I quite like SJS. I think it gets grief because it is one of the worship songs that has filtered into mainstream churches, and some of its symbolism is a little mixed in its metaphors. Plus because of the former point it was overused by clergy in the 90s trying to pry A&M Revised from the cold almost-dead hands of their congregations.
There are few hymns I truly loathe, and usually it's for poor theology rather than musical offences. ATB&B is an exception because it's twee dreck and as a young chorister half of the couples getting married picked that and Jerusalem for the hymns at their wedding so I got thoroughly sick of it. Jerusalem I like but don't really think it belongs in church.
Why has SJS become the "whipping boy" for all those who don't like "modern" music? (And, by the way, it's now 35 years old).
Some folk like worship songs, others don't; some like traditional hymns, others don't; some like plainchant, others don't. All right, there's a lot of dross out there - but can't we learn to accept and be generous about other folks' choices? I have been known to choose a hymn that I personally can't stand for a service because I know it will "bless" others who will be present.
Agree, but there's also the phenomenon I experienced in a previous parish (as the youngest person present by decades).
Me 'do you like all these modern worship songs'
Churchwarden 'no, I hate them, no one here likes them'
Me 'then why do we sing them week after week'
CW 'because it's what the young people want, so they might like it if they come and that's what we're singing'
Me 'how often do the young people come?'
CW 'they don't really, or at least they hadn't until you did'
Me 'As the spokesperson for my generation, apparently, I would prefer the New English Hymnal, but would settle for anything in the heap of A&M gathering dust at the back'
CW 'ooh, that would be lovely, but then the young people won't come'
Haha, that's definitely familiar - see also 'All Age' services (the Mass was specifically written by Our Lady Herself to be for all ages, as eny fule kno) and my personal nemesis Messy Church.
However, I actually like a lot of contemporary worship songs! For me SJS isn't about having a problem with contemporary worship music, given that it's 1) older than I am so not actually contemporary for me or Gen Z, just what old people think of as 'modern music' and 2) from the truly heinous Hymnody By Muzak era that feels like easy listening versions of action songs. SJS is just probably brought up the most because it's the most well-known?
Context obviously matters - for example, the idea of a U2charist makes me want to jump out of a window, but I can see that Current U2 (and indeed Current Bono) isn't the same as 80s U2 and in the 80s I might have felt differently (although, also probably not).
I recall, many years ago, attending a "Rock Communion" service, though other than involving drums and electric guitars with a fairly traditional ASB communion service I don't remember much about it.
Are we therefore getting into the area of people who think they're "culturally aware" choosing stuff but in fact getting it badly wrong? Or of churches trying to be "all things for all people" and failng miserably?
Are we therefore getting into the area of people who think they're "culturally aware" choosing stuff but in fact getting it badly wrong? Or of churches trying to be "all things for all people" and failng miserably?
I wonder how far any can be all things to all people. When I lived in Portsmouth, or Oxford, it was pretty easy to find the church that suited you just by walking a bit further or getting on a bike.
Out here in the sticks it's more difficult - if I don't go to my parish church then it's getting in a car. Plus attempts within benefices to have different church styles in different churches, then overlay that onto the rural mentality of 'if it's not in my parish church I'm not going.'
I'm as guilt of that as the next person - one of the churches in our benefice is almost entirely BCP and Hymns A&M, but it's also 6 miles away. I don't go to it, and grit my teeth with some of the things we do instead. However, I'd lay pretty good odds over at that church there are congregants gritting their teeth and wishing they could have what we have. But no one swaps.
It's a real (old fashioned issue) I've found in a couple of rural parishes I've lived in now, loyalty to the village church *where you live* cuts across almost everything else and can lead to people plodding unhappily on without trying to change things.
This is a real conundrum and I don't know how it can be solved, Yet it seems to me that a parish church should try and serve all kinds of people rather than espouse a very specific kind of churchmanship; the problem there is, as you say, it either gets stuck in a rut of inestimable dullness or adopts a ridiculous "trying to do everything" approach. (Nonconformist churches are different as they don't have the same parish-wide 'charge of souls', though perhaps the difference is irrelevant in today's consumer culture).
