New Orleans: Mardi Gras
New York: Dense, immigrants, public transportation
Detroit: very low density, no public transportation, poor
San Francisco: Dense, over-crowded housing, immigrants legal and illegal, public transportation, cool, wet climate that viruses like.
Did an early shut-down protect San Francisco? Or is something else going on?
New Zealand intends to eliminate the new coronavirus by closing its borders. Returning citizens will be required to quarantine. And others? Nothing has been said, but either they have to be quarantined (For how long? At whose expense?), or they will reintroduce the virus. There goes tourism.
Travel from other countries has been a vector for the virus in the US, which is why New York has been so badly hit, and will continue to be so even if community transmission within the US falls. Will everyone arriving on an international flight be tested or quarantined?
Central and South America have inadequate or nonexistent public health systems, and leaders such as Ortega in Nicaragua and Bolsinaro in Brazil who deny the existence of the crisis. The virus will become endemic in these countries. Migrants will carry it over the border and re-introduce it to already weakened immigrant communities. Unless, that is, the southern border of the US is really sealed.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire maintained a twenty-mile deep border with the Ottoman Empire, in part as a defense, but in part as a measure to exclude epidemics. Spies reported on the outbreak of epidemics. Trade continued under severe quarantine measures. Violators were summarily executed. The Austro-Hungarian Empire kept the epidemics away and allowed free movement within the empire.
So let us hear the Democrats’ proposals for open borders, which would be a death sentence for millions of Americans, especially blacks, Hispanics, and the elderly. Democrats from the Upper East Side can hide in their second or third or fourth homes. The poor and elderly cannot.
The Rev. Francis. Effingham Lawrence is my wife’s second cousin four times removed. He was a High Church Episcopal clergyman who lived from 1827-1879. From 1839 to his death he was assistant and then rector of the Church of the Holy Communion in Manhattan, a church founded by Dr. William Muhlenberg, an Evangelical Catholic.
Muhlenberg, like the Ritualists of England, used Catholic paraphernalia to appeal to the poor, who found bare churches and hour-long Calvinist sermons a touch on the cold side. He thought that the poor should be served with grace and beauty.
The Church of the Holy Communion was the first church to use flowers on the altar, and after the Easter service the congregation in procession brought the flowers to the sick in the hospital the church had founded. This seems to have been the origin of the New York custom of the Easter Parade. Other churches took up the custom of Easter flowers; as Francis Lawrence said in thus funeral sermon of 1877, it was –“a practice now indeed carried to such a silly and wasteful extreme, many churches seeming rather flower-shops at Easter than Sanctuaries of the Almighty, that he almost regretted that he had introduced the custom.”
And the Easter Parade no longer was in service to the poor:
As Irving Berlin’s song has it in the Judy Garland and Fred Astaire Easter Parade:
In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.
I’ll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I’ll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade.
On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us,
And you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure.
The Baltimore Sun in 1927 reported that 100,000 Baltimoreans participated in the Easter Parade on Charles St. The women wore wore fashionable black and white, but the men added color with their morning clothes and top hats or grey suits.
The parade was still a custom in 1950:
Like almost all Catholics, I find the closure of churches painful. This will be first time in the 73 years of my life that I have not been to church on Easter. But we are not the first Catholics to suffer thus. Over the centuries churches have been closed for epidemics. St. Charles Borromeo closed the churches of Milan for two years during the plague. Italian cities under quarantine would have altars at intersections so that people could see mass. At that time communion was a rare event for the laity.
Church buildings present unique hazards. They are enclosed spaces, which rarely are designed to have significant fresh air ventilation. Several hundred people in such a space, just breathing, can transmit respiratory infections. The hazard increases when they are speaking, and increases even more when they are singing, forcing air from deep in the lungs and spitting droplets when they enunciate consonants. This environment continues for an hour, an hour and a half. Supermarkets and big box stores do not have these specific hazards, nor do people linger in them for an hour.
