Bishop Rayford B. High, Jr. visited St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Stephenville, on Sunday, February 22, 2015. He commissioned Milam Hefner as verger and blessed the refurbished Redman organ.
Duke DuTeil (left), the recently retired head verger of Washington National Cathedral, also assisted in the service. DuTeil is in charge of training for the Vergers’ Guild of the Episcopal Church. He and his wife, Diane, now live in Austin area and attend and serve at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Round Rock.
The following excerpt of the liturgy from the verger’s guild was read as part of the commissioning of Hefner as verger of St. Luke’s:
Since the early days of the church, laypersons have been commissioned to assist the clergy and laity in the conduct of Divine Liturgy.The position of verger developed in Medieval England where they served as the “protector of the procession.” They walked before clergy, deans or bishops as they processed within the precincts of the church or cathedral.They carried a large mace or virge often used to dissuade animals or unruly people from disrupting the procession.Today the verger more typically assists the clergy in planning services and helps oversee the preparations for each service of the church.
St. Luke’s 6-rank Redman pipe organ has been in use at St. Luke’s for the past 50 years. The recent refurbishing retained all of the six original pipe ranks and added a second manual keyboard as well as 29 digital pipe ranks, which have been voiced to match the tone of the original organ.
The Rev. Curt Norman, rector of St. Luke’s, said, “One really cool thing is that the organist can record playing into the organ, thus we will have “on file” whatever hymns/service music are recorded into the organ’s computer. So, if the organist can’t make a funeral because there’s an ice storm (as happened last year), someone can sit at the organ, pull up a particular hymn on the organ’s computer, press play, and, voila, we have an organist.”