There's also the inevitable tension between the mission-orientated "homogeneous unit principle" approach, which fashions a church that specifically caters for one cultural group; and what I see as the Biblical one of churches including Jew and Greek, slave and free, old and young etc - in fact a microcosm of a new society.
(I suspect this discussion is becoming a bit Purgatorial for this thread!)
Are we therefore getting into the area of people who think they're "culturally aware" choosing stuff but in fact getting it badly wrong? Or of churches trying to be "all things for all people" and failng miserably?
It depends. Often it's both, and that's probably the case in a lot of parish churches. I was personally thinking more of the first case - but of course, 'culturally aware' is not necessarily the same as 'currently fashionable' (eg, a church may choose to not use songs written by a particular person for ethical reasons rather than issues of popularity).
As an aside - in my experience as a non-RC attending a lot of RC services over the years, modern RC churches (at least in England) are much better at catering for a wide variety of people in terms of music and liturgy. I wonder if part of that is just having music as less central to the experience of Mass, though many RC churches nowadays have really excellent music and outdo many suburban and rural Anglican parish churches. The wonders you can do with Sunday obligation! 😉
As an aside - in my experience as a non-RC attending a lot of RC services over the years, modern RC churches (at least in England) are much better at catering for a wide variety of people in terms of music and liturgy. I wonder if part of that is just having music as less central to the experience of Mass, though many RC churches nowadays have really excellent music and outdo many suburban and rural Anglican parish churches. The wonders you can do with Sunday obligation! 😉
I think that having more than one mass on a Sunday means that each one can have a distinct flavour. We have a modernish Saturday evening, a quiet Sunday morning with no music, and a family Mass.
Over and above that, a decent church should have a sense of community and belonging that over-rides musical etc taste. Its where our friends are.
I liked SJS (known as the Shiny Jesus song around here) when I first sang it because it's easy to sing and the words aren't distilled from bilge water. Perhaps it's too easy, because I have simply tired of it. It's too passé for our minister, so we don't hear it any longer anyway. In my ideal service we'd have at least one new or unfamiliar older hymn that would be introduced by the minister or a musician to tell us about it and ask for feedback, which can be rewarding for all concerned. That's how I first heard "Will you come and follow me?" which we sang again the other day (in another church) and of which I shall never tire.
Our last hymn hardly anybody knew 'Christ is the words true light'. On the video you can see me desperately trying to lay my hands on a hymnbook for the music, when I realised it was an unfamiliar tune.... https://youtu.be/1IPBYXyc73I?t=3135
Our last hymn hardly anybody knew 'Christ is the words true light'. On the video you can see me desperately trying to lay my hands on a hymnbook for the music, when I realised it was an unfamiliar tune.... https://youtu.be/1IPBYXyc73I?t=3135
That tune ("Rinkart", by Bach I think) does seem to be the "official" tune for that hymn. However I'd be very tempted to go for "Nun Danket" which is far better known - especially at the end of a service which one wants to close on a positive note.
ST. JOAN is the tune I’m used to for Christ is the World’s True Light. The tune in the video posted by @Gracious Rebel is unfamiliar to me; I, too, would have been scrambling for a hymnal.
As an aside - in my experience as a non-RC attending a lot of RC services over the years, modern RC churches (at least in England) are much better at catering for a wide variety of people in terms of music and liturgy. I wonder if part of that is just having music as less central to the experience of Mass, though many RC churches nowadays have really excellent music and outdo many suburban and rural Anglican parish churches. The wonders you can do with Sunday obligation! 😉
I think that having more than one mass on a Sunday means that each one can have a distinct flavour. We have a modernish Saturday evening, a quiet Sunday morning with no music, and a family Mass.
Over and above that, a decent church should have a sense of community and belonging that over-rides musical etc taste. Its where our friends are.
A lot of Anglican churches have multiple services on a Sunday - but often have quite separate congregations attending them. Certainly most people attending an 8am said BCP communion service would never go to other services. I think a Saturday evening service would be a real positive for a lot of Anglican churches but strangely I've never come across it even in A-C churches. Unfortunately there's a lot of snobbery in many A-C churches - I think many would be surprised by how contemporary RC services can be nowadays.
