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Jessica French’s setting of the St. John Passion premieres at Trinity, Wall Street, this Good Friday.

“There’s so much pain in this story,” [French] says. For her, the Renaissance pleasantness of the Victoria music never conveyed that brutality. “I wanted to reflect the text accurately, to channel all the intense things that are happening to Jesus through my writing. What came out sometimes surprised me. To some small degree, we all experience the betrayal and grief and anger that Jesus did, and whether we are composing or listening, we bring those feelings — which are only accentuated by our times — to the story. The music I write can’t help but be affected by how difficult and divided the world is.”

Breakey, Charlene. “Trinity’s New Music Passion”. trinitychurchnyc.org, 10 April 2025.

Labels: Good Friday, Holy Week, Jessica French, Passion, Trinity (New York)

Something has been gnawing at me through Lent, and now that we're finally on the other side of Easter it's time to speak it aloud:

Did we overdo it?

I think 99% of Episcopal churches are entirely closed today, the day after Easter. And this is probably as it should be.

We had a full Holy Week with all the proper services: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter. And we even did a few extra ones (Tenebrae! Stations of the Cross! Holy Communion with Autoharp, or whatever instrument we happened to think would work best!).

But more than that, many places that do not otherwise have them will implement daily Eucharists in Holy Week.

And this seems really good until today. The problem, you see, is this: the Collect for Monday in Easter Week.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we who celebrate 
with reverence the Paschal feast may be found worthy to 
attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one 
God, now and for ever. Amen.

And it's not just this one. There's a collect for every day in Easter Week. That's because Easter Week is a Big Deal.

Easter is not just one day; it's a season. And the Church, in her wisdom, seems to want it to begin with a great big week of celebration.

So why do parish churches that go out of their way to offer daily Eucharists in Holy Week fail to do so in Easter Week? Am I missing something? (And yes, I know there are places that admirably celebrate Holy Communion every day.)

Where are our big festivals this week? Concerts? Evensongs? Special services? Puppet shows? Anything?!

“Easter Week finally rolls around and what do our churches do? Well, the first day we close, and then for the rest of the week? Not much.”

We say that we are an "Easter People" and yet Easter Week finally rolls around and what do our churches do? Well, the first day we close, and then for the rest of the week? Not much.

It's pretty quiet around the church the week after Easter Day. Choirs have the week off and typically just show up to sing some less demanding music the following Sunday. The clergy take a holiday if they can, and parishioners generally know better than to ask a lot of a church staff that has given 110% and left it all out on the field.

So, while I applaud our collective obsession with Holy Week, I have to ask again: was it too much? If we truly have nothing left for Easter Week and the Easter season then I have to posit that it was.

A few years ago I quoted N. T. Wright when I shared the 2014 "Easter from Kings" made-for-TV liturgy.

"We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity… This is our greatest day. We should put the flags out."

And this is what has been gnawing at me. What are we doing to celebrate Eastertide? I mean really celebrate it? Note that Lent is only 40 days. Easter is longer, and it's longer for a reason.

It is the week of weeks. It is roughly one-seventh of the year. It is the Church's sabbath festival.

This and the above quotation by N. T. Wright come from his Surprised by Hope

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

…Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?

"N. T. Wright on Easter". The Rabbit Room.

So did we really overdo it? Or does the Church just need to work harder to reclaim an "Eastertide imagination"?

Update from 18 April: more thoughts along these lines from the Rev. Canon Charles LaFond: imbalance - Easter

Labels: Easter, Holy Week, N. T. Wright

“By the reader's desk the Paschal candle is burning; its light falls upon the pages of the Old Testament. Christ casts his light into the darkness of the past, and shows everywhere the saving design of his agapé, which held man from the beginning in its hands, held him fast, and is today fulfilled.”

A. Löhr, The Great Week, p. 162. Quoted in Kirby, Mark Daniel. "The Proper Chants of the Paschal Triduum in the Gradual Romanum: A Study in Liturgical Theology"

“The Paschal night is in a very special sense the Church's bridal feast. All the bridal and marriage images which have accompanied us full of promise since Epiphany find their completion today. .. . It is night; the bridegroom is here. He comes to the house of his betrothed, and he finds her watching. She has not slept all the while he was out in the tomb. Now he has come back, alive. His locks stream the dew of the night. . . . Until now she has only seen him through the window and blinds of the prophets' dark sayings and images. Now he has walked in from the night's dark pass, and overpowered every image and every prophecy with the glory of his resurrection.”

