Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 a.m. sung by the Youth & Adult Choirs; sermon by The Rev’d Helen M. Moore.

Worship at Home:

Click here for: Service Bulletin – Sermon Text

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Service Music:

Organ Voluntary     Savior of the nations, come    Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Prelude on Veni Emmanuel     Pietro Yon (1886-1943)

Processional Hymn 56, vv. 1, 2, 6, 7, 8    O come, O come, Emmanuel    Veni, veni Emmanuel

Kyrie Eleison   from Litany of the Saints    adapt. Richard Proulx (1937-2010)

Sequence Hymn 324    Let all mortal flesh keep silence    Picardy

Offertory Anthem    I wonder as I wander    Carl Rütti, 2001
Words: John Jacob Niles (1892-1980)

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on’ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God’s Angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it, ’cause he was the King

The text and more familiar tune of “I wonder” was collected by John Jacob Niles in Murphy, NC in July 1933 from a young traveling evangelist Annie Morgan. According to Niles, he asked her to sing the song repeatedly until he had memorized it. It was published in his 1934 Songs of the Hill-Folk. Written in a minor key, it’s qualities of pensiveness make it one of today’s most popular carols. This contemporary arrangement by Swiss composer Carl Rütti was first performed at Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, in 2002. 

Sanctus   from Missa Emmanuel    Richard Proulx

Fraction Anthem    Agnus Dei   from Missa Emmanuel    Richard Proulx

Communion Anthem     My Lord is come    Will Todd, 2010
Words by the composer

Shepherds, called by angels, called by love and angels:
No place for them but a stable.
My Lord has come.
Sages, searching for stars, searching for love in heaven;
No place for them but a stable.
My Lord has come.
His love will hold me, his love will cherish me, love will cradle me.
Lead me, lead me to see him, sages and shepherds and angels;
No place for me but a stable.
My Lord has come.

Post-communion Anthem    He owns the cattle on a thousand hills     John W. Peterson, 1948
Words from from Psalm 50:10
Sung by the Church School

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

Closing Hymn in Procession 57    Lo! He comes, with clouds descending    Helmsley

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

The “Widor Toccata” is arguably the second-famous of all organ works (just behind the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor). The first of the great French toccatas to take literally the title (meaning “touch”), it is a whirlwind of chords and arpeggios with a pedal melody that travels through many keys. And, it is pure joy!

Cantor: John Nowacki
Church School Songleader: Heidi Tummescheit