Holy Eucharist Rite II and Confirmation at 10:30 a.m. sung by the St. John’s Youth and Adult Choirs, sermon by the Rt. Rev’d Ian Douglas.

Worship at Home:

Click here: Service Bulletin – Sermon Text

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Service Music:

Voluntary   Adagio from Symphony No. 5    Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)

Processional Hymn 182    Christ is alive! Let Christians sing    Truro

Song of Praise 417    This is the feast   Festival Canticle

Sequence Hymn    What shall I cry!    Finlandia

Offertory Anthem    The Spirit of the Lord    Philip Stopford (b. 1977)
Words from Isaiah 61

The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.
He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives
And recovering of sight to the blind, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord,
To give unto them that mourn a garland of ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,
That they might be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.
For as the earth bringeth forth her bud,
And as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth,
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before the nations.

Philip Stopford is a contemporary English composer who began his career as a youth chorister at Westminster Abbey, singing under Simon Preston and Martin Neary. His music is equally popular with American choirs as it is with English ones, due to his accessible yet thought-provoking compositional style. Our Youth Choir (along with the choir of St. James’s Church) premiered a new work by Philip at the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival in October, and will collaborate on recording it in May.

Sanctus S125   Richard Proulx (1937-2010)

Fraction Anthem   Christ our Passover    Jeffrey Rickard (b. 1942)

Communion Anthem    God be in my head    Walford Davies (1869-1941)
Words: Sarum Primer, 1514, found at Hymn 694

The apparent simplicity of God be in my head, with its repetition of the key phrase, suddenly gives way to very effective harmonic sophistication on the word ‘heart’ that lays the path for the twilit ambience of the final phrase. H. Walford Davies was composer and musical director at the University of Wales as well as Organist at, among others, Temple Church, where his student Leopold Stokowski (later one of the leading conductors of the 20th century) assisted him.

Closing Hymn 205    Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!    Gelobt sei Gott

Voluntary   Gelobt sei Gott    Healey Willan (1880-1968)