Dust thou art...

Our Youth Choir rehearsed on the afternoon of Ash Wednesday. On a whim, I had them get out the BCP and locate the Ash Wednesday service. Volunteers among the children read aloud the first two pages of it, down to the imposition of ashes, and we talked about it.

After the Lessons, the service has what I call a "Dearly Beloved" statement (the first words of the Marriage service, which begin an explanation of why we have gathered. Many Anglican services include such a statement, and Ash Wednesday is one). In this case it is "Dear people of God..." but the intent is the same: it is an explanation of why we observe Lent, and why we begin with this liturgy:

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. (BCP p. 265)

My whim arose from a sense that children do not attend this service. I asked: only one of the choristers had ever been to an Ash Wednesday service. And when we had it later on, there were no children that I saw. There were several college-age young adults, but no one younger. And there was a parent who always brings her infant child to church, who may well have been there with her.

One of the results of this was apparent as we talked in the rehearsal: they were appalled at the concept that "you are dust, and to dust you will return" -- that is, that we are all going to die. My impression is that no one had ever suggested the idea to them. One of the girls in particular was very upset. "I don't want to think about death. It is horrible."

Yes, it is.

And our culture does not want to think of it. And that brings me to my point:

These children, all of them from active church families, do not usually attend anything beyond Sunday Eucharist, Christian Formation class, and our once-a-year choral evensong. With a few exceptions, they are not at the Great Vigil of Easter, nor the services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, nor Ash Wednesday.

Yes, Wednesday is a school night. If the children come to choir in the afternoon and then the liturgy shortly after, it will be maybe 8:30 by the time they get home, with homework still on the agenda. Many of them also have other activities: dance class, volleyball practice, show choir to name three.

I am not a parent, so I cannot fully understand. But it seems to me that it would send a message for a parent to say: "Ash Wednesday is more important than homework." Or if she said to the coach, "My daughter is not going to be at practice tonight. She has a special church service she must attend."

That would be incredibly counter-cultural.

Perhaps the issue is that our parents, deep down, consider their child's progress in school and their socialization and development in after-school activities more important than their spiritual growth.

And that is a challenge for us all.

But it is hard, precisely because Ash Wednesday is countercultural. These choir parents are amazing people, the best group of parents I have ever worked with. Our director of Christian Formation, herself a choir parent, has tried to address this problem. For several years, she sponsored a dinner between choir rehearsal and the Ash Wednesday liturgy to encourage families to stay. Many did -- for the dinner, but not for the service.

Perhaps there is something to this that I do not understand at all.

----
Partly because of the girl who rightly appreciated the enormity of the statement "You are dust and to dust you shall return," I did talk about the rest of the story: Yes, we will die. But Jesus died too. He overcame death, and because of him, we will live forever.

From the prayer consecrating the ashes (BCP p. 265):

... that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Edit: see the next posting in this blog for some second thoughts]

Now the day is over

Now the day is over,
night is drawing nigh,
Shadows of the evening
steal across the sky
(Sabine Baring-Gould)

Once a year, we combine the Youth Choir and Adult Choir for Choral Evensong. Today was the day, the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.

The music list:
Smith Preces and Responses
“Hail, gladdening light” (C. Lang)
Psalms for the Second Evening (12, 13, 14, to Anglican chant)
Stanford in A
“O nata lux” (Tallis)
Hymn: “Now the day is over”

Some of our choristers know some of this music from RSCM courses, especially the Smith. That helped. And the youth choir has been working hard on this music since the first of January, especially the Stanford – the Magnificat is a handful.

Not least for the Organist. Jean L., who is a member of our parish, choir mother, and top-notch organist, played the Stanford and directed the Lang. With her at the organ, I was able to conduct, and that helped the younger choristers sing with more confidence.

