Title: Inclusion of The Rev. Joseph Richey in the Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts
Submitted by:
The Rev. John Wm. Klein, Rector of Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore
the Rev. Frederick S. Thomas, Jr., Rector of Grace & St. Peter's Church, Baltimore,
Mrs. Judith R. Ritterhoff, Sr. Wdn. and Lay Delegate, Mt. Calvary
RESOLVED by this Convention of the Diocese of Maryland meeting May 7-8, 2004, that September 23rd be designated in the Calendar of Maryland, as optional observance, as Father Joseph Richey's Day,
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this same commemoration be sent to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church for inclusion in Lesser Feasts and Fasts.
EXPLANATION
The Reverend Joseph Richey, priest, 21 September 1877 / commemoration 23 September
The life and witness of Joseph Richey, VIIth Rector of Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore, as a pioneer of the Oxford Movement in America, in ministering to the poor of the City of Baltimore, in founding the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, and in bringing All Saints Sisters of the Poor to the New World, is central to the tradition of the Diocese of Maryland and indeed by extension of influence throughout much of The Episcopal Church. And whereas the Bishop of Maryland has granted permission for Mount Calvary's commemoration of Father Richey's grace-filled ministry on September 22, and has offered his support in the House of Bishop's for this inclusion in Lesser Feasts and Fasts.
Born October 5, 1843 in County Down, Ireland, he was ten when his parents immigrated to the United States and settled in western Pennsylvania. His elder brother, the Reverend Thomas Richey, was rector of Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore from 1858 to 1861. Aspiring to the priesthood, the sixteen year old Joseph came to Baltimore where he was confirmed at his brother's church. He graduated in 1869 from the General Theological Seminary where he was noted for his deep piety, discretion, proficiency in studies and for a generous sympathy towards his fellow students. He was sought as a counselor and comforter. After ordination he served at the Church of the Advent, Boston.
In July 1872 Joseph Richey himself was elected rector of Mount Calvary Church. Nearly his first act was to pen a letter to the Mother Foundress of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor in London asking for sisters to be sent to Baltimore. He enclosed a letter of approval from The Right Reverend William R. Whittingham, Diocese of Maryland. On December 10, 1872 three sisters stepped off a ship onto the icy dock of New York City and Joseph Richey was there to meet them. Father Richey and the Sisters were in post-war Baltimore. It was a boom and bust town with street fights, fires and epidemics. It was also so poor that coins were rarely seen. There was no public sewer system. Thus Richey and the Sisters Helen, Serena and Winifred did much the same works as were being accomplished by Anglo-Catholics in the East End of London. Father Richey asked the Sisters to find children for confirmation. To the surprise of many at Mount Calvary, these English sisters brought numerous little black children to church the next Sunday! The church thus began a long ministry among the black people of Baltimore.
In an age when those seeking more catholicity of worship often went to the Roman Church, as the previous Rector of Mount Calvary had in fact done, it was feared that Richey's apparently developing doctrine of the Eucharist would lead him away from the Episcopal Church. He said of himself: “I have known no development. All I hold now was taught me when I was prepared for confirmation.” He was nurtured on the Bible and always faithful to his church. While not always in agreement with his bishop, the extensive, frank correspondence between the two men (found in the Diocese of Maryland's Archives) reveals that courtesy prevailed and channels were kept open.
He died young on September 21, 1877. A contemporary, the Rev. William Brand, paid his friends tribute: “A man of a lovely spirit, holy, self-sacrificing, full of labors; as such he was much loved by the bishop, who, when the fire that was in Joseph Richey burnt out his feeble frame, took care to make known to every bishop what was the worth of the man who had been misjudged by many of them…” In a memoir Sister Serena recalled: “Wherever he was, he was always the Priest. At the Holy Sacrifice he was quite transformed. He said himself that all was so real as if he saw with his bodily eyes. It was indeed a privilege to receive at his hands.” And in a private letter written soon after the funeral, she said: “I used to call him your Reverence! …You have no idea how much we all loved him. I don't think that really in all my life I ever knew anyone so much loved… I suppose it was because his character was so unusually deep and saintly.
This Biography is the work of Sister Mary Joan of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor.