shepherd sounds

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-02-07T12:15:00.001-06:00

12 February 2012

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir
11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

2K 5.1–14
1Co 9.24–27
Mk 1.40–45

Voluntary
Prelude on ‘If thou but trust in God to guide thee’
J.S. Bach

Introit hymn 412
w
‘Earth and all stars’
Herbert Brokering
m
‘Earth and all stars’
David N. Johnson

Psalm 30.1–3, 7–13
R
O Lord, my God, I cried out to you,
and you restored me to health [v.2]
Tone I

Sequence hymn 635
w
‘If thou but trust in God to guide thee’
[Wer nur den lieben Godd läßt walten]
Georg Neumark
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten’
Georg Neumark

Offertory anthem
w
‘Praise the Lord, ye servants’
Psalm 113.1–2
m
John Blow

Communion anthem
w
‘Hide not thou thy face from us, O Lord’
m
Richard Farrant

Communion hymns 490, 339
w
‘I want to walk as a child of the light’
m
‘Houston’
Kathleen Thomerson

w
‘Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness’
[Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele]
Johann Franck
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele’
mel. Johann Crüger
harm. The English Hymnal, 1906

Postcommunion hymn 48
w
‘O day of radiant gladness’
st. 1–2: Christopher Wordsworth, alt.
st. 2: Charles P. Price
st. 4: Hymnal 1982
m
‘Es flog ein kleins Waldvögelein’
German folk song
harm. George Ratcliffe Woodward

6:00 pm
Choral Evensong, Rite I
Evensong Choir

Office Hymn 27
w
‘O blest Creator, source of light’
[Lucis creator optime]
tr. Anne K. LeCroy
m
‘Lucis creator optime’
plainsong, Mode VIII
¶Historically appointed for Sunday Vespers
in the Seasons after Epiphany and Pentecost

Psalm 30
Tone: Edward C. Bairstow

Magnificat & Nunc dimittis
for the Seminary of the Southwest
Russell Schulz

Anthem
w
‘O Savior of the world’
[Salvator mundi]
Anthem at the Visitation of the Sick
m
John Goss

Hymn 429
w
‘I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath’
[Psalm 146]
Isaac Watts
alt. John Wesley
m
‘Old 113th’
mel. Strassburger Kirchenamt, 1525

Voluntary
Praeludium in E
Dieterich Buxtehude

This Sunday morning has a dual theme at Good Shepherd: not only the theme of healing that runs through the Old Testament Lesson, Psalm, and Gospel, but also a celebration of Good Shepherd School and its ministry in and beyond this parish.

The Masses begin, appropriately enough, with ‘Earth and all stars’, a sort of modern ‘Benedicite omnia opera’ written by prolific poet Herbert Brokering for the ninetieth anniversary of St Olaf College in 1964. The text calls upon not only the usually named natural world and musical instruments, but also elements of the industrial/urban and scholastic worlds, to ‘sing to the Lord a new song’; among these are ‘classrooms and labs, loud boiling test tubes, athlete and band, loud cheering people’.

The Psalm, especially as interpreted by the refrain (v. 2), speaks of God’s healing. The line ‘Then you hid your face’ (v. 8) and the tenor of the middle portion of the Psalm are echoed in the Communion anthem by Tudor composer Richard Farrant, whose opening verse comes from Psalm 27: ‘Hide not thou thy face from us, O Lord, and cast not off thy servant in thy displeasure’. ‘Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness’ invites the believer to ‘leave the gloomy haunts of sadness, [and] come into the daylight’s splendor’ to sing praises to God – much as the leper in the Gospel did.

Choral Evensong features settings of the evening canticles by Good Sheperd’s former Director of Music, Russell Schulz, written for the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, where Schulz was also Professor of Church Music, Organist & Choirmaster for many years. The Office Hymn is that historically appointed for Vespers in the seasons after Epiphany and Pentecost, with its proper tune and in a modern translation.

The Anthem is a setting of a text mentioned and sung last week, this time composed by Sir John Goss, organist of St Paul’s Cathedral in London and professor of harmony at the Royal Academy of Music in the middle of the nineteenth century; his pupils included Arthur Sullivan. He succeeded his teacher, Thomas Attwood (himself a favorite student of Mozart’s), and was succeeded in turn by John Stainer. Goss is known today for several anthems as well as the hymn-tune ‘Lauda anima’ used for ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’ (Hymn 410).

Eric Mellenbruch

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-31T16:36:00.001-06:00

5 February 2012

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir
11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Is 40.21–31
[1Co 9.16–23]
Mk 1.29–39

Introit hymn 423
w
‘Immortal, invisible’
Walter Chalmers Smith
m
‘St Denio’
Welsh hymn, from Caniadau y Cyssegr, 1839
adapt. John Roberts

Psalm 147.1–7
R
The Lord heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
Tone VIII

Sequence hymn 429
w
‘I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath’
[Psalm 146]
Isaac Watts
alt. John Wesley
m
‘Old 113th’
mel. Strassburger Kirchenamt, 1525

Offertory anthem
w
‘Exultate justi’
[Psalm 33.1–3]
m
Ludovico Viadana

Communion anthem
w
‘O savior of the world’
[Salvator mundi]
Antiphon at the Visitation of the Sick
m
Arthur Somervell

Communion hymns 304, 277
w
‘I come with joy to meet my Lord’
Brian Wren
m
‘Land of Rest’
American folk melody
adapt. Annabel Morris Buchanan

w
‘Sing of Mary, pure and lowly’
Roland Ford Palmer
m
‘Raquel’
Skinner Chávez-Melo

¶ Thursday was the Feast of the Presentation
of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple

Postcommunion hymn 438
w
‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’
Timothy Dudley-Smith
based on the Song of Mary (Magnificat), Luke 1.46–55
m
‘Woodlands’
Walter Greatorex

Don’t you enjoy the little secrets that poets reveal? Emily Dickinson, for example, tells us all kinds of personal things about her reclusiveness, her garden, and her friends in poetry. In Sunday’s Gospel lesson, only Mark tells us that among the Epiphany manifestations of Jesus, he healed Peter’s mother-in-law (1.31). Who would have thought that Peter was married? Were any of the other disciples married? Did they ever visit their wives or families? Did they ever have any children? Why are the Gospels so silent on such things? Isn’t it interesting that Mark tells us this?

It’s also enjoyable to listen to the texts that poets have written for our use in worship. Sunday’s hymns say some interesting things to us? Isn’t it detective-like to look for them?

Although we know little about Walter Chambers Scott (1824–1928), we do know that he was a Scotsman who wrote five books of poetry, many with religious themes. In the Introit hymn today, we use one of his most famous poems, ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise’. He says things about God we might not have considered. Perhaps the poet is entitled to say what may or may not be true. Is God indeed ‘unresting’? Does he never hurry (‘unhasting’)? Does he lack desire (‘nor wanting’)? Is he efficient (‘nor wasting’)?

We all have our notions of what it would be like to be other than human (‘divine’?), but how do we know for sure what the unspoken and unknown should be? Poets share their secrets, sometimes as unfathomable as the divine, but always intriguing.

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) lies buried in the Separatists’ cemetery in London, just outside John Wesley’s window. Did good John ever pay attention to this? Given that he offers an alternate verse to this text, I think he might have. In a most fascinating way, although no longer living, Watts’s poems do what he said he would: ‘…when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler powers’. What might those nobler powers be? Perhaps his subtle nuances, his noble phrasing, his emotion on our lips? Praise lives on in surprising ways, telling us the secrets of a poet’s faith and confidence.

Friendship is important to all of us, and meaningful when our worship addresses the matter. How are friends made? Where do we look for them? Is a best friend possible? Brian Wren (*1936), a contemporary poet who writes about social justice and compassion, surprises us in today’s Communion hymn with words about friendship. And he lets us in on his little secret view about how friends are made. As Christ breaks bread with us at his table, we who dine together discover that our divisions cease ‘and strangers now are friends’. And this friendship, Wren believes, is better known to those who regularly see and meet their Lord in Sunday settings.

The Postcommunion hymn by another contemporary poet, Bp. Timothy Dudley-Smith (*1926), reflects on the Purification of Mary (Feb. 2) in the form of a rewriting of the Magnificat. The great reversals that this canticle celebrates are the secrets of Mary’s heart made known to us:

Powers and dominions lay their glory by,
proud hearts and stubborn wills are put to flight,
the hungry fed, the humble lifted high.

Mary the nobody, like us all, rejoices that God accepts us, affirms us and empowers us because it is his grace to do so. What a text to ponder! What a secret to share!

David Zersen

Two texts to be sung Sunday deal specifically with the healing that is the focus of our Gospel lessons these weeks. The Sequence hymn, ‘I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath’, is a fine paraphrase by Isaac Watts of Psalm 146 (which is related to Psalm 147, the Gradual Psalm for the day), with modifications by none other than John Wesley, who counted it a favorite and is said to have sung it just before his death. (The text is also known to be a favorite of contemporary hymn-writer Brian Wren, mentioned above.) The text of the Communion anthem, Salvator mundi, is a traditional antiphon used in several contexts, including the Devotions before the Cross on Good Friday (BCP 282) and in the Ministration to the Sick (BCP 455) just before the anointing of the sick person – hence its appearance this Sunday:

O Savior of the world,
who by thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us,
Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Finally, as alluded to above, two hymns – ‘Sing of Mary, pure and lowly’ and ‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’ – commemorate the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, also called the Purification of St Mary the Virgin, and popularly known as Candlemas (February 2). As told in Luke 2.22–40, the Holy Family, according to Jewish custom, went up to Jerusalem for the ritual purification after childbirth and the dedication of their firstborn son, whereupon they were greeted by the aged Simeon and Anna with prophecies about Jesus. Candlemas is traditionally celebrated with a procession and lighting of candles (see the Book of Occasional Services) that symbolize the ‘light to enlighten the nations’ – that is, Christ – praised by Simeon in the song known as the Nunc dimittis; in the Calendars of some Churches, it marks the end of the Epiphany season and thus the entire Nativity cycle in the liturgical year. Just as this passage includes these prophecies and ends with the well-known verse ‘The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him’, leading to the account of the twelve-year-old Jesus and his parents in the Temple, the hymn ‘Sing of Mary’ looks forward to the adult Jesus’s ministry of preaching and healing, and ultimately his suffering and death.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-24T10:55:00.000-06:00

29 January 2012

9:00 am
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
The Good Shepherd Choir

Ep 2.19–22
Mt 18.12–14

Voluntary
Festive prelude on ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’
Niels Gade

Introit hymn 390
w
‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’
[Lobe den Herren]
Joachim Neander
tr. Hymnal 1940
m
‘Lobe den Herren’
mel. Erneuerten Gesangbuch, 1665
harm. The Chorale Book for England, 1863

Sequence hymn 490
w
‘I want to walk as a child of the light’
Kathleen Thomerson
m
‘Houston’
Kathleen Thomerson

Offertory anthem
w
‘Jesus Christ the apple tree’
from Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs,
New Hampshire, 1784
m
Elizabeth Poston

Communion anthem
w
‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men’
Antiphon on the Magnificat
at Second Vespers for the Dedication of a Church (Sarum Use)
after Rev. 21.3; I Cor. 3.16, 6.19
m
William Harris

Communion hymns 645, 343, 325
w
‘The King of love my shepherd is’
Psalm 23
para. Henry Williams Baker
m
‘St Columba’
Irish

w
‘Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless’
James Montgomery
m
‘St Agnes’
John Bacchus Dykes

w
‘Let us break bread together on our knees’
m
African American spiritual

Postcommunion hymn 397
w
‘Now thank we all our God’
[Nun danket alle Gott]
Martin Rinckart
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Nun danket alle Gott’
mel. Johann Crüger
harm. Wm. Henry Monk, after Felix Mendelssohn

This Sunday, the day of its annual parish meeting, Good Shepherd focuses on its mission and ministry as a period of study and planning for a building project begins. It is appropriate, then, to begin and end the 9:00 Mass with thanks for God’s abiding presence with us, as put into poetry by two German hymn-writers.

A young German teacher in Düsseldorf by the name of Joachim Neumann (1650–1680) was amazed at all the ways in which God sustained, stayed, attended and defended us. He enjoyed composing poetry about his feelings as he wandered in the vales and forest. Many of his texts are still preserved for us, although most have not been translated. Two which are still used by us are ‘All my hope on God is founded’ and today’s Introit hymn, ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’. Neumann (known to us in a Greek translation of his name, Neander, a fad in his day) died of tuberculosis at the young age of 30. Yet his praise sings on in this hymn and helps us to share his feeling of astonishment at the many mercies of God.

Another German poet, Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart (1586–1649), helps us to see with what amazement Christian poets actually write. Rinkart was a pastor during the Thirty Year War, perhaps one of the most terrible wars in history because of the loss of life not only during the war, but as a result of the plagues which followed it. People were provoked to ask their pastors what sense life and faith could possibly have. Rinkart himself buried 4,000 people, including his wife, as a result of the war. And Rinkart, ever the man of faith, answered his children and his parisioners by saying,

O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace,
and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills,
in this world and the next!

Neither of these hymns would be sung by us today if it were not for Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878), who translated them and many others. An Englishwoman who in 1854 visited Dresden, Germany, she became fascinated with German chorales. Overall, she translated in a most masterfull way over 60 German hymns and is credited with the responsibility of having made the German chorale tradition available to the English-speaking world. The Lutheran tradition remembers her along with John Mason Neale in the category of hymnwriter in its Calendar of Saints on July 1, and the Episcopal Church on August 7.

If these hymns focus on the eternity of God’s presence with us, the Epistle and Communion anthem focus more specifically on the intimacy of that presence. The Communion anthem, a beautiful musical setting by twentieth-century English composer William Harris, takes its text from an Antiphon historically appointed for the feast of the dedication of a church:

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and the Spirit of God dwelleth within you:
for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are:
for the love of whom ye do this day
celebrate the joys of the temple with a season of festivity. Alleluia.

And so as this parish embarks upon a period of discernment about building a dwelling-place for the divine not only of stone, but of human hearts in communion, we pray for the Spirit’s guidance, the Shepherd’s providence, the Father’s blessing.

David Zersen and Eric Mellenbruch

In memoriam Gerre Hancock · 1934–2012

2012-01-22T13:06:00.003-06:00

Gerre Hancock, one of America’s most highly acclaimed concert organists and choral directors, died Saturday in Austin of cardiac arrest, in the company of his wife, Judith.

Dr Hancock was most recently, and until his death, Professor of Organ and Sacred Music at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to this appointment, he was for thirty years Organist and Master of Choristers at St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, which has one of the finest choral establishments in the country, including a residential choir school for boys.

Dr Hancock was widely considered the finest organ improviser in America; his career as a concert artist took him around the world; and he is represented by many solo and choral recordings and by his compositions and treatise on improvisation published by Oxford University Press. He had a profound influence on more than one generation of organists and church musicians across America and beyond.

A graduate of the University of Texas and Union Theological Seminary, Dr Hancock served on the faculty of the Juilliard School and had taught at Yale University and the Eastman School of Music. He was a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, the Royal School of Church Music, and the Royal College of Organists; a Doctor of Music of Nashotah House and the University of the South; a Doctor of Divinity of the General Theological Seminary; and a recipient of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Medal of the Cross of St Augustine.

Dr Hancock was no stranger to Good Shepherd, having attended services here periodically during the time of his residence in Austin, and having very kindly served as substitute organist more than once. He and Judith also rehearsed, directed, and played for Choral Evensong at Good Shepherd on Easter Day, 2007.

Dr Hancock’s life will be celebrated in a Choral Requiem Eucharist at St Thomas next week, and his ashes will be interred beneath the floor of the chancel of that church.

For more information about this service as details are available, please visit www.saintthomaschurch.org. For information about memorial events at the University of Texas, please visit www.music.utexas.edu/news.

May his soul, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-17T11:42:00.000-06:00

22 January 2012

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Jo 3.1–5, 10
[1Co 7.29–31 ]
Mk 1.14–20

Introit hymn 537
w
‘Christ for the world we sing’
Samuel Wolcott
m
‘Moscow’
mel. Felice de Giardini

Psalm 62.6–9, 13–14
R
For God alone my soul in silence waits.
Tone VIII

Sequence hymn 629
w
‘We limit not the truth of God’
George Rawson
m
‘Halifax’
Geo. Fr. Handel
adapt. David Hurd

Offertory anthem
w
‘I want to walk as a child of the light’
m
Kathleen Thomerson
arr. Richard Proulx

Communion anthem
w
‘Lord, for thy tender mercy’s sake’
m
Farrant

Communion hymns 661, 321
w
‘They cast their nets in Galilee’
William Alexander Percy
m
‘Georgetown’
David McK. Williams

w
‘My God, thy table now is spread’
1–3: Philip Doddridge
4: Isaac Watts
m
‘Rockingham’
mel. Second Supplement to
Psalmody in Miniature, ca. 1780
adapt. Edward Miller
harm. Samuel Webbe

Postcommunion hymn 655
w
‘O Jesus, I have promised’
John Ernest Bode
m
‘Nyland’
Finnish folk melody
adapt. & harm. David Evans

There was something compelling about Jesus’s presence that moved people. Was it his eyes, his voice, his confidence? Mark’s use of the Greek word euthus or ‘immediately’ in our Gospel lesson (1.14–20) is characteristic of Mark. This is how Jesus was perceived by him and by others. When he summoned somone to action, there was this need to do it right away. And they didn’t even know what we now know! Whether it was Simon and Andrew or James and John, they felt empowered and compelled. How is it with you and me, given what we have seen and heard about all that followed these words to the first disciples?

The words of the poet and the music of the composer surely lack the energy that Jesus conveyed with his presence, but they are nevertheless empowering for us all. When we reflect on Jesus’s call this week, using words and notes that were produced by faithful followers of Jesus in earlier years, we can often feel compelled in unique ways. Listen to these lyrics and tones and think how challenging they are!

The Introit hymn, ‘Christ for the world we sing’, was written by Samuel Wolcott (1813–1886), who felt peculiarly challenged on the way home from a YMCA meeting in 1869. There he had seen the two banners, ‘Christ for the world’ and ‘The world for Christ’. Immediately he felt encouraged to pen the four verses of the text. He wrote over 200 hymns, most having a passion for mission and outreach, stemming perhaps from his role as a Congregational minister and a missionary to Syria. The music we use to support these words today, ‘Moscow’, have vigorous support for the text. If we sing it with emphasis on the first beat in each phrase, we feel compelled to follow through on the summons of the text: ‘Christ for the world we sing; Christ to the world we bring…’ Composed by Felice de Giardini (1716–1796), the music was part of a set of tunes offered to the chaplain of a hospital, Martin Madan, to be used in a book published by Lock Hospital in London as a fundraiser. Giardini, a native Italian, spent forty years of his life in London, performing, teaching and composing, achieving great fame. However, fame dwindles, and with time he was forgotten and died on a little-heralded concert tour in Moscow (hence the tune’s name).

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘O Jesus I have promised’, is a lovely response to the call of the Galilean. It was written by John Bode (1816–1874), an Anglican clergyman and classical scholar (Oxford M.A.), for his three children’s confirmation. The words are powerful given the intent, but they work well for us as we respond to the Gospel lesson today and find ourselves sent into mission. Frequently sung to the tune ‘Angels’, which has a very sentimental character, this tune is set in the Hymnal 1982 to ‘Nyland’, a powerful Finnish folk tune made popular by Welshman David Evans. He had received his doctorate in music from Oxford, and taught music for decades at the university in Cardiff. The tune has rich, dissonant harmonies that brace us for travel as we walk the pilgrim road.

Two of Sunday’s hymns offer, or encourage, a perhaps unconventional response to a Gospel text we think we know well. The Sequence hymn, ‘We limit not the truth of God’, reminds us that we can never fully know the divine mind, that, as the refrain says, ‘the Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his word.’ That last line was taken from, and the whole text was inspired by, an address given by Pastor John Robinson to a group of English dissenters (known to us as the ‘Pilgrims’) as they departed Leyden for the New World. The Communion hymn ‘They cast their nets in Galilee’ offers a sobering glimpse of the potential consequences and yet irresistible nature of Jesus’s call to discipleship:

The peace of God, it is no peace,
but strife closed in the sod.
Yet let us pray for but one thing –
the marvelous peace of God.

David Zersen and Eric Mellenbruch

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-10T15:03:00.001-06:00

15 January 2012

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

1Sm 3.1–10
1Co 6.12–20
Jn 1.43–51

Voluntary
Voluntary I in D
John Bennett

Introit hymn 7
w
‘Christ, whose glory fills the skies’
Charles Wesley
m
‘Ratisbon’
mel. Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn, 1524
adapt. William Henry Havergal

Psalm 139.1–2, 12–15
R
Lord, you have searched me out and known me.
Tone III

Sequence hymn 706
w
‘In your mercy, Lord, you called me’
Josiah Conder, alt. Charles P. Price
m
‘Halton Holgate’
William Boyce

Offertory anthem
w
‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts’
Anthem at the Committal (Burial Office)
m
Henry Purcell

Communion anthem
w
‘What wondrous love is this’
American folk hymn, ca. 1835
m
The Southern Harmony, 1835
arr. Paul J. Christiansen

Communion hymns 232, 314
w
‘By all your saints still striving’
Horatio Bolton Nelson, ver. Hymnal 1982
m
‘Nyland’
Finnish folk melody
adapt. & harm. David Evans
¶ Wednesday is the Feast of the
Confession of St Peter

w
‘Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen’
[Adoro te devote]
attr. Thomas Aquinas
tr. Hymnal 1940/1982
m
‘Adoro devote’
French church melody, Processionale, 1697

Postcommunion hymn 535
w
‘Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim’
Charles Wesley
m
‘Paderborn’
mel. Catolisch-Paderbornisches Gesang-buch, 1765
harm. Sydney Hugo Nicholson

Today’s Gospel brings a wonderful question I often like to paraphrase when I approach someone. Of course the line, ‘Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile’, falls flat if the person approaching doesn’t know anything about the New Testament. However, it strikes me that Jesus’s comment is full of humor rather than piety, and it’s a good comment to throw at a friend or colleague. After all, who is there who never employs deceit or cunning? Jesus surely knows this and is having a little fun with Nathanel. And Jesus knows us too, just as our Psalm (139) and our Offertory anthem will point out.

How does he know this about us? Epiphany leads us into the season when we remember that Jesus is the King the Magi worship, the one whom John bows low to baptize, and the one who makes his followers into fishers of men. He is Nathanael’s Lord, and our Lord, and we are honored and blessed to be called by him.

The Introit hymn, ‘Christ, whose glory fills the skies’, introduces us to the newborn Jesus who is to be heralded as the ‘Son of God, the King of Israel,’ to use Nathanael’s words. Charles Wesley (1707–1788) penned the words, and the text has often been used for services dealing with light, either in the morning, in Advent, or in Epiphany. The composer of the tune is unknown, but it has been traced back in German hymnals as early as 1539.

The Sequence hymn, ‘In your mercy, Lord, you called me’, remembers again the calling of Nathanael, as well as our own. It was written by Josiah Conder (1789–1855), a publisher born in London into the dissenting and non-conformist tradition. Blinded in one eye through smallpox, he nevertheless wrote a great many poems and hymns, some of which are considered to be among the best in the early nineteenth century. The tune, ‘Halton Holgate’, was composed by William Boyce around 1761. Boyce served as a chorister at St Paul’s, London, and as organist at various churches. He published the three-volume Cathedral Music which documented English church musics from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. His increasing deafness made his music-making difficult and he was ultimately asked to resign as church organist.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim’, is another of Charles Wesley’s praise hymns. Written in 1774, it was a time of political and religious persecution. Oddly, the Church of England thought that the Methodist societies were plotted by the Roman Catholic Church and they forcibly repressed them. To rally the Methodists, Wesley wrote this seventeen-stanza hymn as a kind of battle cry. Most of the militaristic stanzas are usually dropped, and we retain that portion which celebrates the Christ who reigns over all. ‘Paderborn’ is a German folk melody found in the Paderborn Gesangbuch of 1765. It may originally have been sung with a rather bouncy rhythm, but today it supports Wesley’s words in a stately manner.

David Zersen

The First Sunday after the Epiphany

2012-01-03T19:17:00.001-06:00

The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ
8 January 2012

9:00 am
Holy Baptism & Holy Eucharist, Rite II
11:30 am
Holy Eucharist, Rite I

Opening voluntary
Prelude on ‘When Jesus went to Jordan’s stream’
[Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam]
Dieterich Buxtehude

Introit hymn 135
w
‘Songs of thankfulness and praise’
st. 1–3: Christopher Wordsworth
st. 4: F. Bland Tucker
m
‘Salzburg’
mel. Jakob Hintze
harm. Johann Sebastian Bach

Psalm 29
A The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.
Tone V

Sequence hymn 294
w
‘Baptized in water’
Mark Evans
m
‘St Elizabeth’ (383)
mel. Schlesische Volkslieder, 1842
harm. Thos. Tertius Noble

Offertory anthem [Hymn 139]
w
‘When Jesus went to Jordan’s stream’
[Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam]
Martin Luther
para. F. Bland Tucker
m
‘Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam’
mel. Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn, 1524
harm. Lucas Osiander

Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit S 114 / 125
I
Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
Healey Willan
II
A Community Mass
Richard Proulx

Fraction anthem [Hymn 333]
w
‘Now the silence Now the peace’
Jaroslav J. Vajda
m
‘Now’
Carl Schalk

Communion anthem [based on Hymn 82]
w
‘Of the Father’s heart begotten’
[Corde natus ex parentis]
Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
tr. R.F. Davis
m
‘Divinum mysterium’
Sanctus trope, c.11
adapt. Piae Cantiones, 1582
arr. David Willcocks

Communion hymns 132, 889
w
‘When Christ’s appearing was made known’
Caelius Sedulius
st. 1 tr The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada
and the United Church of Canada, 1971
st. 2–5 tr. John Mason Neale
m
‘Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort’
mel. Geistliche Lieder, 1543
harm. Hans Leo Haßler

w
‘Blessed be the God of Israel’
Song of Zechariah (Luke 1.68–79)
para. Carl P. Daw, Jr
m
‘Forest Green’
English melody, arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Postcommunion hymn 121
w
‘Christ, when for us you were baptized’
F. Bland Tucker
m
‘Caithness’
mel. The Psalmes of David in Prose and Meeter, 1635
harm. The English Hymnal, 1906

6:00 pm
Choral Evensong, Rite I

Office hymn 131
w
‘When Christ’s appearing was made known’
[Hostis Herodes impie (from ‘A solis ortus cardine’)]
Caelius Sedulius
st. 1 tr The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada
and the United Church of Canada, 1971
st. 2–5 tr. John Mason Neale
m
‘Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar’
based on ‘A solis ortus cardine’
plainsong, Mode III
with organ verses by Samuel Scheidt

¶ Historically appointed for Vespers
in the Octave of the Epiphany

Psalm 29
Richard Farrant

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Anthem
‘When Jesus came to Jordan’s stream’

Hymn 121
‘Christ, when for us you were baptized’

Voluntary
Verset on ‘When Christ’s appearing was made known’
Samuel Scheidt

As mentioned in recent posts, the Incarnation cycle in the Church’s year takes us through a number of events in the life of Jesus and with them, reflections upon the deeper meanings of the Word-become-flesh and the manifestations of his glory in the world. Among this rich cluster of holy days and themes, it has become the Western Church’s custom to remember the Baptism of Our Lord on the first Sunday after the Epiphany. Among the many themes of the season, Sunday’s hymns and anthems will focus on this event from various perspectives: the obedience and exaltation of Jesus Christ, the coming of the Spirit, and so on.

‘Songs of thankfulness and praise’, the Introit hymn, is a classic Epiphany text, recognizing the various manifestations celebrated during this season. Written (at least the first three stanzas sung Sunday) by Christopher Wordsworth (1807–1885), it was intended for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, when its verses could summarize the manifestations that had been recounted in preceding weeks. Wordsworth was part of a very distinguished family of scholars, writers, and clergymen (including his uncle, the poet William Wordsworth; his father, Christopher, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; his brother John, a classical scholar; his brother Charles, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane; his son John, Bishop of Salisbury; his son Christopher, a noted liturgical scholar; and his daughter Elizabeth, founder and first principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford); Christopher made an edition of the Greek New Testament, wrote numerous other hymn texts, and ultimately became the influential Bishop of Lincoln, one of the most ancient sees in the Church of England.

The Offertory anthem, ‘Of the Father’s heart begotten’, connects the cosmic Christ of John 1 to the human Jesus born in a barn. It was written around the turn of the fifth century by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, a Spanish lawyer and governor who became a Christian ascetic and influential poet; this and his Epiphany hymn ‘Earth has many a noble city’ (127) are still widely sung. ‘Of the Father’s heart’ is paired with a very popular medieval tune found in Piae Cantiones, a collection of late medieval Latin songs made by the headmaster of the cathedral school at Turku and published in 1582, from which we get several other tunes (and some texts), including ‘Personent hodie’ (Hymn 92), ‘Dies est laetitiae’ (Hymn 97), and ‘Puer nobis nascitur’ (Hymn 98).

The first Communion hymn (and the Office hymn at Evensong), ‘When Christ’s appearing was made known’, is another early Latin text. It was written by Caelius Sedulius, who died perhaps in Rome in the late fifth century; little else is known of him other than that he was converted to Christianity later in life and wrote a long poem based upon the four Gospels as well as an abecedarian hymn on the life of Christ. An earlier part of this hymn, ‘A solis ortus cardine’ (translated as ‘From East to West, from shore to shore’ in the Hymnal), was taken into the liturgy as the hymn at Lauds for Christmastide, while the portion ‘Hostis Herodes impie’, of which the present hymn is a composite translation, is used at the Office during the Octave of the Epiphany.

Martin Luther probably arranged the tune we use Sunday morning (132), ‘Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort’; he may have based the tune on an earlier chant (it bears similarities to the tune of ‘Savior of the nations, come’). The tune to be used by the choir at Evensong is a simplified version of the proper plainsong tune (131), one of a number of such ‘popular’ tunes based upon plainsong originals. Since it was used for office hymns from Christmas through the Octave of the Epiphany, this tune spawned a great many organ verses during the centuries when it was common to alternate organ and choral verses of much of the liturgy; Sunday’s come from Tabulatura Nova of 1624, an important collection of mostly liturgical organ music by Samuel Scheidt, one of several leading figures in the North German organ school of the seventeenth century who had studied with the great Sweelinck in Amsterdam.

The Rev. F. Bland Tucker (1895–1984), an Episcopal priest who wrote the fourth stanza of our Introit hymn, also wrote the text ‘Christ, when for us you were baptized’, which asks for the Spirit to come upon us as it did upon Jesus in one interpretation of the Gospel account, and a paraphrase of Martin Luther’s hymn ‘When Jesus went to Jordan’s stream’. Tucker wrote and translated a number of hymns and had the distinction of serving on the committees of both the 1940 and 1982 Hymnals of the Episcopal Church. The tune, ‘Caithness’, is a psalm tune from the Scottish Psalter of 1635.

The day commemorating the Baptism of Jesus is one of the four major baptismal feasts of the Church (along with Easter, Pentecost, and All Saints). Certain Fathers of the Church took the view that whatever part of human life Christ took on was thereby sanctified, and also that Christ’s divine energy could not be contained in his body but flowed out from it – in the case of his baptism, making the Jordan and thus all water efficacious for baptism. The patristically inclined shapers of the first Book of Common Prayer (1549) took up this idea in their revision of the blessing of baptismal water: ‘by the Baptisme of thy wel beloved sonne Jesus Christe, thou dydest sanctifie the fludde Jordan, and al other waters to this misticall washing away of synne’ (this remains part of the current [1662] English Prayer Book). Whatever the mechanics and meanings of the mystery of baptism, we continue to follow Our Lord’s example and command.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ

2012-01-03T17:27:00.002-06:00

or, the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles
6 January 2012

7:00 pm
Service of Light & Holy Eucharist

Announcement of the Date of Easter
and of the Moveable Feasts dependent upon it

Short Respond
V All nations shall be blessed in him,
R and do him service.
V All kings shall bow down before him
R and do him service.

V The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute:
R The kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer gifts.

Office hymn 126
w
‘The people who in darkness walked’
Isaiah 9.2–7
para. John Morison
m
‘Dundee’
mel. The CL Psalmes of David, 1615
harm. Thos. Ravenscroft

Psalm 72.1–7, 10–14
A
All nations shall behold the wonders God has done.
Tone V

Sequence hymn 119
w
‘As with gladness men of old’
Wm. Chatterton Dix
m
‘Dix’
mel. Conrad Kocher
arr. Wm. Henry Monk
harm. The English Hymnal, 1906

Offertory anthem
w
‘Jesus, Sun of life, my splendor’
[from ‘Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele’]
Johann Franck
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele’
Johann Crüger
arr. G.F. Handel

Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit S 125
A Community Mass
Richard Proulx

Communion hymns 127, 333
w
‘Earth has many a noble city’
Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
tr. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861
m
‘Stuttgart’
mel. Psalmodia Sacra,
oder Andächtige und Schöne Gesänge, 1715
adapt. Wm. Henry Havergal

w
‘Now the silence Now the peace’
Jaroslav J. Vajda
m
‘Now’
Carl Schalk

Postcommunion hymn 124
w
‘What star is this, with beams so bright’
Charles Coffin
tr. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861, after John Chandler
m
‘Puer nobis nascitur’
mel. Trier MS, c.15
adapt. Michael Praetorius

The Epiphany is one of the oldest Christian feasts, though the exact event(s) which it commemorates, and even the date, have varied and still vary somewhat. Our immediate tradition places it on 6 January and focuses on the coming of the Magi, but it is part of a larger group of commemorations that includes the birth of Christ, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, the Flight into Egypt / the Holy Family, the Holy Name / Circumcision, the coming of the Magi, the Presentation / Purification / Candlemas, the Baptism of Jesus, and the Wedding at Cana, all of which have to do with Christ’s coming among and revelation to us. The celebration of the Epiphany, rich with symbolism and all kinds of historical connections (speculation about the origins and names of these mysterious visitors from the East makes for fascinating reading in itself), has given rise to an immensely rich variety of not only liturgical but paraliturgical and folk customs.

Our liturgy begins, appropriately for not only an evening service but for this season in which the symbolism of light is so important, with the Service of Light, which includes the singing of a Short Respond (a set of verses of scripture set to a simple chant formula, sung responsively, following a short Lesson from Scripture) during the ceremonial lighting of candles. A paraphrase of Isaiah 9.2–7 taken from an eighteenth-century set of versified scripture paraphrases, and set to a Scottish psalm-tune, serves as the Office Hymn that concludes that portion of the liturgy.

The ancient Announcement of the Date of Easter is somewhat akin to the Christmas and Easter Proclamations (it shares a chant tone with the latter), though it is more utilitarian than either of those others. It is quite simply what it says and is an example of something that must have been quite common before books and literacy were widespread (the ‘classical’ Books of Common Prayer directed that, before the Sunday sermon, the Curate of a parish was to make announcements of any holy days to be observed in the following week, as well as to publish the banns of marriage and so forth).

Three of our hymns use the account of the visit of the Magi and the star they saw to exhort the believer to worship Christ as the King and offer one’s own gifts to God, and to affirm that Christ is the true Light that leads and enlightens. ‘As with gladness men of old’ is a nineteenth-century composition, appearing in Hymns Ancient and Modern and justly acquiring immediate popularity. Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348–ca.413), a Spanish lawyer and governor who became a Christian ascetic and influential poet, furnishes the first Communion hymn, ‘Earth has many a noble city’. A translation of four of the 53 original stanzas of his hymn for Epiphany, this text tells of the star and the visit of the Magi and demonstrates that by the fourth century the Magi’s gifts had already gained their traditional symbolic interpretation: gold for kingship, incense for priesthood, and embalming oil for death. (Prudentius had a penchant for allegorical interpretation; his influential poem Psychomachia was the inspiration for much medieval allegorical literature such as the Romance of the Rose, Everyman, and Piers Plowman.) The postcommunion hymn is a translation of one of a number of Latin office hymns written by Charles Coffin for a revised Paris Breviary of 1736. It begins by talking about the great light of the star seen by the Magi, but confirms that the divine Light is greater still. It is set in the Hymnal to a late medieval tune, found here in a version set forth by Michael Praetorius in 1609 and at Hymn 98 in the version, and with the hymn, that appeared in Piae Cantiones of 1582.

Two other pieces are concerned more closely with the Eucharist. ‘Now the silence’, the second Communion hymn, is chosen for the line ‘Now the Son’s epiphany’; the hymn was not written for this occasion, but it is not inappropriate insofar as it connects ‘the’ Epiphany with Christ’s manifestation in every Eucharistic celebration. The Offertory anthem, an arrangement of the great Eucharistic hymn ‘Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele’ (‘Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness’, Hymn 339), comes from a setting by Händel of the ‘Brockes Passion’, a Passion oratorio libretto set by a number of composers and similar to Bach’s somewhat later Passion settings (Händel’s version, this arrangement, and the Hymnal all set different selections from the original nine stanzas). The hymn – full of the symbolism of light and reminding us that though we offer our best gifts to God, we are given greater gifts in turn – bespeaks a kind of piety that is ancient and ever new, Catholic and Evangelical, personal yet never hermetic, emotional yet never maudlin, contemplative yet never lazy, fully cognizant of the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist yet not dwelling upon it so much as basking in the Light of Christ of which we are granted a glimpse at altar, and the full, final manifestation of which is our hope.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ

2011-12-29T14:19:00.003-06:00

1 January 2012

Please see this post from last year.

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Day

2011-12-21T13:30:00.001-06:00

24 December 2011

10:30 pm
Carols for Christmas

Christmas Proclamation

Hymn 102
w
‘Once in royal David’s city’
Cecil Frances Alexander
m
‘Irby’
mel. Henry John Gauntlett
harm. Arthur Henry Mann, st. 6 arr. David Willcocks

Pifa from Messiah
G.F. Handel

Anthem
w
‘Before the marvel of this night’
Jaroslav V. Vajda
m
Carl Schalk

Hymn 94
w
‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’
Nahum Tate
m
‘Winchester Old’
mel. The Whole Books of Psalmes, 1592
harm. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1922

Anthem
w
‘Midnight Clear’
Edmund H. Sears
m
Russell Schulz

Hymn 96
w
‘Angels we have heard on high’
[Les anges dans nos campagnes]
French trad.
tr. James Chadwick
m
‘Gloria’
French trad.
arr. Edward Shippen Barnes

Anthem
w
‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day’
trad. English
m
John Gardner

Hymn 105
w
‘God rest you merry, gentlemen’
London carol, c.18
m
‘God rest you merry’
mel. Little Book of Christmas Carols, ca. 1850
arr. David Willcocks

Voluntary
Noël X Grand Jeu et Duo
[Quand Jesus naquit à Noël]
setting by Louis-Claude Daquin

11:00 pm
First Mass of the Nativity: Midnight Mass
Choral Eucharist, Rite I

Introit hymn 83
w
‘O come, all ye faithful’ stanzas 1–3, 6
[Adeste fideles]
John Francis Wade
tr. Frederick Oakeley and others
m
‘Adeste fideles’
attr. John Francis Wade

Kyrie eleison
Missa Sancti Gabrielis
Johann Michael Haydn

Gloria in excelsis
Missa Sancti Gabrielis
Johann Michael Haydn

Psalm 96
a
‘Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord.’
Tone V

Sequence hymn 87
w
‘Hark! the herald angels sing’
[Hymn for Christmas Day]
Charles Wesley
m
‘Mendelssohn’
Felix Mendelssohn
adapt. William H. Cummings

Offertory anthem
w
‘Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming’
[Es ist ein Ros]
German, c.15
m
‘Es ist ein Ros’
mel. Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengesäng, 1599
setting by Hugo Distler

Sanctus
Missa Sancti Gabrielis
Johann Michael Haydn

Agnus Dei
Missa Sancti Gabrielis
Johann Michael Haydn

Communion anthem
w
‘Still, still, still’
[Stille, stille, stille]
German carol
tr. Meg Peacocke
m
German carol
arr. Philip Ledger

Communion hymns
115
w
‘What child is this, who, laid to rest’
William Chatterton Dix
m
‘Greensleeves’
English melody
arr. Robert Powell

107
w
‘Good Christian friends, rejoice’
John Mason Neale
m
‘In dulci jubilo’
German carol, c. 14

101
w
‘Away in a manger’
Traditional carol
m
‘Cradle Song’
mel. William James Kirkpatrick
harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams

111
w
‘Silent night, holy night’
[Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht]
Joseph Mohr
tr. John Freeman Young
m
‘Stille Nacht’
mel. Franz Xaver Gruber
arr. Robert Powell

Postcommunion hymn 100
w
‘Joy to the world! the Lord is come’
[Psalm 98, Part II: The Messiah’s coming and kingdom]
Isaac Watts
m
‘Antioch’
George Frideric Handel
adapt. Lowell Mason
further arr. John Rutter

.......................................................................................
25 December 2011

10:00
Third Mass of the Nativity: Mass of the Day
Holy Eucharist, Rite II

Voluntary
Prelude on ‘Good Christian friends, rejoice’
J.S. Bach

Introit hymn 107
‘Good Christian friends, rejoice’

Gloria hymn 96
‘Angels we have heard on high’

Psalm hymn 413
w
‘New songs of celebration render’
[Psalm 98]
para. Erik Routley
m
‘Rendez à Dieu’
mel. att. Louis Bourgeois
harm. Erik Routley

Sequence hymn 83
‘O come, all ye faithful’ stanzas 1–3

Offertory hymn 115
‘What child is this, who, laid to rest’

Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit S 125
A Community Mass
Richard Proulx

Communion voluntary
Prelude on ‘Good Christian friends, rejoice’
F.W. Zachow

Postcommunion hymn 100
‘Joy to the world! the Lord is come’

There are traditionally three Masses for Christmas, held at midnight, dawn, and morning; Good Shepherd, in addition to several anticipated Masses, celebrates the first and third of these. Most of the music that will be sung at Good Shepherd is quite familiar; the notes below highlight some interesting or unusual aspects of some of these pieces.