I would cross the Tiber in terms of attending services if it wasn't for the fact that this would likely be Misconstrued by fellow Anglicans - let the reader understand - and for me it's more frustration with the constant postcode lottery* that Anglicans have to battle against in England at least wrt local church types. If your local town has eg mostly one type of Anglican churchmanship, you're just out of luck if that's not you or not suitable for Reasons. You would think that a cathedral city full of ancient churches would attract less Evangelical fluff on the spectrum between fundie and tedious in my town's case, but alas...
*For those outside the UK - your postcode is like your zip code, and many services and institutions vary hugely depending on where you live. The Church of England varies wildly depending on location/diocese, both in terms of politics and local church styles.
As an aside - in my experience as a non-RC attending a lot of RC services over the years, modern RC churches (at least in England) are much better at catering for a wide variety of people in terms of music and liturgy. I wonder if part of that is just having music as less central to the experience of Mass, though many RC churches nowadays have really excellent music and outdo many suburban and rural Anglican parish churches. The wonders you can do with Sunday obligation! 😉
I think that having more than one mass on a Sunday means that each one can have a distinct flavour. We have a modernish Saturday evening, a quiet Sunday morning with no music, and a family Mass.
Over and above that, a decent church should have a sense of community and belonging that over-rides musical etc taste. Its where our friends are.
Unfortunately there's a lot of snobbery in many A-C churches - I think many would be surprised by how contemporary RC services can be nowadays.
I find it interesting that the Ordinariate seems to be a very middle class phenomenon, and Ordinariate priests have a very "distinctive" way of celebrating when supplying in non Ordinariate parishes. The first time I experienced it my liturgical antennae went "Aye, aye, summat fishy going on here."
As an aside - in my experience as a non-RC attending a lot of RC services over the years, modern RC churches (at least in England) are much better at catering for a wide variety of people in terms of music and liturgy. I wonder if part of that is just having music as less central to the experience of Mass, though many RC churches nowadays have really excellent music and outdo many suburban and rural Anglican parish churches. The wonders you can do with Sunday obligation! 😉
I think that having more than one mass on a Sunday means that each one can have a distinct flavour. We have a modernish Saturday evening, a quiet Sunday morning with no music, and a family Mass.
Over and above that, a decent church should have a sense of community and belonging that over-rides musical etc taste. Its where our friends are.
Unfortunately there's a lot of snobbery in many A-C churches - I think many would be surprised by how contemporary RC services can be nowadays.
I find it interesting that the Ordinariate seems to be a very middle class phenomenon, and Ordinariate priests have a very "distinctive" way of celebrating when supplying in non Ordinariate parishes. The first time I experienced it my liturgical antennae went "Aye, aye, summat fishy going on here."
Yes, reminds me of the differences between the RC shrine at Walsingham and the Anglican one. In my experience from the people I know who have taken part in the RC Student Cross pilgrimage, most RCs have no idea of the internal politics going on wrt this subject within Anglicanism and find the Ordinariate approach quite puzzling.
We had:
Jesus calls us here to meet him
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did)
O God you search me and you know me
God of the living in whose eyes (TYNEMOUTH, which was new to me but easy enough)
Look forward in faith (an ok hymn but can't help but make me think of one of the reactionary factions of the CofE)
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did).
We sang this in my last church to the Welsh tune "Yr Hun Gan".
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did).
We sang this in my last church to the Welsh tune "Yr Hun Gan".
Yes, that was the tune given but it's not one I know.
“The God of Abraham praise” - Leoni.
“As the deer” (Nystrom).
“I hunger and I thirst” - Quam Dilecta.
“I heard the voice of Jesus say” - Vox Dilecti.
“Restore, O Lord” (Kendrick).
I think a Saturday evening service would be a real positive for a lot of Anglican churches but strangely I've never come across it even in A-C churches.
Our TEC place used to have a Saturday evening Mass, but it got killed off a while ago because of lack of demand. Prior to its demise, the typical attendees were a handful of older people who like coming to church, and came on Sunday as well, a couple of middle-aged people who worked on Sunday mornings, and one high school kid who did something disturbingly athletic on Sunday mornings.
9.15 am Parish Communion-we sang
All my hope on God is founded
As the deer pants for the water*
Be still for the presence of the Lord
Be thou my vision.
