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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

1914 AND TODAY: ST. JAMES PROTESTANT-EPISCOPAL CHURCH

I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal faith when I was 5 or 6 years old. The ceremonies were held at St. Michael's P.E. Church on North Warren Street in Trenton. My mother and father originally attended Christ P.E. Church on Whittaker Avenue in Chambersburg, where my mother and father were married in 1923. As a young teen, I attended St. James Church which was located on Greenwood and South Logan Avenues. During that time, the Rev. Gerald Minchin was the Pastor. The thing I remember most about St. James and the Episcopal faith was the beautiful old fashioned sacred hymns we sang. Most of the congregation participated and added a warm feeling to the solemnity of the service. I converted to the Roman Catholic faith back in 1962. I found it to be a lateral move that was quite similar in many ways to the Protestant Episcopal liturgy. However, my personal experience has been that there is much less emphasis placed on sacred traditional hymns in today's Roman Catholic churches when compared to those Episcopalians! I can't remember the last time I sang
"Faith of Our Fathers," "How Great Thou Art," "Abide With Me," "The Old Rugged Cross," and countless other old time classics. They are however, in a treasured "HYMNS" folder in my computer database.

RALPH LUCARELLA said...

HI TOM...MY VERY BEST FRIEND BELONGED TO ST. JAMES ON WHITTAKER AVENUE. I RECALL PLAYING BASKETBALL IN THE CHURCH LEAGUE, A VERY POPULAR LEAGUE IN THE CITY DURING THE 30'S AND HIS BROTHER SAM WAS OUR COACH. BEST REGARDS.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Anonymous said...

Tom, on a light note, your post reminded me an old phrase that was used by physicians back "in the day", then being the 1940's and into the 1950's. The doctor would ask the woe-begotten patient to say the phrase "Protestant, Methodist, Episcopal" .. and it was used as a quite accurate determinant of the mid to late stages of syphilis. The disease had effect on those neural speech centers. That said, though I could never understand a word of Latin, I love it when they occasionally have it on the Catholic network on TV. It brings back the memories.

Ed Millerick

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

2 comments:

RALPH LUCARELLA said...

HI TOM...MY VERY BEST FRIEND BELONGED TO ST. JAMES ON WHITEKER AVENUE. I RECALL PLAYING BASKETBALL IN THE CHURCH LEAGUE, A VERY POPULAR LEAGUE IN THE CITY DURING THE 30'S AND HIS BROTHER SAM WAS OUR COACH. BEST REGARDS.

Anonymous said...

Tom, on a light note, your post reminded me an old phrase that was used by physicians back "in the day", then being the 1940's and into the 1950's. The doctor would ask the woe-begotten patient to say the phrase "Protestant, Methodist, Episcopal" .. and it was used as a quite accurate determinant of the mid to late stages of syphilis. The disease had effect on those neural speech centers. That said, though I could never understand a word of Latin, I love it when they occasionally have it on the Catholic network on TV. It brings back the memories.

Ed Millerick