This Lent we invite you to write prayers for our community as we accompany one another along our journey of prayer and self-reflection. These prayers will be shared on a weekly basis in our eNews and online.
How to sign up:
Email Rev. Heidi (hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org) to sign up for a particular week. You will receive a reminder the week before. Rev. Heidi will compile the prayers, and they will be shared in the following week's eNews and online (website and Facebook). Take inspiration from each Sunday's readings by clicking the links below.
Second Sunday in Lent (deadline Feb. 20)
Third Sunday in Lent (deadline Feb. 27)
Fourth Sunday in Lent (deadline Mar. 5)
Fifth Sunday in Lent (deadline Mar. 12)
Holy Week (deadline Mar. 19)—reflect on any of the readings from Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or Holy Saturday
How to Write a Prayer:
Prayers can be written like a poem our journal entry, or you could follow the traditional format of a "collect." Collects are short prayers used in common worship, typically separated into three parts:
Attribute: a statement of who God is (describes what God has done in the past and what you will ask God to do)
Ask: describe how we are asking God to help us
Amen: typically in a Trinitarian form (e.g., through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, etc.)
Example (Proper 28):
Attribute: Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning
Ask: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ
Amen: Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
You can take the above format and be creative with it, or let your words be more freeform. Be in touch with Rev. Heidi if you have questions or would like input in the prayer writing process.
A grief support group offers a safe and compassionate space for individuals coping with loss to share their experiences, receive understanding and support, and navigate their emotional journey together. We are currently exploring the idea of organizing such a support group at Trinity and would like to know if there is any interest among our parishioners. If you are interested or have ideas, please email Lilian Revel.
Yale Divinity School invites you to its annual Taylor Lectures, given this year by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The lectures are titled "The Claims of Solidarity: A Conversation in Theology and Ethics" and are spread over the course of three days: February 21, 22, and 23.
All three of the talks will be given at 5:30 p.m. in Marquand Chapel (409 Prospect Street). Free parking is available near YDS in the Betts House or Greenberg Center lots, as well as in Lot 14, Lot 15, and on nearby streets. Visit Yale's campus parking page to see the exact locations of these lots.
Rowan Williams is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian, and poet and was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. He is also Honorary Professor of Contemporary Christian Thought and former head of Magdalen College, Cambridge. Retired in Wales since 2020, he is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and public affairs and several collections of poetry. Bishop Williams says of his Taylor Lectures, “Solidarity is a common theme in ethical discussion and plays a key role in modern Catholic social teaching. But what are the roots of this language? Does it seek to avoid necessary conflict and struggle, or does it offer a radical alternative to tribal and destructive social patterns? The lectures will treat these and other questions and suggest where we might look both for theological grounding and theological critique.”
Due to the severe winter storm forecast to hit the northeast tonight and tomorrow, St. PJ's has cancelled their Mardi Gras party. We look forward to collaborating for another event in the future, and in the meantime, we hope everyone stays safe!
This monthly, kid-friendly service invites families (and parishioners) to gather in the undercroft at 10:35 a.m. for their own version of Sunday worship. Special guests David Lindsay and Kathleen Schomaker will lead us in song this Sunday as children participate as readers, musicians, and ushers. Afterwards, our Baby Blessings Play Group meets in the nursery to play and make friends. Join us!
In these sessions we will explore different forms of prayer and meditation and learn from the wisdom of the mystics—including Jesus, Hildegard von Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Etty Hillesum, and Teilhard de Chardin.
The retreat meets via Zoom every Thursday during Lent (beginning February 15 and ending March 21). All are welcome—please email Lilian Revel if you wish to attend. pastoralcare@trinitynewhaven.org
Last Sunday, February 4, Trinity held its nineteenth African American Read-In organized for the final time by dedicated parishioner Eleanor Q. Tignor. With a slavery documentary screening in 2023, this year's Read-In marked twenty years of honoring Black History Month as a community. We are so grateful to Eleanor for her tireless work in putting this event together every year. Eleanor has shared the following words with the parish:
I wish to thank the 22 readers who participated in the February 4th Read-In. Each one had signed up in advance and came well prepared, presenting to the enthusiastic audience, for which we were all grateful, a diversity of writings by African Americans, ranging from slavery to the present day. The themes of peace, love, joy, dreams, faith, hope, equality, and others in past and present Black writings blended effectively and kept our attention.