The problem will continue for a long time. Some people have the virus, have no symptoms, but can transmit it to others. Some hazards can be lessened. Our church will offer communion only by intinction. But the problem of a large number of people in an enclosed space will remain. I am a male over 70 and therefore in a group most at hazard. Will I ever be able to go to church again? Perhaps I can find a cavernous cathedral with a sparsely attended early mass and do the Catholic thing of sitting in the rear. It will a less intimate than watching a live streamed mass, during which for the first time in years I can hear everything the priest is saying.
I do not know what the solution is for vulnerable populations. Should we simply accept the danger? I have revised my will and am contemplating how to phrase a Do Not Resuscitate order. Even if I survived a heart attack and coma, I would probably be bedridden for the rest of my life. I would prefer to have my purgatory place less of a burden on others.
After 9/11, the United States was suddenly aware of its vulnerability and mortality. The national mood was in a fluid state and could have crystalized into an awareness of our dependence on our Creator. The churches in general offered nothing; the president told us to go shopping. We have another crisis that makes us aware of our vulnerability and mortality. But now the churches are closed. But they have the internet and the possibility of reaching beyond their active members. I do not want the churches to say we are being afflicted for specific sins, whether abortion or racism. But we should be gently but firmly reminded that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that our life is short, and ways of life can be gone with the wind, and we can be one with Nineveh and Tyre. Such sobriety makes us humble, and God does not despise the humble.
But is Pope Francis doing this? He has an idée fixe about the environment, and says Nature is mad at us and has sent the virus. This is not the response of a Christian, and is also nonsense, because the virus has nothing to do with climate change or environmental damage. Alas, our pope is shallow and erratic. I pray that God raise up prophets and preachers who will transmit to us the message He wants us to hear in this world-wide crisis. And I am sure it is not Go Shopping.
Mount Calvary will livestream its mass at 10 AM on Sunday March 22 at this YouTube channel. The arrangement of the church permits the presence of a small choir, so the mass will be a sung High Mass with this music. There will be no congregation.
Jesus heals the man born blind
Mount Calvary Church
Lent IV
Laetare Sunday
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Common
Missa de Angelis
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Anthems
Come, Let’s rejoice, John Amner (1579-1641)
Come let’s rejoice unto the Lord: let us make joy to God our Saviour. Let us approach to his presence in confession: and in psalms let us make joy to him.
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God so loved the world, John Stainer (1840-1901)
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
It is from the oratorio The Crucifixion: A Meditation on the Sacred Passion of the Holy Redeemer. John Stainer was an English composer and organist whose music, though not generally much performed today, was very popular during his lifetime. His work as choir trainer and organist set standards for Anglican church music that are still influential. He was also active as an academic, becoming Heather Professor of Music at Oxford.
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Hymns
When I survey the wondrous cross (ROCKINGHAM) is by Isaac Watts (1674—1748). When preparing for a communion service in 1707, when he himself was thirty-three years old, Watts wrote this personal expression of gratitude for the love that Christ revealed by His death on the cross. Watts echoes Paul: “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6: 14). The third stanza repeats almost verbatim phrases from St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s hymn “Salve mundi salutare”: such sentiments would be felt by any sincere Christian who meditated upon the crucifixion.
Edward Miller (1735-1807) adapted ROCKINGHAM from an earlier tune, TUNEBRIDGE, which had been published in Aaron Williams’s A Second Supplement to Psalmody in Miniature (c. 1780). The tune title refers to a friend and patron of Edward Miller, the Marquis of Rockingham, who served twice as Great Britain’s prime minister.
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Nearer my God to Thee (BETHANY) is by the Unitarian Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848). It is based on the story of Jacob’s dream (Genesis 28:10-22), and presents a potent combination of two themes: human suffering (the cross in stanza 1 is not the Cross of Jesus, but a cross that has to be borne) and the merciful presence of God. The stone of Jacob’s pillow becomes the stony griefs out of which the commemorative stone of Bethel will be raised, marking the place where he had his vision of the angels passing up and down between earth and heaven. The hymn rejoices in God, either through sorrow:
...Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise: So by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!
or through the joy of flying upward to God:
Or if on joyful wing Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upwards I fly, Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!
The legend is that it was played by the band on the Titanic as the ship was sinking.
The tune BETHANY is by the Presbyterian Lowell Mason (1792-1872), the father of American church music.