Ibid. 178-179.

“And here now when everything we have seen and felt receives its last measure of reality in the sacrifice, here is time and place for the true Paschal hymn. All the chant of the past days, all the overpowering force of the Night Offices dissolve into the one first note of joy which nothing and no one can imitate; it must be heard and where possible sung with one's own voice if one is to know fully what resurrection is: the alleluia of Easter night, the first after long weeks of fasting and still communion, after the days of mystical suffering and death with the Lord. Yet we are not to look for a loud shout of joy here; that is not the spirit of Christian Easter. This alleluia rises with a slow movement; it rises above the grave of Adam, and it has the blood of Christ on its wings. It is the marriage song of the Paschal night, which will grow slowly bright when it meets the day of resurrection. But these are only words. The first alleluia of the Paschal night is a mystery, unutterable like all mysteries.”

Ibid. 189.

Labels: Easter, Holy Week, The Great Vigil of Easter

The More Earnest Prayer of Christ
Scott Cairns

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly...
—Luke 22:44

His last prayer in the garden began, as most
as his prayers began—in earnest, certainly, 
but not without distraction, an habitual...what?

Distance? Well, yes, a sort of distance, or a mute
remove from the genuine distress he witnessed
in the endlessly grasping hands of multitudes

and, often enough, in his own embarrassing
circle of intimates. Even now, he could see 
these where they slept, sprawled upon their robes or wrapped

among the arching olive trees. Still, something new, 
unlikely, uncanny was commencing as he spoke.
As the divine in him contracted to an ache,

a throbbing in the throat, his vision blurred, his voice
grew thick and unfamiliar; his prayer — just before
it fell to silence — became uniquely earnest.

And in that moment — perhaps because it was so
new — he saw something, had his first taste of what
he would become, first pure taste of the body, and the blood.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-cairns/easter-and-pascha_b_1410291.html

Labels: Holy Week, poetry

Today the Church . . . celebrates “the day of the tradition,” the consecrated day on which our Lord was handed over, and on which he handed on the mystery rite of his body and blood. The words tradere and traditio glide back and forth between the light and darkness of their two meanings when the liturgy is being celebrated.

In either case the word refers to one “giving.” Trado means I give something away wholly, and hand it out of my possession to another. . . .

Such a thing was entrusted to the disciples, given by God himself: Jesus the God-man and in him God bodily present, the good news of the Father's agapé, and through Jesus—this is the burden of today's traditio which is also given to us through the apostles, the first fruits of the Church—the mysterium of the eucharistic bread and wine, Christ's flesh and blood, the sacrifice which reconciles and gives us life, the food which makes us immortal.

A. Löhr, The Great Week, p. 89-90. Quoted in Kirby, Mark Daniel. "The Proper Chants of the Paschal Triduum in the Gradual Romanum: A Study in Liturgical Theology"

Labels: Communion, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday

I've been enjoying a new podcast from the Diocese of Missouri called "Jesus Hacked: storytelling faith". The most recent episode is an interview with the Bishop of the Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Wayne Smith by Shug Goodlow, the head verger at Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis.

The introduction to this episode made reference to the bishop's interest in fountain pens, shape note singing, and Holy Week – all interests I share!

So I was listening rather eagerly as I heard this:

Wayne Smith: ...This is something I hear people who come to the Episcopal
Church from other traditions ... I hear them say it all the time, "I
worshiped there one time, and thought this is home. This is where I have
belonged all my life, and I just didn't know it. Just didn't know it existed."

Shug Goodlow: You came home without realizing that you weren't home before.

Wayne Smith: That's just it.

I was raised in the Presbyterian Church, and I think it was my freshman year in college when I decided that I really should go to church on Easter (not having started working in one at that point, and doing the typical college student thing of just being a little too lazy to really attend church). And so I did.

I went to Christ Church in Oberlin, Ohio because my friend Tim played the organ there, and I knew the music would be good.

I should back up to say that I had attended an Episcopal Church once or twice before, and I had even played at one (St. Andrew's, Pearland, Tex., if you must know). But the day that I played my first Episcopal service I was too apprehensive about hitting all my cues right to really notice anything about the liturgy. There was also something too "new" about my previous visits to Episcopal Churches, but at least I had been, and I think this must have paved the way for what happened on Easter.

And what happened that Easter at Christ Church, Oberlin? I came home.

