Past Services

Spoken Good Friday Liturgy with Reserved Sacrament Eucharist at 7:00 a.m., sermon by the Rev’d Helen Moore.

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Agape Meal at 6:00 p.m.; Maundy Thursday Eucharist at 7:00 p.m. with hymns and chant, sermon by the Rev’d Hope Eakins.

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Voluntary    Chorale    Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006)

Kyrie Eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Sequence Hymn 171    Go to dark Gethsemane    Petra

Hymn at the Maundy    Stay with me     Stay with me

Offertory Music    Ah, holy Jesus    Helmut Walcha (1907-1991)

Sanctus    Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei    Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Hymn 458    My song is love unknown    Love unknown

Psalm 22    Plainsong Chant
Daaé Ransom and Scott Lamlein, soloists

 

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Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs, sermon by the Rev’d William Eakins.

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Palm Procession from the Cloister Garden

Hymn in Procession 154    All glory, laud, and honor    Valet will ich dir geben

Kyrie Eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Sequence Hymn 158    Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended     Herzliebster Jesu
Sung in unison; men sing verse 2, women sing verse 3, all sing remaining verses.

Offertory Anthem      Sanctus (St. Cecilia Mass)    Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Words from the Liturgy of the Eucharist
Soloist: Omar Mulero, tenor

Charles Gounod, because of his great popularity (especially from his operas) and his stylistic influence on the next generation of composers, was a towering figure in French music in the mid-nineteenth century. For two years he studied theology, but chose not to take holy orders; still, he was often referred to as “l’Abbé (Father) Gounod.” This mass setting is dedicated to Saint Cecilia (the patron saint of music), written in 1855.

Sanctus    Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei    Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Anthem     Crucifixus    Antonio Lotti (1667-1740)

Aside from two years in Dresden producing operas, Antonio Lotti spent his entire career at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, first as an alto singer, then as assisting assistant organist, assistant organist, main organist, and finally music director for the final four years of his life. Bach and Handel knew his work and may have been influenced by it. His 8-part setting of this brief text is justifiably famous, for its lavish dissonances and other expressive qualities so well suited to the event described.

Hymn in Procession 168    O sacred head, sore wounded    Passion Chorale

Assisting Organist: Kari Miller

 

Full Sermon Text:

I imagine you have seen many a hometown parade on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.  I imagine you have seen little kids pedaling bikes trimmed with streamers, school bands earnestly trying to keep in step, and veterans of assorted wars proud that they can still fit into their uniforms.  Along the parade route you see daddies holding toddlers on their shoulders, mothers pushing babies in strollers, grandmas and grandpas, some of them in wheelchairs, and teenagers flirting.  When you take in the breadth of humanity in such a parade, it can bring a lump to your throat.

 

All of life is also there in the parade of characters we will encounter in the Passion Story this morning.  We will hear of fickle crowds, threatened authorities, a compromising politician, cynics and scoffers, soldiers carrying out their orders and a few who hope for something better.  We will recognize these people because we know them from our own experience.  And some of them will even bear an uncomfortable resemblance to our own selves.

 

Take for instance the fickle crowds.  These are the same folks who welcomed Jesus only days before, shouting ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’  and waving their palm branches.  Now only a few days later they shout, “Let him be crucified!” and “Give us Barabbas instead!”  As we say those words, we might feel a shiver because the words cut close to the bone because we are little different from those people of old Jerusalem.  We come to church and sing hymns and recite creeds that proclaim Jesus as Lord and then go out to speak and act in ways that deny any allegiance to Jesus.

 

We will meet Pilate, the Roman governor.  Pilate sees very clearly that Jesus is innocent and yet Pilate is perfectly willing to let an innocent man be put to a horrible death in order to please the crowd, keep the peace, and stay in power.  We are familiar with politicians like Pilate who are willing to sacrifice their integrity just to stay in office.  But are not all of us like Pilate whenever we lie to keep our jobs, wash our hands of responsibility instead of doing what is right, remain silent to keep a friendship, or sacrifice the truth for the easy way out or because we are afraid?

