Sending Forth
After the 10:30 service, choir members gathered their music and vestments in the robing rooms and discussed their travel arrangements. The next time we will gather again will be at London’s Heathrow Airport on July 14th.
Saint George’s is sending 38 people to be the choir, along with our director and organist for six Evensong services and one Sunday Eucharist, taking the place of the professional choir and choristers who are on summer break. We are also thrilled to have 14 folks—parents, friends, relatives, and choir alumni—who will join us in Gloucester.
Sunday, 7 July
Written by Missie Burman, alto
As we leave
After the 10:30 service, choir members gathered their music and vestments in the robing rooms and discussed their travel arrangements. The next time we will gather again will be at London’s Heathrow Airport on July 14th.
Saint George’s is sending 38 people to be the choir, along with our director and organist for six Evensong services and one Sunday Eucharist, taking the place of the professional choir and choristers who are on summer break. We are also thrilled to have 14 folks—parents, friends, relatives, and choir alumni—who will join us in Gloucester. Summer or not, in cathedrals around the world, the services must be said or sung throughout the church year, and this special week will be our opportunity to be part of that tradition. We will be working all week, playing a little, and basking in the splendor of Gloucester Cathedral.
As I prepare to leave, last Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 6:7-13) reading keeps popping into my head. Jesus visits his hometown and soon sets out to begin his ministry by gathering his disciples, teaching them, advising them, and then sending them out to do the work of spreading the Gospel, teaching, and healing.
And so we also were bidden with the beautiful prayer from Paddy Cavanaugh:
O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; and grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty and make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled for evermore. And may the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be with our choir now and always. Amen.
We travel with joy and a bit of trepidation for what is ahead of us. We carry your support of our music ministry and the love of our Saint George’s community with us to do the job that we have prepared ourselves to do: to glorify the Lord in music.
In tune with heaven and in touch with daily life.
This summer the Saint George’s Choir and Choristers will travel to Gloucester Cathedral in western England, where they have been invited to serve as the choir in residence. Over 50 of our singers and chorister parents will spend the week of July 14-22 at this magnificent cathedral singing daily Evensong and Sunday services while their resident choir and choir school are on break.
This summer the Saint George’s Choir and Choristers will travel to Gloucester Cathedral in western England, where they have been invited to serve as the choir in residence. Over 50 of our singers and chorister parents will spend the week of July 14-22 at this magnificent cathedral singing daily Evensong and Sunday services while the resident cathedral choirs and choir school are on break.
Gloucester Cathedral has a history of daily worship that stretches back more than 1000 years, and for seven days this summer, our choir and choristers will be a part of that tradition. During our residency, we will weave together our music ministry as part of their daily prayer and worship life. Each day the choir will take a morning excursion to an area of interest to learn about it and its history. We then return to the Cathedral for an afternoon of rehearsals followed by Evensong in the early evening.
Gloucester Cathedral is a magnificent place steeped in history and beauty. It is a place that ignites imaginations, deepens the spiritual within, and centers people in prayer, among many other things. It is an example of the ancient being relevant today, and a place where music is very much at the heart of worship. Gloucester Cathedral is a place like us in many ways, a place that shares our beliefs and way of being in the world.
Our residency at Gloucester Cathedral allows us to sing music at the core of our Anglican tradition in one of the places where it was born. (Ask your favorite chorister about the Herberts.) It gives us a chance to bring music that is important to our country and parish traditions to the people of Gloucester and offer it as part of their rich tradition of daily worship. The daily rhythm of creating music in this glorious space and worshipping daily together in a place steeped in beauty will no doubt deepen our spiritual and musical lives.
Gloucester Cathedral’s vision for its community is that they are a people “in tune with heaven and in touch with daily life.” Based on Benedict’s “rules” or rhythms of life – prayer, study, work, re-creation, and hospitality – this vision helps one hold their life in balance. Gloucester’s vision speaks to the very heart of our music ministry here at Saint George’s as we seek to bring “glimpses of heaven” and make God’s all-embracing love known through song. As we go about the daily rhythm of our residency, our prayer will be that we are transformed, our faith deepened, and that we return home more attuned to the musical service we are called to here at Saint George’s: inspiring others through song to be “in tune with heaven and in touch with daily life.”
Soli Deo Gloria,
Ben Keseley, Minister of Music