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Rock of ages (TOPLADY) has been a stay and comfort in days of peril, and in the hour of death. No other English hymn can be named which has laid so broad and firm a grasp upon the English-speaking world. It was written by the Rev. Augustus Toplady (1740–1778), an Evangelical priest of the Church of England, who was first a friend of John Wesley but who quarreled with him over predestination.
The tune TOPLADY is by the American Thomas Hastings (1784-1872). As a teenager, Hastings led a village choir, taught singing, and was active in the musical society of Oneida County. By 1832 he had moved to New York City where he conducted the Bleeker Street Church and by 1858 the University of New York awarded him an honorary Doctorate in Music. He composed over 600 tunes used for hymns.
Jesus and the Woman of Samaria, Pierre Mignard, 1681
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Lent III
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
For those who cannot attend in-person, we are broadcasting the Mass audio and video online. Here is the link, which will be live at 10am and available for later viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOU4nl7mcrU
Brunch has been cancelled until further notice
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Common
Missa de angelis
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The Great Litany
The Great Litany was the first service written in English. It was composed by Thomas Cranmer in 1544 from older litanies: the Sarum rite litany, a Latin litany composed by Martin Luther, and the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The word litany comes from the Latin litania, from the Greek litê, meaning “prayer” or “supplication.” Litanies are penitential exercises. They are the urgent supplications of the people of God suffering under or dreading divine judgements and asking to be spared or delivered from calamities which at the same time they confess that they deserve. After invoking the Trinity, we ask to be delivered from the evils that come upon us because of sin: heresy, schism, natural disasters, political disasters, war, violence, murder, and sudden death. As Baltimore experiences endless homicides and the world is threatened with a pandemic, let us pray this with especial fervor, knowing that God hears the prayers of those who humble themselves before Him.
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Anthems
When David heard, Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
When David heard that Absalom was slain, he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept, and thus he said: O my son, my son, O Absalom my son, would God I had died for thee!
Probably composed as a lament for Henry, the young Prince of Wales who died in 1612, Thomas Tomkins’ When David heard was later published by the composer in a set of madrigals, though it was still sung in religious services. Composed in two sections, the anthem’s power lies in its unexpected shift from third-person description to a first-person outpouring of grief—suddenly and shockingly intimate.
The first section describes King David overcome with grief at the loss of his son, Absalom. Tomkins repeats key words with their musical figures to great effect, focusing on short-term interplay between the parts rather than extended polyphonic lines. The second, longer section puts words directly into the anguished father’s mouth. The music gradually becomes more charged: the tessitura rises, the vocal texture thickens and the music convulses with funereal rhythms and heartbreaking chromatic melodies. As the work begins to subside, there are two beautiful arrival points—the first on the dominant, and the last on the major tonic, perhaps indicating the possibility of cathartic release on the other side of pain.
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Lord, how long, Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Lord, how long wilt Thou be angry, shall Thy jealousy burn like fire forever? O, remember not our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and that soon, for we are come to great misery. Help us, O God of our Salvation, for the glory of Thy Name. O deliver us, and be merciful unto our sins, for Thy Name’s sake. So we that are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture shall give Thee thanks forever, and will alway be shewing forth Thy praise from one generation to another.
This anthem is a marvellous synthesis of both old and new compositional styles. The reflective, five-part opening choral section is imitative, showing the influence on Purcell’s music of composers such as Byrd and Gibbons, whose work he admired and studied. Over this form Purcell imprints his own angularly chromatic harmonic language, which builds towards the anguished ‘Shall thy jealousy burn like fire for ever’. The three-part verse ‘O remember not our old sins’ is reflective, falling in tessitura to ‘great misery’. The homophonic chorus entry ‘Help us, O God’ is declamatory and ‘for the glory of thy name’ impressively builds its close entries before the opening imitative style returns for ‘O deliver us’, still coloured by chromatic lines which rise through ‘and be merciful unto our sins’. The anthem closes with a joyful triple-time section.
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Hymns
#781 Lord Jesus, think on me (SOUTHWELL) is a translation by the Anglican clergyman Allen William Chatfield (1808-1896) of the Greek hymn, Μνώεο Χριστέ by Synesius of Cyrene (375-430). Synesius was the Bishop of Ptolomais, one of the ancient capitals of Cyrenaica that is today part of modern-day Libya. SOUTHWELL was composed by William Daman and appeared in Denham’s Psalter in 1579.
