The Blessed Virgin Mary

 December 18, 2016—The Fourth Sunday in Advent

       In last Sunday’s sermon, I said that we so often refer to Jesus as “Jesus Christ” that some may be forgiven for thinking that “Christ” is his last name. “Christ,” however, is not his name but his title. Jesus is the “Christ," the Holy One of God (Is:53.11, Mk:1.24), whose coming among us was announced by the prophets. Jesus revealed himself to be the Christ, the King of Israel and Savior of sinful humankind, by perfectly fulfilling those prophecies (Is:35; 53.1-12; 25.6-9).

      In like manner, we so regularly refer to Jesus’s mother as the Blessed Virgin Mary that we are apt to think “Virgin” was her given name. But as with the title Christ, so too “Virgin” is a title given to Jesus’s mother. What that means and why Jesus’s mother should bear this title, with all the reverence it deserves, will be the subject of this very short but poignant homily.

       Jesus’s mother is called not merely “Mary” but is dignified by the title “Virgin,” to call attention to her unique status as the young woman of Isaiah’s prophecy, the virgin who would give birth to him who would be hailed as “Emmanuel, God among us”( Is:7.14; Mt:1.23). As such, her virginity was not only physical, it was spiritual. She who would become the perfect servant of God, whose consent would enable the redemptive act was, as the archangel Gabriel announced, perfect, “full of grace”(Lk:1.28). Mary, by her steadfast obedience, possessed everything that the disobedient Eve had lost. She who was elected to bring about the restoration of humanity to full communion with God was herself holy in the way that the first virgin, Eve, was holy. But where Eve, tempted by the fallen angel, disobeyed God by not trusting his word, Mary proved herself to be a woman of complete integrity, a model of sainthood, the penultimate believer. If only Eve had said to the angel as Mary did to Gabriel, “Let it be unto me according to [God’s] word” (Lk:1.38), how different the history of the world would have been. Where Eve failed, Mary succeeded. Unlike Eve, Mary dedicated herself to God body and soul, keeping herself entirely from sin, and by so doing she earned the title Virgin, with a capital “V.” Where the first virgin, Eve, by her disobedience became the mother of a race of rebellious sinners, the Virgin Mary by her obedience to God became the mother of the faithful, the mother of the church (Jn:19.26–27); the mother of all who receive redemption by grace through faith in God’s only begotten Son, her only son, Jesus Christ.

       Mary was not divine by nature, but her Son was. Many a mother thinks that the sun rises and sets on her child. It is the nature of maternal love for a mother to see God’s image in her child. But in the case of Mary, when she looked into the eyes of Jesus, she saw more there than an image of divinity. She saw in his eyes the very wisdom and holiness of God incarnate among us. When she held her baby to her breast, she held not only a precious gift from God. She held God himself to her breast. Mary a creature of God nursed our Creator. For that reason alone we honor her above all others. For that reason alone, as Mary herself prophesied, “All generations will call me blessed” (Lk:1.48).

       Many people dismiss the gospel of Jesus Christ out of hand as a fiction because they say, as Ernest Hemingway put it, that no “thinking person” believes in the tooth fairy or unicorns let alone deities. We live in a vain and pompous age that worships human reason without even asking from where it comes. But even those who have faith in God struggle to imagine how God the creator of heaven and earth could become a child, completely dependent on one of his creatures for life. This mystery of God’s dependence on a woman to nurture him at her breast and then teach him, as good mothers do, how to be a loving and strong man is at the heart of Christian faith. Theologians call this mystery of God the Creator becoming a creature of the earth and taking on human nature including all the vulnerability of childhood the doctrine of “the Incarnation.” Saint John put it succinctly by saying simply: “[God] became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn:1.14). That is the essential mystery at the genesis of our faith, a dogma we believe because God has revealed the truth of it.

        Next Saturday night on Christmas Eve and on the two Sundays following as well as on Epiphany, we’ll preach in depth on the doctrine of the Incarnation. But today we pause to ask, “What does this say about Mary? Who was she and why should we honor her?” We honor her because God came into the world through her. No one is born without a mother and Jesus was no exception to that law of nature. He would after death, following his glorious resurrection, ascend into heaven and return to his Father by his own volition and power (Acts:1.9). But to become one of us, God had to first be formed, as are we all, in his mother’s womb (Gal:4.4). Mary was the mother of God. She was not in the beginning with God. But she was the one God conceived from the beginning and then, at the time of his own choosing, formed in perfect holiness to be his mother. So as to exclude any confusion, the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 435 gave Mary the title of Theotokos, "Mother of God."