I felt, just as the Bishop describes, like the Episcopal Church was where I belonged all my life. I just didn't really know that it existed.

I remember a lot about that first Episcopal Easter liturgy. I remember singing the Robert Powell Gloria. I remember how lovely and tuneful it was, and how it felt so good to sing surrounded by sound from the rest of the congregation.

I remember how many books there were to juggle (there were a lot).

But the thing I remember most is coming forward to receive Holy Communion. There was something that clicked then. It was emotional, or spiritual, or whatever you want to call it. Meeting the Risen Christ in that Sacrament within that Liturgy within that Parish – that was an Easter that I will always remember.

It was Christ who welcomed me home.

Since then, of course, I've had the incredible good fortune to pursue a career as a church musician, working mostly in the Episcopal Church. And one of the best parts of this liturgical Christian tradition, as far as I'm concerned, is the Easter Vigil (called "The Great Vigil of Easter," by the Book of Common Prayer).

Wayne Smith: People who know me, and this is part of my, shall we say, 
eccentricity, the Great Vigil of Easter is my favorite service of the whole year. 
Simply to sit in darkness and hear the reading of the Old Testament scriptures 
that seem like they're never going to end, to let the Scriptures overwhelm my
awareness even to the point of boredom. 

I love the Easter Vigil.

There is something incredibly moving about being present for the very beginning of something: in this case, the very beginning of Easter. The very beginning of the new fire, newly kindled (from flint!). The brand new Paschal Candle (this year's will be marked 2017, of course). The Exsultet. Singing in the dark. I could go on...

The Easter Vigil was part of my inculcation into the Episcopal Church beginning in 2003. And I participated as a musician in the Easter Vigil every year until 2015. Last year I had the great fortune simply to attend one, and I intend to do so again this year.

My understanding is that the Vigil I will attend this year will include all of the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures (there are nine). This will be the first time that I have ever been present for a "full" Vigil where nothing is omitted.

Wayne Smith: Shape Note music is, for those who have not heard it or 
encountered it or sung it themselves, really it's a participatory sport. No one 
wants to watch this thing, or listen to it, without joining it. They're great, 
big, open chords. The music is unadorned. It's almost shameful to sing with
vibrato, for example. It's loud. It's very forgiving, as is the community.
And, it's gorgeous. My experience of Sacred Harp is like crawling into the
sound box of a cello. Not just hearing the music, but feeling the music all
around and know that I am part of that music, also.

Good congregational singing must feel a bit like singing Shape Note music – an experience I confess I've never had.

Earlier this year I went down the rabbit hole on YouTube exploring the Shape Note repertory to research a few seconds of music I was going to direct for a recording.

It really is marvelous, and I know that participating in it first hand must be even better.

The videos that really interested me were from the Missouri State Sacred Harp Convention, all of which seems to be on YouTube.

You see the assembly sitting in their sections, all facing in. A number is called out. Someone steps forward to lead. And the song erupts. It's impressive.

I came across all this in looking for a smidgen of appropriate choral music to sing on this recording before Zachary Wadsworth's splendid Variations on an Old American Tune.

Episcopalians know this hymn tune from Hymn 304, "I come with joy to meet my Lord". Most everybody else knows it from Ken Burns's documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

This tune comes from the Shape Note tradition. What we know as LAND OF REST takes its name from the words of an older Shape Note hymn: "O Land of Rest, for thee I sigh!"

Shape Notes, the Easter Vigil, and finding a home in Episcopal liturgy. These all struck me as significant things to think about this Holy Week.

Getting lost in the sound, the singing, the story.

Finding a place to dwell and realizing that you were always meant to be there.

And I have to tell you that the first version of that Shape Note tune I found has a wonderful name:

Longing for Home.

I come with joy to meet my Lord,
forgiven, loved, and free,
in awe and wonder to recall
his life laid down for me.

Hymn 304 (Hymnal 1982): "I come with joy to meet my Lord" LAND OF REST

Labels: Christ Church (Oberlin OH), Diocese of Missouri, Holy Week, Hymn 304, Shape Note, Wayne Smith

I have an unpopular opinion: the "community theatre" style reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday and Good Friday is an idea whose time is past.

Hey, remember the last time I had an unpopular opinion? Old 100th is really new again

And let's get something out of the way right now: the phony idea that reading the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday is a new innovation that came with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It's not. The Passion according to Matthew (xxvii. 1.) was printed for the "Sunday next before Easter" since the 1786 proposed Book of Common Prayer.

