March 5, 2017 + The First Sunday in Lent

Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Adult Choir, sermon by the Rev’d Helen Moore.

Worship at Home:

Click here for the Service Bulletin; scroll to read full sermon text.

Full Service Audio:

Sermon-only Audio:

Service Music:

Assisting Organist: Kari Miller

Voluntary
Préambule    Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Prelude on Lonesome Valley     Robert Powell (b. 1932)

Kyrie eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Lent brings us an opportunity for deeper reflection, as we take a break from musical fanfares and descants, and replace them with a silent procession and meditative chant. The service music that we will sing during Lent is all from the Gregorian Missal; both the Sanctus and Agnus Dei were famously set in Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem.

Sequence Hymn 142    Lord, who throughout these forty days    St. Flavian

Offertory Anthem    Kyrie eleison (Messe Solennelle)     Louis Vierne

Sanctus     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Anthem    Surely he hath borne our griefs   Karl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759)
Words: Isaiah 53:4

In what is probably the best-loved Old Testament prophecy of Christ’s suffering, the prophet reveals the infamous role of the people in the unfolding drama of the Crucifixion: We were not attracted to him… We hid our faces from him… We thought him under God’s righteous judgement… We have each gone astray. It is in this context that the prophet sets the record straight. Christ is not guilty in the least: “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Then Isaiah asserts – and here we can imagine his utter astonishment – that by his scourging we are healed. Graun depicts the grief and sorrow in this text by the use of melisma (one word, many notes) on the words grief and sorrow, chromaticism (half-step movement), and dissonance. The poignant resolution at the end of the work reminds us that the scourging is not in vain. Indeed, by it we are healed.

Hymn in Procession 690    Guide me, O thou great Jehovah    Cwm Rhondda

Voluntary    Toccata in D minor    Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667)

Full Sermon Text:

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