On Saturday, May 18, five candidates received the sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop Jeff Mello. Congratulations to Michelle, Paul, Diana, Luke, and Anna! May the Holy Spirit continue to guide you through your lives in Christ. Click HERE to view photos of the liturgy.
This Sunday, June 2, we honor and bid farewell to our Director of Music Walden Moore with a special service of Choral Evensong. All choir alumni are invited to join a special alumni choir. The service will be livestreamed and will feature a newly-composed piece by Jessica French (organ scholar from 2007-08) based on the text of the Chorister's Prayer. Following Evensong, join us for a community dinner at Center Church Parish House, featuring a detailed menu of some of Walden’s favorite foods.
This music at this Sunday's 10:30 a.m. service will be led by Girls Choir alums Maria Cusick, Emma MartinMooney, and Emma Reed. For the psalm setting they'll sing an arrangement composed by Maria especially for this service. For the offertory anthem, they'll sing Felix Mendelssohn's beloved "Lift Thine Eyes" from his oratorio, Elijah, a longtime favorite of the Girls Choir and of many. Welcome back, Maria, Emma, and Emma!
Fellow Trinity members will be singing in the 60th anniversary concert of the Greater New Haven Symphony Chorus on Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Battell Chapel (400 College Street). Members include Barbara Jarry, Candy Carl-Stannard, and Helena Estes. The chorus is led by Aly Kegel. It promises to be a great program!
On Sunday, June 16, after the 10:30 service in the undercroft, our Senior Warden Marsha Ackerman and Rector Luk De Volder will present an update on the search process for our new Director of Music. They will provide background information and details of the upcoming interview process. It will be an opportunity to address questions and a chance to share our strategy to bolster our Trinity choirs and music program.
This past year's interview process (2023-24) has been most instructive thanks to the hard work of our search committee. Much gratitude goes out to each of them, especially the co-chairs Paul Berry and Marsha Ackerman. With the security of an interim Director of Music, Simon Lee, coming this fall, and with a sense of increased expertise, we are now ready to resume the search process.
During the summer months our worship schedule will be abbreviated as follows:
Sundays
7:45 a.m. Quiet Eucharist, Rite I
10:30 a.m. Community Eucharist
2:00 p.m. Chapel on the Green
Wednesdays
12:10 p.m. Quiet Eucharist, Rite II
The one exception to this schedule is on Sunday, June 2, when we will honor Walden Moore with a special service of Choral Evensong (scroll for more info!). We will resume our 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. services after the Labor Day weekend.
Trinity is no stranger to seminarians, though this year we are uniquely blessed to have a summer seminarian. William will be with us from late May through the end of July, and possibly beyond then as well. He will be assisting with Sunday morning liturgy, our Outreach Programs (including Chapel on the Green and the Spiritual Fellowship), and office administration; supervised by Rev. Heidi.
William Lord Margraf (he/him) is a candidate for Holy Orders from the Diocese of Massachusetts and is a seminarian at Yale Divinity School and the Berkeley Divinity School. William is a clinical social worker with experience working with marginalized communities including the unhoused and socially isolated, particularly in Harlem and the Upper West Side of New York City. He was a Franciscan friar for eight years. His present ministerial focus is co-creating the Beloved Community through meaningful and joyful connection of neighbors, history, and Gospel hope. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Villanova University and a Master of Social Work from The Catholic University of America. William was recently adopted by a Scottish terrier, Henry. His interests include modern and contemporary art, Neo-Classical architecture, tea, working out, and making sense of his family history with all its complications and accomplishments. William is thrilled to be with the Trinity on the Green community!
Join Children, Youth, & Family Ministries for a yoga session in the undercroft this Sunday at 9:30 a.m.! Trinity mom Dominique O'Connell will share her talents with us as a yoga teacher. Yoga mats are provided and no prior experience is necessary. We will learn poses and breathing techniques that help us focus and distress. Join us!
This Sunday we will offer another service of Sacred Earth Evening Prayer at Edgerton Park (gather at the Edgehill Road entrance).
In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “Creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine.” Our Sacred Earth service is a time to connect with nature, its beauty, its message, its care. The prayers seek to connect us with the divine expression in creation. It is a place where faith and science meet, where our souls find their home in a way we not always remember, given our lifestyle away from nature. During this prayer time we open our hearts to the richness of nature, like Gerard Manley Hopkins expressed: “What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wilderness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; long live the weeks and the wilderness yet.”
Come and join us in the park to enjoy the beauty of spring with prayer.
The Episcopal Churchwomen in Connecticut invite you to join them for their 143rd Annual Meeting and Luncheon on September 5, 2024 at the Aqua Turf Club (556 Mulberry Street, Plantsville). Event details and registration forms can be accessed HERE. Registration is due August 5. Please email ecwct@yahoo.com if you have any questions.
This Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension with a Family Eucharist at 10:30 a.m., with the children and teens of our parish serving in liturgical ministries. The service will also include special prayers for the women in our lives who care for us: mothers, grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, and friends. All are welcome!
Next Sunday, May 19, we celebrate the Day of Pentecost—the birthday of the church. On this day we give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit given to all people—people of different backgrounds, cultures, and languages.
As a spiritual practice, we invite you to learn the Lord's Prayer in a new language. During our worship on Pentecost Sunday, the congregation will be invited to recite the Lord's Prayer in many different languages, all at once. You may choose to learn the Lord's Prayer in a language that your ancestors spoke, or in a language that is completely new to you. We invite you to let the Holy Spirit move in and through you in a new way.