The Christmas Proclamation is an ancient chant, somewhat analogous to the Easter Proclamation (the Exultet) and a proclamation of the dates of the moveable feasts given on the Epiphany; it (somewhat charmingly to the modern ear, but no less solemnly) locates the birth of Jesus quite specifically in time as reckoned in scriptures and Roman history – right down to the appropriate Olympiad.

‘Once in royal David’s city’ is one of a series of hymns written for children by Cecil Frances Alexander on the articles of the Nicene Creed. This one treats Article III (the preceding one is ‘All things bright and beautiful’, and the following is the Good Friday hymn ‘There is a green hill far away’). It has been made especially famous as the traditional first hymn in the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge.

‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’, besides its considerable intrinsic merits, is of historical interest in that it was one of the first few English hymns to be published (in 1700) along with the then dominant metrical Psalters, being found in Tate and Brady’s wildly popular A Supplement to the New Version of Psalms. It is also one of the 27 hymns bound with the first American Book of Common Prayer (1789).

‘Midnight Clear’, one of the most beautiful and successful anthems to come from the pen of Good Shepherd’s previous Director of Music, Russell Schulz, is a fine example of a new musical setting rescuing a fine text that had been paired with a rather trite tune. Edmund Sears, a Unitarian minister, wrote this prayer for peace in 1849 as the US was heading towards civil war.

‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day’ is a sprightly contemporary setting of a traditional English text. Its composer, John Gardner, died on 12 December of this year, aged 94, after a prolific career. The text (the original of which is much longer, tracing the whole of Christ’s life – birth, baptism, temptation, persecution, betrayal, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension), sung in the person of Christ, very movingly (and following the traditional allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs) casts the listener, or the Christian soul, as Christ’s ‘true love’: most verses end with ‘to call my true love to my dance’, and the refrain ends with ‘this have I done for my true love’. As indicated in the first stanza, ‘...I would my true love did so chance to see the legend of my play...’, the song may have originated in conjunction with a paraliturgical drama of the sort very common in the later Middle Ages, and may indeed have been performed with dance.

‘O come, all ye faithful’ is perhaps a somewhat unlikely candidate for popularity; it originated around 1743 as a Latin hymn at Douay, a center for exiled English Roman Catholics from the Reformation on, but is married to a purely English Methodist tune (probably written by the hymn’s author, John Francis Wade). The tune became known in England via the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy, one of the few places in England where Roman Catholic liturgies were allowed to be celebrated, and which was known for its music. The tune was used to set a number of different texts before the present, irregular, adaptation of the Latin was made and published with the tune in Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861, whence it entered the main stream of Protestant English hymnody. At the same time, the (Latin) text and tune have appeared somewhat incongruously alongside plainsong hymns in various Roman Catholic chant collections.

‘Hark! the herald angels sing’ was written by Charles Wesley, though (like many hymns) it has been considerably altered and shortened over time. The original first couplet was ‘Hark, how all the welkin [heaven, cf. German Wolken, clouds] rings / Glory to the King of kings’, and other alterations and omissions have largely removed the particular emphasis on Christ’s role as the Second Adam found in the original. The hymn was conceived as a counterpart to ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’, with the same tune in mind, but eventually Mendelssohn’s music, part of the Festgesang written in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg’s development of printing from moveable type, was paired with the text – somewhat against the wishes of the composer, who thought the tune would have a chance at popularity with a patriotic theme but was not appropriate for a sacred text.

‘Joy to the world’, now universally associated with Christmas, was not written specifically for this occasion, but rather is the second half of Watts’s paraphrase of Psalm 98. It is of course not at all unsuited to the feast; this Psalm is one long associated with Christmas. ‘New songs of celebration render’, by Erik Routley, the great twentieth-century hymnologist, hymnographer, and hymn-tune composer, is another paraphrase of this Psalm which will be used as the Psalm on Christmas morning.

Finally, the Mass sung at midnight, the Missa Sancti Gabrielis, is a brief but festive setting by Michael Haydn, younger brother of Joseph Haydn. Michael was Kapellmeister at Salzburg for 43 years and was admired by both Mozart and his own brother, who thought that Michael’s sacred works outshone his own. The Classical style – difficult to beat for sheer joyous music-making – is here in all its glory, fit for this great feast of Our Lord.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

2011-12-14T12:35:00.006-06:00

18 December 2011

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Primary & Junior Choirs

11:30
Baptism, Confirmation & Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Good Shepherd Choir

2Sm 7.1–11, 16
Rm 16.25–27
Lk 1.26–38

Voluntary
11:30
Prelude on ‘Meine Seele erhebt den Herren’
[Magnificat]
J.S. Bach

Introit hymn 56 [stanzas 7–8]
w
‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’
[Veni, veni, Emmanuel]
c.9, ver. Hymnal 1940
m
‘Veni, veni Emmanuel’
plainsong, Mode I
Processionale, c.15

Psalm
9:00
Magnificat, Luke 1.46–55

11:30
89.1–4, 19–26
Choir: Anglican Chant

Sequence hymn 54
w
‘Savior of the nations, come’
[Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland]
Martin Luther
after St Ambrose of Milan
[Veni redemptor gentium]
tr. Wm. M. Reynolds and James Waring McCrady
m
‘Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland’
mel. Erfurt Enchiridia, 1524
based on ‘Veni redemptor gentium’
harm. Melchior Vulpius

Offertory anthem
9:00
w
‘Come, Messiah, come’
based on Isaiah 2.1–5; 9.1–7
m
Lynn Shaw Bailey & Becki Slagle Mayo

11:30
w
‘Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming’
German, c.15
tr. Theodore Baker
m
German, c. 15
setting by Hugo Distler

Communion hymns 324, 268
w
‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’
[Σιγσάτω πα̃σα σὰρξ βροτεία]
Liturgy of St James, c.4
para. Gerard Moultrie
m
‘Picardy’
French carol, c.17
harm. after The English Hymnal, 1906

w
‘Ye who claim the faith of Jesus’
1–3: Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles
4: F. Bland Tucker (based on Magnificat)
m
‘Julion’
David Hurd

Postcommunion hymn 438
w
‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’
Timothy Dudley-Smith
based on the Magnificat
m
‘Woodlands’
Walter Greatorex

Today as I write this, people all over Scandinavia are celebrating St Lucy’s Day with wreathed candles and S-shaped yeast buns filled with raisins. There are so many little-known wonderful celebrations within the Advent and Christmas seasons. It is a shame to make so much of Rudolph and Santa Claus and to know so little of the trditions that Christians have found meaningful for centuries. Even the hymns that we sing Sunday have ancient roots and wonderful stories attached to them, yet we hardly know them. It’s worth spending a few minutes reflecting on some of their traditions.

As Sunday’s Gospel reading is the account of the Annunciation to Mary, the Song of Mary, or Magnificat, will feature prominently in Sunday’s liturgies. Very early on, the Christian community began to set to music this reflection on Mary’s realization that she was to be gifted as the mother of the Saviour. Luke alone remembers this hymn for us (1.46–55), set in perfect Hebrew parallelism. The Christian love for the poor at Christmas begins with Mary’s belief that ‘He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away’. The paradox of the incarnation is that ‘He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly’.

This Sunday the Magnificat is appointed as one option for the Psalm and will be so sung at 9:00. The Postcommunion hymn is a metrical paraphrase of this text by prominent contemporary hymnist Timothy Dudley-Smith, retired Bishop of Thetford. And the Communion hymn ‘Ye who claim the faith of Jesus’ also includes a one-stanza summary of the Magnificat, written by Episcopal priest-poet F. Bland Tucker as an addition to the (abbreviated) hymn by Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles. The tune is one of many lovely hymn-tunes written by contemporary composer David Hurd. The Magnificat is also heard in an organ prelude by J.S. Bach based on the ninth plainsong tone. The setting is from Bach’s own set of transcriptions (called the ‘Schübler Chorales’ after their publisher) from a movement of a cantata, a set that also includes the famous ‘Sleepers, wake!’.

Not quite as ancient as the Magnificat is the ninth-century Latin text used as the Introit hymn this season: ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’. Based on the Antiphons to the Magnificat traditionally sung at Vespers in the last seven days of Advent, beginning with December 17, the stanzas of this hymn proclaim various names for the Messiah. Although filled with joy, especially in the chorus to rejoice, there is a solemnity to the petition that imagines a procession of the faithful approaching the manger.

The Sequence hymn offers another ancient tradition in the words, ‘Saviour of the nations, come’. St Augustine tells us that his mentor, St Ambrose of Milan (considered the father of hymnody in the Western Church), wrote this text in 372. Martin Luther chose to render it in German and today it is one of the most beloved Advent hymns in Germany. The present version of the tune, dating from 1524, is a simplification of the eleventh-century plainsong tune associated with this text. Solemn and chantlike, the hymn moves toward the manger: ‘Wondrous birth! Oh, wondrous child of the Virgin undefiled’.

The 11:30 Offertory anthem, ‘Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming’, is a fifteenth-century German hymn remembering Mary. While there is a loveliness to the lyrics, without the harmonization of the tune given by Michael Praetorius it would probably not be remembered as well. Today it is one of the most loved Advent hymns/anthems. It is a recurring theme throughout the 2009 film The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Finally, another great musical treat, used in its original context at the Offertory, sings for us the meaning of the incarnation: ‘King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth he stood, Lord of lords in human vesture, in the Body and the Blood he will give to all the faithful his own self for heavenly food’. Taken from the Divine Liturgy of St James, named after the brother of Jesus, this is one of the oldest liturgical texts still sung in the Christian community. Some would argue it is as old as 60 AD, though the present form dates from the fourth century. Even more interesting for us in the West, it is one of the oldest texts sung in both Eastern and Western Churches.

As we reflect on the words, it’s worth remembering those multi-hued settings, the incense and smoke-covered walls, the faded icons, and the echoes that still reverberate from those ancient walls. The church carries on and we remember with joy what fathers and mothers in the faith celebrated so long ago.

David Zersen and Eric Mellenbruch

The Third Sunday of Advent

2011-12-06T18:18:00.001-06:00

11 December 2011

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Is 61.1–4, 8–11
1Th 5.16–24
Jn 1.6–8, 19–28

Anthem
‘Esurientes’ from the Magnificat
J.S. Bach

Introit hymn 56
w
‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ (stanzas 5–6)
[Veni, veni, Emmanuel]
c.9, ver. Hymnal 1940
m
‘Veni, veni Emmanuel’
plainsong, Mode I
Processionale, c.15

Psalm
126
tone: Richard Farrant

Sequence hymn 616
w
‘Hail to the Lord’s anointed’
[Psalm 72]
James Montgomery
m
‘Es flog ein kleins Waldvögelein’
German folk song

Offertory anthem
w
‘This is the record of John’
John 1.19–23
m
Orlando Gibbons

Communion hymns 66, 615
w
‘Come, thou long-expected Jesus’
Charles Wesley
m
‘Stuttgart’
mel. Psalmodia Sacra, oder
Andächtige und Schöne Gesange, 1715
adapt. and harm. Wm. Henry Havergal

w
‘ “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee’
Frederick Lucian Hosmer
m
‘St Flavian’
mel. Day’s Psalter, 1562
adapt. Richard Redhead

Postcommunion hymn 65
w
‘Prepare the way, O Zion’
[Bereden väg för Herran]
Frans Mikael Franzen
tr. composite
m
‘Bereden väg för Herran’
mel. Then Swenska Psalmboken, 1697
harm. Koralbok för Svenska Kyrkan, 1939

6:00
Choral Evensong, Rite I
Evensong Choir

Office Hymn 60
w
‘Creator of the stars of night’
[Conditor alme siderum]
Latin, c.9
ver. Hymnal 1940
m
‘Conditor alme siderum’
plainsong, Mode IV
with organ verses by Jehan Titelouze
¶ Historically appointed for Vespers in Advent

Psalm
126
(see above)

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis
Short Service
Thomas Tallis

Anthem
‘This is the record of John’
(see above)

Hymn 615
‘ “Thy kingdom come!” on bended knee’
(see above)

Voluntary
Prelude on ‘Savior of the nations, come’
[Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland]
J.S. Bach
¶ based on Hymn 54

Two giants of the Tudor era provide this Sunday’s anthem and evening canticles. The career of Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505–1585) spanned the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century, and in addition to writing a good deal of Latin-texted music, he was instrumental in establishing a style for English-language liturgical music, for which the intelligibility of the text was an important consideration. The new style was taken up by many other composers who flourished in the Elizabethan age, including Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625), one of whose best known anthems is ‘This is the record of John’.

Frequent guest and ka·lei·do·scope concert series producer Kathryn Findlen appears Sunday morning with the ‘Esurientes’ (‘he hath filled the hungry with good things / and the rich he hath sent away empty’) portion of the Magnificat as set by J.S. Bach. Bach also provides the Voluntary at Evensong, a beautiful ornamented setting of the Advent hymn ‘Savior of the nations, come’ (the Lutheran version after St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and father of hymnody in the Western Church, whose feast day falls on 7 December).

Sunday morning’s hymns extend beyond the ‘Advent’ section of the Hymnal to that entitled ‘The Kingdom of God’, whose coming is of course a major theme of the season. Justice and healing, righteousness and peace are proclaimed in the Lesson from Isaiah and echoed in Hymns 615 and 616, the latter a paraphrase of Psalm 72 by James Montgomery, who appears often in these pages as in the Hymnal.

The Evensong Choir continues its path through the hymns historically appointed at Vespers for the seasons and feasts of the Church year. It was common in at least the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and probably for a good while before then, for the organ to be used extensively in alternation with singing at both Office and Mass; this Sunday the singing of the Office Hymn is enriched with organ verses by French priest, composer, theorist, organist, organ consultant, and poet Jehan Titelouze (1562/3–1633), who wrote sets of verses for the Office hymns of major feasts and seasons and for all eight tones of the Magnificat.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Second Sunday of Advent

2011-11-30T13:32:00.001-06:00

4 December 2011

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Is 40.1–11
2Pt 3.8–15a
Mk 1.1–8

Introit hymn
56
w
‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’
[Veni, veni, Emmanuel]
c.9, ver. Hymnal 1940
m
‘Veni, veni Emmanuel’
plainsong, Mode I
Processionale, c.15

Psalm
85.1–2, 8–13
tone: Thomas Tallis

Sequence hymn 67
w
‘Comfort, comfort ye my people’
[Tröstet, tröstet meine Lieben]
Johann Olearius
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Psalm 42’
mel. & bass Claude Goudimel

Offertory anthem
9:00
w
‘O thou, the central orb’
H.R. Bramley
m
Charles Wood

11:30
w
‘Rise up’
[Wohlauf, wohlauf mit hellem Ton]
Johann Walter
tr. Frank Stoldt
m
Johann Walter, 1551

Communion hymns 75, 74
w
‘There’s a voice in the wilderness crying’
James Lewis Milligan
m
‘Ascension’
Henry Hugh Bancroft

w
‘Blest be the King whose coming’
[Bendito el Rey que viene]
Federico F. Pagura
tr. F. Pratt Green
m
‘Valet will ich dir geben’
mel. Melchior Teschner

Postcommunion hymn 76
w
‘On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry’
[Jordanis oras praevia]
Charles Coffin
tr. Chas. Winfred Douglas
m
‘Winchester New’
mel. Musicalisches Hand-Buch, 1690
harm. Wm. Henry Monk

Our Introit hymn each Sunday this Advent consists of successive stanzas of ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’. This hymn is inspired by a series of antiphons to the Magnificat, dating at the latest from the eighth century, used at Vespers on the days leading up to Christmas. Each antiphon, and after them each stanza of the hymn, names an attribute or historical name of God, such as ‘O Sapientia [O Wisdom]…’, and the initial letters of these names or attributes in the order the antiphons are sung form an acrostic in Latin: ERO CRAS (‘I will be [present] tomorrow’ [i.e., on Christmas]). These antiphons are known as the ‘Great O Antiphons’. The present tune does not originally have anything to do with these antiphons but was adapted by Thomas Helmore to use with this English hymn.

Also in Advent, the Psalm is being sung by the Good Shepherd Choir to Anglican chant tones. Anglican chant grew out of the Renaissance practice of harmonizing plainsong psalm tones and became standard practice for singing the psalms and canticles at Morning and Evening Prayer in Anglican churches around the world. The Choir is undertaking this practice at this time in preparation for its summer 2012 UK tour, during which it will sing many Psalms at Choral Evensong in the cathedral churches of Lincoln and Southwark.

Much of this Sunday’s hymnody focuses on John the Baptist, who makes his appearance in the Gospel of the day, which quotes Isaiah’s prophecy. ‘Comfort, comfort’, a fairly close German paraphrase translated by the great English translator of German hymns, Catherine Winkworth, is set to a sprightly Genevan Psalm-tune. A more contemporary English take on John the Baptist is found in ‘There’s a voice in the wilderness crying’; both text and tune are written in a simple, folk-like manner. ‘On Jordan’s bank’ comes from the pen of Frenchman Charles Coffin, who wrote a number of Latin texts to replace older Office hymns, several of which are in common use in our own context today.

Eric Mellenbruch

The First Sunday of Advent

2011-11-22T16:00:00.000-06:00

27 November 2011

9:00
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Is 64.1–9
1Co 1.3–9
Mk 13.24–37

Voluntary
Prelude on ‘Sleepers, wake’
J.S. Bach

Introit hymn 56
w
‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ [stanzas 1–2]
[Veni, veni, Emmanuel’]
[based upon the ‘O Antiphons’]
Latin, c.9
ver. Hymnal 1940, alt.
m
‘Veni, veni, Emmanuel’
plainsong, Mode I, Processionale, c.15

Psalm
80.1–7, 16–18
John Blow

Sequence hymn 57
w
‘Lo! he comes, with clouds descending’
Charles Wesley
m
‘Helmsley’
mel. Thos. Arne
harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Offertory anthem
9:00
w
‘Lift up your heads’
Psalm 24.7–10
m
William Mathias

11:30
w
‘Watchman, tell us of the night’
John Bowring
m
‘Aberystwyth’
Joseph Parry
setting by Healey Willan
[based on Hymn 640]

Communion hymns
61
w
‘Sleepers, wake! a voice astounds us’
[Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme]
Philipp Nicolai
tr. Carl P. Daw, Jr.
m
‘Wachet auf’
mel. Hans Sachs, adapt. Philipp Nicolai
harm. J.S. Bach

889
w
‘Blessed be the God of Israel’
Song of Zechariah (Luke 1.68–79)
para. Carl P. Daw, Jr
m
‘Forest Green’
English melody, arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Postcommunion hymn
59
w
‘Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding’
[Vox clara ecce intonat]
Latin, c.6
tr. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861
m
‘Merton’
Wm. Henry Monk

¶ Historically appointed for Lauds in Advent

Our forebears (particularly those of northern latitudes) noticed the daylight dwindle at this time of year and worried whether the light would return to a dark earth; in defiance of the dark and expectation of the return of the light they celebrated the winter solstice, onto which our celebration of the Incarnation was grafted to become Christmas. The symbolism of light thus naturally pervades our Advent—Christmas—Epiphany season as we look for the coming of new life in Jesus the Christ.

This Sunday’s scriptures and musical texts, then, are full of longing for the coming of the Kingdom and of admonitions to be ready for its arrival. ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates’, says the Psalmist, ‘and the King of glory shall come in’. An energetic setting by Welsh composer William Mathias (familiar to this parish as the composer of one of our congregational Mass settings) admirably conveys the sense of excitement and urgency of this coming of ‘the Lord, strong and mighty’.

Another prolific composer well known for one of our Mass settings is Healey Willan, whose organ prelude on ‘Watchman, tell us of the night’, with the tune sung by the Chamber Choir, serves as an anthem Sunday. This hymn (640) sings of the ‘promised day of Israel’, the day of ‘blessedness and light, peace and truth’ when ‘darkness takes its flight, [and] doubt and terror are withdrawn’.

The character of the watchman figures again in the great German hymn ‘Sleepers, wake!’ – one of the greatest of all hymns. Though not all the many passages of Scripture to which this hymn alludes appear in our lectionary every year, the hymn is suited to the season in any year. Its densely packed images paint a vivid, bustling picture, heightened by Bach’s arrangements of the hymn-tune, both of which (opening voluntary and communion hymn) come from his cantata on this hymn, the organ piece being his own arrangement of a movement for strings and men’s voices (who sing the second stanza of the text), and the hymn version being the closing movement of that cantata (setting the third stanza). The Rev. Carl P. Daw, an Episcopal priest and poet, is the translator of ‘Sleepers, wake’, as well as the paraphraser of the Song of Zechariah, the second Communion hymn.

