Our main service this week was again YouTubed to the congregation. We celebrated the Feast of St Luke with our first hymn ‘Angel voices ever singing’ opening the service. We were able to sing the James Macmillan St Anne’s Mass with our two singers, one remotely by radio-mike which makes the music even more appealing. We had the rendition of a Taize chant beautifully sung but unfortunately our streaming of this part of the service was omitted by the organisation. However the congregation in situ enjoyed the close harmony of this work and we may try again.
St Luke was of course the great evangelist who accompanied St Paul on many of his ministerial travels and then wrote his own gospel and an account of the acts of the apostles. These two works constitute the largest piece of writing in the New Testament. Both writings are dedicated to a man called Theophilus who may have been a wealthy and influential Christian. The other thing people might know about the gospel of Luke is that, of all the gospel writers, he is most concerned to root the story of Jesus in history as evidenced by the sheer number of difficult to pronounce names (of people and places) in Luke’s gospel – he talks about who’s who, he mentions the names of the places Jesus went, and the names of all the Roman Governors, and the High Priests. Luke wanted to establish that Jesus wasn’t a myth – an idea, he was a real person, and everything in the gospels actually happened.
We read the details of the birth including stories which brought us the wonderful words of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis which we treasure in our liturgy. We shall shortly be using well known canticles in future services as they form the basis of what we as Anglicans have grown up with. Our final resounding hymn was ‘Ye Holy angels bright’ which stirred the congregation.
Next week our service will be conducted by our Lay Reader Emeritus, Fraser with hymns chosen by Gail and this will be a non-Eucharistic service. We are planning over the next few weeks to enlarge our musical contributions to include a Russian setting of the Liturgy and with our two-part harmony this will form part of our Advent Season which will lead us up to Christmas, the celebration of which will depend upon the vagaries of our Enemy Covid 19 and our ability to combat it. Our Lord said that we should love our enemies but in this case we don’t think so!!