As the coordinator who needed certain assistance and support for our 19th Read-In, I give special thanks to Lilian Revel, Warner Marshall, The Rev. Heidi Thorsen, Jeff Perron, and as always to Walden Moore, for setting the stage with “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sign,” sung by all at the conclusion of each service. To the whole church, thanks for your thanks to me—that huge beautiful floral bouquet.
Eleanor Q. Tignor
Next Sunday, February 18, is our Annual General Meeting. This year's AGM will follow a slightly different format: the agenda items will take place during the 10:30 worship (and will be abbreviated from previous years), after which there will be an informal Q&A with parish leaders and an extended coffee hour in the undercroft. There will be no luncheon as in years past. We hope you can join us!
Click HERE to peruse our 2023 Annual Report and reflect on the ways the Holy Spirit has been moving in our community this past year.
On Sunday, February 25, we are honored and delighted to welcome Emily Esfahani Smith to preach at our 10:30 a.m. service. Emily draws on psychology, philosophy, and literature to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of suffering. Her book The Power of Meaning, an international bestseller, has been translated into sixteen different languages. The former managing editor of The New Criterion, Smith’s articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has also appeared on NBC’s TODAY, CBS This Morning, and NPR. In 2019, she was a Poynter Journalism Fellow at Yale University. As a speaker, she has delivered dozens of keynotes and workshops at major corporations, conferences, and universities across the country and world. Emily lives in Washington, DC.
The next Trinity Book Club meeting will take place on Tuesday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. via Zoom. We will be reading Horse by Geraldine Brooks, based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking horse Lexington. All are welcome—please email Jennifer Briggs if you would like to join! Registrants will be sent the Zoom link nearer the time. jenniferobriggs@gmail.com
Our Choir of Adults & Girls and the Boys' Choir offer our monthly service of Choral Morning Prayer this Sunday at 9 a.m. Music by Philip Moore, Herbert Howells, and Will Todd. All are welcome!
Connecting with God's creation is not only spiritually rewarding; it deepens our awareness of the care we owe to our planet, is part of our self-care, and is a rediscovery of how we related better to our Creator. Come and join us on Sunday for this winter version of our Sacred Earth prayer services.
Exciting news—the weekly pledge envelopes have arrived! You can now pick them up at the rear of the church, conveniently located near the sexton's office. Your commitment and support are truly appreciated. Thank you for your generosity and dedication to our community.
If you are unable to pick up your envelopes at church, please email Kyle Picha to make alternate arrangements. kpicha@trinitynewhaven.org
Please note that the correct date for the first soup supper with Jenny Briggs and Lisa Barr is February 19. Last week's eNews had listed it as February 12.
We now have people to host all five Lent Soup Suppers! Next step: sign up to be a guest. Get to know your Trinity family better over fellowship and a shared meal. Hosts provide the soup; guests are welcome to bring sides, a beverage, or dessert. Trinity will provide materials for a short prayer service and "icebreaker" questions for more conversation during the meal.
Pick a date and location that works best for you! RSVP by signing up in the narthex after church, or email Rev. Heidi (hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org). Details (including the host's address) will be provided to those who RSVP.