The Lessons:
Ecclesiasticus 48:1-11
II Corinthians 3:7-18

… and all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit (v. 17-18)

We set up with the adults in the Choir (padded red chairs on the Cantoris side, by the organ) and the youth across from them on the Decani side in black plastic Wenger chairs from the choir room, forming a divided choir. As we rehearsed before the evensong, the afternoon sun shone through the stained glass onto the trebles. Looking at them, it seemed as if they were blazing with glory. As I directed them, my eyes blurry with tears, I felt as though this was as much of the “glory of the Lord” as can be borne in this mortal life. John of the Cross would warn “Do not be attached to this. Shut your eyes and ears to it, for it is nothing,” and he is, in a sense, right, for the Lord is not in the music, nor in these children, nor in the sunlight, nor even in the Scripture and liturgy. But I would submit that all these things are nonetheless windows into the “bright cloud” of glory and I am going to pay attention to them.

Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be
As more of Thee in each we see...
(John Keble, “New every morning is the love”)

There was no conductor for the Psalms. I told them to watch each other and listen, and that sufficed. I directed the Smith, the Stanford, and the Tallis; Jean directed the Lang. As is usual for Evensong rehearsals, there was barely enough time to touch on everything. We did not go all the way through the Psalmody, and did little more than a single run-through on the other music, except the Tallis (which got a second sing-through and could have used more. Some of the cross-relations in the inner parts are tricky). And even so, we ran overtime, which meant starting the service late. I had a twelve-minute prelude (“Fugue, Chorale, and Epilogue” by Howells), and did not begin it until almost 5:00, the stated hour for the service.

Jesus, give the weary
calm and sweet repose;
With thy tenderest blessing
may our eyelids close.

Music is important. Liturgy is important. But there is a sense in which the most important role of the evening was played by Charles C., who was appointed to “Meet the Pizza.” He had to leave the service early to wait for the Pizza Guy, who delivered seven large ones. After the service, the Youth Choir and their parents devoured every one; not so much as a crumb remained. Meanwhile, the Adult Choir and the small congregation had their usual after-Evensong wine-and-cheese reception upstairs. I shuttled between both locations. Both upstairs and down (with the pizza), people were saying “I wish we could do this more often. Can't the children sing every month for evensong?”

Claire L. (a first-year chorister) had the most perceptive comment to this: “We could, if we had two rehearsals a week. Otherwise, no. It is too much music to learn.” Well, yes. And if we rehearsed every day, we could sing evensong several times a week. And if we were selective and had auditions and a probationer's choir and a choir school, we could sing evensong six nights a week and the Eucharist on Sunday.

But that is not where we are. I most fervently wish we could have two rehearsals a week, and perhaps I sell these choristers short by not demanding it of them. Their school choirs and their athletic teams demand much more than this. Why not the church choir?

My hunch is that we are better to cast the net more widely, even if by so doing we cannot give the choristers as deep and full of an experience as I would wish. There are many children who have gone through the choral program here, and (at least in recent years) they have had a little taste of Evensong, and of other quality choral music. Some will forget all about it. But for some, it will be an abiding memory, perhaps even a hunger. There have been many long years when I hungered for Evensong and could come no closer than listening to the BBC Choral Evensong broadcasts and singing for a week at an RSCM course. It would not have happened in our parish without the confluence of Fr. S., interim priest and firm believer in the Daily Offices and Evensong, and me, a director willing to cooperate with him. His successor was lukewarm at best to the Choral Offices, and mused out loud on many occasions that Choral Evensong was “poor stewardship of our resources.”

Grant to little children
visions bright of thee;
Guard the sailors tossing
on the deep blue sea.

“I hope you know how special this is,” I told the choristers as we finished our rehearsal. When they leave this community (as most of them will), they are not likely to find another choir that sings regular evensongs, especially with combined children, youth, and adults. I think of Meg W., who was Officiant and Preacher tonight. She is on her way toward priesthood, and when she gets there, she will see how difficult it is to make something like tonight come to pass. “Remember this day,” I told her as we sat at pizza, watching the children play across the room. I am sure that she will.