Take up thy cross (BRESLAU) was composed by the American Episcopal clergyman Charles William Everest (1814—1877) when he was still a teenager. It is based upon the Scripture: “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’” We must die to self to be reborn in Jesus. If we accept the sufferings of this life in union with His sufferings, we, like Him, will rise from the dead to a new life. The cross is not only painful, but shameful, in the eyes of this world, which thinks it folly to deny oneself the pleasures of life in order to follow the perfect Law of the Lord. We train ourselves in small ways so that we can bear the greater crosses. We spend Sunday morning in church rather than in bed, so that we can patiently endure the death of a loved one. But we do not bear these crosses in our own power, but He in us bears them. The tune BRESLAU appeared in Lochamer Gesangbuch, c. 1450.
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Sunday, March 8, 2020
Lent II
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Common
Missa de Angelis
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Anthems
O nata lux, Thomas Tallis (1510-1585)
O nata lux de lumine, Jesu redemptor saeculi, Dignare clemens supplicum Laudes precesque sumere. Qui carne quondam contegi Dignatus es pro perditis, Nos membra confer effici Tui beati corporis.
O Light born of Light, Jesus, redeemer of the world, with loving-kindness deign to receive suppliant praise and prayer. Thou who once deigned to be clothed in flesh for the sake of the lost, grant us to be members of thy blessed body.
Hymns
Come, Thou fount of every blessing (NETTLETON) is by Robert Robinson (1735-1790). Robinson uses the double rhyming of the odd-numbered lines to great effect, and the hymn is rich in Biblical imagery: the reference is from 1 Samuel 7:1-12: “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’” (Ebenezer means stone of help). After a dissolute adolescence, Robinson was converted by the preaching of George Whitefield and became a Baptist minister. NETTLETON first appeared in John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second (1813).
What wondrous love (WONDROUS LOVE) is, as its repetitions evidence, an American folk hymn, from the Second Great Awakening. This hymn articulates the question that Christians ask every day: what did I do to deserve such a wonderful love from God and from Christ? The hymn is an offering of thanks to the Son for laying aside his crown as King and humbling himself even unto death. Jesus took on the sin and shame of man and thereby became the Lamb who was slain to save us from our sins. Jesus is not only the Lamb, but he is I AM, Lord and God. Our response is endless praise, and forever we shall marvel and ask, “What wondrous Love?”
#55 Forty days and forty nights (HEINLEIN) was written by the Anglican clergyman George Hunt Smyttan (1822-1870). It was published in the March 1856 edition of The Penny Post and was revised five years later as Forty Days and Forty Nights in Hymns Fitted to the Order of Common Prayer (1861), by the Rev. Francis Pott (1832–1909). HEINLEIN or AUS DER TIEFE is attributed to Martin Herbst (1654-1681).
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FORTY
Forty often symbolizes a time of testing or judgment. In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth with water, He caused it to rain 40 days and 40 nights. After Moses killed the Egyptian, he fled to Midian, where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks. Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days and 40 nights. The Law specified a maximum number of lashes a man could receive for a crime, setting the limit at 40. The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan. The Israelites wandered for 40 years. Before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years. Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him. When Elijah fled from Jezebel, he traveled 40 days and 40 nights to Mt. Horeb. Jonah warned that in 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed.
Lent is a time of testing and of growth to spiritual maturity. According to the Talmud, at age 40 a person transitions from one level of wisdom to the next. After Moses led the Jewish people for 40 years in the wilderness, he told them: “God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day.” It took the Jewish people of testing 40 years before they reached a full level of understanding. After 40 days of Lent, we should grow into the full measure of manhood: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.”
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Lent I
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Common
Missa de Angelis
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Anthems
Miserere mei, William Byrd (1540-1623)
Miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam, et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. According to the multitude of thy commiserations, take away mine iniquity.
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O Lord, in Thy wrath, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
O Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not: neither chasten me in thy displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak: O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore troubled: but, Lord, how long wilt thou punish me? O save me, for thy mercy’s sake.
