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Rector's
Monthly Newsletter Article
Dear Friends,
March will be a busy month here at Trinity.
We begin with the annual visit of the Bishop on March 2nd.
Bishop Jones will be with us and will confirm members of
this year’s Confirmation and Inquirers’ Classes at the
10:30am service. This is our opportunity to welcome one of
the leaders of our diocese and to support those who are
making “a mature affirmation” of their Christian faith and
life. In other words, it is our opportunity to be the Church
in the best sense of the word.
March 16th
is the Sunday of the Passion, otherwise known as Palm
Sunday. I have been looking forward to this moment ever
since being introduced to you all by way of the Parish
Profile. The photographs taken on Palm Sunday several years
ago that were included in that profile, complete with Violet
the donkey, were both beautiful and inspiring. It will be a
great joy to take part in this year’s liturgy with you.
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week.
Throughout the week, there will be various services, parish
events, and the offering of Rutter’s Requiem on that
Wednesday evening. The culmination will be the liturgies
offered on Good Friday. As a very wise professor of mine at
seminary once said, “you cannot really celebrate the joy of
Easter without first having experienced the events of Holy
Week”. I agree. And as the rector of this parish, I
certainly encourage each of you to participate as fully as
possible.
March 23rd
is Easter, The Sunday of the Resurrection. In addition to
our celebrations at 8:00 and 10:30am here at Trinity, I
understand that there is a community sunrise service. There
is something quite powerful about rising with the sun on
Easter morning. You might want to add this service to your
spiritual journey this year.
During March, we will also continue to pray
about and think through the mission and ministry to which
God now calls us. I am happy to report that the Vestry
gathered for a good retreat on Saturday, February 16th.
At that time, we considered a “blue print” for the work of
our church. The blue print is as follows:
Our worship is the foundation. Our
celebrations of the sacraments, our prayers, and our hymns
of praise and thanksgiving offered each Sunday are the base
on which all the other programs and ministries of our
congregation are built.
Then, there are the four cornerstones:
Christian Formation – all those programs and
ministries involving education and learning for all ages.
These would include the Church School, Youth Group, and
Forum Hour.
Parish Life – The opportunities we have to
gather together for fellowship and fun, as well as extending
pastoral care to one another, would be included here.
Outreach – As Archbishop William Temple once
said, “The Church is the only institution on earth that
exists primarily for sake of those who are currently outside
its membership.” You and I have been called to love our
neighbors as Christ has loved us, especially those who are
in any kind of material or spiritual need. Outreach
represents that cornerstone in our congregation’s life where
we seek to do just that.
Stewardship – In one of my first homilies, I
shared with you my belief that stewardship is a year round
ministry. God has entrusted us with a vital and essential
mission, a ministry represented in a real sense by the
numbers found in our annual budget. In addition, we have
been given an incredible collection of buildings and grounds
in which we worship and carry out the work of our parish. If
future generations are to experience this same blessing,
then we must do all that we can to care for and preserve
this gift that God has given us. Therefore, stewardship
cannot be understood as “once a year” fundraising. Instead,
stewardship is a daily and integral expression of who we are
and what we are about.
I commend this blue print to your thoughts
and prayers. And as you have comments and suggestions,
please share them with the members of the vestry and with
me. Remember, we are all in this together.
Finally, March will end on a bittersweet note
for us here at Trinity. As you know, our beloved Parish
Administrator, Nancy Scholl, will be resigning at the end of
the month. Nancy has faithfully served God in this place for
nearly ten years. And let me blunt: She will be
irreplaceable. Nonetheless, I celebrate the fact that Nancy
now knows that are other things to do, and places to see,
and I pray that the Holy Spirit give her peace of heart and
mind as she makes this transition in her life. We need to
thank her for all that she has done for us, and I ask that
you speak to her individually. In addition, on Sunday, March
30th,
our Coffee Hour following the 10:30am service will be
offered in her honor. Please plan on being present and
taking part in this moment of thanksgiving. Thank you,
Nancy, and may the peace of our Lord be always with you.
As always, it is an honor and blessing to be
here with you.
Faithfully yours in Christ,
Rob +
Requiem. The
word means rest; that most cherished of states in our busy
world. In the Requiem Mass it is what we pray for the
departed to find even as we long for it in our daily lives.
The Requiem
Mass is the liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church
used for the rite of burial and formally known as the Missa
deprofunctis. It is the funeral Mass. Originally the
musical settings of this service were chanted and in the 14th
century composers began to set this and other liturgical
texts to written music. As western music developed, the
Requiem text grew into a genre of it’s own with musical
settings growing to a scale too large for direct liturgical
use although still appropriate for sacred worship. These
“concert pieces” include the famous Requiems of Mozart and
Fauré. Eventually, composers began to deviate from the
traditional Latin text adding pieces from the psalms, the
Anglican burial service or in the case of Brahms “German
Requiem” using entirely different texts having to do with
death.
John Rutter is
probably the most prolific living composer of sacred music.
His many anthems are sung in a variety of churches all over
the world and possess a beauty accessible to the untrained
listener. His Requiem, written in 1985, is one of his best
works. It combines most of the traditional Latin text with
pieces in English from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer,
making it distinctly Anglican. It also includes Psalms 130
and 23 in English.
The choir has
devoted the season of Lent to this special piece of music
singing one movement each Sunday and then will present the
work in it’s entirety on the Wednesday of Holy Week
accompanied by harp, tympani, flute, oboe, cello,
glockenspiel, and organ. It is a most appropriate
discipline for all involved to be absorbed in these ancient
words set to beautiful modern music as we move towards the
crucifixion of Jesus.
In an
especially poignant part of Rutter’s Requiem, the women are
singing “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis
requiem,
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the
world, in thy mercy, grant them rest.”
At the same time, the men sing in English from the Book of
Common Prayer, “in the midst of life we are in death, of
whom may we seek for succour?” The music at this moment is
murky and unsettled, building to a discordant climax almost
demanding the question. Then, out of the cacophony comes
very beautiful and gentle music accompanying the answer. “I
am the resurrection and the life saith the Lord: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
In this season
of death and resurrection let us sing or listen to these
ancient words and beautiful music and remember that in God,
through Jesus Christ, in both death and life, we are granted
eternal rest.
Christian
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