Only the name "Palm Sunday" is new, appearing in the 1928 book.

Reading the Passion on the Sunday before Easter follows the pattern set forth in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Follow the publication history further back and you find that in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer the previous chapter of Matthew was also read, which is very like the "full" lection of Matt. 26:14-27:66 given in the modern Revised Common Lectionary.

So when I hear complaint about reading the Passion on Palm Sunday, or see places that shift or eliminate it, I just have to shake my head. For Anglicans the Scripture and Tradition we have on this day should account for something. Shift the Passion out of the traditional location for the Gospel reading and you have placed undue focus on the triumphal entry; eliminate it and you have a very wobbly stool indeed.

The Passion is part and parcel of what Palm Sunday is about, and it is the day that we incorporate this rich narrative into our weekly cycle of Sunday celebrations.

Some clergy have told me that they remember the Passion being read on the Fifth Sunday in Lent and that Palm Sunday was reserved exclusively for the Palm Gospel.

I don't believe it.

If this was done anywhere there was certainly no provision for it in the Prayer Book, and furthermore, either this actual violation or the fabricated memory of it seems to come from a misunderstanding of "Passion Sunday" which is, let's face it, a problematic term.

It was the '70s, man. This custom was probably more influenced by Godspell than the Gospel.

Historically, it seems to have been used for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, which was the start of Passiontide. But Passiontide didn't really signify anything other than the time to veil the crosses (they were not veiled for the whole season of Lent as they are in many places today).

Nowadays, most places have never even heard of Passiontide (the only relic of it in the 1979 Prayer Book may be that second proper preface for Lent). Use the term "Passion Sunday" today and it will be assumed that you are referring to the official 1979 Prayer Book title for Palm Sunday: "The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday".

So if the custom of reading the Passion Gospel on Palm Sunday is not new, why did the 1979 Prayer Book provide the rather strange permission for it to be read by various and sundry persons?

It was the '70s, man. This custom was probably more influenced by Godspell than the Gospel.

But, I have to ask the question: is it really worth doing something with this Gospel that we do with no other Gospel?

The rubric, which appears both for Palm Sunday and Good Friday reads: "The Passion Gospel may be read or chanted by different persons. Specific roles may be assigned to different persons, the congregation taking the part of the crowd."

Are we really comfortable with the words of the Gospel being read liturgically by lay people on Palm Sunday? On Good Friday? On any day? Why? I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument here, and neither is the Prayer Book. But why these days? Why any day?

From personal experience I can say I've never really been satisfied with a single rendition of the Passion that I've heard read in a dramatic fashion with a large cast. I'm referring to what I think is typically done in most places: separate parts for the narrator, Jesus, Pilate, various others, and the congregation taking the part of the crowd.

I know that many people find it meaningful to shout "Crucify him!" at the appropriate points. I suppose I did too when I was younger (we did this in my Presbyterian Church growing up). But now I just find it kind of … I don't know … gimmicky.

With a large cast (who, let's be honest, usually haven't rehearsed it all together and are just going through it for the first time in the service) there are the various hesitations, miscues, mispronunciations, questionable inflections, amplification problems, etc. The process of hearing the Gospel this way, at least from my perspective, diminishes the prominence of the words.

I'm not trying to single anyone out. This has been the practice in most of the Episcopal liturgies I have experienced. And, each time, for me, the result has fallen flat.

When we want the words to be heard, we shouldn't distract the focus of the congregation by getting them to wonder about who is reading them. As the Rev. Christopher Arnold put it on Twitter, "We're remembering, not reenacting. It's a fine line, but even [on] Palm Sunday we're celebrating the resurrection."

I cannot conclude this meandering essay without mentioning that for the five years I served at St. Paul's, Richmond the Gospel was sung in choral settings on Palm Sunday. This was a deeply embedded and dearly held custom at this parish, and it was one that the Choir took with great seriousness. The hymn before the Passion always took on extra significance as the Choir would form up for procession to the Chancel steps from which the Gospel would be proclaimed.

And while I don't want to advocate for choral settings of the Passion in every place, I do want to point out that the custom of singing the Gospel is an ancient one. Before any choral settings were composed there was the tradition of the Gospel being chanted by three deacons: one taking the role of the Chronista (narrator), Christus (Jesus), and Synongaga (everyone else). So, yes, even in the ancient church there was a special dispensation made for the proclamation this story -- but please note, the chanters were ordained ministers of the Gospel.

