The first event was event was on Thursday and a part of our Third Thursday Organ Interlude at 12 noon. Mr. Robert McCormick a Macon native and organist in Washington, DC perform a wonderful half hour organ recital which concluded with an "off the cuff" improvisation of two hymns suggested to him on the spot. What he did with these two hymns was truly remarkable. One of the hymns was "God's Blessing Sends Us Forth" and the other "I Heard the Voice of Jesus." He played both at first almost as single notes then molded them into an improvisation that actually brought tears to my eyes. It was fantastic.
There were almost 200 in the congregation and from churches all over Macon. The concert was followed by a luncheon in our social hall. We began the organ concert with a short ecumenical prayer which included the recitation of the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer and one of the new Collects for Christian Unity from our revised English Roman Missal.
The other ecumenical event is a miracle similar to the parting of the Red Sea. Last year Elaine Schmidt and Steve Gonser both of whom coordinate the decoration of our church suggested to me that we host the very first "Old City Flower Festival." What they would do is to contact as many of the downtown Macon churches and invite them to create a floral arrangement that would be placed in various areas of our church.
I asked them, you're going to ask Protestant churches in town to come and decorate our church with flowers? I said good luck, thinking who in the world would participate. I thought it would take a miracle like that of the parting of the Red Sea. Well, the parting has taken place and the Protestants are rushing through to St. Joseph Church and placing their floral arrangements all over the place. It will be completed by Saturday, the 21st and remain until Wednesday the concluding day of the Prayer for Christian Unity.
These are the churches who are participating and the flower arrangements thus far are stunning. I'll post pictures when I get them:
1. Saint Joseph Church
2. Mulberry Street United Methodist Church
3. Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church
4. St. Paul's Episcopal Church
5. St. Peter Claver Catholic Church
6. The First Presbyterian Church
7. Vineville United Methodist Church
8. Christ Church Episcopal
9. Sacred Heart Catholic Church
10. The First Baptist Church, New Street
11. Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church
12. Vineville Baptist Church
13. The First Baptist Church of Christ, High Street at Poplar
All I can say is WOW!
10 comments:
I was able to get a sneak peak at some of the arrangements last evening and they are fabulous! Worth the trip to St. Joseph to check them out!
Where's Holy Spirit on this list? LOL
That's a good question as I thought the pastor of Holy Spirit was very ecumenical!
Holy Spirit was asked to participate, but like many of the others who chose not to, they didn't feel like they had the people or resources to spare. Anyway, this is the Old City Flower Show, and was originally envisioned as being for the oldest downtown churches. Sacred Heart in Warner Robins, St. Peter Claver, and Holy Spirit were invited because they are in the deanery.
I am looking forward to seeing this amazing display and symbol of our desire for unity! Bravo to the Flower Ministry! Inspired!
As a former member of Vineville UMC, I'm glad they participated. Looks like a great show.
Poor Holy Spirit. Something must be wrong with that Parish if they can't get excited enough to generate the small amount of people and resources it would take to support such an Ecumenical effort.
Morale must be pretty bad there days. I wonder what's changed?
Holy Spirit Parish will be happy to consider participation in this event in the future.
Unfortunately, we were not given sufficient advance notice for this year's event to be able to plan and prepare an appropriate floral display.
Holy Spirit takes a hard line approach to the classical formulae: "extra downtowniam, nulla flowahs". Anyway, every Catholic Church has Traditional flowers at the altar every day, so this is nothing "extraordinary".
:-)
(This post is intended in good humor, please read it in that light.)
Templar, The pastor at Holy Spirit probably feels that this flower business is too traditional and needs to be de-constructed. True ecumenicism is the Catholic Church sending flowers to all the protestant churches. Flowers in a Catholic Church reeks of Triumphalism, traditionalism, and arrogance. Perhaps we should have sent flowers to the Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori...now there's true ecumenicism...LOL!
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