The daylight, the coming of Christ, the advent of the Kingdom of God, brings joy to those who can see it. Yet the daylight can be harsh, burning and blinding and laying bare what we might prefer to leave hidden. To see the Glory of God, or the Glorified Christ, is an awesome thing: the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that it means certain death to the viewer. The light is too bright to behold because it not only exposes evil and injustice but also painfully melts away all our masks, showing us as we really are – frail and fearful, but nonetheless fit for divinity – and that terrifies us. It shows us how we sell Christ short, failing to see his image in others and ourselves, and places that failure under the judgement that is part of the setting-things-right for which we long and of which we are a part. It shows us the scars which, Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’ reminds us, are an inescapable part of the advent of God’s reign of love and justice. And so Advent is a time for self-examination, when we, as ‘Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding’ says, ‘haste, with tears of sorrow, one and all to be forgiven’.

Eric Mellenbruch

Thanksgiving Day

2011-11-22T10:00:00.000-06:00

24 November 2011

10:00
Mass, Rite II

Dt 8.7–18
2Co 9.6–15
Lk 17.11–19

Opening voluntary
Prelude on ‘Now thank we all our God’
J.S. Bach [based on Hymn 397]

Introit hymn 705
w
‘As those of old their first fruits brought’
Frank von Christierson
m
‘Forest Green’
English melody
adapt. & harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Psalm hymn
w
‘To you, O Lord, we pay our vows’
Psalm 65
para. Christopher L. Webber
m
‘The Eighth Tune’
Thomas Tallis

Sequence hymn 288
w
‘Praise to God, immortal praise’
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
m
‘Dix’
mel. Conrad Kocher
arr. Wm. Henry Monk
harm. The English Hymnal, 1906

Offertory voluntary
‘A Carol of Thanksgiving’
Russell Schulz [based on Hymn 433]

Communion voluntary
Prelude on ‘Now thank we all our God’
G.F. Kaufmann

Postcommunion hymn 397
w
‘Now thank we all our God’
Martin Rinckart
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Nun danket alle Gott’
mel. Johann Crüger
harm. Wm. Henry Monk, after Felix Mendelssohn

It’s interesting that those who Jesus often lifts up as exemplary are people found at the margins, the marginalized. In the case of today’s Gospel lesson, the one who bothers to give thanks is a Samaritan, a representative of a minority group that is rejected and condescended to by the Jews. Why is this? Why did the Samaritan bind up the wounds of the man who fell among thieves? Is Jesus trying to make a point with his hearers, or does it tend to be true that those who are disenfranchised often have a deeper need to respond positively than those who have so much that they feel nothing at all?

Today’s texts explore these questions and attempt to help us sing our answers together.

The Introit hymn, ‘As those of old their first fruits brought’, sings ‘In gratitude and humble trust, we bring our best today’. The words encourage a response to the blessings we often fail to count. The text is one of many written by Frank von Christierson (1900–1996), who was born in Lovisa, Finland, but grew up in California. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, Christierson served in a number of California congregations. The tune, ‘Forest Green’, is an English folk tune adapted and harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The Sequence hymn, ‘Praise to God, immortal praise’, was written by Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825), a literary critic and poet who was almost forgotten for some surprising reasons. Although she acquired a prominent reputation for her essays and poetry at a time when women were not known for their literary output, she was denounced by many because she attacked in her essays Britain’s involvement in the Napoleonic wars and in the slave trade. Only in more recent years has her voluminous output been reexamined. The tune, ‘Dix’, was originally a German chorale tune, but William Monk applied it to ‘As with gladness men of old’, a text by William Dix (hence the tune name). Dix himself was not happy with this text/tune marriage, but it has not only made the hymn very popular (a favorite Epiphany hymn), but has been used with other texts, such as this one by Barbauld.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Now thank we all our God’, by Martin Rinkart (1586–1649), is one of the great hymns of praise used not only for Thanksgiving but for weddings and funerals as well. It celebrates the greatness of God’s mercy even when troubles in life seem to be overwhelming. Because of the story of Martin Rinkart, it is a moving hymn for Thanksgiving. Rinkart was one of four pastors in Eilenburg, Germany, who served at the height of the plague that resulted from the Thirty Years’ War. One pastor fled and Rinkart buried the other two. As people continued to die from the plague, Rinkart buried them and others, sometimes 40 to 50 a day, until he had buried 4,480. Among them was his wife. Astonishingly, Rinkart wrote this hymn to teach his children how to give thanks in spite all that they had lost together as well as for a great celebration at the end of the war. The tune, ‘Nun danket alle Gott’, was written by Johann Crüger, who composed some 70 chorales, many still in popular use in evangelical hymnals.

David Zersen

Choral Evensong: The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

2011-11-08T16:41:00.002-06:00

13 November 2011

6:00 pm
Choral Evensong
Evensong Choir

Lessons
1Th 5.1–11
Mt 25.14–30

Office Hymn 27
w
‘O blest Creator, source of light’
[Lucis creator optime]
Latin, c.6
tr. Anne K. LeCroy
m
plainsong, Mode VIII, c.11

Psalm
90
Charles V. Stanford

Magnificat & Nunc dimittis
Harvard Service
Charles Callahan

Anthem
w
‘My eyes for beauty pine’
Robert Bridges
m
Herbert Howells

Hymn 24
w
‘The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended’
John Ellerton
m
‘St Clement’
Clement Cottevill Scholefield

Voluntary
‘Lied’ from 24 Pieces in Free Style
Louis Vierne

This season the Evensong Choir is exploring the traditional repertory of Vespers hymns for the Church year, beginning with ‘Lucis creator optime’ in this season after Pentecost. The hymn gives thanks for the day, recalling its creation in the beginning, then (as in many evening hymns) turns its attention to the coming night, asking for calm in the face of the threatening darkness and strength to meet the spiritual challenges the new day will bring. The translation is a modern one.

The closing hymn, another evening classic, perhaps reflecting the seemingly more secure world of the late-nineteenth-century British Empire (though acknowledging even its transitoriness) as against the uncertainty of life in the sixth century, focuses upon the global nature of the Church and thus the never-ceasing praise it offers for the ever-growing Kingdom of God.

This month’s settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis were written in 1995, commissioned by the Memorial Church of Harvard University, in honor of the silver jubilee of the late Rev. Dr. Peter J. Gomes, who was the Pusey Minister in that Church, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Harvard Divinity School, and a prominent preacher and author, distinguished scholar of American religious history, spiritual leader, and voice of tolerance. He died earlier this year.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

2011-11-08T16:17:00.003-06:00

13 November 2011

9:00
Mass, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir
11:30
Mass, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Lessons
Js 3.7–17
1Th 5.1–11
Mt 25.14–30

Voluntary
Prelude & Fugue on the Fifth Tone
Jacques Boyvin

Introit hymn 473
w
‘Lift high the cross’
George William Kitchin
alt. Michael Robert Newbolt
m
‘Crucifer’
Sydney Hugo Nicholson

Gradual psalm
107.1–6, 35–37
R
Give thanks to the Lord,
whose mercies endure for ever.
Tone VII

Sequence hymn 632
w
‘O Christ, the Word Incarnate’
Wm. Walsham How
m
‘Munich’
mel. Neu-vermehrtes und zu Übung Christl.Gott-
seligkeit eingerichtetes Meiningisches Gesangbuch, 1693
adapt. & harm. Felix Mendelssohn

Offertory anthem
w
‘The eyes of all wait upon thee’
m
Jean Berger

Communion anthem
w
‘O how amiable’
Psalm 84.1–4; Psalm 90.17; Isaac Watts
m
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Communion hymns 490, 339
w
‘I want to walk as a child of the light’
Kathleen Thomerson
m
‘Houston’
Kathleen Thomerson

w
‘Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness’
[Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele]
Johann Franck
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele’
mel. Johann Crüger
harm. The English Hymnal, 1906

Postcommunion hymn 347
w
‘Go forth for God’
John Raphael Peacy and English Praise, 1975
m
‘Litton’
Erik Routley

Sunday’s Gospel is a classic stewardship text perfect for a Sunday falling between the ingathering of pledges and Thanksgiving, which together constitute a modern harvest festival. I’m not sure how often we think of our donations as investments, but this is exactly what this Gospel lesson encourages us to do. Thinking spiritually, if we invest our gifts in ways to foster a richer Kingdom, then we receive interest on our investments. And this interest is paid in the form of blessings that make us grateful for all that we share.

Sunday’s hymns are songs of celebration because people who give generously and with purpose have every reason to celebrate. God is using us to bring in his kingdom. The hungry are satisfied, the needs of the poor are met, the lonely are embraced and the sick are healed with the good will of skilled caregivers.

One of the many stanzas of the Introit hymn not included in the Hymnal* reads, ‘Come, Christians, follow where our Savior led; our king victorious, Jesus Christ our head’. This hymn, as written by George Kitchen (1827–1912) and revised by Michael Robert Newbolt, sings of progressive ranks of praise offered by those marked by the sign of the cross. Kitchen had degrees in both classics (Greek and Latin) and mathematics, interesting to me because such background has often contributed to the skills of those who work with words, with rhyme and meter.

Sydney Nicholson (1875–1947) wrote the hymn tune ‘Crucifer’ for this text: a gracious gift that made the hymn one of the great favorites of the contemporary church. Interestingly, Nicholson progressed as organist from one great church to another (Eton College, Carlisle and Manchester cathedrals, Westminster Abbey), but was so troubled by the state of church music in the parishes of England that he left his post at Westminster to found the School of English Church Music and edited Hymns Ancient and Modern, still the standard work in Anglican churches today. Would that the great organists in our cathedrals in the US might adopt such a mission! He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Sequence hymn, ‘O Christ, the Word Incarnate’, is another happy marriage of text and tune. William Walsham How (1823–1897), an Anglican priest known for his work with children, the poor, and industrial workers, wrote this and some 50 other texts. We sang his ‘For all the saints…’ last Sunday. We sing this Sunday’s text to ‘Munich’, a lovely German chorale tune used for many other texts in the Lutheran tradition, and dating back to the mid-1500s. Felix Mendelssohn adapted the tune for use with the quartet ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord’ in his oratorio Elijah (1846). The name probably refers to the city of Munich.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Go forth for God’, by John Raphael Peacy (1896–1971), is a type of benediction with roots in I Thessalonians 5.15. Its lovely words send us out ‘armed with heavenly grace… to the world in peace’. ‘Litton,’ named after a colleague, was composed by the great dean of contemporary English hymnody, Eric Routley (1917–1982). It has a lovely, lilting and lamentably high ‘d’ that I seldom reach without screeching. However, again, both text and tune together in this hymn send the worshiper out with such joy that it’s worth an occasional reach for the unreachable. Have a go at it!

David Zersen

*The present form of the hymn is the result of successive rounds of shortening, the last being undertaken ostensibly to reduce the amount of militaristic imagery. The result, however, is a text whose tone might be characterized as triumphalist rather than triumphant, and which in tandem with Nicholson’s 1916 tune has about it an air of whipping up the troops. To read the full text is something of a revelation, as the undoubted missions-mindedness (the original text was written for a festival of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Winchester Cathedral in 1887) is set in the context of highest praise, deepest thanks, and a yearning for God’s reign of peace:

Refrain
Lift high the Cross, the love of Christ proclaim
till all the world adore his sacred name.

Come, brethren, follow where our Captain trod,
our King victorious, Christ the Son of God:

Led on their way by this triumphant sign,
the hosts of God in conquering ranks combine:

Each new-born soldier of the Crucified
bears on his brow the seal of him who died:

This is the sign which Satan’s legions fear
and angels veil their faces to revere:

Saved by this Cross whereon their Lord was slain,
the sons of Adam their lost home regain:

From north and south, from east and west they raise
in growing unison their song of praise:

O Lord, once lifted on the glorious Tree,
as thou hast promised, draw men unto thee:

Let every race and every language tell
of him who saves our souls from death and hell:

From farthest regions let them homage bring,
and on his Cross adore their Saviour King:

Set up thy throne, that earth’s despair may cease
beneath the shadow of its healing peace:

For thy blest Cross which doth for all atone
creation’s praises rise before thy throne:

Eric Mellenbruch

The Sunday after All Saints’ Day

2011-11-01T07:20:00.002-05:00

6 November 2011

9:00
Holy Baptism & Mass, Rite II
Primary & Junior Choirs

11:30
Holy Baptism & Mass, Rite I
Good Shepherd Choir

Lessons
Rv 7.9–17
1Jn 3.1–3
Mt 5.1–12

Voluntary
Chorale Fantasie on ‘Lasst uns erfreuen’
Flor Peeters [618]

Introit hymn 287 [stanzas 1–4]
w
‘For all the saints, who from their labors rest’
Wm. Walsham How
m
‘Sine nomine’
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Psalm
34.1,4,5–10
R
Fear the Lord, you that are his saints.
Tone V

Sequence hymn 293
w
‘I sing a song of the saints of God’
Lesbia Scott
m
‘Grand Isle’
John Henry Hopkins

Hymn at the procession of pledges 397
w
‘Now thank we all our God’
[Nun danket alle Gott]
Martin Rinckart
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Nun danket alle Gott’
mel. Johann Crüger
harm. Wm. Henry Monk, after Felix Mendelssohn

Offertory anthem
11:30
w
‘We are not our own’
Brian Wren
m
Russell Schulz

Communion anthem
11:30
w
‘Thine the amen thine the praise’
Herbert Brokering
m
Carl Schalk

Communion hymns 286, 526
w
‘Who are these like stars appearing’
[Wer sind die vor Gottes Throne?]
Theobald Heinrich Schenck
tr. Frances Eliz. Cox
m
‘Zeuch mich, zeuch mich’
mel. Geistreiches Gesang-buch, 1698
harm. Wm. Henry Monk

w
‘Let saints on earth in concert sing’
Charles Wesley
m
‘Dundee’
mel. The CL Psalmes of David, 1615
harm. Thos. Ravenscroft

Postcommunion hymn 618
w
‘Ye watchers and ye holy ones’
John Athelstan Laurie Riley
m
‘Lasst uns erfreuen’
mel. Auserlesene Catholische Geistliche
Kirchengeseng, 1623
adapt. & harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams

All Saints’ Day, November 1, is one of the seven Principal Feasts of the Church. As such, it is one of several for which there is in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer the remnant of an Octave – a week-long celebration once common for many feast days – thus the provision that it may be celebrated on the Sunday following in addition to its observance on November 1. A number of themes come together on this day – the triumph of the saints in light, the communion of saints on earth and those in heaven, the examples set by the saints for us to follow – and each is treated in some of the day’s texts.

The first Communion hymn, ‘Who are these like stars appearing’, is based closely upon Sunday’s Lesson from the Revelation to John. It celebrates the triumph of those who have met the trials of this life and receive their reward as Jesus promises in Sunday’s Gospel, the Matthean Beatitudes. The second, ‘Let saints on earth in concert sing’, deals more with the closeness, in fact the unity, between the Church on earth and in heaven – the ‘one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of...Christ our Lord’, as the Collect of the Day puts it. Wesley, following the passage from Joshua that happens to have been this past Sunday’s proper Old Testament Lesson (which itself draws upon the account of the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus) vividly imagines a great host of people crossing the Jordan – only a ‘narrow stream’ which ‘part of the host...have crossed, and part are crossing now’, and which in the end will be divided to let us cross to the other side unhindered.

Eric Mellenbruch

All Saints’ Day is also one of the four major baptismal feasts of the Church (the others being Easter, Pentecost, and the Baptism of Our Lord [the First Sunday after the Epiphany]). I love the heritage and practice of infant baptism because it says so much about grace in the Christian life (God places us in the community of the faith-filled; we don’t orchestrate it ourselves). And to have baptisms on the Sunday after All Saints’ Day (the day we remember that we began as saints in one community and remain saints into all eternity) is very meaningful. Sunday’s liturgy is filled with texts and tunes to help us claim the meaning personally.

Perhaps the best-loved hymn for this Sunday is ‘For all the saints, who from their labors rest’, written by Wm. Walsham How (1823–1897). How was an Anglican priest and later Bishop of Bedford (London), then of Wakefield, who was known for his work with children and the poor. He wrote a commentary on the Gospels and established an order of deaconesses. He is best known, however, for some of the hymns that he wrote: ‘Jesus, name of wondrous love’, ‘We give thee but thine own’ and, most of all, ‘For all the saints’. One wonders whether it would be as well-remembered, however, were it not for its attachment by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) to the tune ‘Sine nomine’. The verses develop a story about the saints moving toward glory, and the music encourages an emotional fervor rarely found without such a blissful marriage of text and tune.

The Sequence hymn, ‘I sing a song of the saints of God’, also enjoys great popularly in the US, especially in the Episcopal Church because of its inclusion in the Episcopal Hymnal 1940. Written by Lesbia Scott (1898–1986), it was included in Everyday Hymns for Little Children, published in 1929 in England. Scott never intended to write for publication. Her children had regularly asked her to ‘write a song for a foggy day’ or ‘write a song for a saints day’, hence the origin of this hymn. Although it was criticized for lack of theological depth, a letter-writing campaign assured its continuing existence in hymnals in several denominations as well as in the hymnal of the US Armed Forces. John Henry Hopkins wrote the tune for this text and named it after Grande Isle, Vermont, where he lived in retirement.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Ye watchers and ye holy ones’, like the Introit hymn, celebrates with resounding Alleluias. Written by Athelstan Riley (1858–1945), it invites the contemporary Christian community (‘O friends, in gladness let us sing’) to join with patriarachs and prophets, disciples and martyrs, in the triumphant song of the communion of saints. The tune was first published in the Genevan Psalter and came to be known as an Easter hymn, ‘Lasst uns erfreuen’ (also heard Sunday in an organ voluntary by twentieth-century Belgian composer Flor Peeters, who wrote, among other things, many volumes of hymn-preludes). Ralph Vaughan Williams created a harmony for it and it has since been powerfully attached to this text, making it a grand conclusion to the liturgy.

David Zersen

Commemoration of All Faithful Departed

2011-10-25T15:06:00.000-05:00

30 October 2011
Requiem by Gabriel Fauré

9:00
Requiem Mass, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Requiem Mass, Rite I
Good Shepherd Choir

Lessons
Is 25.6–9
1Co 15.50–58
Jn 5.24–27

Introit anthem
Requiem aeternam

Antiphon
Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord,
and let light perpetual shine upon them.
based upon IV Esdras 2.34–35, an apocryphal Jewish text
widely known in the early ages of Christianity and frequently quoted by the Fathers
[appears at the Committal, BCP 486/502, and Prayers of the People, Form III, BCP 387]

Verse
A hymn befitteth thee, O God, in Sion,
and unto thee shall a vow be paid in Jerusalem.
Listen to my prayer: unto thee all flesh shall come.
Psalm 65.1–2a

Kyrie eleison
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
ancient acclamation, used as a litany response as in Prayers of the People, Forms I, IV, V, and kept at the beginning of Mass even when the litany petitions were dropped

Gradual anthem
Pie Jesu

Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest.

Sequence hymn 620
w
‘Jerusalem, my happy home’
F.B.P. (ca. c.16)
m
‘Land of Rest’
American folk hymn

Offertory anthem
Domine Jesu Christe

Antiphon
O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
free thou the souls of all the faithful departed
from the pains of hell and from the deep pit;
deliver them from the lion’s mouth;
let not hell swallow them up,
let them not fall into darkness:
but let Michael, the holy standard-bearer,*
bring them into the holy light,
which once thou didst promise to Abraham and to his seed.†

Verse
Sacrifices and prayers of praise, Lord, we offer unto thee.
Receive them on behalf of those souls we commemorate this day.
Grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to life,
which once thou didst promise to Abraham and to his seed.
*Daniel, Revelation
†Genesis
[originally a prayer for the dying]

Sanctus
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts:
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Isaiah 6.3; Revelation 4.8

Benedictus qui venit
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Psalm 118.26; Matthew 21.9

Agnus Dei
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world:
grant them rest.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world:
grant them rest.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world:
grant them rest everlasting.
based on John 1.29

Communion anthem
Lux aeterna

Antiphon
May eternal light shine on them, Lord,
with thy saints forever,
for thou art merciful.

Verse
Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord,
and let light perpetual shine upon them.

Postcommunion anthem
In paradisum

Into paradise may the angels lead thee;
and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee,
and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.
May a choir of angels welcome thee,
and with poor Lazarus* of old,
mayest thou have eternal rest.
*The beggar of Luke 16.19–31 –
but also alluding to Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha,
whom Jesus raises from the dead in John 11,
the Gospel passage appointed for the Requiem
[sung at the Procession to the Grave,
in which place it appears at BCP 484/500, and at Hymn 354]

If you have something of a mystical bent, this is the Sunday when in a more personal way the saints militant and the saints triumphant celebrate together in the Eucharist. As we remember those who have gone before us in the faith and are with us yet in spirit, we have a deeper sense that all are in one in Christ. Sunday’s use of the Fauré Requiem, offered with orchestra and choir, gives joyful and profound depth to that mystical bond. The choir sings most of the lyrics on this Sunday, but we assembled worshippers join in with ‘Jerusalem, my happy home’. The 1583 manuscript for this text in the British Museum says only that this was a ‘song written by F.P.B. to the tune of Diana’. Scholars think it may have been written by a Roman Catholic priest who based his thought on writings from St Augustine.

