Weekly Update from Fr. van Dooren 9.12.25
Dear members and friends of our parish family,
This upcoming Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost will be the last day for our summer choir that has blessed us so faithfully through the summer months. What a dear gift from parishioners and friends who have offered their time and talent! Thank you.
This also seems to be the season of parables for our Gospel readings, and we have a beautiful one for this Sunday. As the preacher, I am elated! Following several Sundays with parables focusing upon the cost of discipleship and the demand for repentance, we ease up a bit this Sunday with the beautiful parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15:1-10). They say that each of us is precious in the Kingdom of God, and even when lost, we belong to a Great Shepherd who finds us and carries us on loving and strong shoulders.
Special music this week includes the joyful duet from Cantata 78 by J.S. Bach. It is a musical picture of two souls running with weak, but very diligent steps towards Jesus. Another very special offering this week is a hymn, Ya Mariyamu Albikr/ O Virgin Mary which will be sung by Rafa Saga Salti. Based on a Syriac Hymnody from the 12th to 15th century and adapted to Arabic in the 17th-18th century. This specific version was arranged for Fairuz, a great Lebanese singer by Lebanese composers Brothers Rahbani. Note that we call traditional religious music Levantine, as they came long before the division of the region into Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.
On Saturday, September 20 at 10:30 am, our dear seminarian intern Danelie Millien will be ordained to the sacred order of priests at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I am so honored to be one of the presenters. All are invited to attend in person or through livestream on the Cathedral’s YouTube and Facebook pages.
Our Midday Music concerts resume on Tuesday, September 23rd at 1:00pm with "One West / One East”. Our series this fall will be a collaboration with Marble Collegiate Church. The first concert will be held here at the Little Church, with our very own Claudia Dumschat playing our Fisk pipe organ.
For the fall we return to our Adult Christian Education series with another round of "A Great Cloud of Witnesses.” Come learn about some of the "Anglican Divines" who influenced and contributed to the Christian faith and our Episcopal tradition. Each saint will be introduced by a member of the Adult Christian Education Committee, with a discussion of short selections from the saint's writings to follow. This series will be held in person at 1:00 PM on Sundays after Mass. The schedule is as follows:
September 28: Lancelot Andrewes (led by Christopher Walsh)
October 12: John Donne (led by Matthew Sava)
October 19: Pauli Murray (led by Karina Martin Hogan)
November 9: Evelyn Underhill (led by Nanci Blaisdell)
November 23: Samuel Seabury (led by Joan Seymour)
We give special thanks to Fr. Chris Corbin of Trinity Church in Oshkosh, WI, who provided the artwork of these sainted figures for our flyers!
Our Spanish mass will be returning to the third Sunday of the month at 5:00pm beginning September 21st. This seemed to be a more popular date for many of our Spanish speaking parishioners.
The Holy Rosary will be prayed in the Family chapel at 9:30am this Sunday. We will pray the Glorious mysteries.
We continue to live-stream each Sunday’s mass at 11:00am, and a link is sent out each Sunday morning at 8:00am. We live-stream on Facebook and YouTube. Please email the parish office (parishoffice@littlechurch.org) if you would like to pray the morning and evening offices with us by Zoom.
Thank you for your continued faith, support, and love for the parish.
Fides Opera
With loving wishes,
Fr. van Dooren