      Of all the people who have ever lived, apart from Jesus, Mary, having been given the highest honor by God, is deserving of the most honor from us. Mary is to the church, the visible kingdom of God on earth, as the Ark of the Covenant was to ancient Israel. The Ark of the Covenant was the gold plated box that God told Moses to construct in which Moses put the Ten Commandments (Ex:25; 34.28). The Ark literally held the words of God written by the finger of God on stone tablets. The Ark was, therefore, the most sacred and honored object in Israel. But sadly, because of Israel’s sins, God allowed Israel’s enemies to steal and destroy the ark. The story of Israel’s redemption begins with the restoration of the Ark of the Covenant. But a new covenant required a new ark. Mary is the new ark. The new ark, the sacred symbol of Israel’s redemption, would bear the Word of God not in a wooden box built by men but in her womb. The word in the ark of Mary’s womb was not placed there by a man.  God entered the ark of Mary’s womb by the Spirit after obtaining her permission (Lk:1.38). The word in Mary’s womb was not like the word in the first Ark; a dead letter carved in stone. The word in the ark of her womb was Jesus, the living Word of God come to his people in person (Jn.1.1–14). Mary is, therefore, greater than the Ark of the Old Covenant as a living soul is greater than a dead stone. And the word that issued from her womb is so much greater than words carved in stone as meeting an author in person and having him address you directly is greater than reading his book. But in this case, in the case of the gospel of man’s salvation, the author we meet is not just a man but is the one we call Emmanuel, God among us, God born of a woman, God born of Mary.

       My point today is simply this: as Christians, as children born again by grace into the New Covenant of faith, we cannot show too much honor or devotion or respect for Mary. We owe our salvation to her son. But our salvation depends in part on our imitating him (Eph:5.1). He was from the beginning dependent on her and up until age thirty when he left home to begin his ministry he was obedient to her (Lk:2.51). All of us who have been baptized have been united to Jesus Christ by grace. His life is implanted in our souls and so we are privileged to say with all the saints, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal.2.20). Since Jesus lives in us by grace, his Father becomes our Father (Mt.6.9) and his mother becomes our mother (Jn: 19.24). It is a blessing to have parents who love you. What a wonderful gift God has given us in Mary. We have in Mary a mother who loves each of us as much as she loves her son Jesus.

        Mary so loved her son that she followed him all the way to the cross. And she, loving him who lives in you who have received him in baptism, will do the same for you. When you are on the cross, when you have nowhere else to turn, remember Mary who loves you as dearly as she loves him who is the life within you. Pray for her help, and you’ll find in Mary a mother who loves you more than words can express; a partner in prayer whose prayers—because they flow from a mother to her son—bear not the nature of a request but of a maternal command (Jn:2.3-7). Believe in Jesus and as she did, trust his Mother Mary. For in giving Jesus to the world she has given us the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s love which is the blessing of Christmas to all who, with Jesus, honor His mother and ours, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Meaning of Life

A Meditation on Thanksgiving Day, 2016

      It’s always a surprise to clean the closets, especially closets that haven’t been cleaned in years. You never know what you’ll find hidden under layers of dust. I was surprised Monday at what I found in the church office. As our work crew dug through old boxes of envelopes and pencils and staplers of every size, I discovered a box of audio college courses. I knew immediately where they came from. Years ago I introduced Ray Griffin to an organization called the Teaching Company. The Teaching Company seeks out popular college professors and records their lectures. They then sell the recordings, making it possible for a wider audience beyond a university classroom to learn from the world’s best professors. I often listen to these lectures while driving to and from the church. My narrow interests are limited to New Testament studies and theology. But being a true Renaissance man, Ray had really gotten into this. He ordered multiple courses on a wide range of subjects, taking an interest in everything from the works of C.S. Lewis, to a history of the Bible, to Bach’s music, to Gothic Cathedrals, to Italian Renaissance art. Rummaging thru that dusty old box made me miss Ray. He was one of those guys of whom the saying holds true, “Still waters run deep”. He had a wide range of interests, and he clearly kept an interest in learning right up to the end of his life.

