At seven o clock on a Sunday morning, when most

of us are still asleep, John C. Harper is getting ready

for his hardest working day. Questions are already

crowding in on him. Is the service he has planned

too informal? Does the end of his sermon sound too

"churcby"? What will he say to the young engaged

couple he has scheduled to meet between morning

services? Is he going to be up to an afternoon of

hospital calls? And what about his appearance tonight

at the cocktail party given by a very prominent

parishioner?

In SUNDAY, John C. Harper presents a remarkably

candid, totally absorbing chronicle of one day in his

own life as an Episcopal parish priest. His parish is

St. John s Church, Lafayette Square, in Washington,

D.C., the famous "Church of the Presidents," where

every United States President from James Madison

on has at one time or another attended services.

Among Harper s parishioners are numbered the

wealthy and the poor. But to each one of them --for

a host of private reasons- the man in the pulpit has

a unique relationship. And in the receiving line fol-

lowing the service, again for private reasons, he is

addressed variously as "Father," "Mr.," "Doctor,"

"Reverend," "Rector," or "John."