Chapel of the Good Shepherd was consecrated as an independent corporation, the Free Church of the Good Shepherd at 8 Cortes St. in the South End. The mission had begun in 1862 with a Sunday school, which was held in rooms over a carpenter’s shop on Church St. in Bay Village. Among its Emmanuelite founders were the Rev. William R. Huntington, warden John Davis Williams French, and Enoch R. Mudge.
See also: 1880
Having been denied church funding, Rector Dan Huntington raised funds from parishioners, including the French family, to pay for Chapel of the Good Shepherd, which was consecrated.
Mrs. Gardner by John Singer Sargent, courtesy of the Gardner Museum via WikiCommons
April 10. Isabella Stewart Gardner was confirmed at Emmanuel by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Manton Eastburn, Bishop of Massachusetts. It was the fourth anniversary of her marriage to John Lowell (Jack) Gardner, Jr., who had purchased Pew 28 in 1862. Although the Stewarts had been members of Grace Church in New York City, their children were not confirmed until they reached adulthood. Louise Hall Tharp in her biography Mrs. Jack hypothesizes that Isabella’s confirmation “might have been a sort of thank-offering for the child she so much wanted”. John Lowell 3rd, born on June 18, 1863, unfortunately died on March 15, 1865. His baptism and burial are recorded in our parish register. The Gardners, who lived nearby at 152 Beacon St., later raised their orphaned nephews, sons of Jack’s brother Joseph, also owned a pew until his death in 1875.
Take a visual tour of her museum and its collection at Google’s Cultural Institute.
March 24. The Rev. Dr. Frederic Dan Huntington (May 28, 1819-July 11, 1904) was ordained and became Emmanuel’s First Rector. See also the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.
June 17. Cornerstone laid for the church on Newbury St. Alexander Esty (18 October 1826 – 2 July 1881) was our architect.
1 Oct. William Reed Huntington, who had studied theology under Dr. Huntington at Harvard, was ordained to the transitional diaconate. After serving as assistant to Dr. Huntington for a year, he became rector of All Saints Church, Worcester.
Dec 15. First service in the church
The Rev. Dr. F. Dan Huntington
Street. A committee was formed to secure Dr. Frederic Dan Huntington (1819-1904) as rector, although he had yet to be ordained an Episcopalian priest. Richard Sullivan. Fay, Jr. (1833-1882) was chosen as Chairman of the Committee of Subscribers.
Lent 2C, February 24, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
O God our shield and defender, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Today’s Gospel text strikes me as a little strange. It’s strange to be catapulted from Luke’s account of Jesus in the wilderness before his ministry began, past miles of travel, teaching and healing all around the Galilee and beyond, to the middle of the Gospel of Luke, at the end of chapter thirteen. (Next week the scheduled portion is back in the beginning of chapter 13.) The slow, almost leisurely pace of Jesus’ ministry which includes story-telling, prayer and Sabbath meals gets completely eclipsed in our Lenten reading of Luke’s Gospel. Continue reading
Lent 1C, February 17, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
O God of our callings, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit in the wilderness. It’s a little gentler version than the Gospel of Mark’s description of Jesus being driven out to the wilderness by the Spirit. It was after he was baptized, according to Luke, but not before Luke recites Jesus’ genealogy. It’s a curious place to put a 77 generation genealogy – four chapters in to the story. But for Luke, it becomes the connective tissue between the baptism and the wilderness in which Jesus began his work – his ministry. The genealogy demonstrates that Jesus is a child of Israel, a child of all humanity, and a child of the Creator. Our lectionary does this crazy thing of splitting the story of Jesus’ baptism which we heard at the beginning of Epiphany, early in January, and this time in the wilderness. In the last six weeks we’ve heard all kinds of other stories in between the baptism and the wilderness, like last week’s account of the Transfiguration which comes much later in Luke. But the Gospel narrative is that Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit at baptism goes immediately into a harsh place of physical and spiritual danger. Continue reading