And I would suggest that this glimpse backward might provides a way forward. In churches with multiple clergy, perhaps the three traditional roles can be assumed by deacons and/or priests. If the clergy are insufficient in number for this, why not employ laypeople to assist? But under this scheme maybe the Narrator should be a clergyperson. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.

Out of curiosity I tuned in to Trinity, Wall Street yesterday to see what their Palm Sunday service was like. Trinity is no stranger to creative approaches to liturgy. In recent years the Trinity Choir had devised an interesting approach to improvising chants for the Passion narrative. I also seem to recall another year with the reading of the Gospel being divided with stanzas of the hymn "Ah, holy Jesus," which I found an effective approach to the "problem" of length.

But this year, to my surprise, the Gospel was read from the midst of the church by a priest.

Just like it was the week before – just like it will be on Easter.

Tune in next time when we talk about how fun it is to say the Acts reading for Pentecost in different languages simultaneously!

I got dibs on Klingon!

Labels: Good Friday, Holy Week, liturgy, Palm Sunday, Passion, RCL, Trinity (New York)

Read "Church Musician" for "Cantor" and I think you get a sense of what liturgical church musicians are engaged in this week:

Words die of routine. The Cantor's task is to bring them to life. A Cantor is a person who knows the secret of the resurrection of the words. The art of giving life to the words of our liturgy requires not only the personal involvement of the Cantor but also the power contained in the piety of the ages. Our liturgy contains incomparably more than what our hearts are ready to feel. . . . There is a written and an unwritten liturgy. There is the liturgy but there is also an inner approach and response to it, a way of giving life to the words, a style in which the words become a personal and unique utterance.

Herschel, Abraham Johsua. The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence, p. 251

Labels: church music, Holy Week

This is sort of the quintessential church nerd post. Most of the words in the title don't make any sense to anyone except the most churched.

Usually I would offer a sentence or two of explanation in regards to Tenebrae and the Paschal Candle, but this certainly qualifies as "esoteric liturgics" so I'm just going to dive right in:

It recently has come to my attention that many churches of various stripes incorporate the Paschal Candle into a make-shift Tenebrae Hearse -- this term I will define: the Tenebrae Hearse is a triangular candelabra which holds fifteen candles, seven on each side, and one at the apex.

Now, I don't know many Episcopal parishes that happen to own a Tenebrae Hearse of any quality. Nor do I think there is anything magical about the number fifteen.

In this film of Tenebrae from St. Thomas, New York from April 2014, you can clearly see the use of a large seven-branch Hearse, really just a giant candelabra. This makes sense for the liturgy done at St. Thomas, which makes use of seven antiphons and corresponding psalms/canticles.

The Book of Occasional Services suggests two routes for the number of candles: seven or fifteen. But even if the full fifteen-prong Hearse is desired, I still think the use of the Paschal Candle at this service is a mistake.

One can understand how the practical need arises: most churches have two seven-prong candelabras, and you just need a big, tall candle to go between them! But this seems a lazy solution.

The Paschal Candle should only be lit during services in Eastertide (through the Day of Pentecost, per the rubric from the Great Vigil of Easter), Baptism, or the Burial of the Dead.

It's use in Holy Week prior to the Easter Vigil is especially troublesome because the appearance of the (new) Paschal Candle should be dramatic at the kindling of the new fire. It is an unceremonious and unfortunate use of the old year's Paschal Candle to see it at Tenebrae. It confuses the symbolism of the Noise and return of the light at Tenebrae. It is surely not the Resurrection, though it does anticipate and foreshadow it.

The solution for those who have their hearts set on fifteen but have not the necessary hearse seems to me to get by with fourteen. Surely cleverer minds than mine can devise a scheme to make this work.

But for the love of Pete, leave the Paschal Candle out of Tenebrae.

Labels: Book of Occasional Services, Holy Week, Paschal Candle, St Thomas (New York), Tenebrae, The Great Vigil of Easter

For the last several years I've always sat up a little straighter when I hear the opening hymn at the annual Meditation on the Passion of Christ from St. John's, Cambridge. (link to 2016 service webcast).

The organ is blaring, the voices are full, the sound is thrilling. And no small part of it is the harmonization from the English Hymnal which is by J. S. Bach.