Would you like to lead our congregation in these prayers? We are looking for a few volunteer lectors to come forward to recite the Lord's Prayer in different languages simultaneously (with microphones at the 10:30 service and without at 7:45). Email Rev. Heidi if you are interested! hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org
Join IRIS and friends for a gathering to raise awareness about the war in Sudan, especially the impact on families and to support grassroots humanitarian work. Eman Salih, Yale Postdoctoral Associate in Public Health, and other Sudanese women leaders will share their experience, insight, and resilience. This is an opportunity to build solidarity with Sudanese communities in Connecticut. This kid-friendly event is FREE for all. Enjoy henna designs by refugee artists, tea, and sweets. In partnership with CRIW (Collective for Refugee & Immigrant Women’s Wellbeing).
As we turn to the warmer months, our beloved Walden Moore will soon be leaving his post as Director of Music. In addition to our remaining legacy events (scroll for more info!) we are organizing a retirement purse for him to show our appreciation for his dedication and talent. Your generosity will not only express our gratitude but will also help Walden as he embarks on his retirement. Thank you for your support in this farewell gesture!
Click HERE to donate online, or mail a check to 950 Chapel Street, Floor 2, New Haven, CT 06511 made out to "Trinity on the Green" with "Walden Purse" in the memo line.
Join the Trinity Yarn Works group in the undercroft on Sunday, June 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to discuss items to make for this year's Christmas Market. We have lots of patterns and and yarn to share and are looking for new ideas to create! A light lunch will be provided.
The Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of Trinity Church on the Green are delighted to announce the appointment of Simon Lee as Interim Director of Music for the 2024-25 academic year. Simon is a very seasoned musician with extended expertise in choral teaching, conducting, and singing. It is a tremendous honor to welcome him to Trinity and we are so looking forward to his leadership and guidance during this transition period. As we continue the search for a permanent Director of Music with new energy and inspiration, we feel blessed and guided by God's providence in having Simon Lee come to Trinity to empower our choirs and our congregational singing during this transition period.
Simon Lee holds a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music where he studied under the tutelage of Marguerite L. Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, and David Hill. During his time in Connecticut, he was conductor of the Marquand Chapel Choir at Yale Divinity School and temporarily the Director of Music at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, New Haven. He also worked with the Morse Chorale, part of Yale’s Morse Summer Music Academy program.
Born and raised in the northwest of England, Simon began his musical career as a chorister at Lancaster Priory. He studied clarinet and saxophone performance at Leeds University where he was also a choral scholar at Leeds R.C. Cathedral. Upon graduation from Leeds in 2009, he moved to Durham to take up the post of tenor Lay Clerk at the Cathedral. He completed a PGCE in Primary Education at Durham University in 2012, and having done this taught in schools across the north-east. After his graduation from Yale, Simon returned to Durham to rejoin the Cathedral Choir and concurrently pursued a career as a choral conductor and tenor soloist. He currently conducts a range of choirs in Durham and Newcastle including Cappella Newcastle; the Durham Cathedral Consort of Singers; Tune Central, an office choir shared between Muckle LLP and RBC Brewin Dolphin’s Newcastle offices; and his own professional ensemble, Northern Consort . In 2017, he was a semi-finalist in the American Choral Directors’ Association’s national Graduate Conducting Competition.
“I am absolutely delighted to be returning to New Haven and joining the team at Trinity on the Green," says Simon. "It feels like a homecoming since I graduated from Yale five years ago. I visited the church last summer and received a very warm welcome and it was good to renew old friendships as well as make new ones! The heritage of the choirs is undeniable, and I am looking forward to working with both children’s choirs as well as the adult choir and taking part in all of the other musicmaking which goes on in the church.
"Music has the wonderful ability to bring all people together; we have a visceral reaction to it and it can heighten and elevate a situation making it all the more meaningful for all those present. This is true all the way through our lives, from our earliest moments of comprehension to our last hours. It is at the heart of a living parish and I feel honoured that I am able to be part of the musical story of Trinity.”
Welcome, Simon!
Dear Trinity members,
A big thank you for all your support during my two years at Yale and Trinity. Thanks to your support, I am please to invite everyone to hear my final Yale organ recital! It will be this Saturday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Woolsey Hall. Admission is free. I will play works by Tournemire, Messiaen, Franck, Rachmaninoff, Ives, Lemare, and Vierne. Please consider attending!
Thank you,
David Preston
This Sunday we welcome a special “guest” preacher, our Director of Music Walden Moore. As Mr. Moore is drawing near to his retirement, he is privy to many experiences and reflections from his forty year tenure at Trinity. Walden has met numerous people, seen many situations, and heard many a sermon that has enriched his life throughout his ministry and given him a throve of stories and wisdom to share. To offer us a glimpse of his treasure of insights, Walden will mount our pulpit this Sunday and offer this Sunday’s sermon.
This Sunday we will offer another service of Sacred Earth Evening Prayer at Edgerton Park (gather at the Edgehill Road entrance).
In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “Creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine.” Our Sacred Earth service is a time to connect with nature, its beauty, its message, its care. The prayers seek to connect us with the divine expression in creation. It is a place where faith and science meet, where our souls find their home in a way we not always remember, given our lifestyle away from nature. During this prayer time we open our hearts to the richness of nature, like Gerard Manley Hopkins expressed: “What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wilderness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; long live the weeks and the wilderness yet.”
Come and join us in the park to enjoy the beauty of spring with prayer.
Please be aware that a major protest, "March for a Free Palestine," is scheduled to take place on the New Haven Green this Sunday, April 28, at noon. We plan to hold our morning services and 5 p.m. service as scheduled, with some modifications to Chapel on the Green at 2 p.m. Please plan for extra time in your commute to and from church and be aware of increased activity throughout the downtown area. We continue to join the church and the world in praying for peace in Israel and Palestine.