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The Great Litany in Procession
The Great Litany was the first service written in English. It was composed by Thomas Cranmer in 1544 from older litanies: the Sarum rite litany, a Latin litany composed by Martin Luther, and the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The word litany comes from the Latin litania, from the Greek litê, meaning “prayer” or “supplication.” Litanies are penitential exercises. They are the urgent supplications of the people of God suffering under or dreading divine judgements and asking to be spared or delivered from calamities which at the same time they confess that they deserve. After invoking the Trinity, we ask to be delivered from the evils that come upon us because of sin: heresy, schism, natural disasters, political disasters, war, violence, murder, and sudden death. As Baltimore experiences endless homicides and the world is threatened with a pandemic, let us pray this with especial fervor, knowing that God hears the prayers of those who humble themselves before Him.
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Hymns
#335 Glory be to Jesus (CASWELL/WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN) is an 18th century Italian hymn Viva! Viva! Gesu! Che per mio bene translated by Edward Caswell (1814–1878), an Anglican clergyman who converted to Catholicism and joined John Henry Newman at the Oratory in Birmingham.
Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer, was originally written in Welsh by a Methodist preacher William Williams (1719-91). It is a re-enactment of the Israelite journey through the barren wilderness to the Promised Land, which is the type of all spiritual pilgrimage, a pilgrimage we symbolize in the procession of the Great Litany and in the 40 days of Lenten journey through the desert of penance to the Promised Land of the Resurrection and the New Creation. The tune, CWM RHONDDA, sung in the trenches and mines as well as at numberless rugby matches, was composed in 1905 by John Hughes for a singing festival.
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Rev. Robert Kirk, Celebrant
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Sunday, February 23, 2020
The Chair of St. Peter
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Organ Prelude
Charles Wood (1886-1926) wrote a considerable amount of church music and most of it is still in use today simply because it is well written and enjoyable to sing. Much of it is skilfully crafted, and this is amply demonstrated in the anthem O Thou, the central orb where the organ part which accompanies the melody sung by the basses shows careful handling of the chromatic counter-melody.Wood spent much of his life in Cambridge at the University and wrote the chimes for the Gonville and Caius College clock. Like Stanford, Wood collected and published Irish folksong (both were Irish), and he succeeded Stanford to the post of Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge in 1924. Wood only began church music towards the end of his life and much of it was published posthumously.
David Bentley Hart has set off some theological fireworks with his book That All Shall Be Saved. In it he argues that any teaching that does not proclaim the final salvation of all is incoherent and indeed monstrous.
The eternity of punishment in hell is the point of controversy. But it seems that both sides in the controversy overlook an important point: time is only a creature, and like all creatures will be transformed in the New Creation. Therefore, it makes no sense to think of punishment going on forever in the type of linear time in which we live.
Time, as we know it, involves coming into being and passing away, that is, death. Beings in linear time are always passing away. As Augustine pointed out, the past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist. All that exists is the moment, which instantaneously becomes the past and ceases to exist.
But in the New Creation God will transform this into the pleroma, the fullness, when God will be all in all. Time in the New Creation will not be the linear time we know, and will not involve a coming into being and passing away. We cannot comprehend this, but we know it must be true, because death will be no more.
Those who have raised objections to the arguments of von Balthasar and Hart often forget this transformation of time. Some of them also indicate that they will be disappointed if all will be saved, after all the solemn warnings Scripture and the Church have given. Jonah is their patron prophet. Jonah knew that God would not carry out his threats, that God was a softie, and that He would make Jonah look like a fool. Better that Nineveh should be destroyed with all its infants and animals, than that Jonah should be embarrassed. Better that all the unbaptized should burn in hell forever, including the majority of the human race which dies probably before birth, and definitely before the age of reason, than that the necessity of baptism should be called into question.
The Law of the LORD is perfect
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Sexagesima
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Organ Prelude
Voluntary IV, William Boyce
Organ Postlude
Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus
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Common
Merbecke
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Anthems
Teach me, O Lord, Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)
Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end.