Choral Evensong is disappearing, or so one might think. But in this place, and in a few other places (notably, the RSCM courses), we continue to cast the seed. For a long time, there will be a few people who remember how glorious it was. And some of them may find opportunity to give it a fresh start.

Comfort every sufferer
watching late in pain;
Those who plan some evil
from their sin restrain.

After the reception, after the pizza dinner, I puttered around, carrying chairs back to the choir room, setting the church up for the Tuesday morning Eucharist. And tackling yet another bulletin. “Remember this day.” I will long remember those children blazing in glory as they sang the Stanford. And the energy of the Smith preces – “O Lord, open thou our lips: And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.” And the careful intensity of the Psalmody. They came together, these two groups who do not normally rehearse together, and sang the psalms as if they do it every evening. And, maybe most of all, the closing hymn. I scheduled it because I am sure that none of our children have ever encountered it. And they should have the chance to sing it, at least this once. After a couple of stanzas, when it was properly established, I let them sing unaccompanied.

Through the long night watches
may thine angels spread
Their white wings above me,
watching round my bed.

Maybe it is too old-fashioned for modern children. Maybe it deserves to disappear.
But not just yet. This night and in this place, at least, it continued to live.

When the morning wakens,
then may I arise
Pure and fresh and sinless
in thy holy eyes.

Bulletin Night

It is roughly 11 pm. I have just spent most of the last nine hours selecting hymns and working on church bulletins: thirteen of them, so we now have bulletin files for the next four Sundays, with Ash Wednesday and a Choral Evensong for good measure. The liturgical texts are in place, and all of the music except the prelude and postlude for 11:00 on March 16.

I won't go into the (very good) reasons why we need to get so far ahead, but I do want to note the problem with this approach. I get confused, and my work is not up to standard. I forget which service is at hand, and put the wrong music in the wrong place. Or the wrong liturgical text. Or I leave stray Alleluias hanging on into Lent.

The worst error (at least that I caught) was when I started with the March 9 bulletin for 11:00 to adapt it into March 16 (with some changes: on March 9 we do the Great Litany, on March 16 the Penitential Order and Trisagion). But I did not save it as a new file; I saved it right over the March 9 file. When I had completed the bulletin and could not find it as a March 16 file, I realized what I had done. Of course the bulletin I had overwritten (March 9) had a complicated structure with cut-and-paste music notation, etc. It took about a half-hour to re-create it, when all I wanted to do was to go home and go to bed.

Bulletins are perhaps the most time-consuming part of my work. Today was unusual, but this week I have spent more than twice as much time on bulletins and the liturgical decisions behind them as I have on the organ bench, including the playing of services.

I can only hope that today's work will somehow be to the glory of God. Right now, I don't see it.

Doctor's Orders

I visited my primary care physician for a routine examination yesterday. His prescription began with these two items, in writing:

1. Alcohol: 1 or 2 servings daily
2. Antioxidants, especially Dark Chocolate: 2 or more squares daily

One can only wish that all medical advice was so pleasant!

My doctor's specialty is Internal Medicine, and this was my first visit to his office since 2006. He has aged noticeably in these eight years, and is nearly seventy, cutting back on his practice. That means that he has enough time to Do It Right rather than rushing from patient to patient. He was with me for over an hour, doing a thorough and careful examination and observing me throughout, even as we discussed aspects of Healthy Living such as exercise and diet. I gather that this is is one of the most important aspects of primary care, simply taking the time to See and Listen to the patient in order to get a sense as to how he is doing. Does he seem well? Does something seem “wrong” or “off”? I suspect that it is not often done properly in American medicine.

If it is eight years before I visit a doctor again, I suspect I will have to find a different one. I will miss him.

Obviously, I am pleased to receive a Clean Bill of Health. It is a gracious and undeserved gift from God, for which I am grateful. And it is an obligation: so long as I have health and strength, I must use it for the service of God and his people.