      The reason I mention this is not to promote the Teaching Company, although they do good work. I mention it because on Thanksgiving Day when we count our blessings, I count one of my blessings that I knew Ray. I miss him as all of us who loved him do. My larger point is this: as we count our blessings today, isn’t it really the people whom we love and those who have loved us for whom we are most thankful? Good food and the comforts of temporal prosperity are, like a wind, transient; but it’s the relationships with people, especially those who have been good to us, who have given to us from the treasure of their hearts kindness and generosity, gentleness and empathy, patience and understanding, who in the end mean everything to us. It’s our relationships that give our lives meaning. The better and more genuinely loving those relationships are, the more we feel that our life has meaning. In other words, when we count our blessings, it’s the spiritual gifts more than the material comforts that mean the most to us. And so we give thanks for those who have touched us on the level of spirit, who have connected with us not as consumers or as customers but as living souls, immortal beings who drink alike from the living water of divine grace. It is love received and given for which we are by nature most thankful because we are creatures made to give and receive love.

      But coming back to our brother Ray and that box of college courses that he bequeathed to us, there was one course that especially caught my attention. He had ordered a course of thirty lectures called simply enough: “The Meaning of Life.” Looking over the contents of the course, it sounded very interesting to me. It included lectures on the teachings of everyone from the Buddha and Aristotle, Confucius and Lao Tzu, to Tolstoy and Nietzsche. It was a kind of survey of world philosophy and religion, covering of a wide range of sages from all corners of the earth, exploring the teachings of those who have thought very deeply about the meaning of life. Who wouldn’t be interested in that?

       But the more I looked at it the more I realized that the most important name of all was absent from the list. Jesus Christ was not there. How can you discuss the meaning of life and leave out him whose miraculous life, prophetic death, and glorious resurrection incarnate and reveal that meaning? The very significance of calling Jesus the “Christ” is that he is the one in whom God has revealed the meaning of life. He was not simply another wisdom teacher, a cool dude who passed along to his devoted students a message of good counsel. He is the one in whom we encounter the wisdom God face to face. He is the meaning of life. To organize a course called “the meaning of life” and leave Jesus Christ out of it is like a doctor teaching his students heart surgery without showing them what a human heart is. The absence of any discussion of Jesus in that audio course reveals of the root cause of the decline of our culture. Ray should have asked for his money back.

         The phrase “the meaning of life” begs the question: does life have meaning? Does your life or mine life have purpose, worth, and transcendent value? Do we as individuals really count, or is our hope of glory just a fleeting dream, an invention of our vanity? This is the question that Darwin put front and center to the modern age. Is a human being just a random collocation of atoms? Are we freaks of nature who have just happened upon this earth, beings complex and wonderful but beings no more transcendent than algae on a pond’s surface? Or does the soul really exist and is that soul implanted in us by our Creator? Does human life lived in relationship to our Creator, therefore, serve a higher purpose?

       Christianity answers that question in the affirmative. Jesus Christ has revealed to us that life has transcendent meaning, because each one of us means everything to HIm. God, who cares for the sparrow that falls to the ground, cares for you and me even more. It’s our relationship to Him that makes all the difference between a life filled with meaning and an absurd existence spent groping in the dark waiting for Godot. 

     It is Thanksgiving Day; we have turkeys in the oven and relatives to greet; we are constrained to keep it short and sweet. So the point is simply this: we live in society of Christians who send their children off to institutions of higher learning and paying tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of having them taught that life has no ultimate meaning other than whatever value or purpose you may choose to impose on it. Our colleges have become centers of mass confusion where faith is lost in a vortex of existentialist revolution that will embrace the wisdom of anyone and everyone other than the author of the gospel, who signed his eternal masterpiece in his own blood, shed on a cross. It’s the sad fact of modern life that in order to hold fast to the Christian faith we have to first unlearn and see through the indoctrination in secular humanism that we receive day in and day out from a culture that has reduced “the faith once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) to nothing more than a personal opinion held by a stubborn few.

