Coffee Hour Sign Up
The Sign Up Sheet for Coffee Hour for May and June will be on coffee table outside Church on Sunday.
Emmaus Road Monday, May 8, 7:00 p.m.
Emmaus Road continues its reading of Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ. This is a book that explores the thought, theology, and spirituality of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest of the 20th Century who was also a paleontologist who made major discoveries of early humans who sought to sought to integrate the discoveries of science with the deepest things of the Christian faith.
Fr. Bob has made copies of the Chapter 5, to tide us over until the books arrive. Copies will be available on Sunday
Reading for Monday: Chapter 5, Part 2
Outreach Committee Sunday May 21, 9:00 a.m. Between the Services
The Outreach Committee will meet between the Liturgies on Sunday May 21. They will continue their discussion leading to a revised Mission Statement and plans for Outreach activities. Everyone is welcome to attend, participate, and contribute their ideas.
Looking Ahead: Choral Evensong: Sunday May 28
The Choir will do a special Choral Evensong on Sunday May 28. What a treat!
Evensong is one of the unique contributions that Anglicans have made to Christian worship and our setting makes it especially wonderful. Following the service we’ll do a wine and cheese gathering on the patio outside. Put this on your calendar.
Episcopal Consecration: Sign Ups
A Sign Up Sheet will be outside Church beginning this coming Sunday for those interested in attending the Consecration of Fr. John Taylor as the 7th Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angels.
The Sign Ups need to be turned in by Monday May 15! So far 10 people have signed up. We have 10 more slots. If you are interested, please sign up the next two Sundays, or email the Church Office.
Information on ticketing and arrangements
A warm welcome is extended to all for a festive, culturally diverse celebration designed to be a hospitable, accessible, and meaningful gathering for all in attendance. Because no Southland Episcopal church building is large enough to accommodate the anticipated congregation, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has been selected as a centrally located, gracious, functional and affordable public venue.
A total of 3,100 seats will be made available on a first-come, first-served basis with an equal opportunity for attendees from all congregations of the diocese. Reservations are now open, beginning in blocks of 20 seats for each congregation of the diocese; there is no charge for any ticket. Each ticket-holder's name, email address and phone number must be supplied through the local church office. Block seating deadline is 12 noon on Monday, May 15, after which remaining tickets will be released to accommodate open reservations. Any congregation with more than 20 initial reservations will be asked to create a waiting list to submit on May 15. Accessible seating for attendees in wheelchairs, with their companions, is available by advance reservation.
Video of the full service will be offered via live webcast and on demand.
Clergy of the diocese are invited to vest and process (cassock, surplice, and red stoles).
A 100-voice choir will assemble under the direction of Sean O'Neal, director of music at Holy Trinity Church, Covina. Participation details will be forwarded to music directors in the congregations of the diocese. Liturgical arrangements are under the direction of the Rev. Fernando Valdes, deacon, of St. John's ProCathedral as minister of ceremonies.
Festive displays of banners of the congregations, schools, institutions and other ministries of the Diocese of Los Angeles are planned; information will follow in communication with staff of local congregations.
A variety of international foods will be made available in Grand Park, with a blend of complementary selections and options for purchase from local vendors. Hospitality arrangements are chaired by Canon Lynn Headley of St Michael and All Angels, Corona del Mar.
Ample parking in the Music Center garages will be available for $9 per vehicle. Bus parking will be arranged as needed using ticket-block reservation forms.
The Arrangements Committee is chaired by the Very Rev. Melissa McCarthy, vicar of Epiphany, Oak Park, with diocesan staff support from Robert Williams, diocesan canon for community relations. Inquiries are welcomed by telephone to the Cathedral Center at 213.482.2040, ext. 230, or by email to bishopsoffice@ladiocese.org.
Please supply your email address and phone number so we can forward it to the Diocese.
Das Boot: Working on the Boat that is Church of the Angels
Hi Father,
The work on the choir furniture is beginning to take shape. The top finials are refinished and I have begun your seat. The tops, seat, back and one side are now in the process of getting several applications of oil/poly finish. I am using the furniture maker's (Sam Maloof) special mixture. It's easy to apply and will give us the best match to the altar. It was typical in the 1890s to use oil finishes. The oil is absorbed deeply into the wood giving the grain a rich deep color. It is my favorite part of the process to see the finish "light up" and in our case, the olive wood has a colorful and patterned grain. I am reminded of reading how the Australian Aboriginal peoples think the world was created in the dream time and the world is a sort of physical manifestation of the dream. The grain of the wood is the making of the tree.
I have attached a couple pictures that show the process. You can compare your seat to the one behind it. Perhaps I will go there next. Perhaps we should put all the choir members names in a hat and their seat is next?
You learn things about the makers when you strip things down and try to restore what was:
Your chair seems the most pieced together veneer of all of them, sometimes implying it was the last of the scraps. And if it was using up all the left over pieces, than someone was attaching some significance to the wood being donated by the Mission. (I imagine that there just had to be "discussion" around using all the pieces...not something a craftsman would like to do. On the top there is a little rectangular patch scabbed in — it's in there on an angle, hardly blended in... perhaps a later patch to fill a knot hole?) We can think of your seat as the one of "many colors"! Also, the seat is more radiantly golden than the back. I visited the Mission San Gabriel looking for olive trees, perhaps wood to repair ours...yes, they have some and probably had many.
I was also curious about the shapes of the finials on our choir pews because they don't seem Gothic. The form a processional way. The tops are large, have three descending steps below making them seem to levitate above the screens. What was the designers' inspiration? S.Gabriel is the only mission that has Moorish details. The padre who designed it was from Cordoba Spain and I am wondering more about the connections between the mission and the Angels. We may never know but it would be fun to dig through the archives and see if there are any references. The current approach to Gothic at the time was to use new construction methods and different colored materials and adopt new forms. I'm sure there are historians among the congregation and your long tenure could provide details about how the Church of the Angels took form.
The corners are clean and very square. The craftsman was careful.
Pulled a little nail from where the trim used to be on the bottom...a wire nail but with a thin wire wrapped around the top. Hmmm...do you think they did that to hold in place as they hammered it in? then trimmed it all off like the head of the nail? I kept it...little artifact.
Found some "mill" marks on the inside curves of the arms. They drilled a series of holes to make/cut the curve. You can still see the grooves.
Noticed that the huge missing chunks on the altar side of the chair and screen have beveled edges and are rough hewn, not damaged but intentional. Why? One of the photos in the booklet you lent me shows that the low wall extended out to where the screen front is now. So, the front seats were fitted to the wall and the rough hewn would give the wood space against the stone as everything absorbs moisture differently. It doesn't show from the nave but is quite disturbing looking back. The front seats have been switched. The now altar sides have the mission style iron details that match the front of the screens.
Eric and I wondered about some of the "repairs" and fixtures up there, suggesting a rood screen division of sorts? You can see where the blocks were removed, there are two holes in the middle where a gate might lock like the altar rail closes, and there are two holes in the side walls that supported something. Perhaps when the pulpit was added the alterations were made to give Father easy access???
I hope everyone will be patient. It will take some time and things will look different here and there for some time. I am guessing that it will take at least to the end of summer to get around to each of the seats. It depends on what we encounter. Father's seat had many layers of different kinds of varnish. As that seat gets the most use it probably had the most wear and everyone wanted to keep it nice for him. The Maloof finish will be easy to maintain with a yearly cleaning to remove the shmutz/schmootz(Murphey's oil soap)and an application of his oil/wax. The oil/poly finish soaks into the wood and sort of petrifies there.