* I object to this hymn as it requires participants to sing “I love you more than any other” etc.
During Communion the choir sang the Sussex Mummers carol, which is not what might seem, more of a slow hymn suitable for Lent/ Passiontide.
6pm Evensong
The Church’s one foundation
Lord thy word abideth
The day thou gavest.
Anthem: Sussex Mummers Carol. We prepared it for Evensong, but opted to run it this morning too.
I have commented elsewhere that we had a very low attendance of 8 this morning( must have been the sunny weather) with a different set of 10 people in the evening, plus 8 choir each time.
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did).
We sang this in my last church to the Welsh tune "Yr Hun Gan".
We certainly did, but I always thought the tune was called Suo Gan...? Or is that the name of the Welsh folk song and the tune of it is Yr Hun Gan?
I think a Saturday evening service would be a real positive for a lot of Anglican churches but strangely I've never come across it even in A-C churches.
Our TEC place used to have a Saturday evening Mass, but it got killed off a while ago because of lack of demand. Prior to its demise, the typical attendees were a handful of older people who like coming to church, and came on Sunday as well, a couple of middle-aged people who worked on Sunday mornings, and one high school kid who did something disturbingly athletic on Sunday mornings.
He having been disturbingly athletic on Saturday evenings after church.....
Catholic churches here seem to have substantial congregations on Saturday evenings, judging by the numbers of cars parked at them. The pattern followed by young Catholics when I was young was confession, Mass and then off to the pub, parties etc, and probably a bit of sinning formed part of their activities.
CCSL has a short Eucharist early on Saturday evenings during Lent, followed by Stations of the Cross.
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did).
We sang this in my last church to the Welsh tune "Yr Hun Gan".
We certainly did, but I always thought the tune was called Suo Gan...? Or is that the name of the Welsh folk song and the tune of it is Yr Hun Gan?
I wondered that, too - don't know! And G++gle Translate doesn't help.
O God, you search me and you know me.
Kyries
Psalm etc
We rise (Ashes.)
Come back to me
Freely, freely.
Wife and I had to leave before the last two in order to dash across the Pennines to watch our 3 year old granddaughter's dance school show - The Wizard of Oz. She was a snowflake; a thing I don't remember from the movie. It was delightful and my wife wept!
I think a Saturday evening service would be a real positive for a lot of Anglican churches but strangely I've never come across it even in A-C churches.
Our TEC place used to have a Saturday evening Mass, but it got killed off a while ago because of lack of demand. Prior to its demise, the typical attendees were a handful of older people who like coming to church, and came on Sunday as well, a couple of middle-aged people who worked on Sunday mornings, and one high school kid who did something disturbingly athletic on Sunday mornings.
He having been disturbingly athletic on Saturday evenings after church.....
Catholic churches here seem to have substantial congregations on Saturday evenings, judging by the numbers of cars parked at them. The pattern followed by young Catholics when I was young was confession, Mass and then off to the pub, parties etc, and probably a bit of sinning formed part of their activities.
CCSL has a short Eucharist early on Saturday evenings during Lent, followed by Stations of the Cross.
Our Saturday evening Mass is mainly attended by people from a parish that was shut down. Sadly they find it difficult to assimilate with us, though we are ever so nice.
We have a reasonably well attended Saturday evening Mass but I am not so sure how many people go off to a 'bit of sinning' afterwards.
I wonder also if Anglicans are able to indulge in a 'bit of sinning' without attending a vigil Mass beforehand.
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did).
We sang this in my last church to the Welsh tune "Yr Hun Gan".
We certainly did, but I always thought the tune was called Suo Gan...? Or is that the name of the Welsh folk song and the tune of it is Yr Hun Gan?
We have a reasonably well attended Saturday evening Mass but I am not so sure how many people go off to a 'bit of sinning' afterwards.
I wonder also if Anglicans are able to indulge in a 'bit of sinning' without attending a vigil Mass beforehand.
Robin Williams famously suggested Episcopalians were "Catholic light - half the guilt" so maybe Anglicans have a higher tolerance.
O for a thousand tongues (all eight verses - we're with the Methodists now!)
