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On the First Sunday after Christmas, we sang a service of Lessons and Carols with Holy Eucharist at the parish where I serve as organist and director of music.

I'm not breaking new ground here. Drop me a line (comment below) and let me know what lessons are used at your service. I'd love to know more about what the church is up to here.

I want to share some thoughts on this with you today for several reasons.

• On the 100th anniversary of Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, it seems worth recovering something of the spirit of the "more imaginative" worship of which Eric Milner-White was a proponent. I think too often, parishes echo the King's service a bit too closely, and the effect is one of pale imitation, rather than an authentic liturgical expression.
• In some places, there is a desire to do this service, but the thinking tends to be black or white: "we must do all nine lessons or not do the service at all!" This is wrong.
• In other places, the solution seems to be: "let's just do the whole thing before Christmas Eve!" And the service takes place on the Third or Fourth Sunday of Advent. This may be musically satisfying, but it is liturgical suspect.
• The propers for the First Sunday after Christmas can be integrated into this liturgy quite easily.
• With judicious selection of readings (we chose six), Holy Eucharist can be celebrated.
• Using Lessons and Carols during the Christmas Season helps to heighten the parish's sense of Christmastide celebration. Clergy like to point out that Christmas lasts for twelve days. If it does, we should find ways to make it festive.
• Many choirs learn a great deal of music for Christmas Eve. Why not get a bit more use out of it?
• There is no situation where this order could not be adapted for the musical resources available.

I hope this will be useful to many Episcopal (and other churches) that may wish to imitate what we have done.

Some background: St. Peter's, St. Louis, the parish where I work, had a long custom of Morning Prayer, but has in recent years moved to a near-weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist at the principal liturgy. When we conducted this service on Sunday morning three years ago, we were able to use the full nine lessons in a "Morning Prayer" mode. But, with the addition of Holy Eucharist, this was untenable.

Can I just pause here to say how much I admire (and envy) the custom of Christmas Lessons and Carols at Church of the Advent, Boston on New Year's Eve?

St. Peter's has full choral Lessons and Carols services for Advent and Epiphany, so this Christmas service is not as important as it may be in some places. It seemed good to us to be slightly experimental with this liturgy in that it does attempt to fully reconcile a service of Lessons and Carols with a celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and the result – I think – was very successful.

Here's a play-by-play of the service, which was preceded by the Prelude on "Irby" by David Willcocks (found in the Oxford Book of Christmas Organ Music).

• Processional Hymn: "Once in royal David's city"

  I do think it's good to begin this service with this hymn, though I have been known to use a different hymn. And I think it's good to have at least two stanzas sung from the choir where possible.

  I had toyed with the idea of the full soprano section singing the first verse in unison, but without the aid of a conductor, this proved unwise. There's nothing wrong with a solo voice, it seems!

  To add a bit of originality, I wrote my own descant for this tune.

  The textual differences between the Hymnal 1982 and the version found in Carols for Choirs 2 are maddening. Pick one and stick with it. (Note to self: take this advice next year.) When in doubt have the congregation sing one version and the choir another (haha! This is a joke!).

• Bidding Prayer

  Here is where "local interests" may appear, but seldom do. We added in the full name of our Diocese and made a couple other minor changes to eliminate gendered language.

  It is important to omit the Lord's Prayer from the Bidding, as it will be prayed during the service of Holy Communion.

  Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmastide our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels; in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger.

  Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child; and let us make St. Peter’s Church glad with our carols of praise: But first let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for peace and goodwill over all the earth; for unity and brotherhood concord within the Church he came to build, and especially in this Diocese of Missouri.

  And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry and the oppressed; the sick in body and in mind and them that mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; all who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

  Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one.

  The Almighty God bless us with his grace; Christ give us the joys of everlasting life; and to the fellowship of the citizens above may the King of Angels bring us all. Amen.

• Invitatory Carol

  This Invitatory Carol after the Bidding Prayer should be considered optional, I think. I had planned on one initially. But in the late stages of putting the service together, I decided to cut it.

  I'll note the full specifics of the music we used below.

  I referred to this as our "just add water" Lessons and Carols, since it was mainly music we had sung on Christmas Eve.

  But obviously the choice of music can make the service anywhere from exceedingly simple to ridiculously complex. A very satisfying order could be made of all hymns from the Hymnal 1982. One or two pieces should be sung after every lesson (one of which could be a hymn).

• First Lesson: Genesis 3: 8-15, 17-19

  This is the First Lesson in the King's service.

  In our service, these Lessons are read very much as they are every Sunday. They were from the NRSV, as they are every Sunday of the year. They were introduced with "A lesson from..." and concluded with "The Word of the Lord / Thanks be to God."

