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On an August 29 a number of years ago, as I was praying the collect for St. Augustine of Hippo, I could not help but hear strains of music emerging from amidst the very words of the prayer. I said “Amen” at the end of the prayer, closed the book, and allowed myself to be lost in a sacred music reverie.

I thought about all the music I had chosen and directed over the past several years, trying to determine the piece in question. And then, through an incense-filled haze, my mind led me to that sublime temple of Episcopal worship down the road, the Church of St. Michael and St. George in Clayton, Missouri. It was there, under the superb direction of Robert Lehman, that the assembled choirs sang “O thou that art the light” by Gabriel Jackson.

“O thou that art the light of the minds that know thee,
The life of the souls that love thee,
And the strength of the wills that serve thee:
Help us to know them that truly love thee,
And so to love thee that we might fully serve thee,
Whom to serve is perfect freedom. Amen.”

I recalled all of this with fondness earlier this year when I learned one of my colleagues, Zack, is to be ordained to the priesthood on the feast of St. Augustine.

The choir will sing for his ordination, and I could think of no better piece than “O thou that art the light.”

I searched the choir library for other music with texts by Augustine of Hippo and found only a single additional piece: a short motet, “Fecisti nos,” by Philip Radcliffe. This piece sets, in Latin, a familiar phrase from Augustine:

“You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

The collect for the feast, the one that brought Jackson's music to mind all those years ago, beautifully synthesizes these two texts: the minds, the souls, and the restless hearts (or wills, in the translation Jackson uses).

Lord God, the light of the minds that know you, the life of the souls that love you, and the strength of the hearts that serve you: Help us, following the example of your servant, Augustine of Hippo, so to know you that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whose service is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Words and music come to us, sometimes unbidden, and help us to name the unutterable.

Over time, music can help to inscribe the words of our faith on our hearts—yes, those restless hearts, the ones prone to wandering.

In our duty, we find delight. In our service, we find freedom.

Labels: Gabriel Jackson, Philip Radcliffe, Robert Lehman, St Michael & St George (St Louis)

I have been taking my toddler to Evensong.

He's a good sport about it. Mostly.

The very first Evensong we attended together must have been at St. James's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. It was a full house that day, and I had to carry him through the gallery in his infant carseat. It was crowded. People made room. I was the weird dad who was bringing his baby to Evensong. He could only have been three months old, tops.

He had heard me sing before. Heck, I did it the day he was born. But that was the first time he heard me sing in a room full of other people singing.

His whole face lit up.

I could read the joyful relief on his face. It was like, "hey, dad's not crazy! He's just doing this thing that other people do!"

“There's probably not any childcare because, I mean, come on, who brings a baby to Evensong?”

It was a pretty great first outing.

Other services were not so glamorous, or well-attended. And often on these occasions he was more unruly. He was noticeably unimpressed with my singing and would sometimes sabotage my efforts to manage a hymnal.

But that's okay with me, though. It's easy just to sit in the back, close to the door. Sometimes we need to wander out into the narthex or portico during the Nunc dimittis. It's alright. The ushers understand, and sometimes they'll even grab the door for us. (After a short break we have always been able to sneak back in.)

I mean it's not like Sunday morning where someone is going to very helpfully let you know about the nursery (sometimes with transparent motives). It's Evensong. There's probably not any childcare because, I mean, come on, who brings a baby to Evensong?

As it turns out, we've actually been doing this fairly regularly for a couple years at this point.

So I was pretty excited when I asked him if he wanted to go to Evensong this past weekend, and he said the word back to me in response:

"Evensong!" He likes the word. He was proud to say it. He knows what it's about.

I don't know about you, but it's pretty easy to get to Evensong where we live. Here in St. Louis if it's the first or third Sunday of the month we can head over to the Church of St. Michael & St. George. If it's the fourth Sunday of the month we can go the Cathedral downtown. And this has the added excitement of seeing the Gateway Arch through the front windshield now that his carseat faces forward. ("Arch!" I hear from the back, the first time it slides into view.) Other parishes in town have Evensong services on occasion, and we try to take those in too. And, heck, he can even come to my place (but his mom has to sit with him) if it happens to be the second Sunday of the month.

Christ Church Cathedral,
St. Louis, Mo.

And I thought this was all just in good fun until this last time. But something changed for us. It became real.

I should have known something was different when he said "Evensong." He has more and more to say these days, and it was exciting to hear him say this word.

But there we were in the service, and we got to the prayers. And that's when it happened.

This little person next to me started singing the Lord's Prayer. All the words, and with his very best preschool elocution. And a big Amen. And I think even an extra Amen. (Or two!)

Now, mind you, we say the Lord's Prayer at home. Or, more accurately, I say it while he listens. But it's part of the bedtime routine, just like brushing teeth, and you can't really be sure how much of that is sinking in. But we say it at home; we don't sing it. And it never really occurred to me that this little person on the kneeler to my right would remember all these words so clearly in a gothic cathedral downtown, recognize what was going on, and spontaneously join in on a monotone with the rest of the congregation.

“God's very being draws praise from our lips”

There's a phrase I use a lot, and I am quite sure that I stole it from someone, but I can't remember who. And Google is no help here at all. So maybe I made it up, but I don't think so.

And that phrase is this: "God's very being draws praise from our lips".

I really believe that.

After all, what is it that causes people everywhere, from the countryside to the big city, to get up early in the morning, gather again in the afternoon, and even late in the evening in some places to sing praise to God?

If the morning church service still bears the cultural residue of institutionalized/secular religion – a service of "duty" if you will – Evensong has long enjoyed freedom from this – a service of "delight".