Schedule:
Monday, Feb. 19 at noon | New Haven | Jenny Briggs & Lisa Barr
Thursday, Feb. 29 at 5:30 p.m. | Hamden | Leigh Cromey & Rich Walser
Saturday, Mar. 9 at 11:30 a.m. | New Haven (family-friendly option!) | Marge Eichler
Saturday, Mar. 16 at noon | Beacon Falls | Bob Scott & Jim Rothgeb
Tuesday, Mar. 19 at 5:30 p.m. | West Haven | Barbara Jerry
The Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James (57 Olive Street) has graciously invited Trinity to join their annual Mardi Gras celebration. Come for an evening of cornbread, jambalaya, and jazz for one last hurrah before the holy fast of Lent! Donations for food will be accepted at the event.
Ash Wednesday is February 14. We offer two services: Holy Eucharist (spoken) at 12:10, and a Solemn Liturgy of the Word (sung, no Communion) at 7:30 p.m. Ashes will be imposed at both services. From 1-3 p.m., passersby on the Green are invited to receive ashes and volunteers will be on hand for conversation and prayers.
Douglas A. Blackman, Slavery by Another Name: The re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (New York: Anchor Books, 2008).
In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history: an Age of Neoslavery that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.
Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (New York: Random House, 2021).
McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm - the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others.
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (New York: Random House, 2010).
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
Philip Dray, Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008).
Reconstruction was a time of idealism and sweeping change, as the victorious Union created citizenship rights for the freed slaves and granted the vote to black men. Sixteen black Southerners, elected to the U.S. Congress, arrived in Washington to advocate reforms such as public education, equal rights, land distribution, and the suppression of the Ku Klux Klan. But these men faced astounding odds. They were belittled as corrupt and inadequate by their white political opponents, who used legislative trickery, libel, bribery, and the brutal intimidation of their constituents to rob them of their base of support.
Ibrahim X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 (New York: Random House, 2021).
Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics.
Ibrahim X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Random House, 2017).
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists.
Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times Magazine, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (New York: Random House, 2021).
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.
Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (New York: Random House, 2020.
This book points to our entire social structure as an unrecognized caste system. Most people see America as racist, and Wilkerson agrees that it is indeed racist. She points out that we tend to refer to slavery as a “sad, dark chapter” in America when in fact it lasted for hundreds of years - but in order to maintain the social order, it was necessary to give Black people the lowest possible status. Whites in turn got top status. In between came the middle castes of “Asians, Latinos, indigenous people, and immigrants of African descent” to fill out the originally bipolar hierarchy.
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010).
Alexander argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race. Argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.
Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. (Logan, IA: Perfection Learning, 2019).
Rothstein explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation – that is, through individual prejudices, income differences or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, he makes clear that it was de jure segregation – the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state and federal governments – that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
Victor Ray, Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care (New York: Random House, 2022).
Ray draws upon the radical thinking of giants such as Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to clearly trace the foundations of critical race theory in the Black intellectual traditions of emancipation and the civil rights movement. From these foundations, Ray explores the many facets of our society that critical race theory interrogates, from deeply embedded structural racism to the historical connection between whiteness and property, ownership, and more.
Linda Villarosa, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation (New York: Random House, 2022).
Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Villarosa tells us why.
Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife (London: Ithaka Press, 2023).
The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as “his” slave.
Starting this Sunday, join us for a weekly Bible Study at 9:30 a.m. in the Upper Room (above the narthex). The sessions will explore the lectionary texts for the day through the lens of different themes. Led by seminarians and clergy, we hope to provide a personal and devotional space for conversation on Sunday mornings.
From now through Lent, our Bible Study theme will be the Way of Love, a series of seven practices rooted in the Episcopal tradition. Come as you are and we will read and discuss the text together!
Schedule:
Jan. 28: Turn (Mark 1:21-28)
Feb. 4: Pray (Mark 1:29-39)
Feb. 11: Learn (Mark 9:2-9)
Feb. 18: Go (Mark 1:9-15)
Feb. 25: No Bible Study – Confirmation Class
Mar. 3: Worship (John 2:13-22)
Mar. 10: Bless (John 3:14-21)
Mar. 17: Rest (John 12:20-33)
Mar. 24: No Bible Study – Confirmation Class
Mar. 31: No Bible Study – Easter Sunday