The hymn is "All glory, laud, and honor", which we all know well. Probably too well, even though we only get around to it once a year. Probably part of my reaction to this sound from St. John's is that the character is somewhat different from the Teschner/Monk harmonization in the Hymnal 1982.

The harmony is, well... it's more Bach, of course. There's more drama in the bass line; there are more leading tones. It's more visceral. There's more soul. Or something.

So, this year we're trying the English Hymnal harmony. I finally buckled down to edit the Hymnal 1982 words and melody (note that it is slightly different than the way the tune appears in the English Hymnal) to utilize utilise the English Hymnal harmonies.

And, as a small offering to the Church, it's available to you just in time for Wednesday or Thursday night choir rehearsal to try it out. Enjoy.

Hymn 154: "All glory, laud, and honor" with English Hymnal harmony (PDF)

Labels: Bach, English Hymnal, Holy Week, Hymn 154, Hymnal 1982, Palm Sunday

I am delighted to invite you to a new offering at St. Peter’s, St. Louis this year. As part of our Evensong series on the second Sunday of every month, the St. Peter’s Singers will lead A Meditation on the Passion of Christ on Palm Sunday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m.

What is this service? It is a compelling synthesis of ancient and modern. And, like Evensong, I hope that it can be a space for real contemplation and prayer, especially at the start of the holiest week of the liturgical year.

A couple weeks ago St. Louisans had the good fortune to be able to hear a performance of The Gospel According to the Other Mary by American composer John Adams, which is a rare modern setting of the Passion. In the program notes Paul Schiavo notes “because its inherent pain was at odds with Western culture’s increasingly determined pursuit of happiness, the Passion story lost popular standing among Christian chronicles to the more comforting Nativity tale during the 19th century and beyond.”

One of the benefits of this cultural affinity toward the Christmas story has been renewed attention to the musical form of the carol, largely music with a focus on the Nativity, but not exclusively. The popularity of carols was so great that it prompted the editors of the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols to call upon churches to hold “carol services” not only at Christmas time, but also Advent, Epiphany, Eastertide, and – why not? – Lent too! Indeed, within the Oxford Book of Carols a number of pieces of music marked for Lent and Holy Week can be found.

This impulse to use the carol to draw Christians deeper into their faith arose at an academic community where there was no liturgical observance of Holy Week. This place is St. John’s College, Cambridge (which also served as the source of the liturgy for our Advent Carol Service). The students of Cambridge University are not present during Holy Week, so a service was designed for the St. John’s College community to reflect on the mysteries of this key part of the Christian story beforehand. The service was designed in 1985 by the Dean of Chapel, the Rev. Andrew Macintosh, and the Organist, George Guest.

The original name of this service was “A Meditation on the Passion of Christ, with Carols,” though it should be noted that at St. John’s, and many other places where this service is offered, the designation “with Carols” has been dropped, and now many different types of music are used.

Read more on the on the St. Peter's, St. Louis website: Carols and the Passion: Drawing on Many Traditions for a Modern Meditation

Labels: Guest, Holy Week, Lent, Lessons and Carols, liturgy, Palm Sunday, St John's (Cambridge)

The long march of the Easter cycle is an ever-tightening spiral.

In the period leading up to Easter, the Church's holiest day, time circles in on itself. Intensity increases over time.

First there is the long, patient sweep of Lent.

Towards its end comes the looping back of Holy Week.

The spiral tightens at the Triduum.

The cadences come quicker–faster and faster as we near the dawn of Easter.

Even in the Easter Vigil, as near as we can get in our liturgy to the Resurrection moment without quite arriving yet, we continue to spin toward the central mystery of the Christian faith.

As we come careening toward Resurrection through a series of readings that give the whole history of our faith, the final turn in the liturgy takes our very lives.

“Through the Paschal mystery, dear friends, we are buried with Christ by Baptism into his death, and raised with him to newness of life.”

It is here, through baptism, that the Resurrection is finally revealed. That it finally makes sense.

In this final turn, the spiral finally reaches back on itself and explodes outward in every dimension it can find.

The liturgy may be man-made, but its pattern helps us encounter God-made mystery and meaning.

The whole shape of this season points to its center.

Happy spiralling, friends.

Labels: Easter, Holy Saturday, Holy Week, Lent, science and nature, The Great Vigil of Easter, Triduum

This year brings a special moment that I've been waiting for since... well, for years.

