Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the St. John’s Adult Choir & Choir School, sermon by the Rev’d Todd FitzGerald.

Worship at Home:

Click here: Service Bulletin

Service Music:

Voluntary    Choral Dorien    Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Silent Procession

Kyrie eleison S-84    Gregorian Chant, Orbis factor

Sequence Hymn 455    O Love of God, how strong and true    Dunedin

Offertory Anthem    I will arise    traditional, arr. Alice Parker (1925-2023) & Robert Shaw (1916-1999)

I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in His arms.
In the arms of my dear Savior, oh! there are ten thousand charms.
Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it, mount of Thy redeeming love.
Come, thou fount of ev’ry blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in His arms.
In the arms of my dear Savior, oh! there are ten thousand charms.

Alice Parker is a national treasure: America’s reigning queen of choral music. – American Record Guide
My twenty-years’ experience with Robert Shaw, an immersion in folk music of many kinds, has had a profound effect on my own understanding of song. I learned to see each tune as a small universe, setting up its own rules of pitch and rhythm, mood and dance. If I understand that universe, and work within it for my setting, the result is an organic whole that allows the original melody to flourish. – Alice Parker
We mourn the loss of Alice Parker, who died on December 24, 2023.

Sanctus     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Fraction Anthem     Agnus Dei     Gregorian Chant, Deus Genitor alme

Communion Motet    Ave verum corpus    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine,
vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine,
cuius latus perforatum fluxit aqua et sanguine:
Esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.

Hail, true body, born of the Virgin Mary,
which having truly suffered, was sacrificed on the cross for mankind,
whose pierced side flowed with water and blood:
May it be for us a taste of things to come in the trial of death.

Communion Hymn 337    And now, O Father, mindful of the love    Unde et memores

Hymn in Procession  401    The God of Abraham praise    Leoni

Voluntary    Litanies    Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Jehan Alain, a Parisian composer whose life was cut short when his plane was shot down during WWII, wrote this morning’s organ music. The opening voluntary is a haunting Choral that explores modal tonalities. Litanies is a breathless and relentless prayer. The desperation of prayer in time of deep need is illustrated by a repetitive litany and rhythms written while traveling on a train—all building to a frenzy. Alain writes, “When the Christian soul in its despair can no longer find any new words to implore the mercy of God, it repeats the same incantation over and over again in blind faith. The limits of reality are surpassed and faith alone continues upward.”