To celebrate, I had a beer with supper: “For medicinal purposes,” I told my wife. And I had the requisite two squares of dark chocolate for dessert.

Upon reflection, I think that I will ignore the first of my prescriptions. While there are health benefits to moderate alcoholic consumption, there are also dangers. The men in my family have tended toward alcoholism, and I am mindful of the advice of R. E. Lee:

“My experience through life has convinced me that, while moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard of morals and health.”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel

I have begun reading “The Ascent of Mount Carmel” by St. John of the Cross, and so far, I am appalled.

... every pleasure that presents itself to the senses, if it be not purely for the honor and glory of God, must be renounced and completely rejected... [If one cannot avoid encountering something pleasant,] it suffices that, although these things may be present to his senses, he desires not to have this pleasure. And in this wise he will be able to mortify and void his senses of such pleasure, as though they were in darkness.

This is so wrong! It is ungrateful to thus despise the gifts of God.
Better advice comes from Moses:

And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the LORD thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house; thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. (Deuteronomy 26:11)

And from the Preacher:

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. (Ecclesiastes 2:24)

And St. Paul:

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. (I Timothy 4:1-5)

I am not prepared to call the writings of St. John of the Cross “doctrines of devils,” for he does have an important point. If any desires, any possessions, any persons, any things whatsoever come between us and God, they “weary the soul and torment and darken it, and defile it and weaken it.”

But the path he describes can easily end in a narrow, bitter, solitary death of the spirit, destroying one's self and everything that one touches. One sees this, I think, in the Spanish Catholicism of his day, which bore its most characteristic fruit in the work of the Inquisition, and the enslavement of the native peoples of Latin America. But then one must consider Tomás Luis de Victoria. And El Greco. They are the other side of that dark and oppressive age.

Perhaps what St. John is after, or at least what I would say of such things, is that desire takes us out of the present moment, the Now which is the only opportunity we have to walk with God. We hunger, we lust, we covet, and we are immediately out of the Now, longing for some imagined future when our desires are sated. Or an equally imaginary past when we had that which is no longer with us (e.g., “the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick” of Egypt [Numbers 11:8]).

But I would submit that the Now should be a joyful thanksgiving, not a dreary blinding of the senses and spirit to what surrounds us. "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." (Philippians 4:11-12). One might say: "Desire nothing; enjoy everything."

I will continue with St. John of the Cross, for he is one of the great spiritual masters. Perhaps he will make more sense as I proceed, or (as he suggests early on in the book) upon a second reading.

We are not off to a good start.

Knowing the Tune: an Example

As an example of what I wrote a fortnight ago, my procedure for tomorrow's prelude improvisation was this:

It is our Parish Meeting Sunday, with our three usual services combined into one, most often sparsely attended – many people skip church and show up for the annual meeting that follows. Seeking to honor the traditions of our contemporary service, I am playing most of the service at the piano, and about half of the songs are from their repertoire.

One of them, “You have come down to the lakeshore” (number 758 in the supplement “Wonder, Love and Praise”) will be unfamiliar to the congregation from the two traditional services, so I began with this. By using it as the basis for the prelude, I hope to plant the tune in people's ears. It is beautiful, and I want them to hear that it is so. Then, when they sing it in the liturgy, they will hopefully recognize it, and be glad to sing it.

I began playing the tune, in thirds and sixths because it very naturally falls into that pattern. I sang along on the sol-fas. I played it in various keys, and began adding accompaniment – just simple chords, arpeggios. The tune is so lovely in itself that I do not want to do any more than that to it.

I played around with fragments of the tune, again in various keys, and now in various registers – the tenor, with the right hand doing figuration above it; the high treble, very quietly; all voices in the tenor register, the tune on top.

I turned to another tune from the service: “St. Andrew,” the David Hurd tune for “Jesus calls us” (The Hymnal 1982, number 549). This is the opening hymn, and will be unfamiliar to the contemporary congregation. I worked with it in similar fashion for a while, and tried combining the two tunes, with the idea of an A-B-A form. It was not working, because the tunes are too similar – though that in itself was a useful insight. I played around with various combinations of fragments from the two tunes, and some of this might show up in tomorrow's improvisation.

