music

Happy New Year 2017!

Lindsey

It was wonderful to start off 2017 at church! In place of our regular service (sermon and Eucharist) we did “Christmas Lessons and Carols with Holy Communion.” I have always loved Christmas songs, but my appreciation for Christmas hymns has grown over the past few years. During the offertory, our choir sang the “Sans Day Carol,” arranged by John Rutter. It is a lovely hymn that directly connects Christmas with Easter, and while I have listened to this song many times (I have the album), there’s always something special about hearing hymns in the context of a service, and followed by Holy Communion.

Now the holly bears a berry as white as the milk,
And Mary bore Jesus, who was wrapped up in silk:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

Now the holly bears a berry as green as the grass,
And Mary bore Jesus, who died on the cross:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

Now the holly bears a berry as black as the coal,
And Mary bore Jesus, who died for us all:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

Now the holly bears a berry, as blood is it red,
Then trust we our Saviour, who rose from the dead:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

The Feast of the Presentation (aka Candlemas)

Lindsey

Menologion of BasilToday we celebrated that we are mid-way through winter – spring is on its way!!

Candlemas is a traditional Christian festival that commemorates the ritual purification of Mary forty days after the birth of her son Jesus. On this day, Christians remember the presentation of Jesus Christ in the Temple. Forty days after the birth of a Jewish boy, it was the custom to take him to the temple in Jerusalem to be presented to God by his thankful parents.

It was the day of the year when all the candles, that were used in the church during the coming year, were brought into church and a blessing was said over them – so it was the Festival Day (or ‘mass’) of the Candles. ~Project Britain

As it was a feast day, I chose to attend the Evensong service rather than my usual 11:15 service because I knew that the music would be beautiful to celebrate this day, and I was not disappointed.  One of the things I love the most about my church is how amazing the choir is, and how intellectual the music selection is.  The primary music for this service was G.P. da Palestrina’s Missa Brevis.  It was so peaceful and lovely, and the candlelight made the entire experience feel like a lovely winter reprieve, especially after all the craziness that happened in Atlanta this week.  See below for a YouTube playlist of the Missa Brevis.

I truly resonated with this week’s collect: Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

My First Evensong

Lindsey

Now that I’ve found a church home here in Atlanta (The Cathedral of St. Philip), I’ve been trying to learn a bit more about the church and the services it offers.  At my church back home we had an evening service that was similar to (but smaller than) the 11AM service.  When I looked into the evening service at this new church, they don’t refer to it as the Holy Eucharist, but rather “Evensong and Holy Eucharist.”  This peaked my curiosity, so yesterday I decided to attend church at 4PM to see what this was all about.

The definition on Wikipedia of Evensong is pretty accurate to what I attended yesterday:

Evening Prayer is a liturgy in use in the Anglican Communion (and other churches in the Anglican tradition, such as the Continuing Anglican Movement and the Anglican Use of the Roman Catholic Church) and celebrated in the late afternoon or evening. It is also commonly known as Evensong, especially (but not exclusively) when the office is rendered chorally (that is, when most of the service is sung). It is roughly the equivalent of Vespers in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran churches, although it was originally formed by combining the Roman Catholic offices of Vespers and Compline. Although many churches now take their services from Common Worship or other modern prayer books, if a church has a choir, Choral Evensong from the Book of Common Prayer often remains in use because of the greater musical provision. Evening Prayer, like Morning Prayer (Mattins) and in contrast to the Eucharist, may be led by a layperson, and is recited by some devout Anglicans daily in private (clergy in many Anglican jurisdictions are required to do so).

The service was lovely.  It was mostly sung, and the choir was AMAZING.  My only thought was that I wish I’d had the words they were singing in the program (I’m much more of a visual learner, so I get a lot more out of it if I can read along when I hear choral music).  The service was also a bit more traditional – there was incense, and the language was a bit older.  All in all, I enjoyed the service and will likely attend again, but the 11:15AM service will still be my regular service.

Does anyone else have any experience with Evensong?