Remind me why we are doing this

After describing his insanely busy schedule for Christmas Eve and the following two days, one of my musical colleagues wrote: “Remind me why we are doing this.”

Most years, I start to sense the answer to that question during our annual Advent Lessons and Carols service. It is the choir's only big event of the year, and a service I greatly enjoy from the first planning stages to the execution of it. The choir sang very well, and I played tolerably well. But not even the singing of “Joy to the world” as the final hymn could do it for me this year.

If not then, perhaps it would be when the Daily Office lessons get around to the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, after the Fourth Sunday of Advent. This is always a high point in the liturgical year for me; we have by then traversed much of Advent, heard much about our need for a Savior, and at last the Story comes to it: “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth....”

I can deal with Advent. It is a time that requires discipline, more in its way than Lent. And this has been a good Advent; necessity has improved some of my work habits (though at the expense of some other things, such as writing in this Music Box). It has resulted in better organ playing in the services, and fewer important tasks left undone. I have been “purify[ing] my conscience” of much that is slovenly “that when [he] cometh he may find in [me] a mansion prepared for himself” more so this year than in any year that I can recall.

But in my efforts to lead a disciplined life, I often become too busy for Christmas, at least in any form that most people would recognize. December 25 is just another work day, and a hard one, for it comes on the heels of too many late nights, too little sleep, and is followed this year by another long day, a Sunday. I love the Daily Office lessons, and the return of the Te Deum at Matins, and I sing the Gloria in Excelsis for myself, since we do not get to do it in the Eucharist. And perhaps this is enough. But I find myself battling that deadly foe, Envy. Other people take time off, even members of the church staff; I can't, not if I am to play the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch" for Evensong on January 2 and be ready for choir rehearsals on January 5. Other people have family and friends. Other people have wonderful, perfect Christmases full of love and happiness.

So, “remind me why we are doing this.”

-- After reading this morning of the Annunciation, followed by St. Mary rising with haste to go into the hill country of Judea, a passage that continues with the Magnificat, I did a workout at the organ of the Magnificat from Stanford in A, for tonight's choir rehearsal. The sheer infectious joy of this setting, combined with memories of the morning's reading, was enough to undo even a Scrooge like me. The first Christmas was neither leisurely nor pleasant for Our Lady, yet she sings Magnificat and the undoing of the old world of sin and death. Can I not fulfill my office as Organist to participate in her song, and enable others as well?

-- In the midst of this, two little children of the parish and their mother came in. The children presented me with a pint jar of cranberry-orange relish, which, they told me, they had made. The little girl, whom I expect to join choir when she is old enough, gave me a thorough listing of ingredients.

-- After Stanford, I started on “Hark, the herald angels sing,” in the arrangement by Willcocks found in Carols for Choirs, complete with the big optional fanfare at the beginning and the descant setting for the final stanza. That did it; I was so overcome that I could hardly play to the end.

Hail, the heav'n-born prince of peace!
Hail, the Sun of righteousness!
Ris'n with healing in his wings,
Light and life to all he brings!

Even to me.