That is the confluence of Good Friday and the Feast of the Annunciation (Mar. 25).

Now, before you get all huffy, yes, I know this feast is transferred.

In Holy Week (the week from Palm Sunday to Easter) and in Easter Week (the week from Easter to the following Sunday) all "lesser feasts" are transferred to later in the calendar. This makes sense. This is the holiest time of the church year, and our focus should rightly be on our Lord's passion, death, and resurrection. This year the Episcopal Church will formally celebrate this feast on April 4 (Jesus needing a shorter than usual gestation period this year).

But still, the fact remains that in many circumstances Mar. 25 would be the day that the Church remembers the announcement to a young girl, a virgin, that she was pregnant with God.

So for Anglicans, who are Christians who do theology with a heavy dose of big-I Incarnation, there is at least a unique opportunity for theological exploration here. And it's one that was written beautifully 408 years ago by John Donne.

What happened in 1608? Please note that the date that I have for this poem is 1608. But Easter was on April 6 that year, so maybe Donne was actually writing about something else? Oh, no, have I been waiting for the wrong day?! I don't think so.

How often is Good Friday on March 25? This last occurred in 2005, which is when I drafted this article (thanks, Internet!). When does it happen again? Well, I can't find it on my calendar for a while...

Upon the Annunciation and
Passion Falling upon One Day.
1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;
At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these!
As by the self-fixed Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the other is and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or ‘twas in Him the same humility
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He had made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:
Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

             – John Donne

Labels: Annunciation, Donne, Good Friday, Holy Week, literature, poetry, theology

Part 1

Part 2

Labels: Cleobury, Easter, Holy Week, King's College (Cambridge)

There's a texture to Holy Wednesday: a subtle shift in the wind.

It's the only day outside of the Triduum (Thursday to Saturday) that has garnered a name: Spy Wednesday. It's the day when Judas (the "spy") would have conspired to betray Jesus.

I don't know if this really influences our perception of Holy Wednesday, but here's what I think does: this day is the last gasp before the inexorable descent toward the watery baptismal depths and resurrection that comes in the Great Vigil of Easter.

And so, Wednesday has it's own special "Evensong", but it is somewhat massive, seeing how it must encompass the eve of a three-day observance.

Tenebrae is fully loaded, and fully automatic. And it's placement in modern Episcopal usage on Wednesday in Holy Week seems just about perfect.

There are antiphons (stunningly beautiful antiphons), psalms, canticles, Christus Factus Est, and a final penitential psalm taken in while kneeling. The lights diminish one by one, until all is pitch black. We pray for hope. We hold our breaths.

And then a rapid, roaring plunge.

The noise at the end of Tenebrae (or strepitus, if you prefer it's Latin name) bears with it almost everything that will transpire in the Triduum. It is the betrayal in the garden. It is the crucifixion. It is Jesus' loud cry on the cross. It is the earthquake. It is the curtain ripping in two. It could even be the noise of the stone itself being rolled away.

I suppose it must be everything just shy of resurrection itself, which is only alluded to by the return of that wayward candle, the one that wandered away from the fold toward the end of the Benedictus. (Or perhaps this candle simply fled in terror as it saw its lesser siblings succumb without a fight.)

Because without that light there is full darkness. There is only a tattered tapestry and shaky ground. There is only a hoarse, bloody Jewish man, crying out from a cross. There is only a tale of religious/political intrigue that comes to a head for thirty grimy coins.

There is only an empty tomb, and its meaning is not yet grasped.

We know what's coming. There's a mini-Easter at the end of Tenebrae, but not really. The light comes back, but just barely. It doesn't light anything else, and we're still basically sitting in the dark.

And that's where we are in this pre-Triduum Triduum (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). We're left with the light of one candle.

To give light to them that sit in darkness 
and in the shadow of death, * 
    and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Some light. But not enough. We can't do much on our own. Luckily, the spy is going to get Jesus involved in the story, and things will get very interesting very quickly.

Labels: Holy Week, Judas, Spy Wednesday, Tenebrae

This morning I began enmeshed in the density of Johannes Brams's Fugue in A-flat minor (that's the key with seven flats -- ALL of the the flats). It seemed, in it's quietly seething opacity, to be the perfect piece of music for the day. It served as the prelude to the noon preaching service at the Parish where I serve.

