Music for the Communion of Saints Someone asked me last week whether our celebration of All Saints at St. Luke’s would include triumphant, happy music. I paused a moment to consider what exactly that might mean, triumphant and happy music. I replied, “Actually, yes. We’re singing Tomás Victoria’s beautiful setting of the Requiem Mass, the liturgy for the dead, as well as certain ancient chants appointed for the day.” To understand fully what I meant in my reply, we must think as members of a liturgical church – which we most certainly are – whose worship is guided thoughtfully by three-cycle series of Scripture Lessons and by the seasons of the liturgical calendar. As the year’s journey with our Lord draws to a close in the final weeks after Pentecost, we hear in our Lessons more and more about the Kingdom of God, the last days, and eternal life. This theme culminates on the final Sunday of our year, Christ the King, on which we celebrate the Lord’s Kingship as King of Heaven and Earth, our sovereign Redeemer. One month earlier, we experience two solemn holy days which cause us to stop and to take notice earnestly of the Kingdom of God theme. These holy days are fixed feasts, that is, they are celebrated on specific calendar dates and are not moveable feasts (like Easter and Pentecost). November 1 is the feast of All Saints. November 2 is the feast of All Souls. Together these days are included in our liturgical celebrations to force us to take spiritual inventory and to reflect. We hear much around this season about God’s Kingdom, but what does that mean for us? How do we fit in to all this? On these two November days, we consider first our immortality and then are made to contemplate our mortality. The Kingdom of God, you see, is not some distant and remote place. It’s all of creation, and we’re right in the middle of it. That includes the heavenly kingdom and our earthly existence too. Collectively, we are all saints, whether we are alive or dead. We work together for the good of the kingdom, and we are united in purpose to give worship to our Maker. We pray with and for each other to this end, and we work together to spread the Gospel, whereby others may come to join in the kingdom. This concept is what we profess each week in the Nicene Creed: the Communion of Saints. The unity of spirit among all believers throughout time. On earth, we witness the Church Militant and the Church Suffering – a giant community of living believers who strive in their mortal humanness for holiness and who seek to spread the Good News of Christ. In heaven, we witness the Church Triumphant – and even greater community of immortal souls who assist the living in their work through prayer and whose primary activity it is to engage in the eternal heavenly liturgy with the entire company of heaven. Together we are the Church, the Kingdom of God. On November 2, we observe the feast of All Souls, remembering those who have died in the hope of attaining the Beatific Vision. We mourn their physical passing from our midst on earth and pray them safe passage as they take their place among the ranks of heaven. It is a bitter sweet day, All Souls: our mortal nature mourns, but our immortal essence rejoices. Whenever the feast of All Souls falls on a Sunday, the church from ancient times has celebrated the Mass for the Dead on that day – as are many congregations in the Little Rock area and throughout the world this Sunday, including St. Luke’s. And since it is customary in the Anglican tradition to translate the feast of All Saints to the Sunday closest to November 1, we are combining our observance this year, both of All Saints and of All Souls to celebrate all three regions of God’s kingdom: Triumphant, Militant, and Suffering. We hear Scripture lessons which teach us of the good works of the holy men and women – plain folks and folks of status alike. We sing hymns traditional to the feast that recall the wonders that await us in heaven, looking forward to the day that we too might join the heavenly host. Simultaneously however, we are mindful of those who have recently gone and are mindful too that soon we also will be gone and others will be in this place remembering us in this way. And it is for this reason that we offer prayers for them, as they will one day for us. We hear repeated throughout the propers the prayer for eternal rest – safe passage into the Kingdom. Unique to the liturgy of the Dead is the ancient and stirring sequence chant, the Dies Irae, which paints a graphic and chilling picture of the last judgment offset by the recollection of the great work of salvation won for us upon the cross. Like the Exultet chant of the Great Vigil of Easter, the Dies Irae of the Mass for the Dead presents to us the truth of our dire human predicament, yet celebrates the Grace and Mercy of a loving God in his presenting us a glorious, salvific solution: Through Sin comes Death, but through the Cross comes Salvation. So, back to the initial question: triumphant, happy music for All Souls? Most assuredly! We celebrate in word and action the three-fold Kingdom of God, we celebrate where we are in that Kingdom and where we’re going. We acknowledge our human weakness today, and look forward to eternal life with God in the world to come. Most of all, we realize on All Saints and on All Souls that we are not alone here with our God – we are part of a gigantic community of both the living and the dead: the Communion of Saints. In this, we have no choice but to celebrate with triumphant, happy music! The Solemn Observance of All Saints and All Souls will begin at 10:30am, Sunday, November 2. Special prayers for the dead will be recited at the columbarium after this service. Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them! -- Jason A. Pennington, Organist/Choirmaster
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:38:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015