The son of a musician in the royal band, Attwood was born in London, probably in Pimlico. At the age of nine he became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, where he received training in music from James Nares and Edmund Ayrton. In 1783 he was sent to study abroad at the expense of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King George IV), who had been favourably impressed by his skill at the harpsichord. After two years in Naples, Attwood proceeded to Vienna, where he became a favourite pupil of Mozart. On his return to London in 1787 he held for a short time an appointment as one of the chamber musicians to the Prince of Wales.
In 1796 he was chosen as the organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, and in the same year he was made composer of the Chapel Royal. His court connection was further confirmed by his appointment as musical instructor to the Duchess of York, and afterwards to the Princess of Wales.[2] In January 1806, he played his own composition, Grand Dirge, on the organ for the funeral of Lord Nelson, the only piece specially written for the occasion. For the coronation of George IV, he composed a setting of the traditional anthem I was Glad, which was also used at the coronations of King William IV and Queen Victoria. The king, who had neglected him for some years on account of his connection with the Princess of Wales, now restored him to favour, and in 1821 appointed him organist to his private chapel at Brighton.
Soon after the institution of the Royal Academy of Music in 1823, Attwood was chosen to be one of the professors. He was also one of the original members of the Royal Philharmonic Society, founded in 1813. He wrote the anthem O Lord, Grant the King a Long Life for the coronation of William IV, and he was composing a similar work for the coronation of Queen Victoria when he died at his house at 75 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on 24 March 1838.
Attwood’s funeral took place at St Paul’s Cathedral on 31 March 1838. He is buried in the Cathedral, in the crypt, under the organ.
Attwood is now known only for a few short anthems; these include Teach me, O Lord (1797), O God who by the leading of a star (1814), Turn Thy face from my sins (1831), and Come, Holy Ghost (1834).[His compositions show the influence of his teacher Mozart, but also the Georgian tradition of English church music of his early training, producing a “union of styles” which remained influential throughout the 19th century.
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A new commandment, Thomas Tallis (1510-1585)
A new commandment give I unto you, saith the Lord, that ye love together, as I have loved you, that even so ye love one another. By this shall every man know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
If ye love me and A new commandment show Tallis writing for the reformed rites of Edward VI and Elizabeth (who reinstated Edward’s First Prayer Book of 1549 when she came to the throne). They are examples of anthems which either use the word ‘commandment’ or refer to how one should live a godly life. This was especially important for Edward VI’s time when these anthems can be seen to reinforce the exhortation to godly living which was now explicit as a result of the Bible being read in English and a greater emphasis on preaching and teaching. Gone are the great soaring lines of the pre-Reformation where, from time to time, it was difficult to hear which word the choir was singing. Gone also is the impressive English treble voice. Instead Tallis produces beautiful four-part miniatures in two sections with the second section repeated in an ABB structure.
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Hymns
#289 O God our help in ages past (ST. ANNE) is a paraphrase of Psalm 90 by Isaac Watt (1674—1748), the father of English hymnody. Before him only strict metrical translations of the psalms were used; he was the first to paraphrase psalms and scriptural passages. The antithesis between God and humanity is the primary message of Psalm 90 and Watts’ paraphrase: man is frail and mortal, God is strong and everlasting.
The hymn tune ST. ANNE was composed by William Croft in 1708 while he was the organist of the church of St. Anne, Soho. J. S. Bach’s Fugue in E-flat major BWV 552 is often called the “St. Anne” because of the similarity of its subject to the first line of the hymn tune, though there is some debate as to whether Bach used the actual tune after hearing it, or coincidentally created the very similar tune used as the fugal theme.
#429 Day by Day (SUMNER) is a prayer by St. Richard, bishop of Chichester. The tune is by Arthur Henry Biggs (1906-1954), organist at St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Cathedral in Spokane, Washington. The text became widely known because of its use by Godspell in a rousing setting.
#551 A mighty fortress is our God is from the German translation of Psalm 46 by Martin Luther. Leading Catholic liturgical scholar and musician Edward Foley calls Martin Luther “a model pastoral musician… a proponent and composer of music from the people and for the people, as evidenced in his chorales.” Speaking specifically of Ein’ feste Burg—the German title for “A mighty fortress”, Fr. Foley notes that this chorale “appears to be a paradigm of liturgical ‘people music.’” Luther’s “craft is affirmed by its ageless singability” — high praise from a Catholic scholar, indicating not only the quality of Luther’s work, but also its ecumenical popularity.