The hymn tune, ‘Land of Rest’, was known throughout Appalachia and came from Scotch-Irish heritage. Preserved in the Sacred Harp, a tome of shape-note hymns favored by settlers in Appalachia, it has a buoyant quality to it and should be felt with two beats to each pulse.

The music for Sunday’s Requiem was written by Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924), one of the most celebrated organists and composers of his day in France. Serving as the organist at the famed Church of the Madeleine and head of the Paris Conservatory of Music, he composed mainly chamber works and is especially known for his art songs. His Requiem was performed at his funeral, but never heard in the United States until 1931, and then only as a student performance.

David Zersen

Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord,
and let light perpetual shine upon them.

Thus begins the traditional Mass for the Dead, or Requiem, and this refrain is heard throughout. These words have been offered up for centuries to pray for and honor the dead – both those close to us and those estranged from or unknown to us – and they are being sung in this parish Friday night and Sunday morning, as we do every year at this time, in commemoration of all faithful departed. Why do we do this? We are modern people, after all, and we don’t like to talk or think about death. We don’t have time for it. We avoid it. We hide it. We fight it with everything we’ve got – with ‘extraordinary measures’. It’s expensive, embarrassing, isolating, frightening. And so when it comes – as it does, inescapably, to all of us – it is unexpected, and we are at a loss: in a modern mongrel society like ours, in communities and families that are too often loosely connected at best, we don’t have many well-established ways to grieve, to celebrate, to tell our stories, to remember, and to experience the presence of the dead among us. Yet our faith tradition, and our intuition, tell us that they are with us. Our Eucharistic prayers proclaim that at the altar we join with all the saints, prophets, apostles, martyrs – ‘all the company of heaven’ – to sing the glory of God and to enjoy a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Our intercessory prayers include petitions for the departed and references to our place in the communion of saints. When we sing a Requiem, we simply bring these truths into sharper focus.

What is a Requiem?

What is a Requiem? It is simply a special form of Mass historically used on the day of a death, the day of burial, on various anniversaries of a death – and on the day of the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, November 2 (the day after All Saints’ Day). It’s an example of a Votive Mass – that is, one used for a particular intention rather than for a particular occasion on the calendar; the Prayer Book includes a number of such Votive Masses, called Various Occasions – including one ‘For the Departed’. ‘Requiem’ is a form of the Latin word ‘requies’, meaning ‘rest’. It is, as I said earlier, the first word of the traditional Mass for the Dead and thus has come to stand for that Mass or a musical setting of its texts. Some parts of the Requiem are essentially identical to the parallel items sung at any other Mass: Kyrie eleison (‘Lord, have mercy’), Sanctus (‘Holy, holy, holy’), and Agnus Dei (‘Lamb of God’). These are ancient words of entreaty and praise, mostly unchanging from one occasion to another, forming the backbone of the Mass – what we call the Ordinary. The Ordinary of any Mass is counterbalanced by parts that are Proper to a particular occasion. The Prayer Book provides proper Collects and Lessons for each Sunday, Holy Day, and Votive intention, but in the historic liturgy of the Church there are also, for each occasion, proper anthems assigned for singing at the entrance of the ministers, before the Gospel reading, at the Offertory, and during Communion (these are in modern practice often replaced by hymns, but vestiges of the older practice remain in such places as the Offertory Sentence, or the Anthems usually recited at the beginning of the Prayer Book Burial Office, and in fact the current rubrics for the Eucharist allow for a ‘Hymn, Psalm, or Anthem’ to be sung in each of the traditional places). These proper anthems are often built up in a highly imaginative manner from bits of Scripture – sometimes from writings that didn’t make it into the finally approved canon – and often include a verse or so of a Psalm. Composed settings of the Requiem, then, often include at least some of the propers, such as the Introit quoted above, as well as the Offertory and Communion anthems. Finally, settings of the Requiem often include texts that are not strictly part of the Mass, especially the Responsory Libera me sung at what we call the Commendation, the anthem In paradisum sung at the procession to the grave, and/or the devotional text Pie Jesu.

Music of the Requiem

Originally, of course, the Requiem, as any other Mass, was sung – and always sung – to plainsong tunes, as we did at Good Shepherd a couple of years ago. As Western music developed, it became common for composers to write complete and unified musical settings of Masses and Requiems (the earliest suriviving Requiem, by Ockeghem, dates from 1460 or so), particularly for important feast days and state occasions. Later, especially beginning in the nineteenth century, these works were sometimes divorced from their liturgical context and presented as concert pieces – sometimes with the composer’s own choice of texts.

Fauré’s Requiem

Fauré’s Requiem, however, in contrast to those by, for example, Berlioz, Verdi, or Brahms, is eminently suitable for both liturgical and concert use, for Fauré, in contrast to those composers, wrote almost exclusively chamber music and was a working church musician for much of his career. He is known above all as a master of song and melody – a talent that is evident in several movements of the Requiem. His music also displays an advanced use of harmony for the time, but his rhythm and sense of structure is rather classical and restrained compared to the developments of truly Romantic composers like Berlioz or Liszt. The total effect is nearly always one of elegance, grace, and a certain artful simplicity.

Fauré wrote his Requiem between 1888 and 1893, supposedly ‘for the pleasure of it’ – but his father had died just before, and his mother died during, its composition, and doubtless these losses were on his mind. He originally wrote only five movements – the Introit & Kyrie (which he combined into one), the Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei & Communion (again, combining two texts into one movement), and In paradisum. The Offertory and Responsory were added later, possibly for concert performance. The original version is scored, somewhat unusually, for a small orchestra of violas (no violins), cellos, harp, organ, and horns, with one solo violin. The larger orchestration sometimes heard was probably not even made by Fauré himself.

Fauré’s Requiem places us as it were now on earth, now in heaven; the tone is mostly more pleading than fearful, and assurance comes along the way.

Introit & Kyrie

The Introit – the text of which is taken from Psalm 65 and from a passage in IV Esdras, an apocryphal Jewish text widely known in early Christianity and quoted frequently by the Fathers – begins with an ‘overture’ dramatically establishing the subject of discussion. This is followed by a song sung by the men of the choir, a lullaby for the dead, an entreaty: ‘grant them rest’. The women then answer with a song of their own, the ‘hymn that befits God in Zion’. A short imprecatory explosion – ‘hear my prayer’ – interrupts the mood, but the first song returns, now sung by the whole choir with the text of the Kyrie – once again, an entreaty for mercy.

Pie Jesu

The Pie Jesu is not strictly a liturgical text but rather a devotional one sometimes inserted into a composed setting of the Requiem. In this case it is set very simply, as though an entreaty sung by a mother who has lost her child; it begins very tentatively, as though the singer is almost unable to speak. The strings of the orchestra play with mutes, like a mourning veil, or a cloud across the sun. But halfway through, a striking dominant-ninth chord warms up the atmosphere, and the music builds to a much more confident statement of the opening textual and musical material.

Offertory

In contrast to the foregoing movements – and to the set of texts originally set by Fauré – this one focus on threats of judgement and torments of hell – ‘deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the bottomless pit. Save them from the lion’s jaws…deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death, on that dread day when the heavens and the earth shall quake, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.’

This text, which builds upon apocalyptic imagery found in Daniel, Revelation, and other noncanonical books, sounds quite foreign to modern Westerners, who can generally afford to pretend that the lions have been tamed and the fires put out. One wonders, though, whether hearing these words on occasion would make us more mindful of our sisters and brothers who still live with the threat of annihilation from war, famine, or disease, or would compel us to examine our own lives more closely.

In any case, Fauré sets the text calmly. It begins tentatively and hoveringly, only the altos and tenors – the middle of the choir – singing, moving close together, in very small intervals, and without a clear key center. The opening material is stated once, then again at a higher pitch, then at yet a higher pitch that finally leads confidently to a solid D-major as the basses enter.

A baritone solo enters singing a single note for an entire phrase and returning again and again to it – like a priest intoning the text. Finally, the entire choir – this time including the sopranos – reprises the opening text and music, but rather than ending simply in the now established D major, Fauré slides into B major and concludes the movement with an ethereal Amen – the clouds once again parting to reveal a glimpse of heaven.

Sanctus

The Sanctus, with its arpeggiated figure continuing almost interrupted throughout, is very like a ‘spinning song’, a popular genre in the nineteenth century. In this case the woman spinning is perhaps none other than the ‘weaver woman’ known in so much of the world’s mythology, her wheel the wheel of time, and the melody the thread of creation, the unending song sung by the heavenly host. The song builds in intensity until, with a bit of fanfare, a quick procession of the heavenly host goes by, acclaimed with shouts of ‘Hosanna!’ – and then, almost as quickly as it came, it passes and we are left simply with ‘Sanctus’ – ‘holy’ – all that can be said in the presence of the divine.

Agnus Dei

With the Agnus Dei we are back to earth with another song for the tenors. This leads directly into the Communion anthem, the first word of which, ‘lux’, is announced by the sopranos exactly like a beam of light. The mood builds until a reprise of the opening text of the Requiem prompts a reprise of the opening music – but the music doesn’t end here; instead, the Agnus Dei song returns for a moment to close the movement.

In paradisum

If we have moved from earth to heaven and back again in the preceding movements, we are firmly on our way heavenward in this final piece. An undulating figure in the organ is like the ripples and current of a river – the Styx? or perhaps more appropriately, the Jordan. The sopranos sing a final song, bidding the dead farewell as the melody sends them on their way to the other side. Halfway through, though, we begin to hear an echo from the other side, as the rest of the choir joins in rich harmony at the word ‘Jerusalem’ – and the harp joins in. We are left at the end, with the word ‘rest’, in the utter serene joy of that heavenly city. It is a great moment of music, a great moment of liturgy.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-19T16:31:00.001-05:00

23 October 2011

9:00
Mass, Rite II
Good Shepherd Choir

11:30
Mass, Rite I
Chamber Choir

Lessons
Dt 34.1–12
1Th 2.1–8
Mt 22.34–46

Voluntary
Praeludium in E
Dieterich Buxtehude

Introit hymn 388
w
‘O worship the King’
Robert Grant
m
‘Hanover’
anon.

Psalm
90.1–4, 13–17
Tone IV
R: We shall rejoice all the days of our lives.

Sequence hymn 440
w
‘Blessèd Jesus, at thy word’
[Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier]
Tobias Clausnitzer
tr. Catherine Winkworth
m
‘Liebster Jesu’
mel. Johann Rudolph Ahle
harm. George Herbert Palmer

Offertory anthem
w
‘God remembers’
Brian Wren
m
Russell Schulz

Communion anthem
9:00
w
‘O for a closer walk with God’
Wm. Cowper
m
‘Caithness’
mel. Scottish Psalter, 1635
setting by Charles Villiers Stanford [684]

Communion hymns 602, 232
w
‘Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love’
Ghanaian
tr. Thos. Stevenson Colvin
m
‘Chereponi’
Ghanaian folk song
adapt. Thos. Stevenson Colvin

w
‘By all your saints still striving’
Horatio Bolton Nelson, ver. Hymnal 1982
m
‘Nyland’
Finnish folk melody
adapt. & harm. David Evans
¶ Monday is the Feast of St James of Jerusalem (transferred)

Postcommunion hymn 680
w
‘O God, our help in ages past’
Psalm 90.1–5
para. Isaac Watts
m
‘St Anne’
mel. attr. Wm. Croft
harm. Wm. Henry Monk

It seems to me that worshippers often feel that music mostly soothes the savage beast in us and qualms our troubled hearts, not to mention the way in which it can ennoble and enrich our spirits.

What are we then to do with disturbing Gospel lessons like Sunday’s in which Jesus challenges us to love the Lord our God with heart and soul and mind, and also raises questions about how we are to make sense of Scripture (If David is the Messiah’s Lord, how can he be his son?)?

It is probably good to remember that the texts we sing are not always so soporific or soothing. Even the music can, and should at times be, challenging, dissonant and discordant. Life is filled with mysteries and hurtful things that cannot be addressed with art forms that speak only of harmony and bliss. It might be interesting to look into Sunday’s texts, rhythms, and harmonies to see what might otherwise be overlooked.

The Sequence hymn, ‘Blessed Jesus, at thy word’, is one of those texts and tunes that encourages comfort and solace in the presence of Jesus, something not always felt by the Pharisees when they heard his words, at least so Matthew tells us. Both Clausnitzer (text) and Ahle (tune) had Pietistic streaks which could lead to words and music that touched the heart more than the mind.

The Offertory anthem, ‘God remembers’, by Brian Wren (*1936), takes us in a different, more provocative direction. Wren, a wonderful contemporary English Congregational minister with a doctorate from Oxford who has taught as a freelance lecturer in more than 40 seminaries and colleges in the US, writes in words that challenge both mind and heart: In this text, he says, among other things,

God remembers pain:
nail by nail, thorn by thorn,
hunger, thirst, and muscles torn.
Time may dull our griefs
and heal our lesser wounds,
but in eternal Love yesterday is now,
and pain is in the heart of God.

What a challenge to understand love in terms of pain, and grief as something comprehended by the heart of God.

The Communion anthem, ‘O for a closer walk with God’, is by William Cowper (1731–1800), a precursor of the Romantic poets, who suffered from such personal emotional struggles that he attempted suicide three times. He experienced anguish over his sin and the things he often erected in the place of God. In a stanza not included in the setting heard Sunday, he writes

The dearest idol I have known,
whate’er that idol be,
help me to tear it from thy throne,
and worship only thee.

At the Communion table we celebrate God’s extravagant forgiveness but, with Cowper, only because we have faced the demons and the idols that seek to tear Him from us.

Another challenging text is ‘Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love’, a Ghanaian song translated by Tom Colvin (1925–2000), a Church of Scotland minister who spent most of his life in Ghana and Malawi and other African countries teaching people how to serve as Christ served us. The heart of his message is contained in this hymn:

Neighbors are rich and poor,
neighbors are black and white,
neighbors are nearby and far away.

Loving puts us on our knees,
serving as though we were slaves;
this is the way we should live with you [Jesus].

It is not a song of sweetness so much as a challenge to walk the hard road of discipleship in which caring involves demeaning tasks done for the neighbor, now defined as brother or sister. Perhaps it takes someone from a far-away clime to bring the message of the Gospel home to us in our comfortable pews and kneelers.

Sunday’s liturgy should also point us to the troubles and deceits, the faithlessness and the challenges of discipleship, so that we can appreciate the blessings of a love that will not let us go. The words are usually there for us in our texts, and the tunes sometimes interpret them well. Often, however, we prefer not to hear the harder and harsher words, even though they speak powerfully to us.

David Zersen

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

9:00	Mass, Rite II
	Good Shepherd Choir
11:30	Mass, Rite I
	Chamber Choir

Ex	32.1–14
1Th	1.1–10
Mt	22.15–22

	Voluntary
	Prelude on ‘Picardy’
	Alec Rowley [324]

	Introit hymn
362
w	‘Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!’
	Reginald Heber
m	‘Nicaea’
	John Bacchus Dykes

	Psalm
	106.19–23, 43–45
	Give thanks unto the Lord,
	whose mercies endure for ever.
	Tone VII

	Sequence hymn
383
w	‘Fairest Lord Jesus’
	[‘Schönster Herr Jesu’]
	German composite
	tr. pub. New York, 1850
m	‘St Elizabeth’
	mel. Schlesische Volkslieder, 1842

	Offertory anthem
9:00
w	‘O God, O Lord of heaven and earth’
	Martin Franzmann
m	Jan Bender

11:30
w	‘O taste and see’
	Psalm 34.8
m	Ralph Vaughan Williams

	Communion anthem
9:00
w	‘O taste and see’
	Psalm 34.8
m	Ralph Vaughan Williams

11:30
w	‘The Call’
	[‘Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life’]
	George Herbert
m	Ralph Vaughan Williams

	Communion hymns
324
w	‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’
	Liturgy of St James, c.4
	para. Gerard Moultrie
m	‘Picardy’
	French carol, c.17
	harm. after The English Hymnal, 1906
285
w	‘What thanks and praise to thee we owe’
	Wm. Dalrymple Maclagan
m	‘Deus tuorum militum’
	mel. from Antiphoner, 1753
	adapt. The English Hymnal, 1906
	harm. after Basil Harwood
	¶ Tuesday is the Feast of St Luke the Evangelist

	Postcommunion hymn
594
w	‘God of grace and God of glory’
	Harry Emerson Fosdick
m	‘Cwm Rhondda’
	John Hughes

Sunday’smusic offers a rich blend of all that ought to comprise vitalworship: some great hymns of the church’s tradition; someresounding, dignified anthems; some tender, personal lyrics; and somegreat contemporary praise. ‘Something for everyone’, we say. Yethow few of us take the time to affirm the rich bounty that a Sunday’sliturgy offers! A few moments will not be excessive to remind us ofall that’s here for us.

Whatcan beat the Introit hymn, ‘Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!’for dignity and rich choral melody? Written by Reginald Heber(1723–1826), it is but one of his many well-known texts (‘The Sonof God goes forth to war’, ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’,‘Bread of the world in mercy broken’). It was intended as a kindof Sanctus for Trinity Sunday. John Bacchus Dykes (1823–1876) wrotethe tune, ‘Nicaea’, for this text. The tune name remembers theCouncil of Nicaea which formalized the doctrine of the Trinity.

TheSequence hymn is a Pietist favorite from Germany, ‘Fairest LordJesus’. It sings about nature and claims that Jesus is greater thanall the glories of nature. The much-loved tune, ‘St Elizabeth’,is a Silesian folk melody that has always been associated with thistext. Tune and text were made popular in the US by F. MeliusChristiansen, the Director of the St Olaf Choir, who wrote a settingfor the tune and text that was used by Christian college choirsthroughout the US in the early twentieth century.

Thefirst Communion hymn, ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’, is atribute to the Church’s heritage, coming as it does from afourth-century chant in the Liturgy of St James (named after thebrother of Jesus who was a leader of the church in Jerusalem), theoldest Eastern Rite liturgy still in use in some Christian Churches,notably the Syriac Orthodox Church. Sung at the Offertory in thatLiturgy, this text (called the ‘Cherubic Hymn’), based onHabakkuk 2.20, takes us deep into the sources of ancient Christianchant. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) set the text in the 1906EnglishHymnal to aseventeenth-century French folk tune, ‘Picardy’ (also heard in aprelude by English composer Alec Rowley). It is much loved for itsmystical and reflective spirit.

VaughanWilliams was also the composer of two of Sunday’s anthems. ‘TheCall’, one of the set of FiveMystical Songs,is a setting of George Herbert’s poem of the same name (anadaptation of this piece also appears in the Hymnal 1982, and thechoir will sing the last of the set, ‘Antiphon’, later thisfall). ‘O taste and see’, a setting of a Psalm verse longassociated with Communion, was written for the coronation of QueenElizabeth II.

ThePostcommunion hymn, ‘God of grace and God of glory’, a singularcreation of Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969), celebrates thetheology of this popular Baptist preacher at Manhattan’s RiversideChurch. Fosdick was a controversial proponent of Modernism in thefight against Fundamentalism, but he championed issues of socialjustice and pacifism, prominent features in this hymn. We sign it to‘Cwm Rhondda’, a song by Welshman John Hughes (1873–1932). As aboy, Hughes stood as helper at the entrance to the coal mine, andheard the Welsh miners as they re-entered the light, singing theirthroats out with harmonies still known to us. His gift of ‘CwmRhondda’ has become one of the most popular Welsh tunes of the lastcentury.

Manyother texts and tunes used Sunday are worth exploring. Rich indeedare the people who learn to thank God in words and tunes that upliftthe spirit and make glad the heart.