 

Then we will hear about the soldiers who do the dirty work of nailing Jesus to the cross.  The soldiers are the men and women of every generation and place who carry out the orders of those in authority.  They are just doing their job.  And are we not just like the soldiers whenever under the guise of minding our own business we abdicate accountability for what goes on in the world around us?  “It’s not my problem what happens in Syria or in Hartford; it’s just the way it is.  I can’t worry about refugees or health care reform or global warming.  I just need to deal with my own life because that’s all I can handle.”  And every time we turn away to mind our own business, do we not pound the nails deeper into the One who died for the whole world?

 

We will encounter plenty of cynics in the Passion Story.  There are people who don’t believe that there is anything or anyone who is ultimately good or true.  We will glimpse such cynicism in Pilate, in the soldiers and bystanders at the cross who take pleasure in mocking Jesus’ supposed kingship.  They cannot or will not see in the suffering of the crucified Jesus anything more than a figure of failure, someone to be made fun of.  Such cynicism has not ended.  Even children mock the weak among us.

 

But we will also meet two characters in the Passion Story who seem to rise above the sordidness of other characters.  There is Pilate’s wife who begs her husband to have no part in Jesus’ condemnation.  And finally, there are the Roman centurion and his companions who have the story’s final line: “Truly this man was God’s Son.”

 

There is much in the parade of characters in the Passion Story to make us weep about the frailty of our faith, for we are little different from those folks in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.  But the Good News of Christ’s Passion Story is that God is right there in the midst of that parade of characters.  God loves the fickle crowds, Pontius Pilate, and his soldiers; God loves the mockers and the cynics and God loves us.  The question we are left with is what will we make of the Passion Story?  Is it merely the record of our failure, the same old endless parade of human foibles?  Or is the Passion Story amazing and life-changing Good News, Good News of how God so loves you and me and ALL the world?  If it is, then there is hope for ourselves and for the world and we have got a job to do. 

Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Adult Choir, sermon by Wesley Winterbottom.

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Voluntary    Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended    Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Brahms is hardly known for his organ music, and indeed he wrote very little of it – an hour’s worth in total, a mere five works. Yet the Lutheran music he grew up with exerted a major influence on him and his compositions. The 11 Chorale Preludes, Op. 122 constituted Brahms’s very last work, although they were not published until 1902. Among these is found this elegiac setting of the familiar hymn-tune Herzliebster Jesu, with musical suspensions reminiscent of Christ’s pain on the cross.

Kyrie eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Sequence Hymn 151    From deepest woe I cry to thee    Aus tiefer Not

Offertory Anthem    Out of the depths    Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)
Words: Psalm 130, found at Hymn 151

Sanctus     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Anthem    Lay up for yourselves    Ned Rorem (b. 1923)
Words: Matthew 6: 20-21

Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,
And where thieves do not break through and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Post-communion Anthem     Rejoice in the Lord always     Traditional
Children’s Choir

Hymn in Procession 665    All my hope on God is founded    Michael

The timeless words of this great hymn were written in 1680 by Joachim Neander (who also brought us Praise to the Lord, the almighty). The hymn’s popularity increased in the 20th century when its pairing with a tune Michael by the English composer Herbert Howells became more widely known. Howells’ son, Michael, born in 1925, had died in childhood in 1935 from spinal meningitis. It is believed that shortly after this, in 1936, Howells received a request for a new hymn tune in the morning’s post, and he is said to have written the tune, which he named after his late son, over breakfast.

Voluntary    Agincourt hymn    John Dunstable (c. 1390-1453)

Children’s Choir Directors: Daaé Ransom, Katherine Foust

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Choral Evensong Rite I at 5:00 p.m. sung by the Bishop’s Choir School of Springfield.

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Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs, sermon by the Rev’d Hope Eakins.

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Voluntary    Passacaglia: the prodigal son    James Biery (b. 1956)

A passacaglia is a musical work in which a single line of music is repeated over and over, usually in the bass, and continuous thematic development happens in the upper parts – much like the famous Pachelbel Canon. James Biery’s Passacaglia takes the listener through all of the emotions of the Prodigal Son story – questioning, loss, pain, quiet resolution, gently quoting the hymn-tune St. Columba at its conclusion.

