One of the beloved aspects of our celebration of the Feast of St. Francis has been our tradition of blessing animals. We continue that tradition this year, with your help! Please send pictures of your pets and other animals, insects, and living creatures of all kinds, to be celebrated and blessed in our online service on Sunday, October 4. Upload your pictures at cathedralATL.org/stfrancis by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30.
Due to precautions around international travel, the Rev. Canon Paul-Gordon Chandler will not be with us in Atlanta this Sunday. We hope to reschedule his visit soon.
The Cathedral Flower Guild takes great pleasure each Christmas in interpreting the joy of Christ’s birth through abundant flowers and greenery. This year’s Christmas decor will have an historic look, inspired by the fruited wreaths and lush greenery swags of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.
Worship and share a meal with fellow Cathedral parishioners as we celebrate La Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe – the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe – on Wednesday, December 11, from 7–9:30 p.m. in Mikell Chapel.
Our service of Lessons and Carols is adapted from the famous carol service at King’s College, Cambridge, which has become popular worldwide since World War II through annual radio broadcasts on Christmas Eve. For our Advent service we include the ancient O Antiphons, one after each of the seven readings.
It is almost time to sign up for the Christmas Pageant, held every year at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve. All children registered in Sunday School, from the 4-year-olds through fifth grade, are welcome to participate. If your child is not registered for Sunday School, please contact Lisa McNamara, lmcnamara@cathedralATL.org, or register at cathedralATL.org/children. A pageant sign-up table will be in the Atrium on Sundays, November 10, November 17, and December 8. We do request that all sign ups are done in person.
On Sunday, November 3 at 4 p.m., the Cathedral Choir will offer the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé, which is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and deeply profound sacred choral works in the entire history of music. This work is most often performed on concert stages in North America, so this will be a rare opportunity to experience it within the context for which it was written – a fully choral service of Holy Communion. Many people will attend the service to remember the life of a loved one who has passed into life eternal during the past year, and hear their names read aloud during the prayers, but this is transcendently beautiful music that offers hope and a palpable glimpse of heaven to all. The full Cathedral Choir will be joined by a chamber orchestra, underwritten as a gift from our Friends of Cathedral Music, using Duruflé’s orchestration for strings, harp, trumpets, timpani, and organ.
Our Evensong service next Sunday, October 27, observing the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, will include a special dedication of our new stained glass windows, which feature Bishops Alexander and Wright. With Dean Sam Candler officiating, Bishop Robert Wright preaching, and Bishop Neil Alexander assisting, this 4 p.m. Evensong will include a procession through the ambulatory to view the windows. If you aren’t sure what or where the ambulatory is, come find out!
Bring your pets to church for the Feast of St. Francis!
Wedding Guild members work with each couple before their wedding rehearsal, assist the clergy with the rehearsal, and coordinate preparations for the ceremony on the wedding day. The guild is the welcoming committee for those getting married as well as their families and guests. We want all participants in or attendees of Cathedral weddings to leave the ceremony saying what a beautiful experience they had.
In many Hispanic countries, a celebration honoring the 15th birthday of a daughter is an important celebration of her life, for it is through this celebration that the religious service is considered the marker signifying the girl’s transformation into a responsible adult. This transition is one that signifies the change in responsibilities like work, volunteerism, and a new place in the family structure. In ancient days it was also considered the age the young lady could marry.
Would you like to meet other Cathedral parishioners? Do you feel called to give back to your faith community? Do you love Holy Eucharist and want to share it with others? Please consider serving as a Eucharistic Minister, serving the wine at communion. We will have a training in the Cathedral Nave on Sunday, September 8 at 12:45 p.m. for those interested in serving. Join us! Contact Hillary Jones, 404-365-1038 or hjones@cathedralATL.org, for more information.
The Flower Guild will hold an organizational meeting in the Cathedral Nave on Wednesday, September 4 at 7 p.m. We will review plans for the year and welcome new members. We would love to have more folks join us—men and women with experience or with none at all! And, we welcome anyone who would like to attend the meeting to get more information about what the Flower Guild does. There is no need to RSVP, but if you have questions, contact Grace Foster, gracefoster@mindspring.com.
Children’s Chapel resumes in full this Sunday, September 8. Children’s Chapel takes place during the 8:45 a.m. service as an option for parents and children who are not yet ready to experience the full liturgy together, though children are always welcome in “big” church. Children four years (by September 1, 2019) through fifth grade begin in church with their parents, then follow the children’s acolytes and leaders out at the sequence hymn. Children rejoin their parents at the Offertory. Two- and three-year-olds attend their own chapel service, which begins at 8:45 a.m.
On Sunday, August 25, we welcome Dr. Catherine Meeks, executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing, to preach and speak. Dr. Meeks will preach at the 8:45 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. services, and speak in Child Hall at 10:10 a.m.
A Flower Guild member has come forward and offered $50,000 to match gifts to a newly established Flower Fund Endowment. The fund will be a part of the Cathedral Endowment and we will use the earnings from gifts to help fund the work of the Flower Guild. A gift of any amount will make a difference and be matched dollar for dollar. I’m pleased to report that 17 families have donated a total of $40,500 in the past two months. We are so grateful for these contributions! As you may know, the process by which we have funded the beautiful flowers at the Cathedral is changing. For years, we could count on weddings to underwrite a large share of our budget for the purchase of flowers. Fewer couples are getting married at the Cathedral (and churches, in general) and that means we need to look at different models for funding. We have two special opportunities. A gift of $1,000 or more will allow the donor or their designee to be recognized with other donors annually on a selected Sunday in the service leaflet. A gift of $5,000 or more will allow the donor or their designee to be recognized on a specified Sunday perpetually.
In lieu of our weekly service of Choral Evensong, the Cathedral will feature a Choral Eucharist this Sunday at 4 p.m. Sung by the Cathedral Choir, music for the service will include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G minor, along with C.H.H. Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens. Come and worship in our marvelous sacred space with some great 20th century sacred music this Sunday afternoon. This will be the Cathedral’s final 4 o’clock service for this season. Sunday afternoon recitals and services will resume on September 8.
If you have a loved one who died while serving in the armed forces, whom you would like to include in the Prayers of the People on Memorial Day Weekend, please send the name to Canon Cathy Zappa, czappa@cathedralATL.org.
This Sunday, May 5 at the 8:45 a.m. service, we will celebrate the roles and accomplishments of youth at the Cathedral. The service will feature youth preachers, intercessors, and ushers. Graduating seniors and five-year acolytes will also be recognized. Congratulations to these young people for all their accomplishments!