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-10-05T14:29:00.001-05:00

9:00	Mass, Rite II
	Good Shepherd Choir
11:30	Mass, Rite I
	Chamber Choir

	Lessons
Lv	25.1–24
Pp	4.1–9
Lk	5.1–11

	Voluntary
	Prelude on ‘Now thank we all our God’
	J.S. Bach [397]

	Introit hymn
528
w	‘Lord, you give the great commission’
	Jeffery Rowthorn
m	‘Hyfrydol’ (‘Joyful’)
	Rowland Hugh Prichard

	Gloria in excelsis
9:00	Mass in F
	Robert Powell
11:30	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Gradual psalm
	72.1–3, 6, 13, 16–17
R	In his time, justice and peace shall flourish.
	Tone I

	Sequence hymn
550
w	‘Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult’
	Cecil Frances Alexander
m	‘Restoration’
	The Southern Harmony, 1835

	Offertory anthem
w	‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’
	Horatius Bonar [692]
m	Richard Shephard

	Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit
9:00	Mass in F
	Robert Powell
11:30	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Fraction anthem
9:00
w	‘Now the silence’
	Jaroslav J. Vajda
m	‘Now’
	Carl Flentge Schalk
11:30	Alleluia. Pascha nostrum
	Ambrosian chant
	adapt. Mason Martens

	Communion anthem
9:00
w	‘The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want’
	Psalm 23
	para. Scottish Psalter, 1650
m	‘Brother James’s Air’
	James Macbeth Bain
	arr. Gordon Jacob
11:30
w	‘Rejoice in the Lord’
	Philippians 4.4–7
m	Composer unknown, c.16

	Communion hymns
321
w	‘My God, thy table now is spread’
	1–3: Philip Doddridge
	4: Isaac Watts
m	‘Rockingham’
	mel. Second Supplement to Psalmody in Miniature, ca. 1780
	adapt. Edward Miller
	harm. Samuel Webbe
706
w	‘In your mercy, Lord, you called me’
	Josiah Conder, alt. Charles P. Price
m	‘Halton Holgate’
	Wm. Boyce

	Postcommunion hymn
397
w	‘Now thank we all our God’
	[Nun danket alle Gott]
	Martin Rinckart
	tr. Catherine Winkworth
m	‘Nun danket alle Gott’
	mel. Johann Crüger
	harm. Wm. Henry Monk, after Felix Mendelssohn


Sunday’s Gospel lesson is about invitation – in particular, the call to follow Christ and to invite others to do the same – and the abundance of life in Christ. The texts of many of the hymns and anthems, therefore, arrest the singer/listener with such a call to share and to serve.
The Introit hymn, ‘Lord, you give the great commission’, is one of these:
Lord, you call us to your service: ‘In my name baptize and teach.’ That the world may trust your promise, life abundant meant for each…
Written by Jeffrey Rowthorn (*1934), an Anglican bishop who has written at least ten other published hymns, this text summons us to preach, heal, baptize, teach, celebrate and be active in other dimensions of the Christian life. The tune to which we sing it, ‘Hyfrydol’, was written by Welshman Roland Prichard when he was nineteen. Intended as a rollicking tune for children (the title means ‘cheerful’), it is popularly used with a number of well known texts.
The Sequence hymn, ‘Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult’, is another invitation text, this one related more closely to the calling of Our Lord’s first disciples as set forth in the Gospel lesson (though St Andrew, mentioned in the hymn, does not appear in this passage). The hymn’s author, Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–1895), was an Irish poet who also wrote ‘There is a green hill, far away’ and ‘Once in royal David’s city’. We sing it Sunday to the sturdy pentatonic tune from The Southern Harmony, ‘Restoration,’ also known as ‘Arise’.
The Offertory anthem, ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, is also an invitation hymn, though one that refers more especially to the words of assurance given in the Gospel (‘Do not be afraid’): ‘Come unto me and rest, / and in your weariness lay down your head upon my breast’. Even here, though, the singer of the hymn moves from respite to action and ends ‘in that light of life I’ll walk / till pilgrim days are done.’ Horatius Bonar (1808–1889), the author, was a minister in the Church of Scotland and a prolific writer and poet. The text is found in the Hymnal set to the deeply moving Third Tune of Thomas Tallis [692], but the beautiful neo-Victorian setting to be sung by the choir was written by Richard Shephard (*1949), who is regarded as one of the most significant composers of church music today, though his output spans not only hymn-tunes and choral anthems but also, opera, musicals, orchestral works, and oratorios (he has also, interestingly, maintaned a career in education, serving as headmaster and now Director of Development and Chamberlain at York Minster School).
The last Communion hymn is also a hymn of invitation: ‘In your mercy, Lord, you called me’, written by Josiah Conder (1789–1856), an author, editor and publisher who lost one eye at the age of five but produced sixty hymns and many written works. A Congregationalist, Conder edited the Congregational Hymn-Book, which sold 90,000 copies in its first seven years. The tune to which we sing it today, ‘Halton Holgate’, is a composition of William Boyce (1789–1856), one of the most important composers of the eighteenth century, with many orchestral and choral works to his name. He was a choirboy at St Paul’s, an organist at the Oxford Chapel, and later Master of the King’s Musick and a member of the Chapel Royal; after his hearing deteriorated, he completed the compilation of Cathedral Music, a collection of now standard repertory begun by his teacher, Maurice Green. Although Boyce’s orchestral works are largely forgotten today, his anthems and hymnody continue to be sung.
Music that invites us, summons us, calls us to worship and service, is a particularly important part of the liturgical tradition of the church. Psychologically and spiritually, we are asked to respond to the call to service which is offered by Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson.

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-28T16:14:00.004-05:00

11:30	Mass, Rite I
	Good Shepherd Choir

	Lessons
Ex	20.1–4,7–9,12–20
Pp	3.4b–14
Mt	21.33–46

	Voluntary
	Canzona III
	Johann Jacob Froberger

	Introit hymn
372
w	‘Praise to the living God!’
	[Yigdal elochim chai]
	ver. Daniel ben Judah Dayan
	after Moses Maimonides
	tr. Max Landsberg and Newton M. Mann
m	‘Leoni’
	Hebrew melody, c.17?
	harm. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875

	Gloria in excelsis
	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Gradual psalm
	19.7–14
R	The statutes of the Lord rejoice the heart.
	Tone IV

	Sequence hymn
628
w	‘Help us, O Lord, to learn’
	Wm. Watkins Reid, Jr.
m	‘St Ethelwald’
	Wm. Henry Monk

	Offertory anthem
w	‘Jesu, the very thought of thee’
	attr. Bernard of Clairvaux
	tr. Edward Caswall [642]
m	Edward Bairstow





	Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit
	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Fraction anthem
	Alleluia. Pascha nostrum
	Ambrosian chant
	adapt. Mason Martens

	Communion anthem
w	‘Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes’
	Psalm 119.33
m	Thos. Attwood

	Communion hymns
483
w	‘The head that once was crowned with thorns’
	Thos. Kelly
m	‘St Magnus’
	mel. Divine Companion, 1707
	harm. Wm. Henry Monk
495
w	‘Hail, thou once despisèd Jesus’
	John Bakewell and Martin Madan
m	‘In Babilone’
	mel. Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boerenlities en Contradansen, 1710
	harm. Roy F. Kehl

	Postcommunion hymn
625
w	‘Ye holy angels bright’
	Richard Baxter
	rev. John Hampden Gurney
m	‘Darwall’s 148th’
	mel. & bass John Darwall
	harm. Wm. Henry Monk
	¶ Thursday was the Feast of St Michael and All Angels

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-20T11:16:00.000-05:00

2011.09.25

9:00	Holy Baptism & Mass, Rite II
	Good Shepherd Choir
11:30	Holy Baptism & Mass, Rite I
	Chamber Choir

	Lessons
Ex	17.1–7
Pp	2.1–13
Mt	21.23–32

	Voluntary
	Two preludes on ‘O Welt, ich muss dich lassen’
	J.G. Walther, Johannes Brahms [309]

	Introit hymn
410
w	‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’
	Psalm 103
	para. Henry Francis Lyte
m	‘Lauda anima’
	John Goss

	Gradual psalm
	78.1–4, 12–16
R	God gave them drink as from the great deep.
	Tone VIII

	Sequence hymn
679
w	‘Surely, it is God who saves me’
	The First Song of Isaiah, Isaiah 12.2–6
	para. Carl P. Daw, Jr.
m	‘Thomas Merton’
	Ray W. Urwin

	Offertory anthem
w	‘O Holy Spirit, Lord of grace’
	[O fons amoris, Spiritus]
	Charles Coffin
	tr. John Chandler
m	Christopher Tye

	Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit
9:00	Mass in F
	Robert Powell
11:30	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Fraction anthem
9:00
w	‘Now the silence’
	Jaroslav J. Vajda
m	‘Now’
	Carl Flentge Schalk
11:30	Alleluia. Pascha nostrum
	Ambrosian chant
	adapt. Mason Martens

	Communion anthem
w	‘To thee, O Lord’
	Psalm 25.1
m	Sergei Rachmaninov

	Communion hymns
309
w	‘O Food to pilgrims given’
	[O esca viatorum]
	Latin, 1661
	tr. John Athelstan Laurie Riley
m	‘O Welt, ich muß dich lassen’
	mel. attr. Heinrich Isaac
	harm. J.S. Bach
281
w	‘He sat to watch o’er customs paid’
	Wm. Bright
m	‘Breslau’
	mel. Lochamer Gesangbuch, ca. 1450
	harm. Felix Mendelssohn
	¶ Wednesday was the Feast of St Matthew,
	Apostle and Evangelist

	Postcommunion hymn
344
w	‘Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing’
	attr. John Fawcett
m	‘Sicilian Mariners’
	Sicilian melody


Sometimes we ask ourselves whether we like the words or the music of a hymn better, and sometimes it’s hard to choose. This week there are a number of hymns that make us raise such questions, and we can ask ourselves why that might be.

The Introit hymn, ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’, is a good candidate for a hymn with supernal words. Written by Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847), an Irishman who became an Anglican priest, this text along with those of so many other poets in the UK makes the case for generations of students raised on a heavy diet of English literature. Many are those who grew up loving poetry and wrote some of Christianity’s greatest hymns. Lyte wrote over 90 of them, among which are ‘Abide with me’, ‘God of mercy, God of grace’ and ‘Jesus, I my cross have taken’. The hymn tune, ‘Lauda anima’, by contrast, was written by John Goss (1800–1880), specifically for this text in 1863. Goss wrote other tunes as well, but none became as famous as the one married to this text. He was organist at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, was knighted in 1872, and was a teacher of Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. So, which is the more important to you, the text or the tune? Or can one live without the other?

The Sequence hymn, ‘Surely it is God who saves us’, is a paraphrase of Isaiah 12.2–6 by Carl Daw (*1944), an Episcopal priest who was formerly Executive Director of the Hymn Society of the US and Canada, and now serves as professor of hymnology at Boston University School of Theology. Daw’s texts involve translations, paraphrases, and rather contemporary social justice issues, making them relevant to today’s worship.

The tune, ‘Thomas Merton’, to which we sing it was written by Ray Urwin, Director of Music and Composer-in-Residence at St Francis Episcopal Church in Palos Verdes Estates, California. Dr Urwin has given a rich legacy of music to the Church in his lifetime. Together, the text and music are very happily sung in parishes around the United States. Which of the two is more interesting to you?
The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing’, was written by John Fawcett (1800–1880), who was converted by the preaching of George Whitefield. First a Methodist, he became a Baptist preacher who once accepted a call to a famous church in London. However, when the wagons were packed he was so moved by the place he loved that he changed his mind and stayed in Wainsgate. At least 20 texts are ascribed to him, among which, in addition to this one, are ‘Blest be the tie that binds’ and ‘How precious is the book divine’. The tune, according to tradition, was sung by Sicilian sailors on their way home from the sea. It passed from Italy (where it was sung to ‘O Sanctissima’) to Germany (where it became ‘O Du fröhliche’) to England, where in 1792 it was published and later attached to the Fawcett text. Some even say it influenced the tune of ‘We shall overcome’. So, which is the more important of these two partners for you, the text or the tune?
Our worship should be a reflective time for us and perhaps these questions placed before for each of these texts and tunes will help you to consider the meanings and the interrelationships of each with new interest.

David Zersen

As with ‘Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing’, much music of the Church comes to its final and often most successful form through the work of an inspired editor who pairs words and music in a way not imagined by their writers.

‘O Welt, ich muss dich lassen’, a parody of the secular song ‘Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen’ (‘Innsbruck, I must leave thee’), originated as probably a folk tune, though it has been ascribed to the major late-fifteenth-century composer Heinrich Isaac, in two of whose works (a setting of the secular text, and a Mass) it first appears. It was later paired with Paul Gerhardt’s great evening hymn, ‘Nun ruhet alle Wälder’ (‘Now all the woods are sleeping’, translated in the Hymnal 1982 as ‘The duteous day now closeth’ [43]), and finally with the present translation of the seventeenth-century Latin hymn ‘O esca viatorum’, which was originally printed under the heading ‘Hymn on the true bread of heaven’ with a facing German translation. This hymn, like not a few others, makes the connection between the manna and water from the rock given to the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, the blood and water that flowed from Jesus’ side at his Crucifixion, and the bread and wine / Body and Blood of the Eucharist. The tune is heard Sunday also in organ preludes by Brahms and Walther.

Editorial pairing of words and music happens not only with hymns, however, but also with choral music. The music of Sunday’s Offertory anthem was written by major mid-sixteenth-century English composer Christopher Tye, but the present text is a much later one by Charles Coffin, a French academic and Latinist who wrote a number of hymns for the revised Paris Breviary of 1736 (he is represented in the Hymnal 1982 by the well-known ‘On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry’ [76] and ‘What star is this, with beams so bright’ [124], both in translations based upon the work of the same John Chandler, a nineteenth-century Anglican priest and prolific author and translator).

Eric Mellenbruch

The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-13T17:14:00.001-05:00

- no title specified

	2011-09-18

9:00	Mass, Rite II
	Good Shepherd Choir
11:30	Mass, Rite I
	Chamber Choir

	Lessons
Ex	16.2–15
Pp	1.21–30
Mt	20.1–16

	Voluntary
	Prelude on ‘Lobe den Herren’ [390]
	J.S. Bach

	Introit hymn
390
w	‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’
	Joachim Neander
	tr. Hymnal 1940
m	‘Lobe den Herren’
	mel. Erneuerten Gesangbuch, 1665
	harm. The Chorale Book for England, 1863

	Gloria in excelsis
9:00	Mass in F
	Robert Powell
11:30	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Gradual psalm
	105.1–2, 5–6, 37–41
R	Remember the marvels God has done.
	Tone I

	Sequence hymn
627
w	‘Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace’
	Bernard Barton
m	‘Dundee’
	mel. The CL Psalmes of David, 1615
	harm. Thos. Ravenscroft

	Offertory anthem
w	‘O God my King’
	Psalm 145.1,3,8,21
m	John Amner

	Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit
9:00	Mass in F
	Robert Powell
11:30	Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
	Healey Willan

	Fraction anthem
9:00
w	‘Now the silence’
	Jaroslav J. Vajda
m	‘Now’
	Carl Schalk
11:30	Alleluia. Pascha nostrum
	Ambrosian chant
	adapt. Mason Martens

	Communion anthem
9:00
w	‘Whoever would be great among you’
	based on Matthew 20.26–28
m	Ronald Nelson
11:30
w	‘Bist du bei mir’
m	Gottfried Heinrich Stölzl

	Communion hymns
645
w	‘The King of love my shepherd is’
	Psalm 23
	para. Henry Williams Baker
m	‘St Columba’
	Irish
343
w	‘Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless’
	James Montgomery
m	‘St Agnes’
	John Bacchus Dykes
471
w	‘We sing the praise of him who died’
	Thos. Kelly
m	‘Breslau’
	mel. Lochamer Gesangbuch, ca. 1450
	harm. Felix Mendelssohn
	¶ Wednesday was Holy Cross Day

	Postcommunion hymn
655
w	‘O Jesus, I have promised’
	John Ernest Bode
m	‘Nyland’
	Finnish folk melody
	adapt. & harm. David Evans

	Many of Sunday’s hymns have been commented upon multiple times in this weblog. Two which have not are the Sequence and last Communion hymns. The former of these is part of a meditation upon Holy Scripture written by the nineteenth-century English Quaker poet Bernard Barton, who was a friend of no less than Charles Lamb, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott. Appropiate at any time, even moreso in conjunction with the reading of Scripture, the hymn was chosen in particular for its connection to the Exodus story: in it the Scriptures are called, amid a great deal of symbolism of God’s providence, ‘true manna from on high’, ‘pillar of fire through watches dark, and radiant cloud by day’.
	‘We sing the praise of him who died’, inspired by Galatians 4.14 (‘God forbid that I should glory save in the cross’), marks Holy Cross Day, celebrated on September 14. This great hymn by Thomas Kelly, Irish Anglican priest turned Independent minister, like so many ‘cross’ hymns, lavishes devotion upon this object which in worldly terms is nothing but a tool of humiliation, torture, and death, but which to the Christian is ‘the balm of life, the cure of woe’, and the source of mercy, forgiveness, strength, and comfort.
	Sunday’s Voluntary is taken from a set of six hymn-tune preludes arranged for organ by J.S. Bach from movements of his own cantatas (known as the ‘Schübler’ Chorales after their publisher). The original version of this piece, taken from Cantata 137, is scored for violin, alto, and basso continuo (bass instrument and keyboard, more or less); the alto sings the hymn-tune while the violin plays a lively arpeggiated line. In transcribing the piece Bach gave the violin part to the organist’s right hand, the bass part to the left hand, and the melody to the feet.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-06T19:54:00.000-05:00

11 September 2011
________________________________________________
9:00  Mass, Rite II
             Good Shepherd Choir
11:30 Mass, Rite I
               Chamber Choir
________________________________________________
Lessons
Ex 13.17—14.31
Rm 14.1–12
Mt 18.21–35
________________________________________________
Voluntary
March No. 3
Ernest Bloch [393]
________________________________________________
Introit hymn
376
w         ‘Joyful, joyful, we adore thee’
               Henry van Dyke
m         ‘Hymn to Joy’
               Ludwig van Beethoven
               adapt. Edward Hodges
________________________________________________
Gloria in excelsis
9:00    Mass in F
               Robert Powell
11:30   Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
               Healey Willan
________________________________________________
Gradual psalm
114
R           Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord.
               Tone II
________________________________________________
Sequence hymn
393
w         ‘Praise our great and gracious Lord’
               Harriet Auber
m         ‘Maoz Zur’ (‘Rock of Ages’)
               Hebrew melody
               adapt. & arr. Eric Werner
________________________________________________
Offertory anthem
9:00
w         ‘Draw us in the Spirit’s tether’
               Percy Dearmer
m          Harold Freidell
11:30
w         ‘O for a closer walk with God’
               Wm. Cowper
m          mel. Scottish Psalter, 1635
               setting by Charles Villiers Stanford [684]
________________________________________________
Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit
9:00     Mass in F
                Robert Powell
11:30    Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena
                Healey Willan
________________________________________________
Fraction anthem
9:00
w         ‘Now the silence’
               Jaroslav J. Vajda
m         ‘Now’
               Carl Flentge Schalk
11:30   Alleluia. Pascha nostrum
               Ambrosian chant
               adapt. Mason Martens
________________________________________________
Communion anthem
9:00
w         ‘Ubi caritas’
               Antiphon at the Foot-Washing on Maundy Thursday
m          Maurice Duruflé [606]
11:30
w         ‘Draw us in the Spirit’s tether’
               Percy Dearmer
m          Harold Freidell
________________________________________________
Communion hymns
593
w         ‘Lord, make us servants of your peace’
               attr. St Francis of Assisi
               para. James Quinn, SJ
m         ‘Dickinson College’
               Lee Hastings Bristol, Jr
581
w         ‘Where charity and love prevail’
              [Ubi caritas et amor]
               Antiphon at the foot-washing on Maundy Thursday
               tr. J. Clifford Evers [Owen Westendorf]
m         ‘Cheshire’
               mel. & bass The Whole Booke of Psalmes, 1592
               harm. Hymns III, 1979
________________________________________________
Postcommunion hymn
690
w         ‘Guide me, O thou great Jehovah’
              [Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch]
               William Williams
               tr. Peter Williams
m         ‘Cwm Rhondda’ (‘Rhondda Valley’)
               John Hughes

Last Sunday, the Gospel lesson asked us to deal with conflict in such a way as to bring resolution. The natural follow-up question asks how often this should be done. Today’s Gospel answers that question reminding us that forgiveness is offered again and again because we ourselves are recipients of God’s own extravagant kindness. Sunday’s hymns of praise often reflect this understanding.

The Voluntary, ‘March No. 3’, was written by Ernst Bloch (1880–1959), a native of Switzerland who immigrated to the US in 1916. He held significant positions in conservatories in Cleveland and San Francisco, composing a great many works over the years for orchestra, piano, opera, voice and just two works for organ of which today’s March is one. His life was very complex, and his Wanderlust, his Jewish heritage, and his Romantic style make for equally complex and fascinating music. It’s interesting to reflect on the heritage parents give their children. Bloch’s daughter, Lucienne, shaped by the artistic bent of her parents, became a photographer, and the primary photographer for artists Diego Rivera and Freda Kahlo, especially for Rivera’s Rockefeller Center Mural in New York. Her photographs of this great mural are all that remains of the destroyed work since Rivera was denounced in the US as a Marxist because he painted Lenin into the mural!

