Worship Schedule:
10:00am in the Sanctuary and on YouTube
Due to the pandemic the need for food is increasing daily. In addition, the annual Letter Carriers Food Drive (Stamp Out Hunger) which normally produces more than 50,000 lbs. of donated food has been canceled which makes the need even greater.
AFAC needs canned vegetables, cereal (low sugar), canned tuna, canned tomato products (stewed, diced, paste), and peanut butter (in plastic jars).
Contributions can be dropped off in the Narthex.
Claudia Frances Ibotson Hernaman’s hymn, “Lord, who throughout these forty days,” signals the beginning of Lent and is often sung during Ash Wednesday services or throughout the season of Lent. Forty is a number with special biblical significance. It rained for forty days and nights when the earth was overtaken by floodwaters, and Noah waited another forty days before opening the window of the Ark. Israel wandered in the desert for forty years. Jesus was seen on earth following the resurrection for forty days. In this case, Christ’s forty days in the wilderness provides the primary paradigm for the forty days of Lent.
Claudia Hernaman was born in Surrey, England, and died in Brussels, Belgium. She was the daughter of an Anglican minister, and she married a minister who also served as a school inspector. Like so many other women hymn writers of the nineteenth century, she was devoted to the religious education of children. Toward this end, she wrote 150 hymns in several collections, some original and some translated from Latin. "Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days" appeared first in her Child’s Book of Praise; A Manual for Devotion in Simple Verse (1873). It was not included in hymnals, however, until the mid-twentieth century, when it appeared in the Irish Church Hymnal (1960) and Hymns for Church and School (1964).
By the 1970s, “Lord, who throughout these forty days” was a standard hymn in most hymnals in the United States. It is based on the account of the temptation of Jesus found in three Gospels -- Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13. As is the case with many hymns, Christ’s life becomes a model for how his followers should confront temptation. The first two lines of the stanzas focus on a response of Christ when he faced temptation; the last two lines encourage Christians to model their behavior on Christ’s example. This is a familiar pattern for children’s hymns from the days of Isaac Watts. It obviously strikes a chord with adult believers as well. The classic themes of the Lenten season are presented in the stanzas of this hymn: fasting and prayer (stanza one); struggle with Satan and sin (stanza two); dying to self, meditation on scripture (stanza three); penitence (stanza four); looking toward the joy of Easter (stanza five).
MORNING SONG is a folk tune that has some resemblance to the traditional English tune for "Old King Cole." The tune appeared anonymously in Part II of John Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music (1813). In the original harmonization the melody was in the tenor. The tune is also known as CONSOLATION (and KENTUCKY HARMONY), its title in Ananias Davisson's Kentucky Harmony (1816), where it was set to Isaac Watts' morning song, "Once More, My Soul, the Rising Day."—C. Michael Hawn
A gently flowing anthem on this prayer by Reginald Heber asking Christ to look on us with mercy and to feed us with his grace. Reginald Heber was born in 1783 into a wealthy, educated family. He was a bright youth, translating a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven, entering Oxford at 17, and winning two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation he became rector of his father's church in the village of Hodnet near Shrewsbury in the west of England where he remained for 16 years. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and worked tirelessly for three years until the weather and travel took its toll on his health and he died of a stroke. Most of his 57 hymns, which include "Holy, Holy, Holy," are still in use today.
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Robert Benson began organ studies in high school with William Lemmens and continued at the University of Kansas with Richard Gayhart. Since the age of sixteen he has served as organist and/or choirmaster at a number of churches and as church musician, choral conductor and composer in the Cincinnati area.
Bread of the world in mercy broken,
wine of the soul in mercy shed,
by whom the words of life were spoken,
and in whose death our sins are dead.
Look on the heart by sorrow broken,
look on the tears by sinners shed;
and be thy feast to us the token
that by thy grace our souls are fed.
Sylvia Berg Oines, a native of the Pacific Northwest, has taught, performed and studied in the Seattle area for 30 years. As a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education, Sylvia has taught both in public and private schools and currently serves as Organist for Bethany Presbyterian Church on Queen Anne Hill. Previous positions include general music instructor at King's Schools and Organist/Youth Choir Director at Bethel Lutheran Church of Shoreline. Areas of special interest and study include arranging hymn accompaniments for organ, choral arranging and jazz piano.
“On Eagle's Wings" is a devotional Hymn composed by Michael Joncas. Joncas wrote the piece in either 1976 or 1979, after he and his friend, Douglas Hall, returned from a meal to learn that Hall's father had died of a heart attack. has become popular as a contemplative hymn at Catholic masses as well as at Protestant services of worship.