At Evensong there is no Baptism or Communion. In most places there's no sermon either. The liturgy and the music are the order of the day. They stand alone, without "ulterior motive". They are their own sacrament, in a way.

This is an incredible place – physical, temporal, spiritual – in which to be. Evensong is a real gift to our harried age.

And so I hope that if you see us or your friendly neighborhood toddler mishandling a prayer book at Evensong you will remember that "Christ doth call / one and all", even the tiny and small.

And if you love Evensong maybe you'll be inspired to invite a young (or any-age) person to go with you (there are often snacks afterward). Or maybe you'll simply consider going yourself if you haven't already made a habit of it.

Obviously I don't know if my son will still find Evensong interesting next week, let alone next year. I sort of hope he does as he grows older, but mostly I hope that he finds something like this that he genuinely loves and that feeds his spirit.

Here is what I do know.

I know that I have really valued these times I have spent in worship with him in the late afternoon. For us, the primary reason is one of logistics: since I am a professional church musician, we don't have the opportunity to share the same pew on Sunday mornings very often.

And I know that, yes, God's very being draws praise from our lips, but it certainly helps if someone will teach us some words.

Maybe some music, too.

Labels: Christ Church Cathedral (St Louis), Evensong, liturgy, prayer, St Michael & St George (St Louis), St Peter's (St Louis), St. James's (Richmond), St. Louis

This evening I had the good fortune to be able to attend the "Passion Vespers: Meditations on the Passion of Christ" at the Church of St. Michael & St. George, St. Louis. It was billed as "service of the spoken word and music featuring readings selected from Scripture, the ancient Church Fathers, and modern-day poets interspersed with seasonal music, sung by the Choir, to illuminate the texts."

There is something compelling about the idea of worship on the Evening of Palm Sunday. The festivity of the morning being ended, Holy Week has entered its dark, preparatory intensity. A service on this day, or early in Holy Week, can draw is further in to the mystery and simply allow us a place to reflect, pray, and praise.

The service at St. Michael's was splendid and well appointed. It followed a pattern of non-biblical reading, anthem, versicle and response, collect. Two hymns were included.

The only comparison I have for this type of liturgy is the "Meditation on the Passion of Christ" service at St. John's, Cambridge. By comparison, I found this service to be much less noisy (the John's service begins with "All glory, laud, and honor" in procession) and more focused. The procession in and out of the church was done in silence.

I was concerned about the readings being entirely non-biblical, but they were so well chosen, and so compelling, I have to say I didn't mind at all.

Having been to the service, and with my leaflet still in hand, I can amend the published music list with a few more details. Most of the music was new to me, and all of it perfectly chosen for this liturgy. The cumulative effect was one of true meditation.

• Opening Devotions, including the said Kyrie and Lord's Prayer, collect
• Choral orison: "The Cross" by A. Fairbairn Barnes (a new name to me, some biographical info here)
• Meditation I, from John Chrysostom
• It is a thing most wonderful — Philip Moore
• Meditation II, from Julian of Norwich
• Lamb of God, most holy — Robert Lehman, the Organist & Choirmaster (a lovely piece, listen here)
• Hymn, "Alas, and did my Savior bleed!", sung to a haunting American hymn tune, LIBERTY HALL (a version here)
• Meditation III, from St. Bonaventure
• Drop, drop slow tears — Kenneth Leighton
• Meditation IV, from George Herbert
• Author of life divine — Peter Aston, another gorgeous miniature which would serve well as a communion anthem at any time of the year
• Meditation V, from the Orthodox Liturgy of Holy Saturday ("Today a tomb holds him who holds the creation in the hollow of his hand...")
• Give me that stranger — Michael McCarthy (a piece so compelling it has appeared on this blog previously)
• Meditation VI, from Thomas Traherne
• Ubi caritas et amor — Ola Gjeilo
• Hymn, "My song is love unknown"
• Ride on, ride on in majesty — Grayston Ives (a piece that I've only read through and never heard sung. I was glad that the effect of this piece in performance is as rich as it appears on the page. I think I need to order copies of this now.)
• Concluding Prayers

It was interesting that the mention of Jesus' triumphal entry appeared at the end of this liturgy, but in the words of Henry Millman, it is not Jesus' entry into Jerusalem that is ultimately the focus of Passiontide, but his entry into battle–"Thy last and fiercest strife"–which causes us to plead "Then take, O God, thy power and reign."

It's easy to see a service like this abbreviated on a music list and think that it must be a slapdash "Lenten Lessons and Carols". This service was nothing of the sort. This year the start of my Holy Week has been immeasurably enriched by the very thoughtful, carefully prepared liturgy held at St. Michael's.

O Lord, Christ, Lamb of God, Lord of Lords, 
  call us, who are called to be saints, 
    along the way of Thy cross: 
Draw us, who would draw nearer our King 
  to the foot of Thy cross:
Cleanse us, who are not worthy of approach, 
  with the pardon of Thy cross:
Instruct us, the ignorant and blind, 
  in the school of Thy cross: 
Arm us, for the battles of holiness 
  by the might of Thy cross: 
Bring us, in fellowship of Thy sufferings 
  to the victory of Thy cross: 
And seal us in the Kingdom of Thy glory 
  among the servants of Thy cross, 
    O crucified Lord; 
who with the Father and Holy Ghost 
  livest and reignest one God 
    almighty, eternal, 
      world without end. Amen.

            –Eric Milner-White

Labels: Robert Lehman, St John's (Cambridge), St Michael & St George (St Louis)