So what happened to the other ten, including "Harlots, and publicans, and thieves", "Murderers, and all ye hellish crew" and the one about "Washing the AEthiop white" (sic)?.
A newly ordained curate with us was doing a funeral at which All things bright and beautiful was sung (pagans, but Nan loved animals.) He was horrified when I told him about the expurgated verse about the rich man and beggar being in their right estate. Used to sing it at school.
I have told this before but on one occassion I sang that verse very loud so the actual words were sung. There was a misprint in the service sheet; the word 'gate' had been changed to 'grave'. 'Gate' was in my opinion better than 'grave' although I objected to both versions as did the minister who if he had realised there was a misprint would have made that an excuse for dropping the verse altogether. Motto: - never let a group of guides plan the order of worship without a competent worship leader there to proof read and ask them "did you really intend that to happen?"
The tune is well-known to beginners (of a certain age) on the descant recorder.
It also featured prominently in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. The tune is in my tribe’s hymnal for John Bell and Graham Maule’s Christ Has Risen While Earth Slumbers. It works nicely, but for that text I prefer the tune Bell wrote for it.
No mention at all of Mothering Sunday here which I find... I don't care one way or the other.
We had:
Come let us sing of a wonderful love (WONDERFUL LOVE)
Jesus, lover of my soul (ABERYSTWYTH)
Just as I am (SAFFRON WALDEN)
Love divine (BLAENWERN)
There's a wideness in God's mercy (CROSS OF JESUS)
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (NETTLETON) Bless the Lord, My Soul (Bernier, Taizé) Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound (AMAZING GRACE) The Church of Christ in Every Age (WAREHAM)
No simnel cake @ St Pat’s-in-the-West, alas (I used to bake one for the choristers until about 2019) but very good music ( plainchant Attendite Deus, Kyrie and Agnus by Kitson and Pater Peccavi by Alonso Lobo) ably sung by the choir. Not helped by the overlong Joannine gospel re healing of Bartimaeus.
Back in my CCSL days simnel cake was the order of the day ( annual vestry meeting at Lent 4) and I scored the job of making one for the choristers. As I sang at Evensong I had to make sure that the Mass choristers ( self regarded A team) did not snaffle the bloody lot. Luckily our lovely choirmaster was on side.
Tut tut Alan even this Antipodean lapsed Roman of inpeccable Irish antecedents knows that Lent 4=simnel cake, to go with the pink clobber
Some years ago, when living in London, I made a special trip to an old-established family bakery to buy Simnel Cake for Mothering Sunday. I went away empty-handed as they only did it for Easter. Might there be a regional variation in play here?
Comments
There are few hymns I truly loathe, and usually it's for poor theology rather than musical offences. ATB&B is an exception because it's twee dreck and as a young chorister half of the couples getting married picked that and Jerusalem for the hymns at their wedding so I got thoroughly sick of it. Jerusalem I like but don't really think it belongs in church.
Agree, but there's also the phenomenon I experienced in a previous parish (as the youngest person present by decades).
Me 'do you like all these modern worship songs'
Churchwarden 'no, I hate them, no one here likes them'
Me 'then why do we sing them week after week'
CW 'because it's what the young people want, so they might like it if they come and that's what we're singing'
Me 'how often do the young people come?'
CW 'they don't really, or at least they hadn't until you did'
Me 'As the spokesperson for my generation, apparently, I would prefer the New English Hymnal, but would settle for anything in the heap of A&M gathering dust at the back'
CW 'ooh, that would be lovely, but then the young people won't come'
Me 'I'm going to the pub'
However, I actually like a lot of contemporary worship songs! For me SJS isn't about having a problem with contemporary worship music, given that it's 1) older than I am so not actually contemporary for me or Gen Z, just what old people think of as 'modern music' and 2) from the truly heinous Hymnody By Muzak era that feels like easy listening versions of action songs. SJS is just probably brought up the most because it's the most well-known?
Context obviously matters - for example, the idea of a U2charist makes me want to jump out of a window, but I can see that Current U2 (and indeed Current Bono) isn't the same as 80s U2 and in the 80s I might have felt differently (although, also probably not).
I wonder how far any can be all things to all people. When I lived in Portsmouth, or Oxford, it was pretty easy to find the church that suited you just by walking a bit further or getting on a bike.
Out here in the sticks it's more difficult - if I don't go to my parish church then it's getting in a car. Plus attempts within benefices to have different church styles in different churches, then overlay that onto the rural mentality of 'if it's not in my parish church I'm not going.'
I'm as guilt of that as the next person - one of the churches in our benefice is almost entirely BCP and Hymns A&M, but it's also 6 miles away. I don't go to it, and grit my teeth with some of the things we do instead. However, I'd lay pretty good odds over at that church there are congregants gritting their teeth and wishing they could have what we have. But no one swaps.
It's a real (old fashioned issue) I've found in a couple of rural parishes I've lived in now, loyalty to the village church *where you live* cuts across almost everything else and can lead to people plodding unhappily on without trying to change things.
There's also the inevitable tension between the mission-orientated "homogeneous unit principle" approach, which fashions a church that specifically caters for one cultural group; and what I see as the Biblical one of churches including Jew and Greek, slave and free, old and young etc - in fact a microcosm of a new society.
(I suspect this discussion is becoming a bit Purgatorial for this thread!)
It depends. Often it's both, and that's probably the case in a lot of parish churches. I was personally thinking more of the first case - but of course, 'culturally aware' is not necessarily the same as 'currently fashionable' (eg, a church may choose to not use songs written by a particular person for ethical reasons rather than issues of popularity).
I think that having more than one mass on a Sunday means that each one can have a distinct flavour. We have a modernish Saturday evening, a quiet Sunday morning with no music, and a family Mass.
Over and above that, a decent church should have a sense of community and belonging that over-rides musical etc taste. Its where our friends are.
A lot of Anglican churches have multiple services on a Sunday - but often have quite separate congregations attending them. Certainly most people attending an 8am said BCP communion service would never go to other services. I think a Saturday evening service would be a real positive for a lot of Anglican churches but strangely I've never come across it even in A-C churches. Unfortunately there's a lot of snobbery in many A-C churches - I think many would be surprised by how contemporary RC services can be nowadays.
I would cross the Tiber in terms of attending services if it wasn't for the fact that this would likely be Misconstrued by fellow Anglicans - let the reader understand - and for me it's more frustration with the constant postcode lottery* that Anglicans have to battle against in England at least wrt local church types. If your local town has eg mostly one type of Anglican churchmanship, you're just out of luck if that's not you or not suitable for Reasons. You would think that a cathedral city full of ancient churches would attract less Evangelical fluff on the spectrum between fundie and tedious in my town's case, but alas...
*For those outside the UK - your postcode is like your zip code, and many services and institutions vary hugely depending on where you live. The Church of England varies wildly depending on location/diocese, both in terms of politics and local church styles.
Yes, reminds me of the differences between the RC shrine at Walsingham and the Anglican one. In my experience from the people I know who have taken part in the RC Student Cross pilgrimage, most RCs have no idea of the internal politics going on wrt this subject within Anglicanism and find the Ordinariate approach quite puzzling.
I think we might need a new thread for this - not really my experience of it...
Immortal, invisible
Indescribable
What a beautiful name it is
Great I am
The heart of worship
All from iSing worship.
Jesus calls us here to meet him
Holy Spirit, gift bestower (this presented me with a challenge as I didn't know the tune, couldn't find a midi of it, and all the other tunes I know in 8787D didn't fit, so I chopped the verses in half and set it to AE FOND KISS, which did)
O God you search me and you know me
God of the living in whose eyes (TYNEMOUTH, which was new to me but easy enough)
Look forward in faith (an ok hymn but can't help but make me think of one of the reactionary factions of the CofE)
Yes, that was the tune given but it's not one I know.
Ho, All Who Thirst (JACOB’S WELL)
Bless the Lord, My Soul (Bernier, Taizé)
God, How Can We Forgive (LEONI)
Jesus Knows the Inmost Heart (LOE DE ÍSÁ)
“As the deer” (Nystrom).
“I hunger and I thirst” - Quam Dilecta.
“I heard the voice of Jesus say” - Vox Dilecti.
“Restore, O Lord” (Kendrick).
