between 10:30 AM and 1:00 PM on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. Materials and support for new tutors will be available.  Interested volunteers should contact Cathedral member and Waverly volunteer Joan Stanne at 410-889-0329. 

The Diocese is offering a workshop on Saturday, April 2, from 10:00 AM to 12 Noon, at the Cathedral, to help churches strengthen their ties to public schools.  Join us to hear first hand from a teacher, social worker and principal about what pubic schools need from congregations and share your experience with public school partnerships. 

 

The big news is we have a homeowner for one of our two Lorman Street houses!  Shamire Hill is a 26-year-old single mom who works two jobs to support her four-year-old son, Dominic Richardson.  Her father and stepmother have been Habitat homeowners for a decade and he sits on the Habitat Board.  They worked hard to stop the illegal dumping on the vacant lots behind their home and now keep them sufficiently clean that they and their neighbors are able to have a huge cookout there every 4^th of July.  We hope  to get Shamire and Dominic into their new home, the back of which faces those now clean lots, in time for this year's cookout.  Shamire usually stops by the work site most Saturday mornings to greet her sponsors before heading off to one of her jobs for the day.

 

1720 Lorman St. from the west side

Over the next few weeks, we'll be landscaping the back yards of the two houses and, once the electricians are done, installing insulation and preparing for the drywall installers.  If you'd like to join the fun, you may sign up on the Outreach bulletin board or send an email.

 

 

 

--Sarah Stevens-Rayburn

100 Years at the Cathedral

Sign reads: The grounds of the Maryland Cathedral

--Mary Klein, Diocesan Archivist

"... I had been asked whether I wanted a Cathedral. I said that I did, if I could have it after my own ideas. I did not want the five millions proposed for New York and for Washington. I would be content with one-third of that sum. I should want it placed not in the rich or aristocratic part of the city, for the enjoyment of the wealthy, but among the poor. It should be truly a bishop's church, under his control. One-half of the money should be used for buildings, and one-half as an endowment for the support of the work. The seats must always be free; not pew rents or pledges, but voluntary offerings at every service, which should be used for missions and for charity. The ushers should be instructed to give the best seats to the plainer people, and to put those in gay clothing further off. This idea of a Cathedral did not meet the popular wish."

Reminiscences by the Rt. Rev. William Paret, 1911; p. 206

"The Rev. Dr. Edwin Niver, rector of Christ church made a search for a new location (for the Cathedral site) and struck upon the intersection of Charles Street and Merryman's Lane (now University Parkway). Either the northwest or northeast corner, he felt, would be ideal. Bishop Paret was invited to give his opinion, and drove to the spot in an old-fashioned hansom cab. With head lifted up he made a sweeping survey in every direction, then brought his stick to the ground with characteristic decision and exclaimed, 'This is the site!'

Cathedral Chronicle,November, 1937.

--Ken Brown

On Sunday morning, June 12th, the Cathedral Choir will be premiering a new piece of sacred music commissioned by the Cathedral and composed for the occasion by Theodore Morrison.  Mr. Morrison was Minister of Music at the Cathedral from the late 1950's through the early 1970's.  It will be published by Abraham Rose and Associates of Ann Arbor, Michigan.  His setting of John Donne's Sacred Sonnet XV features the choir, organ and soloists.  A special thank you from the choir to Ben Smith for helping select the text for our new anthem.  The poem and Mr. Morrison's notes to our choir are reproduced below:

JOHN DONNE

HOLY SONNET XV

            Wilt thou love God, as he thee? then digest, 

            My Soule, this wholsome meditation, 

            How God the Spirit, by Angels waited on 

            In heaven, doth make his Temple in thy brest. 

            The Father having begot a Sonne most blest, 

            And still begetting, (for he ne'r begonne) 

            Hath deign'd to chuse thee by adoption,

             Coheire to his glory, and Sabbaths endlesse rest;

            And as a robb'd man, which by search doth finde 

            His stolne stuff sold, must lose or buy it againe; 

            The Sonne of glory came down, and was slaine, 

            Us whom he had made, and Satan stolne, to unbinde. 

            "Twas much, that man was made like God before, 

            But, that God should be made like man, much more.

GUIDE TO RHYME AND PRONUNCIATION

FOR THE SINGERS

FROM THE COMPOSER

Dear Friends,

As you may know, John Donne used the Petrarchan or Italian form of the sonnet in which a poem is structured in two parts, the octet and the sestet, which together make a total of fourteen lines. The octet often presents a philosophical problem or a challenge, which is solved or  commented on in the sestet. There is also a place in most sonnets called the volta, or turn, in which a new feeling is introduced, a point emphasized, or perhaps a resolution occurs. Donne frequently adjusts the traditional rhythmic stresses of Iambic Pentameter to twist his song in some lovely, special way.

Holy Sonnet XV has a rhyming scheme as follows:

Octet: abbaabba; Sestet: cddcee  

In the second quatrain of the octet, "Sonne" and "begonne" rhyme with Donne. (The modern spelling would be Son, begun, Dunn.)  

In the sestet, "lose" = "loose" in modern spelling and pronunciation, and in this context I believe it means to "let loose of it" or "let it go."  "Againe" rhymes with "slaine."

I hope you enjoy working on this anthem. It has been such a privilege and honor for me to compose it for the centennial celebration of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, where I began my professional musical career as a teenager back in the late 1950s. I very much look forward to meeting all of you and to hearing you sing in June.

With warm greetings,

Theo Morrison

29 March 2011

Shrove Tuesday 

Many thanks to Jane Vanko, the Dean, and all the Chapter members who threw a wonderful pancake supper!  Thanks also to Rev. Sara who helped the children decorate Mardi Gras masks and the Alleluia banner!  Be sure to view all the photos of this fun event on the notice board in the hallway outside the Dean's office.

Integrity: Service and Fellowship
 

Interfaith Peace Partners
 

We invite you to join us to pray for Peace on the 22nd of each month. Our prayers are needed more than ever as we pray for Peace in the Holy Land of our three faiths, Christian, Jewish and Muslim. For more information please contact the Rev. Charles Cloughen.  We will pray for Peace on Friday, April 22nd at our own churches, synagogues and mosques. For those in the Christian tradition, it is Good Friday, those in the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath, and for those in the Moslem tradition, Friday Prayers. Please ask your Pastor, Rabbi and Imam to pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.

Pre-Convention Meetings
 

Christian Formation Festival: May 14, St. Paul's School
 

Cathedral of the Incarnation