Bishop Moore Preaches at Holy Cross Anniversary Celebration
Diocesan Press Service. November 15, 1974 [74317]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Order of the Holy Cross, founded in New York City, celebrated its 90th year with a Festival Mass this Fall at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., bishop of New York, who is the visitor of the order, was the preacher and president at the celebration.
Bishop Moore recalled the day in 1884 when three bishops of the Church heard the life profession of the Rev. James O.S. Huntington and witnessed the founding of the Order, a monastic community for men in the Episcopal Church.
Calling for a consideration of the present vocation of religion and recalling that Fr. Huntington was a " social radical, " Bishop Moore chose to preach on a new view of the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
"There is need to re-examine these vows during the affluence and liberation of our age and during a time when the Holy Spirit seems to be moving very freely," Bishop Moore said.
He noted that the Church was suffering a " stripping away " under the pressure of inflation and the threat of world economic depression. In this stripping away he saw implications for the religious life.
" Poverty will not only mean that each individual will give to the Community any right he has to riches, but also the Community itself may have to step into a deeper poverty than they have known so that they may relate to the Son of Man who had 'not where to lay His head. '"
Of celibacy, Bishop Moore noted, "it is not always a higher way." Modern psychologists are helping people realize that sexuality "lurks at the very well springs of our whole emotional being. . . . And that our religious emotions spring from these same sources."
There is a need, he said, for, "A reinterpretation of healthy sexual morality, an understanding of that as it relates to the gospel -- even in the area of women's ordination. How can we best involve our emotional life with regard to our sexuality so that it can be a healthy, whole base for holiness?" the bishop asked.
Obedience must be viewed in the present era of libertarianism, Bishop Moore said. "In the counter-culture we have a lifting of the lid which many people feel is very wrong -- and may well be -- but at the same time this is bubbling over, with the strictures of old fashioned morality being taken away, the enslavement of the technological culture is coming on us."
"As we enter this new phase I trust we will find some leadership and thinking and some interpretation from the Holy Spirit through our religious who have taken the vows," Bishop Moore said.
OHC began with Fr. Huntington's work among the indigent on Manhattan's Lower East Side but moved to the monastery at West Park, N.Y., where the Rev. Conner Lynn is Superior and the Rev. Clark Trafton, Prior.
This year a priory has been reestablished in New York City at Chapel of the Intercession with Brother Peter as Prior. The order also operates Whitby House, Grapevine, Texas, where the Rev. Thomas Mudd is Prior; Mt. Calvary Retreat House, Santa Barbara, Calif., a mission at Bolahun, Liberia, and Holy Cross House in Toronto, Canada.
Note: The photographs with DPS release #74312 can be used with this article.