Celebrate Deaf Ministry: The Feast Day of Thomas Gallaudet, Aug. 27
by Ian Caveney, freelance writer
and the Rev. Emily Hillquist Davis, Vicar of St. Thomas Deaf Church
July 24, 2023
Everyone who has participated in an Episcopal liturgy knows this exchange:
The celebrant says to the people: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
Celebrant: Let us pray.
This ancient call-and-response gathers us in the presence of God and reminds us that our communal relationship with God is marked by dialogue.
In St. Thomas Deaf Church, these communications are not heard with the ears but happen instead through hand movements and facial expression. When the Rev. Emily Hillquist Davis leads prayer, she no longer bows her head. She has learned from Deaf church leaders that you have to look at who you’re talking to. So she looks and reaches up, tap-tapping with her hand held high to get God’s attention. When she senses a flow of spiritual connection and leads the congregation in prayer, there may be silence of one kind (an absence of sound), but there is communication in abundance on multiple levels.
St. Thomas Deaf Church was founded in 1876 and named for Episcopal priest Thomas Gallaudet, known as the “Apostle to the Deaf.” He began a movement to establish Deaf churches and mentored Deaf people of faith toward ordination as deacons and priests. His father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, brought Sign Language and Deaf schools to our country.
Rev. Emily is St. Thomas’ Vicar and has led the St. Thomas congregation in worship for sixteen years. In the fall of 2021, the Deaf congregation entered into partnership with Church of the Advent in Crestwood, sharing space and worship. Services are now led in English and interpreted into American Sign Language (ASL), but they keep their unique Deaf identity, mission, and leadership.
Throughout its history, St. Thomas has served as a uniquely welcoming church home for Deaf people, who have often experienced church as just another place where they are left out. As a Deaf teenager visiting St. Thomas once exclaimed: “I love this church; I understand everything!”
Such understanding is not automatic. Whether sharing scriptures, a sermon or prayers, worship leaders simultaneously scan the faces of Deaf worshipers. You have to look at who you’re talking to. Why? Raised eyebrows or a head-tilt indicate lack of clarity. A signer must always be ready to add detail or shift perspective to elucidate. Dialogues — even liturgical ones — require back-and-forth to open up new depths of interpretation.
Consider this example: “Let us pray.”
Question: Who is the intended audience? Is this a call to the congregation announcing our time of prayer, or is it addressed to God, inviting God’s attention to our prayers?
Answer: Yes, both! Or: All of the above. St. Thomas Administrator Angela Wentz-Bjornstad signs the first meaning: “We pray now,” as Rev. Emily literally leans into the latter. Looking up, tap-tapping to get God’s attention, the people see her saying, “Hi, God, we’re here for You!” And they see, in her pause and smile before communicating the content of the prayer, that God has shown up.
Embodied language can be ambiguous; it can also open us up to God’s mystery and connection with us that is deeper than words. God is Deaf in all the right ways.
Celebrate the Feast Day of Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle
Sunday, Aug. 27 at 10:15 a.m.
9373 Garber Road, Crestwood
St. Thomas Deaf Church and Church of the Advent heartily invite you to attend worship and lunch as we teach and celebrate deeper dimensions of Deaf ministry and embodied worship August 27 beginning at 10:15 a.m.
Please RSVP to [email protected] so we can provide an appropriate amount of grilled foods including hamburgers, veggie burgers, hotdogs, brats, and chicken breast. A bounteous potluck will supply sides, salads, desserts, and beverages.
Your presence is more precious than any contribution. Please come. August 27 is the Feast Day of Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, the first Deaf person officially ordained in any church, who was –in 1883– priested with his friend the Rev. Austin Mann, founder of St. Thomas Deaf Church and several others.
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