        But the good news is this: God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ that we are more than the sum of our parts; we are living souls, creatures of God whom God loves and cares for deeply and we are in this world for one ultimate reason: to prove ourselves worthy of His love.

       Those Puritans of old sitting down to say grace before the feast hadn’t been to college but they knew about life. They understood that love of God and faith in the gospel is the key that unlocks the meaning of life. When we sit down with family and friends today let us count our blessings. And as we do let us count knowing Him, who in baptism united us to Himself, as first and last on that list. Life is never easy and the meaning of life is often elusive, but if we remember Jesus Christ, who on the night before he died took bread and gave thanks to God before giving it to his friends as a pledge of his transcendent love and a promise of salvation, our souls will bask in the light of the central truth that gives everlasting purpose and worth to human life. Jesus Christ is for us all the way: that is the one thing above all things for which those who are truly wise are eternally grateful.

Reflections on the Death of my Dad

        I have counseled you before, and it bears repeating, to be careful and deliberate in choosing your words when you are attending the bedside of a person who is dying or in such a serious condition that he appears to be unconscious and incognizant to your presence. People who are too weak to open their eyes may nevertheless be sensitive to what you are saying to them or about them and your words may help them or hurt them depending on what you say. They say that the hearing is the last thing to go; so make sure when you are ministering to a dying soul that your last words spoken in their presence are loving and truthful.

       Let me offer a case in point. My Dad had been bedridden in a nursing home for several days in a terribly weakened condition. Parkinson’s disease had paralyzed his throat muscles making it almost impossible for him to swallow. Despite our best efforts and his to give him something to eat and drink, he was virtually unable to take nourishment or fluid into his body. After a week of this torture he was exhausted and found it more to his comfort to lay with his eyes closed sleeping or trying to sleep. One afternoon, he had been quietly resting with his eyes closed. We thought he was asleep, when an aide entered the room to visit. You know how those encounters go. We were all whispering, trying not to wake him. We, then, in hushed tones introduced our father to this new person who would be caring for him. We wanted her to see him as a real person, not just another patient on a bed. In the course of relating pertinent biographical information about him to the aide, his beloved daughter-in-law interjected that he had served in the Army in World War II, at which point Dad opened his eyes, sat upright in bed and said forcefully, without hesitation, “I was in the Marines!” We laughed. He laughed and my wife, who doesn’t know the halls of Montezuma from the shores of Tripoli, stood corrected.

    Those of you who, like my Dad, were around in the 1940s know what he was saying. My Dad, Ralph String, graduated from high school in May of ’45 and at the tender age of 17 enlisted in the Marines. On Friday June 13th of that year, his mother took him to the train station in Cleveland, Ohio, where he boarded a train for South Carolina; destination: Parris Island. Once there, he would over 90 days train for the planned invasion of Japan. You will not hear me criticize President Truman for dropping atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Had we not done that, had we invaded Japan, Ralph String and a hundred thousand other graduates of the class of ‘45 like him surely would have died; I would not have been born and we wouldn’t be here this morning.

    But thanks be to God, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally in August of ’45.  Shortly after that, Ralph was sent to Providence Rhode Island where he peacefully served out the remainder of his enlistment. One weekend when he had leave, he took a train to Washington, DC, to visit his high school sweetheart. Barbara was a student there at Marjorie Webster, a finishing school, as they used to call it. Two weeks prior to his visit, having learned of  Barbara’s desire to see this young man with whom she had gone, the year before, to the senior prom, the headmistress of the school wrote to my Grandfather to ask if his daughter had permission to leave campus to see young Ralph String. My grandfather, who was at the time the senior attorney for the White Sewing Machine Company in Cleveland, dictated a two page letter to his secretary outlining the strict conditions under which Ralph might visit his daughter Barbara. That visit took place in June of ’46. Three years later Ralph and Barbara were married. Three years later I came along, the first of what would become a family with three boys, and the rest, as they say, is history.