Kyrie eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Psalm 23    Iona Chant, sung by the choir    arr. John Bell (b. 1949)
Soloist: Julia Foust, soprano

Sequence Hymn 645    The king of love my shepherd is    St. Columba

Offertory Anthem    Pilgrims’ Hymn    Stephen Paulus (1949-2014)
Words: Michael Dennis Brown

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.
Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.
Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.
Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

This work is from an opera titled The Three Hermits and is powerful in its subtlety. Paulus uses straightforward harmonic progressions and melodic writing in such a deft way as to point the listener not to the notes and rhythms but to the intent and message of the piece. This is one of the most stunningly effective (and affective) pieces in the choral repertoire. (Notes courtesy Randall Z. Stroope)

Sanctus     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Motet    Ave verum corpus    Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Ave, verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine, vere passum immolatum in Cruce pro homine,
Cujus latus perforatum unda fluxit sanguine, esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.

Hail, true body born of the Virgin Mary, who truly suffered, sacrificed on the Cross for man,
Whose pierced side overflowed with blood, Be for us a foretaste in the test of death.

Hymn in Procession    It is well with my soul    Ville du Havre

Voluntary    Chaconne    Louis Couperin (1626-1661)

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

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Voluntary    Choral Dorien    Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Kyrie eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Sequence Hymn 167    There is a green hill far away    Horsley

Offertory Anthem    Abide with me    William Henry Monk (1823-1889), arr. Moses Hogan (1957-2003)
Words: Henry Frances Lyte (1793-1897), found at Hymn 662

The setting of this timeless hymn by Moses Hogan melds his own harmonic language with the uncomplicated melody. Hogan masterfully drafted an arrangement using contemporary harmonies and stylistic devices such as sforzandos, suspensions, and dissonance resolving to consonance that effectively keep your ear interested and your heart totally engaged.

Sanctus     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Anthem    A Gaelic blessing    John Rutter (b. 1945)
Words: Ancient Gaelic rune

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the gentle night to you.
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.
Deep peace of Christ,
of Christ the light of the world to you.
Deep peace of Christ to you.

Communion Hymn 676    There is a balm in Gilead    Balm in Gilead

Hymn in Procession 522    Glorious things of thee are spoken    Austria

Voluntary   Litanies    Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Jehan Alain, a Parisian composer whose life was cut short when his plane was shot down during WWII, wrote this morning’s organ music. The opening voluntary is two haunting Chorals that explore modal tonalities. Litanies is a breathless and relentless prayer. The desperation of prayer in time of deep need is illustrated by a repetitive litany and rhythms written while traveling on a train – all building to a frenzy. Alain writes, “When the Christian soul in its despair can no longer find any new words to implore the mercy of God, it repeats the same incantation over and over again in blind faith. The limits of reality are surpassed and faith alone continues upward.”

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Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Youth and Adult Choirs, sermon by the Rev’d Susan Pinkerton.

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Service Music:

Voluntary    Final: Andante (Sonata VI)    Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Introit    Lift thine eyes (Elijah)    Felix Mendelssohn
Words: Psalm 121:1-3
Trio: Emily, Julia, & Katherine Foust

Lift thine eyes to the mountains, whence cometh help.
Thy help cometh from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
He hath said, thy foot shall not be moved, thy keeper will never slumber.

Kyrie eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Sequence Hymn 604    When Christ was lifted from the earth    San Rocco

Offertory Anthem    He, watching over Israel (Elijah)    Felix Mendelssohn
Words: Psalm 121:4,Psalm 138:7

He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps.
Shouldst thou, walking in grief, languish, he will quicken thee.

Sanctus     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Agnus Dei     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Anthem    God so loved the world (The Crucifixion)    John Stainer (1840-1901)
Words: John 3:16-17

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,
that whoso believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him should be saved.

