Let my prayer be set forth in THY sight as the incense :
Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals is not a parish publication; it was written and privately distributed by the late Peter Harper, a parishioner and a Sub-deacon at St. John’s. Yet it would never have existed outside a parish like ours.
Smoke Signals arose in 1995 as a response to a delightful but short-lived (1994-1996) leaflet produced by the choir called Square Notes that dealt with the music program and choir life.
Reproduced here are topics relating to church life, catholic customs, and the grandeur and foibles of Mother Church.
Despite the irony and sometimes the ‘tongue-in-cheekness’ of the style, the reader should feel the deep underlying love the author had for the Great Tradition of Western Christianity.
Peter Harper (1942 - 2019)
✠ Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord:
and let light perpetual shine upon him.
Monasteries
“Monastery” at once evokes a ruin, albeit a romantic one, as it does, I suppose, in the minds of most English-speakers. The dissolution of monasteries in Britain was so thorough, that there apparently exists only one monastery in Elgin (Scotland) that is still active in its original Medieval vocation and setting (despite an interruption of 4 centuries).
And let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice