Sunday, September 27, the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
Sunday, September 27 is the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. Find the readings here.
Dear Friends in Christ, This week’s worship video is now available.
Please support our ministries, if you aren't already doing so.
One of my seminary professors once said that, contrary to popular belief, you actually can please everyone in your parish: you'll make some people happy just by arriving, and you'll win others over along the way. The rest, you'll make happy by leaving. While, as far as I know, I'm not going away anytime soon, I'm only too aware of the diversity of preferences in our parish, especially regarding worship.
Some parishioners have expressed how much they like that I record my segments of our videos in the Rectory, while others have mentioned how glad they were that last week's video was recorded in our church. This week, I recorded in the church again, because the unreliability of my home computer and the inadequacy of my backup video recorder left me no choice. Those same technical difficulties also prevented me from creating Rite I and Rite II videos this week, so I figured that since last week we only had a traditional language video, I'd use Rite II this week. (I also forgot to include the Venite. Oops.) So I'm glad this might please some of you, and for everyone else, I'm working on getting new hardware at home. Hopefully we'll be back to "normal" next week.
Speaking of which, next Sunday is the feast of Saint Francis. While that feast does not take precedence over the Sunday for our principal worship, and it's not sufficiently safe for us to do a Blessing of the Animals in church, if there is sufficient interest, I'll do a brief pet blessing service in our parking lot next Sunday afternoon. Please e-mail me today or tomorrow if you would come to such a service. As always, stuffed animals and pictures of pets would be welcome.
Please join us for our virtual coffee hour at noon:
• To join in the Zoom app, use the Meeting ID: 852 8633 0838 (no password).
• To join in your browser, click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85286330838
• To join from a smartphone, tap here: +16465588656,,85286330838#
• To join from a conventional phone, call (646) 558-8656 and enter the Meeting ID.
Here are Mark's music notes:
Our hymns this morning draw from old and new traditions. The opening, #339, Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness, is one of the great German chorales with very meaningful words. I confess that we don’t sing this as often as we should. The second hymn may be unfamiliar, #585, “Morning Glory, Starlit Sky” but is worthy of your attention. These are powerful words and a very singable, almost folk-like melody. It has to be good since it has a muffin named after it!
Organ music is by English composers, the Siciliano is a popular Baroque period form only loosely associated with Sicily, but a rather slow and lilting (triple meter) effect evoking a pastoral scene. It was also used for arias in Baroque operas as well as in keyboard music. The Voluntary form was used from the 17th century on usually as an organ piece offered during a service (but never before or after where no organ music was played) intended to sound improvised. Later fugues and trumpet or cornet tunes were also included within this title.
In recent weeks I’ve spent time reviewing webinars by the Center for Lifelong Learning, part of Virginia Theological Seminary. It is inspiring to meet with colleagues as well as professors who are helping to lead us through these uncharted waters. Our choir experimented with singing Compline this past week and perhaps this will be able to be a wider offering in the future. In addition the Choristers have begun meeting and look forward to an outdoor rehearsal in the coming weeks.