Dear Friends,
On Tuesday we had a very happy gathering of parishioners who have recently joined us through the Pilgrims’ Course or who have moved to the city and joined Saint Thomas. 65 people accepted the invitation, and it was good to see so many young and old getting to know one another.
November is almost upon us. I love the month of November – the month of Remembrance – the month of the holy souls. We begin with the great celebration of All Saints’ Day on Friday, November 1 with a glorious Eucharist sung by the choir of men and boys. As it is a Friday, we will have cheese, wine, and soft drinks after mass in the Narthex. All Saints’ Day is a principal Feast Day of the Episcopal Church, so please come and support this celebration in-person or on-line on Friday. On Sunday, November 3, we continue that celebration of All Saints with All Saints’ Sunday. This year, the choir will sing a Sequence for All Saints by Kenneth Leighton; this will punctuate the usual parts of the mass. You can find some music notes about the piece by Andrew Burn underneath my message.
The Mass setting that day will be plainsong Mass VIII – Missa de Angelis – and for the first time, the congregation will be invited to sing the Gloria antiphonally with the choir accompanied by the organ. All Saints’ Sunday will end with Evensong and Benediction – a glimpse of the glory of heaven when we shall all gather around Jesus on his throne of glory.
From the vision of the glory of heaven, with its processions, gold vestments, alleluias, and flowers, we turn to the sadness of All Souls’ Day on November 2– with black vestments, unbleached candles, and the reading of the names of our departed loved-ones. We will be reading the names of our loved-ones on the first four Saturdays in November, beginning with All Souls’ Day; the names will be read alphabetically. On Remembrance Sunday, November 10, the Book of Remembrance will be placed on the altar at 11am, and at the 4pm Service we will also have an act of Remembrance for our war-dead. Our preacher at 4pm will be Army Chaplain Major Benjamin J. Newland.
Saturdays in November
November 2: Names A-G
November 9: Names H-M
November 16: Names N-S
November 23: Names T-Z
Many of you will now know of the death of Robert Willis, Dean Emeritus of Canterbury. Dean Robert was a good friend of our parish and preached our Holy Week sermons this year. This week, I chaired a meeting for the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral in the US, and we paid tribute to the long and distinguished service that Dean Robert gave to Canterbury. His extraordinary handling of the lock-down in England that led to even the cathedrals and churches being closed even to their clergy, led to the creation of the Garden Congregation, as Robert led morning prayer from the Deanery Garden every day without fail, filmed by his faithful partner Fletcher, and often accompanied by his beloved cat and an assorted menagerie of animals that lived in the Deanery garden. He regularly remembered his friends in the United States, and his gentle and deep spirituality fed many people through those dark and anxious days.
I am told that his funeral will be held in Connecticut, and a memorial service some time later in Salisbury Cathedral, where his former curate is now Bishop. At the time of writing, I have no further details to share. Robert was due to preach at Saint Thomas on the Feast of Christ the King; it is poignant, therefore, that his last sermon preached at St, Mark’s, New Haven, was on the subject of true glory. Our thoughts and prayers go out to dear Fletcher as he comes to terms with the loss of Robert.
May Robert rest in peace and rise in glory.
You can listen to Dean Robert’s Holy Week 2024 Sermons online.
November ends with Thanksgiving that takes us immediately this year into Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year. As I said in my sermon on our Patronal Feast Day, as we celebrated the conclusion of our Bicentennial:
Remembrance; thanksgiving; new beginnings: It’s what we have done this past year, and prepares us for the future. Remember – give thanks – look forward: It is the vision of Saint Thomas Church, to be a community of love and praise, and an oasis of prayer in the middle of New York, actively weaving a tapestry of divine proportions.
‘We shall rest and we shall see, we shall see and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise, in the end that is no end.” (St. Augustine)
Thank you to all of you who have made a pledge to Saint Thomas Church thus far; it is heartening to see how committed we are as a community to our presence here in Midtown Manhattan. I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!
Affectionately,
Your Priest and Pastor,
Carl
Sequence for All Saints – Kenneth Leighton
Leighton always enjoyed writing for a specific performance or particular musicians; consequently, composing Sequence for All Saints, a commission from the West Riding Cathedral Festival, must have given him particular pleasure. Not only was the Wakefield Cathedral Choir participating in the premiere (together with the choirs of Sheffield and Bradford cathedrals), but also All Souls is the dedication of Wakefield Cathedral. In addition Leighton’s old cathedral was the setting for the first performance, on 14 October 1978 conducted by Jonathan Bielby.
The text, taken from The English Hymnal, is a medieval plainsong Sequence (an addition to the liturgy that was sung during Mass after the Alleluia, usually on feast days) for the Feast of All Saints (1 November). Whilst composing the work Leighton confided to his wife that he did not find it easy composing a text that related to death; nevertheless the result is a marvellously consolatory work which is cast in a continuous span of five sections.
The Introit begins with the choir softly intoning the word ‘Gaudeamus’, which blossoms lyrically before bursting into a choral fanfare. A flamboyant, quasi-improvisatory organ solo provides a link to a fast rhythmic section that rises to a climax at ‘in honour of All Saints’. It fades with hushed awe at the ‘Son of God’, before the opening ‘Gaudeamus’ returns.
The baritone’s sombre exhortation to ‘fear the Lord’ opens the Gradual, soon joined by lilting soprano ‘Alleluias’. As the other voices are gradually added to the texture the music gathers momentum until they chime ‘Alleluia’ together, and a brief organ postlude leads to the Offertory. Here, to quietly throbbing chords, the trebles’ serene melody expresses the wonder of God, and concludes with a caressing cadence, as the voices enter by imitation and a solo treble voice floats tranquilly above.
With the Communion a profound sense of mystery is reached. An ornate organ solo sets the mood of solemnity with the baritone joining in to meditate on the peace the ‘souls of the righteous’ will obtain after death. The choir voices steal in, and in an unaccompanied passage with intense harmony the music rises to a fervent climax, only to die away for a cadence of balm.
Initially the Finale hearkens back to the opening of the sequence, before erupting into a paean of praise, as the music adopts a celebratory character heightened by the syncopated rhythmic organ accompaniment. After a climactic ‘Alleluia’, the semi-chorus starts singing Issac Watts’s hymn ‘Give me the wings of faith’, set to a melody by Orlando Gibbons clothed in the harmony of the Scottish metrical tune No 67, and with the rest of the choir adding uplifting ‘Alleluias’. Finally the moment of grandeur arrives as in conclusion the congregation sings the hymn.
