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This is, by my count, the sixth year in a row that the choir of St. Thomas, New York has sung Kenneth Leighton's Missa Christi at the Festal Eucharist on the Last Sunday after Pentecost (called "Christ the King" Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary"). It is a splendid piece of music, and I am very glad that it has entered the repertoire there.

The Missa Christi, Kenneth Leighton's last choral work, was commissioned in 1988 by my mentor at Christ Church, Indianapolis, Frederick Burgomaster. I vividly remember learning the accompaniment to the Gloria for my first concert at Christ Church (I was the Assistant Organist there 2006-2010). It was a daunting, but very fruitful task. Other than the stately Solus ad victimam, I had never before accompanied any Leighton, so this was a real baptism by fire. But it led me to value this work and many others by Leighton. His compositions are marked by beautifully craftmanship, oozing with his own modern and stunningly lyrical counterpoint.

The brief organ conclusion to the Gloria reveals at the last second an untold harmonic dimension -- another world lurking beneath the surface, like the earth dropping out from beneath your feet. It makes you re-evaluate everything you've just heard and makes you wonder about what is to come.

But this year, I'm thinking especially of the bass solo that begins the Benedictus. This kinky descending line was written with special intention for a bass in the choir of Christ Church: Tom Woody. Tom died this fall.

Tom was a integral to the music at Christ Church for decades, first as a choirboy and later as a bass in the choir. And I love knowing that this little piece of the Missa Christi inspired by him, crafted by Leighton, lives on in the service of the church and in the praise of almighty God.

Father of all, we pray to you for Tom, and for all those whom we love but see no longer. Grant to them eternal rest. Let light perpetual shine upon them. May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Labels: Christ Church Cathedral (Indianapolis), Leighton, St Thomas (New York)

Advent wreaths, are one of those lovely little ways to mark the Advent season. Their light, increasing as the time draws on toward the Feast of the Nativity marks our waiting as a fruitful one – one coming to completion in a full circle of light.

They are, however, not really necessary to the liturgy, kind of made up, and relatively new to Anglicanism.

Now, thanks to painstaking research, Sinden.org is pleased to present the long-lost "Advent Wreath Rubrics" from the 1663 Book of Common Prayer

1. Advent Wreaths must be lit sunward, like as Christ, who, oft being compared as to the sun, and not the moon, cometh from the east. Wreaths must not lit withershins. For this reason, the Advent Wreath must never be placeth on the equator.

   [This means that Advent Wreaths should be lit clockwise]

2. The Advent Wreath is round, nor of any other shape. The Wreath shall be of parallel orientation to the ground, nor of any other orientation to the surface of God's green earth.
3. There shall be four candles in the Advent Wreath; no more, and no less. Four shall be the number, and the number shall be four. The white candle, which art sometimes useth, is an aberration unto the LORD.
4. The candles, of which -- may I remind you -- are four, may be blue or violet, but the third candle (lit sunward) shall be rose to match the color of the rose vestments of "Gaudete" Sunday.
5. Cutesy nicknames for the candles art right out. The LORD will not holdeth him guiltless who useth cutesy nicknames for the candles.