Fr Peter Helman

Dear friends,

I’ve always had a special love for languages. I had a much greater facility for them at one time in life than I do now, but I love languages all the same. I took Spanish and French for years and learned Brazilian Portuguese in high school. I did pretty well in college with Latin and biblical Greek and stayed afloat in my seminary crash courses in Hebrew. I loved translating primary texts because I learned early on that there are no one-for-one translations between languages but instead only approximations of meaning and intention. We construct languages as gestures toward what we encounter in ourselves and each other and the world we inhabit.

The beautiful truth too is that there is an edge, a limit, to the achievements of words. I’ve spent a lot of time in Jordan surrounded by Arabic-speaking people and after fifteen years am still largely unable to grasp the language. I know a few colloquialisms and archaeological terms to help with my work, but try as I might, the language does not sink in. I have to rely instead on body language, variations of tone and inflection, physical circumstance, and finally the patience of others as I bumble along.

Sign language is an amazing form of communication. In so many ways our hands represent our connection to the world. Members of Saint Philip’s have taught me in recent months how to pass the peace during the liturgy, how to sign my name and hello. I want to learn next how to say “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven,” and “The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.” Ultimately, I want to learn so that I can deepen my relationship with people whose language is different from my own. There is nothing more important than sharing stories, learning and living together in love, and to build each other up in Christ.

Today, the Church celebrates the feast of prophetic witnesses Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, whose biographies can be found here. Thomas Gallaudet, born in 1822, was an ordained priest of The Episcopal Church, who established St. Ann’s Church in New York, especially for deaf persons, with services primarily in sign language. Following his work, congregations for the deaf were established in many cities.

Henry Winter Syle, one of Gallaudet’s students, was the first deaf person ordained to the priesthood in The Episcopal Church. He established a congregation for the deaf in 1888 and died two years later.

We give thanks for their enduring witness to the needs of others and the call they set before us to overcome every barrier for the sake of community and mutual love and edification.

The collect for today's feast is lovely:

"O Loving God, whose will it is that everyone shouldst come to thee and be saved: We bless thy holy Name for thy servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, and we pray that thou wilt continually move thy Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Peter+