      My intention this morning is not to bore you with the tiring details of my Dad’s biography or brag to you of his many achievements. But I am proud of him. He amassed one of the three biggest and best collections of political campaign buttons in the United States and generously donated that collection to the Cleveland City Club where it is on permanent display. He was for many years the three cushioned billiard champion at the Cleveland Athletic Club, representing the club in many national and international tournaments. And he was recognized in Fortune magazine once as one of the fifty leading stock brokers in America. His three sons, he grandson and business partner each spoke at his funeral which went on for an hour and a half. All five speakers wept and said essentially the same thing: He was our hero. And he was a man of great faith. He was raised in the Evangelical and Reformed tradition. His grandfather, The Reverend Jesse String, was the minister at the local church, so it’s no surprise that Ralph had perfect Sunday school attendance for all his years up to college. But he was proud of his son who became an Episcopal priest and to be supportive of me he and my mother both joined the Episcopal Church and were confirmed the same year that I entered seminary. When we repaired the windows here at St. George’s and St. Mathew’s, he and my mother donated the ascension window above our high altar. He loved this congregation and every Sunday afternoon when I’d call him after church to talk things over, he would always ask about all of you.

      Things happen for a reason, though we often don’t see until much later what the reason was. My daughter Emile along with her husband and two children were in Cincinnati the last week of September to attend a wedding. After the wedding, instead of flying straight home as they had planned, Emile said to her husband, “I think we should drive up to Cleveland and visit grandpa.” Craig agreed. They called Dad and asked if they could come to visit. He loved the idea. But we learned later that after the call he ominously told his care-giver, “I know why they’re coming.” Why?” she asked. “It’s the last time.” They drove up to see him on a Wednesday.  He made a special effort to be up and dressed that day. He pushed himself and stayed awake and didn’t take a nap as he otherwise would have done. They had lunch together and took pictures. The last picture ever taken of Ralph shows him holding his granddaughter Barbara, named after the girl he took to the senior prom, his wife of 60 years, on his lap.  Emilie, Craig and the grandchildren left late in the afternoon. Dad immediately went to lie down saying he was exhausted. That night his caregiver called 911. He had a urinary tract infection that had become septic.

       As soon as I heard about it, I made plans to travel to Cleveland. I caught an early flight Monday morning from BWI to Cleveland. With my carry-on in hand, I then took a cab to the University Hospital By 10am I was standing by his bedside. He woke up when I entered the room. It was October 3rd. I said, “Dad, Happy Birthday!” “How old am I? He asked. “89” I said.” That’s impossible,” he said, “I never thought I’d be 89. Good to see ya.” He then closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

      It’s sad to be with your parent who’s dying, but that’s not to say that the event is without its good moments. God’s grace knows no bounds. The Lord said to Saint Paul “My power is made perfect in your weakness”; in other words when we’re at our lowest, God’s grace is often most abundant. That was the case with my Dad; the last two weeks of his life were overflowing with love and even in the midst of imminent death, we found joy.

     I arrived on Monday. Wednesday, he transferred by ambulance from the hospital to a nursing home, the same facility to which we had taken my mother six years before. The goal in taking him there was to do therapy, in hopes that Dad would get well enough to go home again. But it became clear quickly that he had moved beyond therapy. A proud man who had lived 60 years in the same home was not going to accept in a nursing home. I was supposed to come home Thursday but that afternoon I watched my Dad struggling in vain to do the exercises and it hit me like a ton of bricks in the chest that he was not able to do this. And I said to myself, “My Dad’s dying.” I called Conni and said, “I can’t come home.” That night I retired to my father’s house, sat in his favorite chair and cried for thirty minutes. It doesn’t really matter how old you are or how old your parents are, or how strong your faith is in the resurrection, when death comes for your Mom or Dad, it’s a sad day. But faith is a real strength. Sunday morning, after only three full days in the nursing home he looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not going to live.” I said, “Dad we all love you and want you to live.” He said in a whisper, “I’m not doing this anymore.” I sighed and said, “How do you feel?” he thought it over and said, “I feel confident.”

      I knew what that meant. I immediately went out into the hall and called my brother who said, “We need to take him home, now.” I agreed. I went back into the room by his bedside and said, “Dad, we’re getting out of here and going home.”  “Good, I hate this place,” he said.” Well”, I said, resigning myself to face the end, “when we get home I’ll pour you an Old Granddad.” He used to like to have a drink before dinner.” He looked at me and smiled. “Thanks,” he said, “that’ll finish me off.” We both laughed.