I turned to a third tune: “St. Dunstan's,” the American tune for “He who would valiant be” (The Hymnal 1982, number 564). This is the closing hymn, part of the traditional congregation's repertoire – though not sung for many years; the previous rector banned the hymn because of his notions about inclusive and militaristic language. Tomorrow's service ends with a big organ postlude on “St. Dunstan's” by Leo Sowerby, but it deserves mention in the prelude as well.

This was what I needed. “You have come down to the lakeshore” is delicate, gentle, beautiful. “St. Dunstan's” is bold, vigorous. Perfect!

After playing around with the tune as I did with the others, I developed a Plan.
The prelude will be an A-B-A form as I had intended, with “You have come down to the lakeshore” as the foundation of the A section, in F major. “St. Dunstan's” will be the second theme, beginning in D flat major, which quickly turns into C sharp minor, and (if it goes the way it did today) becomes rather dark. The main part of this B section will hopefully be the tune in the left hand, octaves, in the middle register, with toccata-like figuration in the right hand above it, much of it bitonal against the tune for added dissonance.

This comes to an end, and the A section returns like a spring morning (I hope). If there is time (it is, after all, the prelude, and I must aim for it to end at the stroke of 9:30 am), “St. Andrew” will be a little coda, laying the ground for the opening hymn, which is in F major – thus the choice of overall key center for the prelude.

The point of “knowing the tune” is to be able to do all of this without the tunes written out in front of me, and in keys that I would not have considered before working on this project. F major is fine (though “You have come down” is in D major in the hymnal supplement), but C sharp minor? That is why one should at least sometimes play the tunes in the more obscure keys.

I will add that it was a delight to do this work today, playing our beloved Steinway in the quiet church, the sunlight streaming through the windows. I stayed with this work longer than I should have, for I was having such a good time.

on Fast-Days: Richard Hooker

From Book V of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, section 72:

The very purpose of the church of God, both in the number and in the order of her fasts, hath been not only to preserve thereby, throughout all ages, the remembrance of miseries heretofore sustained, and of the causes in ourselves out of which they have risen, that men considering the one might fear the other the more, but farther also to temper the mind, lest contrary affections coming in place, should make it too profuse and dissolute; in which respect it seemeth that fasts have been set as ushers of festival-days, for preventing of those disorders as much as might be; wherein notwithstanding, the world always will deserve, as it hath done, blame; because such evils being not possible to be rooted out, the most we can do, is in keeping them low, and (which is chiefly the fruit we look for) to create in the minds of them a love toward a frugal and severe life, to undermine the palaces of wantonness; to plant parsimony as nature, where riotousness hath been studied; to harden whom pleasure would melt; and to help the tumours which always fulness breedeth; that children as it were in the wool of their infancy, died with hardness, may never afterward change colours; that the poor, whose perpetual fasts are necessity, may with better contentment endure the hunger which virtue causeth others so often to choose; and by advice of religion itself so far to esteem above the contrary, that they which for the most part do lead sensual and easy lives; they which, as the prophet David describeth them, “are not plagued like other men,” may, by the public spectacle of all, be still put in mind what themselves are; finally, that every man may be every man's daily guide and example, as well by fasting to declare humility, as by praise to express joy in the sight of God, although it have herein befallen the church, as sometimes David, so that the speech of the one may be truly the voice of the other, “My soul fasted, and even that was also turned to my reproof.”

It is for the likes of this that Samuel Johnson named Hooker among the authors whose language represented “a well of English undefiled.”

One sentence it is, as it should be, for it is one continuous idea, with not a word of it extraneous. They don't make sentences like that any more. Anyone who would attempt such in this degraded age would be derided, and worse, ignored.