Dr. Barbara Harbach, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emerita of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has a large catalog of works. She is also involved in the research, editing, publication and recording of manuscripts of eighteenth-century keyboard composers, as well as historical and contemporary women composers.
A fine hymn for Transfiguration is “Jesus on the mountain peak” (ELW 317). Its author, Brian Wren, a minister of the United Reformed Church in Great Britain who now resides in the United States, has crafted many hymns that exemplify the need for worship materials that speak inclusively about the Christian community and expansively about God. In Wren’s Transfiguration hymn, all who worship have witnessed the transfigured Jesus. This is the last time until Easter that we sing “Alleluia.”
Composed in 1865, when Fauré was just twenty, it’s very much a precursor to the Requiem, with similarly lush, intense choral writing layered on top of sparse accompaniment. As with the Requiem, it takes a religious text as its inspiration – in this case, words by the French playwright Jean Racine.
Fauré studied composition at the École Niedermeyer in Paris, and submitted this piece for the school’s composition competition. He won first prize and his success spurred him on to write more religious music.
Despite coming in for some criticism during his lifetime for a failure to embrace larger-scale works, Fauré stuck to his guns and resolutely refused to move away from chamber music and elegant choral miniatures. While the Cantique de Jean Racine is only five minutes long, it’s none the worse for that, and it confirms Fauré’s status not just as an outstanding young musician but as one of France’s most influential and important composers.
The text is a loose translation of a Latin hymn for Tuesday matins. The work has also been arranged for strings and organ, and it was in that format that it was first performed in August 1886.
O Word, equal of the Most High,
Our sole hope, eternal day of earth and the heavens,
We break the silence of the peaceful night.
Divine Saviour, cast Thine eyes upon us!
Shed the light of Thy mighty grace upon us.
Let all Hell flee at the sound of Thy voice.
Dispel the slumber of a languishing soul
That leads it to the forgetting of Thy laws!
O Christ, be favorable unto this faithful people
Now gathered to bless Thee.
Receive the hymns it offers unto Thine immortal glory
And may it return laden with Thy gifts.
The tune name ALLEIN GOTT derives from the opening words of Decius's rhymed text in High German. The tune was first published in Georg Schumann's Geistliche Lieder. Decius adapted the tune from a tenth-century Easter chant for the Gloria text, beginning at the part accompanying the words "et in terra pax. . . " ("and on earth, peace. . . "). Because the Gloria became part of the ordinary (the unvarying parts) of the Roman Catholic Mass, there are many choral settings of the Latin text. Anglican composers have set the English text in their "great services," while Lutheran composers have written various chorale preludes on ALLEIN GOIT for organ. Bach used the hymn in cantatas 85, 104, 112, and 128 and composed about ten preludes on the tune.
Andreas Armsdorff was a German composer and organist. He was born in Mühlberg, near Gotha, and studied music and law. At some point in his early life he moved to nearby Erfurt where he may have studied with Johann Pachelbel.
Born in London in 1880, Willan was a prolific composer of some 800 works, including operas, symphonies, concerti and keyboard music. As a teenager, he gained both ARCO and FRCO diplomas and for 10 years, held the position of organist at St John the Baptist Church, Holland Road, London. In 1913, Willan emigrated to Canada, where he lectured in music at Toronto University. In 1921, he became precentor at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, where he remained until his death.
Willan left a substantial body of organ music, and this Prelude on the tune 'Deo Gracias' is the fourth piece of the second set of hymn preludes, first published in 1957. Willan prefaces the score with the hymn tune written out (dated 1415) and in his harmonization, there is a robustness and dignified sense of drive as the music unfolds, working up to a powerful climax on full organ. In 3/4 time, the music is not dissimilar in spirit to Whitlock's 'Allegro risoluto' from the Plymouth Suite, and it would be interesting to know if Willan was influenced by the rhythmic energy and restrained grandeur of Whitlock's style.
My birthday is February 14, Valentine's Day. This year it was also Ash Wednesday. I don’t normally think about the full circle of life on my birthday, however this trio had me reflecting quite differently this year.
We don’t know the time for when we will be born and we don’t know the hour when God will call us home. It just happens, in His time. What we decide to do during that time is what matters most.
Sunday, January 14 was our service day. Every year over the Martin Luther King weekend the children and youth come together to work on a service pro-ject. This year our focus was on service to others.
Our Confirmation and High school youth came together and made 24 loaves of Communion Bread. It’s great when our youth can come together and strengthen their bonds and work on a project that benefits others. In this case it benefits our church. With 14 youth in attendance, the kitchen looked pretty clean when it was all over. Thanks to the adults that mixed and mingled with the youth as they were mixing the dough for our Communion Bread and mingling among friends.