The Introit hymn, ‘Joyful, joyful, we adore thee’, a buoyant hymn of praise, was written by Henry van Dyke (1832–1933), a Presbyterian clergyman who chaired the committee that wrote the first printed Presbyterian liturgy in the Book of Common Worship of 1906. He is also known as the author of the famous Christmas story ‘The Other Wise Man’ (1896). He created the text for ‘Joyful, joyful, we adore thee’ to be sung to the main theme of the final choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The Sequence hymn, ‘Praise our great and gracious Lord’, sings about the crossing ‘into the sea on dry ground’ (lovely metaphor) as reported in Sunday’s Old Testament lesson. Its author, Harriet Auber (1773–1862), was an English poet who, like so many sons and daughters of clergy, became a hymn writer. (What a tragic loss wrought to the world of hymnody by the Roman Catholic doctrine of celibacy!) The tune to which we sing it is ‘Maoz Zur’, a thirteenth-century Hebrew song chanted at Hanukah after the lighting of the candles. More broadly, Auber’s hymn sings of the victories over Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman and Antiochus.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Guide me, O thou great Jehovah’, is an awesome Welsh hymn both in terms of text and music. Written by William Williams (double Welsh!) (1717–1791), it closes our service today with the theme of the Old Testament lesson (‘crossing Jordan’ – another very contemporary reference!). William’s son, graciously named Peter, translated the text from Welsh into English. John Hughes (another Welshman, 1873–1932) wrote the tune ‘Cwm Rhondda’, the name of a valley in Wales. When Welsh are given a chance to sing the hymn, they usually sing the two-line chorus over and over at the end, introduced here and there by different singers, until they have tired of singing or until the volume can’t be exceeded!

David Zersen

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-30T12:03:00.000-05:00

4 September 2011

Exodus 4.1–17

Romans 13.8–14

Matthew 18.15–20

Voluntary

Plein Jeu and Fugue

from the Mass for the Convents

François Couperin

Introit hymn

179

w ‘“Welcome, happy morning,” age to age shall say’

[Salve, festa dies]

Venantius Honorius Fortunatus

tr. John Ellerton

m ‘Fortunatus’

Arthur Sullivan

Gradual psalm

135.1–4, 9, 14, 19–20

R Your renown, O Lord, endures from age to age.

Tone I

Sequence hymn

679

w ‘Surely, it is God who saves me’

The First Song of Isaiah, Isaiah 12.2–6

para. Carl P. Daw, Jr.

m ‘Thomas Merton’

Ray W. Urwin

Offertory anthem

‘Quia fecit mihi magna’

from the Magnificat

J.S. Bach

Communion hymns

581

w ‘Where charity and love prevail’

[‘Ubi caritas et amor’]

Antiphon at the foot-washing on Maundy Thursday

tr. J. Clifford Evers (Owen Westendorf)

m ‘Cheshire’

mel. and bass The Whole Booke of Psalmes, 1592

harm. Hymns III, 1979

315

w ‘Thou, who at thy first Eucharist didst pray’

William Harry Turton

m ‘Song 1’

mel. & bass Orlando Gibbons

harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Postcommunion hymn

625

w ‘Ye holy angels bright’

Richard Baxter

rev. John Hampden Gurney

m ‘Darwall’s 148th’

mel. & bass John Darwall

harm. William Henry Monk

‘“Welcome, happy morning,” age to age shall say’

This hymn says it all with a delightful, lilting, singable melody.

Betty Hendrix

‘Ye holy angels bright’

First – it was my high school’s official hymn. We sang it at all important times, like graduation, so I have a sentimental attachment to it. More importantly, I love its majestic and joyful tune. Most importantly, it is special because it reminds me that angels, those who have died, and those still here ALL belong to Him and are part of His realm. It reminds me as I ‘toil below’ to be joyful and praise Him – ‘through good or ill’ – we can have a ‘well-tuned heart’ (even though our voice may not be!) and fill our days with praise to Him.

Polly Davies

¶ This concludes the series of Good Shepherd’s ‘Top Twenty Hymns’

Today’s Gospel lesson is an enormously practical discussion about the role of the individual vs. the role of the community. It is sound psychological advice, even if it proceeds from a spiritual perspective. At its base, this teaching of Jesus shows how individual rights never assert themselves above the interests of the community because love always considers the needs of all. The first Communion hymn today, ‘Ubi caritas’, is a classic expression of this notion.

I love the fact that Christians have been sharing a faith in word and song for thousands of years. For this reason, a hymn writer as old as Venantius Honorius Fortunatus (ca. 530–609) gives us pause when his texts are set before us today. Born an Italian, he traveled as a wandering minstrel for many years, spending many years in Gaul (France). For his day, he was a type of poet laureate for many a figure of state who considered it important to have a bard at court, especially one who celebrated his or her merits in such a public way. Fortunatus is remembered for two great hymns of the church, ‘Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle’ [165/166], and ‘The royal banners forward go’ [161/162], in addition to this one. Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), of the famed partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan, who wrote the tune for this hymn, calling it ‘Fortunatus’, was also the composer of some 60 hymn-tunes, many of which are still sung today.

The Sequence hymn, ‘Surely it is God who saves me’, is a paraphrase of Isaiah 12 by Carl Daw (*1944), an Episcopal priest who is a former Executive Director of the Hymn Society. The text uses ‘wells of living water’ imagery (12.3), a biblical symbol of salvation, providing one reason why Daw intended the text as a baptismal hymn. Dr Ray Urwin, composer of the tune, ‘Thomas Merton’, is Director of Music at St Francis Episcopal Church in Palos Verdes, California.

‘Ubi caritas et amor’ (‘Where charity and love prevail’) is an ancient text used on Maundy Thursday which may predate the development of the Western church’s Mass. Often sung to its original plainsong melody [606], this text (in various translations) is also set in our hymnal to a new tune [577] and to the present sixteenth-century Psalm tune [581]. Parts of the text have also been famously set by Maurice Duruflé (in a motet based upon the plainsong melody), and in a short refrain written by Jacques Berthier for the Taizé community.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Ye holy angels bright’, is the work of Richard Baxter (1615–1691), an Anglican curate who served as the chaplain to Charles II. In 1673 he became a non-conformist and remained such until his death. He also wrote the lovely, ‘Lord, it belongs not to my care’, a text celebrating service as a value greater than long life. The tune, ‘Darwall’s 148th,’ was composed by John Darwall (1731–1789), originally as a setting for the 148th Psalm. Today it is commonly used for Charles Wesley’s ‘Rejoice, the Lord is king’ or this text by Baxter. Interestingly, the tune was written in 1773 for the dedication of a new organ in Wallsal parish. Darwall, the vicar, preached the sermon, in which he encouraged that psalms be sung much faster than was usual. He said that six verses should be sung in the same time as four. Then the blind organist was challenged to take this into account as the congregation sang the entire 150th Psalm to a new tune written by the vicar himself.

The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-23T14:53:00.000-05:00

28 August 2011

Exodus 3.1–15

Romans 12.9–21

Matthew 16.21–28

Introit hymn

401

w ‘The God of Abraham praise’

Thomas Olivers

m ‘Leoni’

Hebrew melody

harm. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875

Psalm

105.1–2, 5–6, 23–26, 45b

R Remember the marvels God has done.

Tone I

Sequence hymn

675

w ‘Take up your cross, the Savior said’

Charles William Everest

m ‘Bourbon’

mel. attr. Freeman Lewis

harm. John Leon Hooker

and Eric Mellenbruch

Communion hymns

325

w ‘Let us break bread together on our knees’

m African American spiritual

707

w ‘Take my life, and let it be’

Frances Ridley Havergal

m ‘Hollingside’

John Bacchus Dykes

Postcommunion hymn

347

w ‘Go forth for God’

John Raphael Peacy and English Praise, 1975

m ‘Litton’

Erik Routley

‘Take my life, and let it be’

I love this beautiful prayer that acknowledgs the awe and wonder I have for God’s choice to give each of us so many gifts and pleasures; our hands, our time on earth even our very lives. In turn, this hymn celebrates the joy of our utter submission to God’s will; to be in relationship with us.

Anon.

This Sunday in the semi-continuous track of Old Testament Lessons from the Revised Common Lectionary we come to the account of the bush that burned but was not consumed. To Moses is revealed the Name of God, now (if not always) shrouded in mystery because Semitic alphabetic writing systems do not natively contain vowels and because for many centuries the Name has been considered too holy to be spoken, but generally assumed to be connected to the verb to be: perhaps ‘I am that I am’, or ‘I am he who is’, or ‘I am he who causes to be’. In any case, this is an awesome revelation, and Moses, instructed to remove his shoes, quite naturally turns away altogether – from the fire, and from the great task set before him of leading his people to freedom. For the fire not only reveals the Glory of God in all its otherness but also burns away all in our lives that obscures the Glory of God within us, the call to be what we are created to be – which is perhaps even more terrifying to behold.

We begin, then, by acknowledging the holiness of God, singing with all of heaven to ‘the Lord, the great I AM, by earth and heaven confessed: we bow and bless the sacred Name for ever blest’. These lines come from a hymn originating, fittingly enough, in Jewish liturgy – a paraphrase of the Yigdal, the Jewish articles of faith written by the great rabbi, Torah scholar, and philosopher Maimonides in the twelfth century and made into a hymn around 1400. This eighteenth-century English Methodist version was intentionally Christianized; another version in our Hymnal, ‘Praise to the living God’, is probably more faithful to the original, but this version is more fitting this week in its emphasis upon the divine Name. Both versions are sung to a tune, probably dating from the seventeenth century, that is used for this hymn in synagogues.

The divine call extended to Moses and to us is echoed in the Gospel lesson. In last week’s Gospel, Peter resoundingly acclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, the one chosen to save his people; this week he shows how little he, sidetracked by less than ultimate concerns, understands the thrust and ultimate consequences of Jesus’s ministry. Jesus reminds him, and us, exactly what a Christlike life calls for: nothing less than the annihilation of self.

To call a disappointment or annoyance, or even a serious setback, a ‘cross to bear’ has become such a commonplace that the profoundly shocking nature of Jesus’s instruction to ‘take up one’s cross’ has been lost. A cross was, simply put, an instrument of humiliating, torturous execution at the hands of an occupying power; the victim of a Roman crucifixion was forced to carry the crossbeam of his or her cross to the place of execution. To take up one’s cross willingly would be to participate in self-extinction – as Jesus says, to deny oneself, to lose one’s life. Even more shocking is Jesus’s statement that this is the very way to save one’s life – as the Sequence hymn says, ‘it guides you to abundant life and leads to victory o’er the grave’. Jesus’s own life, of course, was the prime example of this life of self-negation; it was a life lived completely for others, free of the greed, selfishness, pride, envy, and all the other things that separate us from the divine presence and power – even when his own physical existence was at stake. The power of a life so lived, faithfully to the last, radiates across space and time, empowering us to go forth in peace, love, strength, and joy, and ultimately ‘overcom[ing] all darkness with his light’, as our Postcommunion hymn puts it.

And what is our response? We pray in the Collect of the Day that God would ‘graft in our hearts the love of your Name’. We sing at Communion that God would ‘take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee’, that God would be enthroned in our very hearts, and our minds, talents, wills – our very selves – be wholly given to God. And, as always, after giving thanks for the spiritual food given to us in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, we pray, ‘and now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.’

Eric Mellenbruch

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

21 August 2011

Exodus 1.8—2.10

Romans 12.1–8

Matthew 16.13–20

Introit hymn

562

w ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’

Sabine Baring-Gould

m ‘St Gertrude’

Arthur Sullivan

Psalm

124

R Our help is in the Name of the Lord.

Tone VIII

Gradual anthems

‘He reigns’ / ‘Wild about us’ /

‘Watching over you’ / ‘No greater gift’

from Pandamania

Offertory anthem

w ‘O give thanks to the Lord’

Psalm 118

m Noel Rawsthorne

Communion hymns

293

w ‘I sing a song of the saints of God’

Lesbia Scott

m ‘Grand Isle’

John Henry Hopkins

511

w ‘Holy Spirit, ever living’

Timothy Rees

m ‘Abbot’s Leigh’

Cyril Vincent Taylor

Postcommunion hymn

535

w ‘Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim’

Charles Wesley

m ‘Paderborn’

mel. Catolisch-Paderbornisches Gesang-buch, 1765

harm. Sydney Hugo Nicholson

‘Onward, Christian soldiers’

‘This is hymn is a part of our heritage and growing up in the Episcopal church. We miss it. Also one of our sons is a marine.’

Liz & Bill Geise

‘I have been a member of the Good Shepherd since 1953. I went to St. Andrews school that same year. I was six. We sang Onward Christian Soldiers at both places. I still want to march and sing. It would be marvelous to hear the church filled with that wonderful hymn. My two children vote this way, too. They also graduated from Saint Andrews.’

Shay Shoop

‘I think this is a stirring hymn and probably the first I remember from my childhood & being at church with my Mom...happy memories.’

Martha White

‘Childhood memories’

Jamie Estes

This is one of those loaded Gospel lessons that provides more opportunities for reflection than one sermon can allow. I’ve been to Caesarea Philippi and apart from a ruined city, the place to visit there is a spot where the Jordan begins at a large spring and continues over the only waterfall on the whole river. In the background is a rock wall with niches for Pan, Echo, Hermes and other pagan deities. No one can say for sure, but this seems like an obvious place for Jesus and his disciples to gather (Matthew 16.13) on a hot day as well as a great spot for Jesus to put the question, given all the deities in the background, ‘Who do people say that I am?’

We can spend a lot of time asking whether Jesus, in fact, gave the authority of the church to Peter at this point (16.17) or whether there is such a thing as apostolic succession rooted in this Biblical story (16.19). I find it more interesting to ask myself, and you may ask yourself as well, ‘Who is Jesus to you?’ It is also interesting to ask the authors of today’s hymns how they answer that question in their texts.

A favorite of many, thus earning a place in the ongoing series of Top Twenty Hymns at Good Shepherd, our Introit hymn, ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’, was written by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924), who acquired the interesting given name from his uncle, Edward Sabine, an arctic explorer. He was a remarkable human being who was born to wealth and traveled with his family throughout Europe a great deal. While studying to be an Anglican priest he met a mill hand’s daughter, Grace. They were married, lived together for 45 years, and had fifteen children. Sabine was a prolific writer, with over a thousand publications to his name, including a sixteen-volume work on the lives of the saints as well as many hymns. Among them are ‘Now the day is over’ and ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’.

The tune to which we sing it, ‘St Gertrude’, was written by Arthur Sullivan (the same Sullivan who wrote music for a number of popular light operas) for the text. Originally meant to be sung by Sunday-school children in procession, it has come to be used in many an adult setting, including the worship service at the signing of the Atlantic Charter and the funeral of Dwight Eisenhower.

‘I sing a song of the saints of God’ was also originally intended as a children’s song by its author, Lesbia Scott (1898–1986). Although not very popular its author’s English homeland, it has become a popular song in American settings, particularly in the Episcopal Church, which included it in the Hymnal 1940. John Henry Hopkins, an Episcopal priest, wrote the tune for this text in 1940. He named it after the place where he lived in retirement, Grand Isle, Vermont. Although the text could be used to remember specific saints, its real purpose is to redefine the word ‘saint’ and show how ordinary we all are.

‘Holy Spirit, ever living’ was written by Timothy Rees (1874–1939), Bishop of Llandaff (Wales). The tune to which we sing it, ‘Abbot’s Leigh’, was composed by Cyril Vincent Taylor (1907–1991) who wrote it while stationed in the city of the same name during the Second World War as an alternative to the frequently used ‘Austria’ (used for Germany’s national anthem) by Joseph Haydn.

Charles Wesley (1707–1788), Anglican priest and poet extraordinaire who wrote over 6,000 texts always has a lyrical quality to his rhymes. Especially strong as a writer of hymns of praise, Wesley worked mastery with ‘Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim’, our Postcommunion hymn, which sends us out with grand imagery taken from the Revelation to John. The music to which we sing it, ‘Paderborn’, is a hymn tune of folk origin, popular in the eighteenth century, harmonized by Sydney Hugo Nicholson, who heard it sung in the cathedral church at Paderborn.

David Zersen

Candlelight Concert: Eric Mellenbruch, organist

2011-08-12T15:27:00.000-05:00

14 August 2010
Eve of St Mary the Virgin
5:30 pm

‘Hail, Mary, full of grace’

Peeter Cornet
Versets on ‘Salve regina’
in alternation with sung verses

Gerald Near
Prelude on ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena’

Dieterich Buxtehude
Magnificat primi toni, BuxWV 203

..............................................................
This concludes the Summer Series of
Candlelight Concerts at Good Shepherd

Half-hour recitals preceding the 6:00 pm Mass

ka·lei·do·scope

2011-08-12T15:21:00.000-05:00

a new way to experience music

kaleidoscopeaustin.com

launch concert

friday, august 12

7:30 pm un-lecture

8:00 pm concert

jules massenet

‘ne pensons qu’au plaisir’ from don quichotte

joaquin turina

three songs from poema en forma de canciones and farruca

w.a. mozart

quartet for oboe and strings, k. 370

john ireland

greenways (the cherry tree, cypress, the palm and may)

john williams

theme from schindler’s list

antonin dvořák

two slavonic dances, two legends, for piano, four hands

julia cory

cello

anne epperson

piano

kathryn findlen

mezzo soprano

stephen nicholas key

oboe

richard masters

piano

leah nelson

viola

joseph d. smith

violin

thales smith

guitar

sandy yamamoto

violin

upcoming concerts

fridays this fall

september 23

solo violin

october 28

mysticism

november 16

exoticism

december 18

early music

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

14 August 2011

Proper 15 A [GR]

Introit hymn

410

w ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’

Psalm 103

para. Henry Francis Lyte

m ‘Lauda anima’

John Goss

Psalm

R Let the peoples praise you, O God;

let all the peoples praise you.

Tone I

Sequence hymn

671

w ‘Amazing grace! how sweet the sound’

John Newton

st. 5 John Rees

m ‘New Britain’

Virginia Harmony, 1831

adapt. attr. Edwin Othello Excell

harm. Austin C. Lovelace

Communion hymns

470

w ‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy’

Frederick William Faber

m ‘Beecher’

John Zundel

321

w ‘My God, thy table now is spread’

st. 1–3: Philip Doddridge

st. 4: Isaac Watts

m ‘Rockingham’

mel. Second Supplement to Psalmody in Miniature, ca. 1780

adapt. Edward Miller

harm. Samuel Webbe

Postcommunion hymn

473

w ‘Lift high the cross’

George William Kitchin

alt. Michael Robert Newbolt

m ‘Crucifer’

Sydney Hugo Nicholson

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

My favorite hymn has been one that has been passed down through the generations of my family. ‘Amazing grace’ is that hymn, and we have loved it so much because it reminds us of our Savior’s saving grace and brings us up at the worst times in our lives!...We all have sung it when we are struggling with issues in our families!

Barbie Britt

I’m sure that others may have thought it, but I remember that it was a Quaker, Elton Trueblood, who, in a book entitled The Humor of Jesus, said that that Jesus was jesting with the Caananite woman – that he certainly could not have condescended to her so rudely as to call her a ‘dog’. Today’s Gospel lesson is certainly challenging if we don’t consider this possibility. In any case, the woman’s faith was applauded and Jesus made it clear that God’s mercy extends to all. Several of today’s hymns celebrate that truth in tunes we love to sing.

The Introit hymn, ‘Praise, my soul, the King of heaven’, is a paraphrase of Psalm 103, a psalm that remembers that God forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases, so appropriate to the sense of today’s Gospel lesson. The paraphrase was written by Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847), a Scotsman who took Anglican orders after being abandoned by his father and losing his mother and brother in death. We remember him especially for his text ‘Abide with me’ and also for ‘Jesus, I my cross have taken’. The tune, ‘Lauda anima’, was composed for ‘Praise, my soul’ by John Goss (1800–1880). Its beauty and dignity encourage many to regard it as the finest hymn-tune to come out of the Victorian era.

The Sequence hymn, ‘Amazing grace! How sweet the sound’, was written by John Newton (1785–1807), a sea captain in the slave trade who later became an Anglican priest. In connection with William Cowper, a friend and distinguished poet, he wrote the text we sing today. For many years it was forgotten, but it became a popular hymn in the American revivals (‘I once was lost, but now am found’) and today is perhaps the best known American folk hymn. Over the years it was sung to some 50 different tunes, but it is best known to the accompaniment of ‘New Britain’, a shape-note tune in the pentatonic tradition of The Southern Harmony. It too captures the theme of today’s Gospel lesson.

Another hymn that does the same for us today is the first Communion hymn, ‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy’. Written by Frederick William Faber (1814–1863), an Anglican priest who converted to Roman Catholicism, it expressed his desire to give an evangelical fervor to Roman Catholic parishes which at the time in England were not accustomed to singing hymns. Faber composed some 20 texts which include the popular ‘Faith of our fathers’. In the second last verse of the text, no longer typically sung, Faber explores what Jesus is dealing with in his conversation with the Canaanite woman:

But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.

John Zundel (1814–1882), the composer of the hymn-tune, ‘Beecher’, was born in Württemberg, Germany, but immigrated to New York in 1847. He worked with Henry Ward Beecher, the great preacher, and named the tune after him.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Lift high the cross’, has become one of the great processional hymns in the Christian community. It was written by George Kitchen (1827–1912), a cleric and academic who served in many capacities as tutor, chaplain, classics scholar and author. The tune, ‘Crucifer’, meaning ‘cross-bearer’, was written for the text by Sydney Nicholson. Considered his finest tune, it proposes the use of the hymn during processions with a crucifer.