I have spent a lot of time with Hooker over the past few years, first with Books I through IV of the Ecclesiastical Polity, and now this winter with Book V. I will stop after this, for the matters addressed in books VI, VII, and VIII are of less interest to me, but Book V is of very great interest. In it, Hooker defends the liturgy and customs of the Anglican Church, a matter close to my heart.

Some books are read in a day; some in a week; some require much more time, either from their size or their content. Hooker is in the third of these categories. For the most part, I have read him in thirty-minute bites, while riding the transit bus. That is about right; more than that would be more than I could comprehend in one sitting.

It is a delight to befriend someone like Hooker. I will be sorry when the time comes to lay him aside.

But one must not so much admire his style as take to heart the content. The above 352-word sentence could provide substance for much meditation, as well as encouragement in this discipline, and I plan to revisit it as we approach the first of the Church's great fast-days: Ash Wednesday. I have posted it here in part to remind myself of that intention.

Know the tune

There are many good books available for the student of improvisation. Most of them neglect what I consider the most important first step: Know the Tune.

Little can be done until the Tune becomes a part of you, not just something you read from the page. As a beginning, write it down. Yes, it is there in the hymnal, but write it out anyway with pencil and staff paper; just the melody, so that you will not be distracted by a printed harmonization. I like to put it at the top of a blank sheet of staff paper to allow space for further notes as my ideas for the improvisation develop.

Then, sing the tune. The best method, I think, is to use tonic solfege. That gets the tune in the head more effectively than just singing it on the text or on a neutral syllable, and prepares for playing it in other keys. Write in the sol-fa syllables as needed.

Now, play the tune. Start with one hand. Then the other. And in the pedals. Maybe start with one phrase in the right hand, the next phrase in the feet, the next in the left hand. Sing along on the sol-fas. Then try it in a different key - go slowly here, especially if transposition is not your strong point; this is where the solfege is a significant aid. Then, another key. And another after that. The ideal is to be able to play the tune in any register, any key. This may take many days, a little bit at a time. There is no hurry; take your time, and stay with just the unison tune until you can comfortably play it at least in several keys.

Experiment with different modes: if the tune is major, what does it sound like in minor? Or one of the church modes? It might be very interesting, or it might not work at all. Play around with the rhythm and meter; if it is in a duple meter, what does it sound like adapted into triple meter? Or the other way around? Maybe ornament the tune a little -- or a lot.

At some point, you will find yourself adding little comments with the other hand or the pedals. Maybe a pedal point, or maybe a little imitative counterpoint, or some descanting above the tune. Or maybe a chord or two (though at this point in learning the tune, I shy away from any full-scale harmonization. Stick with simpler ideas.) This is the next step, so go for it! By this time, your subconscious is generating ideas, and it is time to start bringing them to the surface. “Play” with the tune in this manner to your heart’s content. Out of this will come the material for your improvisation, or a written composition should you choose to take it in that direction.

I have written of this as a first step, and it is. But there is another level of Knowing the Tune which informs the work of even the greatest masters -- people like Paul Manz, or John Ferguson -- or Helmut Walcha, or Maurice Duruflé, or Charles Tournemeire -- or most of all, J. S. Bach. These composers immersed themselves so deeply in the Tunes of their musical and faith traditions that their music continues to communicate the spiritual essence of the chant, or the chorale, or the hymn tune in ways that could never before have been imagined.

(footnote: I wrote this for the local AGO newsletter, and thought it worth posting here as well.)

Another footnote: I describe an example of this work in the January 25 essay.

more on the Puritans

I was too harsh on the Puritans in yesterday's essay, and must say at least a few words in their defense. Or rather, I point to one person, who is an example of what was best about them: John Milton.

My heart is with the cause of the Established Church, because of what the Puritans did to pipe organs, choral libraries, liturgical furnishings and vestments, and the people who were at the heart of liturgical worship - choristers, lay clerks, organists, composers, priests.

But it is complicated. As Mr. Lincoln said about another conflict, "Both sides pray to the same God."