Our TEC place used to have a Saturday evening Mass, but it got killed off a while ago because of lack of demand. Prior to its demise, the typical attendees were a handful of older people who like coming to church, and came on Sunday as well, a couple of middle-aged people who worked on Sunday mornings, and one high school kid who did something disturbingly athletic on Sunday mornings.
All my hope on God is founded
As the deer pants for the water*
Be still for the presence of the Lord
Be thou my vision.
* I object to this hymn as it requires participants to sing “I love you more than any other” etc.
During Communion the choir sang the Sussex Mummers carol, which is not what might seem, more of a slow hymn suitable for Lent/ Passiontide.
6pm Evensong
The Church’s one foundation
Lord thy word abideth
The day thou gavest.
Anthem: Sussex Mummers Carol. We prepared it for Evensong, but opted to run it this morning too.
I have commented elsewhere that we had a very low attendance of 8 this morning( must have been the sunny weather) with a different set of 10 people in the evening, plus 8 choir each time.
We certainly did, but I always thought the tune was called Suo Gan...? Or is that the name of the Welsh folk song and the tune of it is Yr Hun Gan?
He having been disturbingly athletic on Saturday evenings after church.....
Catholic churches here seem to have substantial congregations on Saturday evenings, judging by the numbers of cars parked at them. The pattern followed by young Catholics when I was young was confession, Mass and then off to the pub, parties etc, and probably a bit of sinning formed part of their activities.
CCSL has a short Eucharist early on Saturday evenings during Lent, followed by Stations of the Cross.
Kyries
Psalm etc
We rise (Ashes.)
Come back to me
Freely, freely.
Wife and I had to leave before the last two in order to dash across the Pennines to watch our 3 year old granddaughter's dance school show - The Wizard of Oz. She was a snowflake; a thing I don't remember from the movie. It was delightful and my wife wept!
Our Saturday evening Mass is mainly attended by people from a parish that was shut down. Sadly they find it difficult to assimilate with us, though we are ever so nice.
I wonder also if Anglicans are able to indulge in a 'bit of sinning' without attending a vigil Mass beforehand.
Both names indicate a lullaby or sleeping song.
Robin Williams famously suggested Episcopalians were "Catholic light - half the guilt" so maybe Anglicans have a higher tolerance.
I have told this before but on one occassion I sang that verse very loud so the actual words were sung. There was a misprint in the service sheet; the word 'gate' had been changed to 'grave'. 'Gate' was in my opinion better than 'grave' although I objected to both versions as did the minister who if he had realised there was a misprint would have made that an excuse for dropping the verse altogether. Motto: - never let a group of guides plan the order of worship without a competent worship leader there to proof read and ask them "did you really intend that to happen?"
God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand (NATIONAL HYMN)
Morning Has Broken (BUNESSAN)
Lift High the Cross (CRUCIFER)
Lord of all hopefulness - Slane
All our blessings- words by Rev Ally Barratt, tune All Things Bright and Beautiful
He’s got the whole world in his hands, with adapted words.
Lord Jesus Christ, you have come to us - Tune Living Lord
We had:
Come let us sing of a wonderful love (WONDERFUL LOVE)
Jesus, lover of my soul (ABERYSTWYTH)
Just as I am (SAFFRON WALDEN)
Love divine (BLAENWERN)
There's a wideness in God's mercy (CROSS OF JESUS)
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (NETTLETON)
Bless the Lord, My Soul (Bernier, Taizé)
Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound (AMAZING GRACE)
The Church of Christ in Every Age (WAREHAM)
We had simnel cake, a very good reason to continue the commemoration.
Back in my CCSL days simnel cake was the order of the day ( annual vestry meeting at Lent 4) and I scored the job of making one for the choristers. As I sang at Evensong I had to make sure that the Mass choristers ( self regarded A team) did not snaffle the bloody lot. Luckily our lovely choirmaster was on side.
Blimey! Whatever next!
Always been a Mothering Sunday staple around our way.
Tut tut Alan even this Antipodean lapsed Roman of inpeccable Irish antecedents knows that Lent 4=simnel cake, to go with the pink clobber
Some years ago, when living in London, I made a special trip to an old-established family bakery to buy Simnel Cake for Mothering Sunday. I went away empty-handed as they only did it for Easter. Might there be a regional variation in play here?