      You wouldn’t think that there’d be much laughter when a soul is dying, but God blessed us throughout those final days with a lot of holy laughter. We got Dad home and under hospice care. I can’t say enough good things about Western Reserve Hospice. They were compassionate and attentive. We got the hospital bed set up in his bedroom, right in front of the TV so we could watch the Indians in the World Series. We’re talking about a devout life-long Indians fans here, a guy who vividly remembered the 1948 World Series and bragged that he once had Bob Feller as a customer, the Indians star pitcher who led them to the championship. One afternoon he asked me, “What time’s the game?” “Not until 8” I said. “I don’t think I can make it till 8” he said. “You have to.” I said, “ You don’t want to miss the game.” If I’m still a live tonight wake me up” he said.  Then he said to me in a more somber tone, “What’s going to happen to me?” “Well, Dad, the way it’s going I think you’re gonna die.” “What can we do about it?” he asked. “We can take you back to the hospital and get an IV and try something else” I said.  Without a pause he said, “I’m not goin’ back to that place, no way. I love my beautiful home.”  “Well then, Dad, I guess we’ll stick it out here.” I said “And then I added, “When you get to heaven, put in a good word for me, will ya?” He thought it over smiled and said, “That won’t be easy.” “Why not?” I asked. “I know ya.” Some things you just can’t make up.

      I have often thought to myself that were I dying slowly, I’d like for someone to read the Psalms to me. I guessed that maybe he would like that to. One afternoon I said to him, “Dad would you like me to read to you from the Bible?” He said, “Yes, “I’d like that very much.” So I began to read to him from the Psalms. I read the 23rd Psalm with those beautiful words “Ye though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me”. After that, he asked for a sip of water, sips were all he could take. Then he said, “Read that one again, I liked that.” So I read it again and kept reading Psalms to him for about thirty minutes when he said, “That’s enough; I’m tired. But thank you. I’ll remember that forever.”

      Again later in the week, about two days before he died, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer. I had been praying with him each night, for those two weeks often with his caregiver, holding hands. That night he prayed along with me and afterwards he held my hand a long time and then in a hoarse whisper said, “Thanks be to God!” Those were his last words. After that he became too weak to speak; morphine kept him under. He was gone about 48 hours later.

                                                                                 ***

    It was a privilege to be with my father for the last two weeks of his life; a privilege that you, in part, made possible. I could not have done this without your support. You not only allowed me the time, but you gave me a lot of strength. There is a natural tendency in us to run away from death, to avoid those who are dying, to not even think about the final end. Death is frightening and the death of a parent is in some ways the worst of all. During those fateful two weeks I was constantly out of breath, like a passenger on a sinking ship might feel, every moment was an emergency and I felt like I was sinking under the weight of knowing that nothing I was doing would change the final outcome. I felt exhausted, without relief, too tired to sleep. I cried at times uncontrollably. It was hard. But I knew that I had a job to do. “Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus said. That means, “Don’t think about yourself but, like Simon of Cyrene who was pressed into service to carry Christ’s cross, be strong for him who needs you.” I remembered what I learned from you and I did what so many of you have done. That’s a beautiful thing about the church; we learn from each other how to be faithful and how to be strong. So you were with me all the while and I thank you for that. I thank my wife for abandoning her office to be by my side, it helps when you’re in the lion’s den to have your loved ones near, to know that someone’s a witness to your sorrow; that others are praying for you; just knowing that someone cares is an enormous source of strength. But to have the church with you is the greatest strength of all.

     So that is the story of how I came to enter a very elite club, the club of those who no longer have mom or dad with them. We are orphans now. But we are not alone. Our faith informs us that our true parents rule a kingdom not of this world; and that we have an inheritance in that kingdom that exceeds all worldly expectations. Therefore, in the end, we see thru our tears and we know that there is only one fitting way for men and women of faith to conduct themselves and that is to go on: to go on honoring our parents in the only way that counts, by loving one another as Christ loves us. And we do so with confidence that those who love God will not only be reunited again on the last day when our Judge appears but that we are already, here and now, in life and death bound as one eternally in His love. And that is our great consolation: that love never ends but is continually renewed in Him who loves us all.

The Revered Jansen String

St. George’s and St. Matthew’s, Dundalk, MD

November 13, 2016