St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

At St. Paul’s Parish today, Wednesday, August 27, 2008:

• Holy Communion at 6:30 p.m. (in the Worship Space);
• Natural Church Development Focus Groups Ice Cream Social (”Speak Out - Eat Up”) at 7:00 p.m. (in the Dining Room);
• Overeaters Anonymous at 7:30 p.m. (in the Common Room).

The Summer issue of St. Paul’s Sword of the Spirit, our monthly newsletter, is available on line, as is the calendar of parish events for August 2008.

Today’s news in the Episcopal Church - Episcopal Life Online.

On the calendar tomorrow, August 28, 2008:

• Choir practices will resume next Thursday. There are no activities on the parish calendar today.

Today we commemorate Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Syle, two Episcopalians who championed our church’s ministry to the deaf.

Hagiographer James Kiefer offers this information about Gallaudet and Syle:

Thomas Gallaudet was born in 1822, in Hartford, Connecticut (41:45 N 72:42 E). His mother, Sophia was deaf, and his father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, was the founder of the West Hartford School for the deaf, which was the principal institution for the education of the deaf in America from 1806 to 1857 (the year of the founding of Gallaudet College in Washington, DC, 38:55 N 77:00 W). The father had intended to become a priest, but had become an educator of the deaf instead. The son also intended to seek ordination, but was persuaded by his father to work for a while first as a teacher of the deaf. He did, and so met and married Miss Elizabeth Budd, who was deaf. He was ordained in 1851, and the next year established St. Ann’s Church in New York (40:45 N 74:00 E), especially for deaf persons, with services primarily in sign language. As a result of his work, congregations for the deaf were established in many cities. (Alternatively, some congregations that are mostly hearing will have someone standing near the front and signing the service for the benefit of deaf parishioners.) Gallaudet died 27 August 1902.

One of Gallaudet’s students and parishioners was Henry Winter Syle, deaf from an early age, who had attended Trinity College (Hartford, Conn), St John’s (Cambridge, England, 52:12 N 0:07 E), and Yale (New Haven, Conn., 41:18 N 72:55 W). Gallaudet encouraged him to become a priest, and in 1876 he became the first deaf person to be ordained by the Episcopal Church in the United States. He established a congregation for the deaf in 1888, and died 6 January 1890.

The following prayer for this commemoration from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:

O Loving God, whose will it is that everyone should come to you and be saved: We bless your holy Name for your servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today, and we pray that you will continually move your Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who opened the ears of the deaf, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.