THE GABRIEL
Parish Newsletter for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church July 12, 2021
Calendar Reminders
July 12 6:00 pm NA Meeting, Parish Hall
July 15 6:30 pm Vestry Meeting, Bsmt Meeting Room
July 17 9:30-11:30 am AA Meeting
July 18 10:15 am Holy Eucharist with Rev. Suzanne Barrow
On Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/StPaulsJeff/live_ videos/
Collect for 8th Sunday after Pentecost (July 18th)
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Lessons: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53- 56
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OUR PARISH PRAYERS:
Today, we pray for our church: for Michael, our presiding bishop, for Jennifer our bishop, and for the people of our companion diocese of Brasilia, and their bishop, the Rt. Rev. Mauricio Andrade; and in the diocesan cycle of prayer we pray for St. Paul’s, New Albany--The Rev. Mark Feather. In faith and hope
We pray to you O God.
We pray for those in need of food, shelter, clothing, and of God’s healing touch, especially for those who have asked us to remember them in prayer: Virginia, Beverly, Juanita, Gwen, Mary Sue, Delani, Nan, David & Michele, Patricia, Sonny, John, Fred, Laura and Michael. Comforter of the suffering, warm our hearts and hands to loving service.
We pray to you O God.
For all who fear God and believe in you, Lord Christ, that our divisions may cease, and that all may be one as you and the Father are one, we pray to you, O Lord. Make us one in heart and mind to serve you with joy forever. Amen.
REJOICE ALWAYS, PRAY WITHOUT CEASING, GIVE THANKS IN ALL
CIRCUMSTANCES,
FOR THAT IS THE WILL OF GOD FOR YOU!
FROM THE GABRIEL TEAM:
NEXT SUNDAY (July 18th): Holy Eucharist will be celebrated by Rev. Suzanne Barrow. Also, don’t forget—the little red wagon is waiting to be filled with food donations for the Center for Lay Ministries! Thanks, Lois and Patricia, for becoming our liaisons with CLM and delivering these donations to the food pantry.
ONLINE MORNING PRAYER SERVICES: The next service will begin Sunday, July 18th at 10:15 am. It will be live and in person at St. Paul’s, and on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/StPaulsJeff/live_videos/
Please join us, during or after the service, and tell others about the service. Also check YouTube for videos of past services: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCynD2CNlCMbJ5YOb1Euce5Q.
MANY THANKS for your continued faithful responses to the need for funds. Please bear in mind that with our return to in-person services, costs begin to escalate and your contributions are still needed.
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PARISH OFFICE HOURS : MTWF 10:00-4:30 and Thurs 10:00 to 1:00 pm.
If you have something you’d like to add to the next newsletter (including a brief update on what you and/or your family have been doing since last we met together), please email the team at stpaulsjeff@gmail.com by Sunday afternoon. Please put “newsletter” in the subject line.
Episcopalian’s “Three-Legged Stool” (from the Sr. Warden)
Scripture is the word of God contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The 39 books of the Old Testament contain the story of God’s love from the time of creation to the birth of his son, Jesus Christ. The books contain God’s laws as He gave them to the Hebrew people.
This is the first of a 3 part series explaining the legs of the stool. The first is Scripture. The New Testament contains Christ’s teachings, the accounts of his life as told by his followers and the beginning of his Church. It is written in 27 books. Within an Episcopal worship service, Scripture is read in the lessons, the Gospel (the teachings of Jesus), the Psalms (poems from the Old Testament) and other prayers.
Additionally, 2/3 of our guide to worship, the Book of Common Prayer, comes directly from the Old and New Testaments.
--Taken from Connections.org
ANSWERS TO THIS WEEK’S HISTORY QUIZ:
1. 2.
What was the name of the Bishop and founder of St. Paul’s Jeff?
Answer: Jackson David Kemper, who officiated at the consecration of the church in 1840.
Where was the first church building located?
Answer: 238 Spring Street.
