Celebrating at St. Paul’s

To launch the holiday season, St. Paul’s Chapel will host a service and the inaugural lighting of the new “Tree of Hope” on Saturday, November 29 at 4 pm.

The Tree of Hope, a donated 20-foot Norway spruce, will be erected in the northwest corner of the churchyard facing Ground Zero as a “reminder of our shared commitment to affirming the power of love in the face of tragedy.” Throughout the holidays, children will be invited to visit St. Paul’s to create “ornaments of peace” to hang on the tree. Materials will be available inside the chapel from November 29 through December 31.

St. Paul’s will also host a special presentation of the Christmas portion of Handel’s “Messiah” on Monday, December 15 at 1 pm, featuring the Trinity Choir directed by Owen Burdick, organist and choirmaster. Donations will be accepted.

In addition, there will be a Holy Eucharist family service with the singing of Christmas carols at St. Paul’s on Christmas Eve – Wednesday, December 24 – starting at 4 pm.

St. Paul’s planned holiday celebrations follow the November 3 reopening of the chapel’s entrance gate – renamed the “John Heuss Gate of Hope – on Church Street. The move is intended to place renewed emphasis on St. Paul’s original front porch facing the World Trade Center site. Plans for the WTC site place St. Paul’s Church Street entrance within yards of the central pedestrian opening to the site from the east side, and across from the “Wedge Of Light” proposed by the site’s master planner Daniel Libeskind.

Trinity’s primary goal in reopening the chapel’s entrance gate and hosting the holiday events is to preserve St. Paul’s current role as a key “Ground Zero pilgrimage experience,” said Linda Hanick, special projects coordinator. Since the reopening of St. Paul’s 13 months ago, more than 840,000 people have visited the chapel.

Posted on Congregational Life on November 19, 2003