Still, it must be said that even Milton was disappointed in the results:

On the new forcers of conscience under the Long Parliament

Because you have thrown of your Prelate Lord,
And with stiff Vowes renounc't his Liturgie
To seise the widdow'd whore Pluralitie
From them whose sin ye envi'd, not abhor'd

Dare ye for this adjure the Civill Sword
To force our Consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic Hierarchy
Taught ye by meer A. S. and Rotherford?

Men whose Life, Learning, Faith and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul
Must now be nam'd and printed Hereticks

By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d' ye call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing wors then those of Trent,

That so the Parliament
May with their wholsom and preventive Shears
Clip your Phylacteries, though bauk your Ears,

And succour our just Fears
When they shall read this clearly in your charge
New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large.

Now it gets serious

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him... (St. Matthew 3:13)

At Bethlehem, the promise is revealed, but it is still just a promise: just a little child, a polished arrow which was, as yet, hidden in the quiver of God (Isaiah 49:2). We join Mary and Joseph in wondering at the little boy who “must be about his Father's business” (St. Luke 2:49), but in truth, his Hour had not yet come.

At Jordan's stream, the reality begins to take shape: “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” as Jesus would soon preach. The serious work of life in the Kingdom must now begin, for us as well as for the one we follow. It is a path which leads directly to Golgotha. St. Mark's Gospel, especially, makes this clear; it can be read as a straight and unwavering progression from the Baptism to the Cross, and beyond to the Resurrection. For there is a sense in which Jesus of Nazareth embraced death in his Baptism, as we do as well in the spiritual reality of the sacrament. We must, day by day, die with Christ in the waters of baptism, and rise with him to newness of life (Romans 6:4).

This Sunday's organ voluntaries for me are the two settings of Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, from the Clavierübung (BWV 684 and 685). Here is a performance of the larger setting (BWV 684) on a Silbermann organ similar to the instruments that Bach would have played.

Bach gets it, as did Martin Luther before him with the underlying chorale text and tune (number 139 in the Hymnal 1982). The counterpoint is intense and unstoppable, depicting (it seems to me) the Savior who “set his face like a flint" toward Jerusalem (Isaiah 50:7, St. Luke 9:51).

It is for music like this that I revere Bach above all other composers. He enters into the spiritual heart of the great chorale tunes, and not just the tunes but the texts, and the Scriptural truths that they interpret. And he writes music that takes the listener and performers into a deeper understanding of the mighty acts of God. The Clavierübung is a companion to the Greater and Lesser Catechisms of Martin Luther, and Bach's music in these chorale settings always has catechism behind it. In this music, Bach is teaching us what the Baptism of Christ means.


I cannot let the day pass without mention of that blessed saint and martyr, William Laud, who went to the scaffold on this day, January 10, in the year 1645. He is one who understood how serious a thing it is to follow Christ. Almost his entire public life as bishop and Archbishop of Canterbury was lived in bitter controversy. The Puritans sought to destroy the true and Catholic faith and practice of the Church. They had stopped their ears to the reasoned arguments of Richard Hooker. They refused all attempts at compromise. Laud, alongside King Charles the Martyr, were among the few who withstood them. The two of them sought to maintain the church's order, vigorously enforcing the laws of the land without respect of persons.

According to James Kiefer's excellent sketch of Laud, the “without respect of persons” part of it was what cost Laud his life. Kiefer writes:

Under English Law, it was part of Laud's office as Archbishop to maintain order and to punish offences against the peace of the Church. He made it his practice to proceed not only against poor and obscure offenders, but also, perhaps especially, against rich and powerful ones. It is well that men should be equal before the law, but his integrity on this point ultimately cost Laud his life.

Laud was also the prosecutor of record in the trials of those who published seditious or violent and abusive attacks on the doctrine and discipline of the Church, and the Puritans produced an abundance of scurrilous attacks on those who disagreed with them, which were duly punished, with Laud taking the responsibility.