• Carol/Hymn
• Second Lesson: Isaiah 61:10-62:3

  This Lesson is the Old Testament Lesson for the First Sunday after Christmas in the Revised Common Lectionary. (It is the same set of lessons in all years, A, B and C!)

• Carol/Hymn
• Third Lesson: Luke 1: 26-35, 38

  This is the Fifth Lesson at King's.

• Carol/Hymn
• Fourth Lesson: Luke 2: 1, 3-7

  This is the Sixth Lesson at King's.

• Carol/Hymn
• Fifth Lesson: Luke 2: 8-16

  This is the Seventh Lesson at King's. We felt especially justified not including the Eighth Lesson since we get a hefty dose of it next Sunday when we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. (Our feelings on this might change when we don't celebrate Epiphany on Sunday.)

• Carol/Hymn
• Sixth Lesson: John 1: 1-18

  Not only is this the Ninth Lesson at King's, but it is also the Gospel Lesson for the First Sunday after Christmas. (Note that this lection is four verses longer than King's.)

  We had a Gospel procession during the hymn preceeding, and read this Gospel in the usual way for a service of Holy Eucharist. (Note: there is no sermon or creed.)

• Hymn 87: "Hark! the herald angels sing"
• I've included this hymn by name, since I think whatever is sung after the final lesson needs to be "big," as it is at King's. There's no need to throw "O come, all ye faithful" into this service necessarily (we used "Angels from the realms of glory" as the final hymn, and the roof lifted slightly), but I don't think you can go wrong singing Mendelssohn after the prologue to John's Gospel.
• Salutation and Collect of the Day

  In this case, the Collect for the First Sunday after Christmas.

• The Peace

  After which, the service procceds like a standard Holy Eucharist.

Final thoughts: we did not incorporate the Epistle Lesson for the First Sunday after Christmas. This is a very short lesson, and this would be easy to do. It does not seem desireable, however, to incorporate the proper Psalm in a service of this type.

I'm also aware that this activity flies in the face of the perscription NOT to replace the Word of God with a service of Lessons and Carols in the Book of Occasional Services. I think that guidance is, well, misguided.

As promised, here are the full details for the Service of Lessons and Carols and Holy Eucharist sung on the First Sunday after Christmas at St. Peter's, St. Louis.

• Processional Hymn: "Once in royal David's city"
• Bidding Prayer
• First Lesson: Genesis 3: 8-15, 17-19
• Carol: Adam lay ybounden - Boris Ord
• Second Lesson: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
• Hymn 89: "It came upon the midnight clear"
• Third Lesson: Luke 1: 26-35, 38
• Carol: The Cherry Tree Carol - arr. Stephen Cleobury
• Fourth Lesson: Luke 2: 1, 3-7
• Anthem: "Love came down at Christmas" - Leo Sowerby
• Fifth Lesson: Luke 2: 8-16
• Hymn 101: "Away in a manger"
• Sixth Lesson: John 1: 1-14
• Hymn 87: "Hark! the herald angels sing"
• Collect of the Day
• The Peace
• Offertory Anthem: "A Wonder of Angels" - Sasha Johnson Manning (St. Peter's commission)
• Eucharistic Prayer, Sanctus, etc.
• Communion Carol: Sans Day Carol - arr. John Rutter
• Communion Hymn 104: "A stable lamp is lighted"
• Postcommunion Prayer
• Blessing
• Hymn 93: "Angels from the realms of glory"
• Dismissal
• Organ Voluntary: In dulci jubilo, BWV 729 - J. S. Bach

Labels: Communion, Lessons and Carols, St. Peter's (St. Louis)

It is only speculation, but I venture the opinion that the immense popularity of the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, (when compared with the popularity of sung evensong anywhere) arose from the fact that the invention of this service aroused a response through its paradoxical quality. Here was a cathedral foundation singing not Stanford in C or Wood in the Phrygian mode but the earthy, secular, cheerful, friendly songs of Christmas. The collision of this earthiness and familiarity with cathedral remoteness and beauty caused a minor explosion in the affections of the British public. It is interesting to observe how, with the gradual rising of the standard of that choir to something as near perfection in its own line as mortals dare approach, there has been, over the fifty years of its acceptance as a national institution, a gradual de-sacralizing of the music. One by one the vestiges of cathedral romanticism have been pared away—Walford Davies's "O little town," for example, gave place to a Bach recitative and chorale, and this in turn gave place to the austere medieval hymn "Corde natus." Carols of the F-sharp major Pettman school have gradually made way for the fresh simplicity of Berkeley's "I sing of a maiden," the good-humored asperities of Mathias' "Nowell," and the gaunt medieval coolness of "There is no rose." King's College Chapel will remain romantic as long as it stands; even Thomas Tallis will sound romantic there as long as people think of the place with the affection they show at present.

Routley, Erik. Church Music and the Christian Faith. Agape, 1978, pp. 47-48.