John Stainer’s choral setting of the famous John 3:16-17 text is a standard of the choral repertoire, and part of a larger work, The Crucifixion. The full oratorio is still performed annually at St. Marylebone in London, which commissioned it in 1887. The short text of God so loved the world is so well-known because it explains the whole Easter story, encapsulating the essence of the Christian Gospel in under 30 words.

Hymn in Procession 473    Lift high the cross     Crucifer

Voluntary   Fugue (Sonata VI)    Felix Mendelssohn

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

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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)

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Imposition of Ashes at 7:00 p.m. with hymns and organ music, sermon by the Rev’d William Eakins.

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Voluntary   Prelude in E minor, BWV 555/1   Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Hymn 143    The glory of these forty days    Erhalt uns, Herr

Hymn 674    Forgive our sins as we forgive    Detroit

Voluntary    Fugue in E minor, BWV 555/2    Johann Sebastian Bach

 

Full Sermon Text:

Ash Wednesday, we call it: a solemn day of repentance when Christians go to church to begin the holy season of Lent by having a cross of ashes marked on their foreheads.  It is a messy, unattractive business – the gritty, burned residue of last year’s Palm Sunday branches smudged onto our brows, sometimes with bits of ash ending up on our noses.  Why do we do it?

 

After all, doesn’t Jesus tell us in today’s Gospel not to “look dismal like the hypocrites who disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others,” but instead to “wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who sees in secret?”  Jesus’ words remind us that the ashes we use today have no value in themselves, that wearing them will not make us holy, and that if we wear them to show the world that we are Christians, we are missing the point.

 

The point of the ashes is an in-your-face reminder of two facts that we would like to avoid, two truths that are as messy and dirty as the ashes.
First, the ashes confront us with the fact of our mortality, the fact that we are all going to die.  Today, we are not just told that, we have it rubbed in our faces.  The time is coming when our hearts will stop beating and our blood will go cold and the world will go on but we will not be there.  Whether we are cremated or laid in the finest coffin, we will return to the dust whereof we are made.  And from the vantage point of a priest who imposes the ashes, let me tell you that it is hard to do this, hard to say those words and trace the cross on the heads of children and the elderly and those whom I know are ill.  I want to soften the stark reality with pastoral words, with words of comfort, but there is no way to soften the fact that we will all die.  Life is short; life is precious.  Don’t waste it.

 

Secondly, the ashes are a symbol of our sinfulness, the ineffectiveness of our ability to please God, the incompleteness and frailty of our attempts to be good.  We have left undone the things we ought to have done and not done those things we ought to have done.  In a few minutes we will confess all the brokenness and deadness in our lives – our hypocrisy, frustration, envy, prejudice, dishonesty and our pollution of the creation.  There is no excuse for our sin, no way to explain it away, and no way to hide it from God.  “There is no health in us.”  The only way to wholeness is through our honesty and God’s grace.

 

Today’s ashes do mark us as mortal beings and as sinners, but they also mark us as God’s beloved children because they are not smeared on us randomly but traced deliberately in the sign of the cross.  There is all the difference in the world between smearing dirt on somebody’s face and marking a cross there.  A smudge of black ash and the words of death are signs of abasement and despair.  But the same words joined with the cross connect us with our Baptism when another cross was traced on our foreheads with the words, “You are marked as Christ’s own forever.”  And so forever after, we are not homeless wanderers on the face of the earth, but people named and claimed as God’s children.  As God’s beloved children, we can be confident that when we turn to God and confess our sins, God will welcome and forgive us and that when we die, we have nothing to fear.

 

The imposition of ashes is not the end of the liturgy.  There is one more thing to do.  After being marked with the ashes, we will go to the altar once again to receive the bread and to share the wine of Holy Communion, kneeling in recognition of our mortality and sinfulness and reaching out our hands outstretched to receive God’s very self poured out for us in love.

 

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” and remember that you are precious dust, dust into which God breathed life in the beginning of creation, dust so beloved that God came to be a part of us, embraced us, died for us, and despite our sin, returns again and again to love us.