Hymn of the Day: My Soul Proclaims Your Greatness ELW 251
Text: With One Voice, 1995, based on the Magnificat
Tune: KINGSFOLD, English folk tune; arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872-1958

This is a paraphrase of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, in Luke 1:46-55, with its characteristically prophetic motifs: dashing the proud, exposing scheming hearts, and casting aside the ruthless.

Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs sic: English County Songs, an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar's "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say". Shaped in classic rounded bar form (AABA), KINGSFOLD has modal character and is both dignified and strong.

Offertory Music: Thanks to Suzanne Tsitsibelis for her efforts renewing the Bell Choir!

Communion Anthem: “Adam Lay Ybounden” Robert Powell (1932)

Adam lay ybounden relates the events of Genesis, Chapter 3. In medieval theology, Adam was supposed to have remained in bonds with the other patriarchs in the limbus patrum from the time of his death until the crucifixion of Christ (the "4000 winters"). The second verse narrates the Fall of Man following Adam's temptation by Eve and the serpent. John Speirs suggests that there is a tone of astonishment, almost incredulity in the phrase "and all was for an apple", noting "an apple, such as a boy might steal from an orchard, seems such a little thing to produce such overwhelming consequences. Yet so it must be because clerks say so. It is in their book (probably meaning the Vulgate itself)."

The third verse suggests the subsequent redemption of man by the birth of Jesus Christ by Mary, who was to become the Queen of Heaven as a result, and thus the song concludes on a positive note hinting at Thomas Aquinas' concept of the "felix culpa" (blessed fault). Paul Morris suggests that the text's evocation of Genesis implies a "fall upwards”. Speirs suggests that the lyric retells the story in a particularly human way: "The doctrine of the song is perfectly orthodox...but here is expressed very individually and humanly. The movement of the song reproduces very surely the movements of a human mind."

Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond,
Four thousand winter thought he not too long;
And all was for an apple, and apple that he took,
As clerkes finden written in their book.
Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been,
Ne had never Our Lady ybeen heavene Queen.
Blessed be the time that apple taken was:
Therfore we moun singen: Deo Gratias.

Opening Voluntary: “Gabriel’s Message” Paul Manz (1919-2009)

Gabriel's Message" or "The angel Gabriel from heaven came" is a Basque Christmas folk carol about the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary by the archangel Gabriel that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ the Son of God. It quotes the biblical account of the Annunciation (Luke, Chapter 1, verses 26–38) and Mary's Magnificat(Luke 1.46–55) with the opening lines:

The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame;
"All hail", said he, "thou lowly maiden Mary,most highly favored lady." Gloria.

A Basque folk carol, originally based on Angelus ad virginem, a 13th or 14th Century Latin carol, it was collected by Charles Bordes and then paraphrased into English by Sabine Baring-Gould, who wrote several novels and hymns (including 'Onward Christian soldiers’) and had spent a winter as a boy in the Basque country. The tune is called "Gabriel's Message". An arrangement by Edgar Pettman was first published in his 1892 book Modern Christmas Carols. The use of the lilting phrase "Most highly favored lady" made it the favorite carol of Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford.

Closing Voluntary:“Savior of the Nations, Come” Helmut Walcha (1907-1991)

Helmut Walcha is mainly known as a great interpreter of the organ works of J. S. Bach. His recordings are celebrated. His registration and articulation are legendary for bringing clarity of line to works that, up to that time, many organists had played for the effect of massive smears of sound. Walcha, who became blind as a teenager, relied on perfect pitch and a practically phonographic memory to learn Bach's music rapidly, by heart. It is clear from his compositions that he also had a very powerful musical imagination.

In "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland" (Savior of the Nations, Come), Walcha’s use of a pedal ostinato anchoring a canon at the interval of a 2nd with the title tune sounding above it all, blends into a memorable effect.