BONUS: How much did it cost, and who paid for it?
Answer: $300, Paid by the Ladies of Christ Church, Louisville.
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WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?
---From Steve Fleece---
From time to time it’s good to remind ourselves that in the truest sense the church is not a building but the people who worship together in whatever space. We have been in our current beautiful sanctuary since 1894. But St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Jeffersonville was founded in 1836. Even earlier a passing clergyman noted a group of lay-led Episcopalians in Jeffersonville in 1823. Where were we before we landed here?
Baird’s History of Clark County, published in 1909, is the basic source for local history although superseded by Carl Kramer’s more professional This Place We Call Home in 2007. Carl is a Ph.D. historian. Baird was a lawyer who wrote his history according to the norms of his day. Still, for the early history of St. Paul’s, Baird provides the most detail, devoting a chapter to our church. We’ll learn more about Mr. Baird in a future Reflection.
Baird tells us, “The congregation first worshiped in a schoolhouse on Market Street, but soon the lower room of the court-house was fitted up and afforded a convenient accommodation.” (Apparently there was no ACLU around in those days to raise the issue of separation of church and state.) Baird then tells us, “The first St. Paul’s Church was erected on a leased lot on Spring Street at what is now (1909) No. 238.” There is currently no such street number on Spring Street. Larger newer buildings on each side of what would have been No. 238 have replaced it. But the site is easy to find, across Spring St. from The News and Tribune building, between a spa and the former B.P.O.E. Elks Club building. Look up and you’ll see the Elk.
Next, Baird tells us a committee was appointed in 1845, “to purchase a lot upon which to remove the church from Spring Street where it stood on leased ground . . .They purchased on Chestnut Street, between Spring and Pearl Streets.” No street number is given. One old City Directory I checked indicated it was on the south side of the street and a rival directory indicated the north side. Baird tells us that church building was still around (in 1897) being used as a kindergarten because the church had moved on.
In 1868 the vestry purchased an interesting piece of Civil War era Army Surplus, the chapel of Camp Joe Holt. The camp was originally a recruiting and camp ground for Kentucky Unionists unable to enlist in Kentucky while that state attempted to maintain neutrality. Later, it served as a Union hospital until 1864 and the construction of the larger Jefferson Hospital upstream in the Port Fulton neighborhood. Although the camp was described as being in Jeffersonville at the time, its site was in what is now Clarksville in the general area of the Falls of the Ohio and Big Eddy.
The vestry swapped its lot and building on Chestnut Street for one a Baptist congregation owned on nearby Mulberry Street. They paid the government $300.00 for the chapel and $450.00 to have it moved and fixed up. Mulberry is the street on the west side of the Big Four Station Park at the foot of the former railroad and now pedestrian bridge. Neither the bridge nor its elevated approaches along Mulberry Street existed at the time. In 1881 the first rectory was
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purchased at the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut. So far, I have not found a picture of our Army Surplus church or its predecessors.
The vestry sold the Mulberry St. property in 1890 with a provision that they could continue to hold services there until 1892 when it was expected our current church would be ready. I find it interesting that construction of the Big Four Railroad Bridge with its massive elevated steel approaches all along Mulberry was completed in 1895 putting the properties along Mulberry either in the shadow of or directly under those huge girders with trains running overhead. When did that construction start? When were those plans first made? Did our vestry know what was coming to that neighborhood and decide to get out when the getting was good in 1890? Did the purchasers know how the area was about to be transformed? There is always something new to discover.
The cornerstone of our current church home was laid on October 6, 1892. The rectory was completed and the family of the rector moved in the week before Christmas 1894. And those are the places where we have been, except for brief dislocations during the floods of 1884 and 1937. We were founded the same year as the Battle of the Alamo. We’ve been on this site since Grover Cleveland was president and Theodore Roosevelt was giving up cattle ranching in North Dakota to become Police Commissioner of New York City. Wherever we have been, wherever we may go, we the people, we are the Church.
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