The Rev. Brian McLaren, the preacher at these services for the first three weekdays of Holy Week, preached a beautiful sermon about re-imagining the model of what it means to be human and how that relates to our faith. He preached that the old "ghost in the machine" model doesn't really have much relevance to us, and that instead, we are creatures imbued with and hungry for meaning.

("What is truth?," Pilate asked?)

We are, McLaren said, "sponges" for meaning. We are created from the Word (as is everything in the first creation story in Genesis). Words give meaning. And of course, in Poetry we see a heightened level of meaning. And he even made reference to last night's Poetry and Music meditations, calling the event "a baptism in meaning".

The day then slid toward a full choir rehearsal, and entailed some devotions before the copy machine, etc.

I tried to get a haircut partway through this, but alas, the building where my barber does his work was surrounded by fire apparati. There was a burning smell, and some light traces of smoke were visible. Something had been or was still on fire.

There was something fitting about this, of course: lots of red, the fire, the smoke, an assembly gathered outside, waiting to go in.

It's Holy Week again.

And so, I returned to the keyboard (the Qwerty one, this time), shaggy as ever, and replied to an email from a budding composer in the parish.

On the advice of Vincent Persichetti's Harmony, which I find sort of interesting as a place to start thinking about the subject, I pointed him toward The "Mysterious Mountain" Symphony by Alan Hovhaness. He said he listened to it, and I shot him back quick reply about themes, and "melodies", and how you need a couple of them to make Sonata Form -- all the gibberish that we couch the wonderful world of music in. Or maybe we just do that because we're seeking meaning from the whole thing.

What does music mean?

And then the rehearsal flew in like a Mack truck, and it was glorious -- except that I completely forgot to rehearse that wonderful six-voice Tudor motet that we're singing on Easter Day. It's okay. The choir will never know. I'll just rehearse it with them the next time I see them (which is basically every day this week, right?), and act like that was the plan all along.

And then I found myself tidying up here and there. The odd bit of organ part that I never really fleshed out for my new arrangement of such and such, and how do we end that service, and does the officiant need a pen light so that she can see the concluding collect?

And then tidying up led into full-on practice in a way that I didn't quite manage earlier. I threw myself into another dense score, one that has it's roots in improvisation, and one that I probably have no business playing -- at least not this year.

But the score is so meaningful, at least to me, and even if I miss a few notes here and there, won't it still mean just as much?

What do people listen to when they hear music in this place?

Do people listen?

Who knows. And then, in the car on the way home, Holy Week reared it's head again. There on the radio, as if it knew I had been talking about it, was "Mysterious Mountain". And now it was my turn to listen because it's a great piece for a young composer to hear, but it's also a great piece for me to hear. I had forgotten all that that celesta part does. It is mystery. The celesta plays what cannot be explained. It's the emptiness of the church late at night when everyone has gone. It's the grace to sing Byrd tomorrow, or the next day. It's the impromptu Holy Week gathering outside your barber shop.

It's the joy and question that is this life.

It is the song that is sung all around us and the meaning that we seek.

Labels: Brahms, Brian McLaren, Byrd, Holy Week, Hovhaness

It occurs to me that perhaps I might offer a window on what it is to be a church musician in Holy Week. And perhaps a few other thoughts too.

This evening at the parish where I serve, we offered "Poetry and Music: Meditations for Holy Week." The Reverend the Rector chose several poems, and I set them to music, mostly at the spur of the moment. This is the third year we have done this.

As I entered this service/poetry reading/concert (what is this thing that we do, exactly?) I had several things in mind. First, something the pianist Jeremy Denk said about the last Beethoven piano sonata, Op. 111 when he performed it here on Saturday evening. He talked about how the second movement is a variation set, but that the theme eventually disappears, and that eventually "the answers overwhelm the question."

That phrase looms large in my consciousness this week. What is this thing that we do, Holy Week? There's darkness, a few candles, there's foot washing, altar stripping, moaning and groaning, more candles, more darkness, washing people in water, and suddenly it's Easter.

There was a question in here somewhere. Maybe it was "what is truth" or something like that. But the question we ask in Holy Week – if we let it – can and should be overwhelmed by the answers.

I was grateful tonight that the Rector broke the "rubric" if we can be said to have such a thing for tonight's little happening, and included the following prose by Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

What wonderful reassurance for improvisation and for this life. "I have no idea where I am going."

But the answers come nonetheless.

Labels: Beethoven, church music, Holy Week, improvisation, Jeremy Denk, music, organ, poetry, Thomas Merton