David Zersen

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-08-02T12:06:00.000-05:00

Proper 14 A [GR]

7 August 2011

Anthem

‘Alleluia’

W.A. Mozart

Introit hymn

377

w ‘All people that on earth do dwell’

Psalm 100

para. William Kethe

m ‘Old 100th’

mel. Pseaumes octante trois de David, 1551

harm. after Louis Bourgeois

Sequence hymn

529

w ‘In Christ there is no East or West’

John Oxenham

m ‘McKee’

African American spiritual

adapt. & harm. Harry T. Burleigh

Psalm

85.8–13

R Show us your mercy, O Lord,

and grant us your salvation.

Tone I

Offertory anthem

669

w ‘Commit thou all that grieves thee’

[‘Befiehl du deine Wege’]

Paul Gerhardt

tr. Arthur W. Farlander, Winfred Douglas

m ‘Herzlich tut mich verlangen’

attr. Hans Leo Haßler

harm. J.S. Bach

Communion hymns

645

w ‘The King of love my shepherd is’

Psalm 23

para. Henry Williams Baker

m ‘St Columba’

Irish

137

w ‘O wondrous type! O vision fair’

[‘Caelestis formam gloriae’]

Latin, c.15

tr. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861, after John Mason Neale

m ‘Wareham’

mel. William Knapp

harm. Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875, after James Turle

¶ Saturday 6 August is the Feast of the Transfiguration

of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Postcommunion hymn

608

w ‘Eternal Father, strong to save’

William Whiting

m ‘Melita’

John Bacchus Dykes

‘Eternal Father, strong to save’

It will always be special to those of us who served in the Marine Corps and Navy.

Lee Yeakel

Some troubled by the miraculous in today’s Gospel have proposed that Jesus probably walked on rocks in shallow water, giving the impression of being a water-walker. However, the earliest Church had other intentions with this story. Doubters of all types were being encouraged to claim the confidence and trust that Peter lost. With faith, we can attempt most anything.

In the favorite hymn choices shared in today’s service, such boldness is prominent at many levels. This gives power to the singing experience as well as to the venture into a world filled with challenges.

The Introit hymn, ‘All people that on earth do dwell’, is a paraphrase by William Kethe of Psalm 100. Words like ‘His truth at all times firmly stood, And shall from age to age endure’ speak to the confidence encouraged in the believer. Kethe († 1594) was a Scottish clergyman often persecuted for his Reformed faith. He wrote some 100 hymns and ended his career at a parish in England. More important, perhaps, than the paraphrased words of Psalm 100 is the simple yet melodious tune by Louis Bourgeois (1510–1561), who followed John Calvin to Geneva, served as the cantor at St Pierre, and edited the Genevan Psalter.

The Sequence hymn, ‘In Christ there is no East or West’, is a much loved text by John Oxenham (1852–1941) celebrating the uniting of humankind in Christ’s love as described in Sunday’s Epistle. A prolific poet who was also a novelist and journalist, Oxenham used a number of pseudonymns (also Julian Ross), although his real name was William Dunkerley. The tune to which the text is usually sung is a spiritual originally adapted by African American slaves from an Irish tune, and adapted again for the Oxenham text by Harry Burleigh (1886–1949), making it a hit when first printed in The Hymnal 1940.

The theme of God’s protection and providence is taken up again at the Offertory as the choir sings stanzas of ‘Commit thou all that grieves thee’, a hymn by Paul Gerhardt, perhaps the greatest of all German hymn-poets. This is one of several texts (including another one [actually a translation] by Gerhardt, ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’, translated in our Hymnal as ‘O sacred head, sore wounded’) associated with a tune that originally appeared in a collection of Hans Leo Haßler and was used a great deal in Bach’s settings of the Passion (hence one of its common English names, ‘Passion Chorale’).

The second Communion hymn, ‘O wondrous type! O vision fair’, is chosen because Saturday 6 August is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Translated by John Mason Neale from a 15th-century Latin text, it is sung today to ‘Wareham’, a melody composed by William Knapp (1698–1768) who served as the parish clerk at St John’s, Poole, for 40 years.

The Postcommunion hymn, ‘Eternal Father, strong to save,’ is known and loved by Americans in its male-voice version as the Navy Hymn. William Whiting (1825–1878), master of Winchester College Chorister’s School in England, wrote the text for use by the Royal Navy in worship services. Later it was adapted as the hymn for the US Navy. The tune written for the text by John Dykes (1823–1876) was given a name suitable for watery settings in that Melita was the place where St Paul shipwrecked. Dykes was canon and precentor of Durham Cathedral and wrote some 300 hymn tunes as well as playing organ, piano, violin and horn.

Sunday we are pleased to welcome mezzo-soprano Kathryn Findlen, friend and former Choral Scholar of Good Shepherd, who brings a preview of Good Shepherd’s new concert series, Kaleidoscope.

David Zersen and Eric Mellenbruch

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-26T13:20:00.000-05:00

Proper 13 A [SC]
31 July 2011

10:00 am Mass

Introit hymn
680
w ‘O God, our help in ages past’
[‘Man, Frail and God Eternal’]
Psalm 90.1–5
para. Isaac Watts
m ‘St Anne’
mel. attr. William Croft
harm. William Henry Monk

Psalm

17.1–3, 5–7

R Keep me as the apple of your eye.

Tone VIII

Sequence hymn
343
w ‘Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless’
James Montgomery
m ‘St Agnes’
John Bacchus Dykes

Offertory anthem
639
w ‘Come, O thou Traveller unknown’
[‘Wrestling Jacob’]
Charles Wesley
m ‘Woodbury’
Erik Routley

Communion hymns
335
w ‘I am the bread of life’
John 6
adapt. Suzanne Toolan
m ‘I am the bread of life’
Suzanne Toolan
arr. Betty Pulkingham

304
w ‘I come with joy to meet my Lord’
Brian Wren
m ‘Land of Rest’
American folk melody
adapt. Annabel Morris Buchanan

Postcommunion hymn
690
w ‘Guide me, O thou great Jehovah’
[‘Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch’]
William Williams
tr. Peter Williams
m ‘Cwm Rhondda’
John Hughes

‘O God, our help in ages past’
This hymn has been sung at a number of funerals of both friends and relations,and at the funeral of John Foster Dulles, the first funeral televised from the National Cathedral.
Earl Nesbitt

‘I am the bread of life’
This hymn makes communion much more special and meaningful when it is sung together by the congregation – somehow it makes the service seem more personal.
Gay Erwin

We depart this Sunday from the Gospel-related series of Old Testament Lessons to read the rich account of Jacob wrestling the man at the ford of the Jabbok [Genesis 32.23–31]: an opportunity to hear an equally rich meditation upon it, in the form of Wesley’s ‘Wrestling Jacob’ – one of that great hymnist’s finest. The first three stanzas of the hymn follow Genesis quite closely – but where Jacob is unable to learn the name of his divine opponent, Wesley clearly identifies him as Christ, something made much clearer in the many stanzas here omitted. Wesley demands to know who this is, whether he is the man who died for him, the secret of his love – and finds that only as his own strength fails and he falls back upon faith and prayer is he able to learn and see and even to move the heart of God. A series of stanzas end with the line ‘Till I Thy name, Thy nature know’, answered with several (including the present last stanza) ending ‘Thy nature and Thy name is Love.’ (The full text may be found here.)

The text has been paired with many tunes over the years and appears with twoin the Hymnal 1982. The one chosen for Sunday, ‘Woodbury’, sets a mysterious mood for this meditative text. It was written by Erik Routley, an English Congregationalist minister active in the second half of the twentieth century who was a major hymnologist, hymnist, hymn-tune composer, and educator, and the animating force behind the English-language ‘hymn explosion’ of that period. Routley wrote often and eloquently in praise of this text (and he was not the only one; Isaac Watts himself praised it highly, according to John Wesley).

The Mass begins with the same Isaac Watts and ‘O God, our help in ages past’, which hardly need introduction, being one of the greatest hymnists and one of the greatest hymns in the English language. The hymn, a paraphrase of Psalm 90.1–5, is chosen this week to match the Collect, both being acknowledgements of and prayers for God’s presence and providence for all time.

Much of the rest of Sunday’s hymnody is centered around the Gospel pericope – the feeding of the five thousand with the five loaves and two fish – though it is not difficult for them also to connect with the earlier theme of God’s providence.

James Montgomery, the English journalist, social reformer, and hymnist, appears often in these pages, being one of the authors most represented in the Hymnal. His ‘Shepherd of souls, refresh and bless’ is one of the great Eucharistic hymns, drawing together God’s feeding of the Israelites in the wilderness with manna and with water from the rock [Exodus 17 and many subesquent references to it], Jesus’s manifestation in the breaking of bread at Emmaus on Easter evening [Luke 24], and the Eucharist itself. The composer of the tune, John Bacchus Dykes, Precentor of Durham, was a seminal influence in English church music in the middle of the nineteenth century and beyond (he was the composer most represented in the Hymnal 1940).

The first Communion hymn, ‘I am the bread of life’, continues the theme. With a text taken almost verbatim from several verses from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, the song was written in 1970 by a Roman Catholic nun, Sr Suzanne Toolan, with the Requiem (funeral) Mass in mind. Finally, the great Welsh hymn ‘Guide me, O thou great Jehovah’ wraps up several of the above themes and sends the people out with a text of pilgrimage that includes lines such as ‘bread of heaven, feed me now and evermore’ and ‘strong deliverer, be thou still my strength and shield’.

In addition to our congregational and choral music, we are pleased to feature violinist Joseph Smith this Sunday.

Eric Mellenbruch

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-19T11:52:00.000-05:00

Proper 12 A [GR]

24 July 2011

Introit hymn

287 [stanzas 1–4]

w ‘For all the saints, who from their labors rest’

William Walsham How

m ‘Sine nomine’

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Psalm

119.129–136 Ayin

R When your word goes forth it gives light.

Tone VIII

Sequence hymn

711

w ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God’

Matthew 6.33, 7.7

adapt. Karen Lafferty

m ‘Seek ye first’

Karen Lafferty

Communion hymns

698

w ‘Eternal Spirit of the living Christ’

Frank von Christierson

m ‘Eventide’

William Henry Monk

314

w ‘Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen’

[Adoro te devote]

attr. Thomas Aquinas

tr. Hymnal 1940/1982

m ‘Adoro devote’

French church melody, Processionale, 1697

Postcommunion hymn

287 [stanzas 5–8]

‘Seek ye first’

Hymns are most beautiful when sung by large groups of all ages and singing levels and this one is one of the best for the trained and untrained singers in all of us. It sums up God’s love for each us so simply and beautifully.

Becka Svahn

This is a parable-rich season in the Gospel lessons. Sunday’s Gospel lesson has six little parables, each a little different, but each also challenging us to consider its meaning for us. In every case, there is something said about the Kingdom of God in its surprising expansiveness, its overwhelming value and its rich diversity. It is a day to ponder refreshing newness and to celebrate that God’s rule catches us by surprise at every turn in the road.

Among those who have pondered such richness are the saints of old whose faithfulness we love to remember (including St Mary Magdalene and St James the Apostle, whose feast days falls on July 22 and 25, respectively). ‘For all the saints, who from their labors rest’, our Introit hymn, is a favorite not only because of the language – which echoes Sunday’s Collect and Epistle with their emphases on the ‘things eternal’ and the ever-present love of God – but because of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s hymn tune ‘Sine Nomine’ (‘Without name’). The writer of the text, William Walsham How (1823–1897), was an Anglican priest who became a suffragan bishop in London, writing some 60 hymns, many translated in Welsh, Spanish and German, now in popular use, along his vocational journey. Some favorites are ‘O Word of God incarnate’, ‘We give Thee but thine own,’ and ‘Jesus, name of wondrous love’. Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) wrote the tune for this text. It is surprising in a number of ways, making it much loved for a procession or for any occasion that calls for rallying spirits and rousing trumpets. The ‘walking’ bass grounds the music for the singer, and the ‘alleluia’ which introduces itself before its time (like unfermented wine) encourages the singer to voice praise even more profoundly.

The Sequence hymn, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God’, reminds us what all six parables in this lesson are about: the invisible and yet pervasive reign of God that consigns all other things to the shadows they really are. The writer and composer of text and tune is Karen Lafferty, who came to be well known in the music world largely through this hymn. Working with YWAM and Musicians For International Mission (MFIM), Lafferty travels the world encouraging musicians to explore their spiritual dimension in their music.

The first Communion hymn, ‘Eternal Spirit of the living Christ’, was written by Frank von Christierson (1900–1996). Raised a Finnish Lutheran, he immigrated to the US and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in psychology. He served a number of Presbyterian congregations as minister, writing hymns as a hobby throughout his years of service; he was designated a Fellow of the Hymn Society for his work as a poet. The hymn is built around the opening paragraph of the Epistle (a continuation of last week’s text), asking the Spirit to intercede for and through us. Though the text is written in a very simple and direct register, what is perhaps the weakest verse is not the fault of the author but of subsequent editors, who changed ‘Come with the strength I lack, the vision clear / Of neighbor’s need, of all humanity’ to ‘Come with the vision and the strength I need / to serve my God, and all humanity’. The tune to which the hymn is sung was written by William Henry Monk (1823–1889), an organist at numerous churches and choirmaster at King’s College in London. He was the musical editor of the hymnal Hymns Ancient and Modern, in which this tune, ‘Eventide’, first appeared, written for the text ‘Abide with me: fast falls the eventide’. (A better match might be ‘Sursum corda’ – printed in our Hymnal with ‘Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest’ – but that tune is perhaps not familiar enough yet in this parish to permit its pairing with another text.)

The liturgy closes with the final stanzas of ‘For all the saints’. The text which sings of personal warfare, the approaching evening, the distant triumph song and the resurrection of the saints in glory is deeply moving especially when sung as an anthem. It heralds the dawning kingdom first glimpsed as a mustard seed and experienced as leaven in dough, but now, with trumpets playing for us on the other side, the full approaching reality of a God who will reign no matter the odds.

It is a blessed way to close our time together – and to focus our faith for the week ahead.

David Zersen and Eric Mellenbruch

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-12T10:19:00.012-05:00

Proper 11 A [GR]

17 July 2011

Voluntary

Prelude on ‘A mighty fortress is our God’
Helmut Walcha

Introit hymn

688

w ‘A mighty fortress is our God’

[Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott]

Martin Luther, based on Psalm 46

tr. Frederick Henry Hedge

m ‘Ein’ feste Burg’

mel. Martin Luther

harm. J.S. Bach

Psalm
86.11–17
R You, O Lord, are good and forgiving.
Tone I

Sequence hymn

440

w ‘Blessed Jesus, at thy word’

[Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier]

Tobias Clausnitzer

tr. Catherine Winkworth

m ‘Liebster Jesu’

mel. Johann Rudolph Ahle

harm. George Herbert Palmer

Communion hymns

620

w ‘Jerusalem, my happy home’

F.B.P. (ca. c.16)

m ‘Land of Rest’

American folk hymn

adapt. & harm. Annabel Morris Buchanan

339

w ‘Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness’

[Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele]

Johann Franck

tr. Catherine Winkworth

m ‘Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele’

mel. Johann Crüger

harm. The English Hymnal, 1906

Postcommunion hymn

438

w ‘Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord’

Timothy Dudley-Smith

based on the Song of Mary (Magnificat), Luke 1.46–55

m ‘Woodlands’

Walter Greatorex

Today’s Gospel lesson supports the joy of last Sunday’s message in the Parable of the Sower. There we learned that while for some recipients the good news of God’s love in Christ bears no fruit in their minds and hearts, a harvest is nevertheless inevitable. Today’s lesson tells us that when the harvest is in preparation, it’s not our business to decide who will be claimed by the Reaper. Yesterday, driving through central Wisconsin, my wife noticed a sign that advertised a building as ‘The Narrow Way Church’. It didn’t seem too inviting.

Martin Luther, in commenting on this text in a sermon on the Wheat and the Tares, suggested that while the tares may hinder the wheat, ‘they make it more beautiful to behold’. That is a positive view of diversity, even theological diversity, in the Christian community. It is a lovely thing to see a Christian conforming to the full stature of Christ. By contrast, it can be an ugly thing for such Christians to call attention to the lesser performance of others.

The Introit hymn is Luther’s classic ‘A mighty fortress is our God’. It is a wonderfully positive hymn. No matter what happens in the battle (‘though devils all the world should fill’), the triumph belongs to the believer. God is in charge; his kingdom is forever. Many translations (perhaps as many as 70) have been written of the original text. And Bach, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Mendelssohn (the ‘Reformation’ Symphony), Wagner, and many others have used Luther’s musical setting for the words in their own compositions. Luther’s original tune was very rhythmic and is not the one (an isometric version) used in most hymnals today. Based on Psalm 46, which assures that God is our refuge and strength, the hymn begins Sunday’s liturgy on a strong note. It is also heard in an organ prelude by twentieth-century German organist Helmut Walcha, who was blinded at age 19 but went on to enjoy a fruitful career as a performer and pedagogue, recording the complete organ works of Bach twice.

A much-loved German hymn sung before the Gospel, ‘Blessed Jesus at thy word’, reminds the worshipper how fortunate we are to have a faith rooted in God’s word of promise. Its author, Tobias Clausnitzer (1616–1664), was a graduate of the University of Leipzig (M.A.) who served as a Lutheran chaplain and parish pastor. He wrote a number of hymns besides this one. The tune was composed by Johann Ahle (1625–1673), a University of Erfurt graduate, who served as organist at St Blasius in Mühlhausen (what a great name for a church that uses wind instruments! Blasen in German means ‘to blow’). While there he wrote numerous vocal and instrumental compositions as well as some 60 works for organ.

The first Communion hymn, ‘Jerusalem, my happy home’, sings of heaven, the ‘new Jerusalem’ of Revelation in which the worshipper will one day be surrounded by the saints who see God face to face, including Mary, who now sings her Magnificat. The text was attributed to an unknown ‘F.B.P’. It is sung today to ‘Land of Rest’, an American folk hymn, known throughout the Appalachians. Its rather bouncy tune marks it as one of the folk music gifts of northern England and Scotland.

The Postcommunion hymn is a joyful text by a contemporary hymn writer, Timothy Dudley-Smith, retired Bishop of Thetford (*1926). A modern form of the Magnificat, it celebrates, as do the two previously mentioned hymns, the remarkable reversals that a God of grace achieves in our lives and in our world. God chooses the humble, not the proud, and God makes the choices. We do not. The tune, ‘Woodlands’, is a composition of Walter Greatorex (1877–1949), an educator who served as director of music in various English school systems for 45 years. One of the schools in his charge was named Woodlands, hence the name of this tune. Its second line has a kind of preparatory spirit for the surprising joy of the third line. It could be enriched by trumpets!

Today’s music is bold and joyful and gives the worshipper cause to celebrate that God alone will determine the harvest. Our faith is to focus on Jesus, not on those around us.

David Zersen

‘A mighty fortress’

It is strong and powerful, a great illustration of the message it conveys; and it feels good to sing.

Laura Barrow

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

2011-07-05T18:53:00.010-05:00

Proper 10 A [GR]

10 July 2011

10:00 am Mass

Introit hymn

w ‘Morning has broken’

Eleanor Farjeon

m ‘Bunessan’

Gaelic melody

Psalm

65.9–14

R Let the valleys shout for joy and sing.

Tone VII

Sequence hymn

679

w ‘Surely, it is God who saves me’

The First Song of Isaiah, Isaiah 12.2–6

para. Carl P. Daw, Jr.

m ‘Thomas Merton’

Ray W. Urwin

Communion hymns

405

w ‘All things bright and beautiful’

Cecil Frances Alexander

m ‘Royal Oak’

mel. from The Dancing Master, 1686

adapt. & harm. Martin Shaw

302

w ‘Father, we thank thee who hast planted’

from several prayers in the Didache, ca. 110

tr. F. Bland Tucker

m ‘Rendez à Dieu’

attr. Louis Bourgeois

Postcommunion hymn

632

w ‘O Christ, the Word Incarnate’

William Walsham How

m ‘Munich’

mel. Neu-vermehrtes und zu Übung Christl. Gottseligkeit

eingerichtetes Meiningisches Gesangbuch, 1693

adapt. & harm. Felix Mendelssohn

‘Morning has broken’

It was the theme for a 1960s (?) movie about St Francis, who is my role model. I love the image of Creation made new every morning!

Ann Baker

...[makes] communion much more special and meaningful when it is sung together by the congregation – somehow [makes] the service seem more personal.

Gay Erwin

‘All things bright and beautiful’

Let us not forget: whether it’s a child, sunset, or a special relationship.

Margie Cowden

When I was at Good Shepherd preschool, we sang this.

Laura

It was the song I grew up with at my school and church in Houston.

Kelly Weis