You are the light of the world
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Septuagesima
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Organ Prelude
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Organ Postlude
St. Denio, setting by Stephen Johnson
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Common
Merbecke
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Anthems
If ye love me, Thomas Tallis (1510-1585)
If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the spirit of truth.
The God of love my shepherd is, Thomas Tallis (1510 – 1585)
1. The God of love my Shepherd is, and he that doth me feed; While he is mine and I am his, what can I want or need? He leads me to the tender grass, where I both feed and rest; Then to the streams that gently pass: in both I have the best. 2. Or if I stray, he doth convert, and bring my mind in frame; And all this not for my desert, but for his holy name. Yea, in death’s shady black abode well may I walk, not fear; For thou art with me; and thy rod To guide, thy staff to bear. 3. Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine, even in my enemies’ sight: My head with oil, my cup with wine runs over day and night. Surely thy sweet and wondrous love shall measure all my days; And, as it never shall remove, so neither shall my praise.
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Hymns
O for a heart to praise my God is by Charles Wesley (1707-1788). This hymn has the Wesleyan emphasis on the religion of the heart, which is transformed by the saving blood of Jesus. The hope for perfection is deeply Wesleyan. The Beatitudes likewise point the Christian to greater and greater perfection: Blessed are the pure of heart, blessed are the meek. Perfection is found in love, because we become sharers of the divine nature, and Jesus reveals the “new, best name” of God, Love. The tune AZMON is an adaptation by Lowell Mason (1792-1872) of a tune by Carl Gotthelf Gläser (1784-1829)
Jesus, lead the way is a translation by the Episcopal clergyman Arthur W. Fandlander (1898-1952) of the German hymn Jesu, geh’ voran, written by Nicolas Ludwig, Graf von Zinzendorf (1700-1760). It is a simple prayer for help in the difficulties and pains of life, and a reminder that the way of the cross leads home to God. The tune ROCHELLE or SEELENBRÄUTIGAM is by Adam Deese (1620-1701).
The Presentation, James P. Jankneght
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
Candlemas
Sunday, February 2, 2020
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Blessing of Candles
Procession with Candles
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Common
Mass for Three Voices, William Byrd
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Organ Prelude
Fugue and Harmonization on “St. Anne”; Adapted by Hal Hopson
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Organ Postlude
Toccata, by Girolamo Frescobaldi
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Anthems
Diffusa est gratia, William Byrd (1540-1623)
Diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis: propterea benedixit te Deus in aeternum. Propter veritatem et mansuetudinem et justitiam: et deducet te mirabiliter dextera tua. Audi filia, et vide, et inclina aurem tuam: quia concupivit Rex speciem tuam.
Grace is poured abroad in thy lips: therefore hath God blessed thee for ever. Because of truth, and mildness, and justice: and thy right hand shall conduct thee marvelously. Hear, daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, for the king hath coveted thy beauty.
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Ave verum corpus, William Byrd (1540-1623)
Ave verum corpus natum ex Maria virgine, vere passum immolatum in cruce pro homine, cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit sanguine, esto nobis praegustatum mortis in examine. O dulcis, o pie, o Jesu, fili Mariae, miserere mei.
Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, who having truly suffered, was sacrificed on the cross for mankind, whose pierced side flowed with water and blood: May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet] in the trial of death. O sweet, O gentle, O Jesu, son of Mary, have mercy on me.
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Hymns
#115 Hail to the Lord who comes (OLD HUNDRED TWENTIETH) was written by the Anglican clergyman John Ellerton (1826–1893). The first verse contains a series of negatives: this is not the eschatological Christ in glory, nor the one entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. But in the second verse the secret is disclosed: the Lord is an infant. Here Ellerton imaginatively reinterprets Luke’s story. Mary’s breast is Christ’s earthly throne and the infant Saviour is now a guest, albeit a heavenly guest, in his Father’s earthly house. The third verse is not unlike an Italian Renaissance painting rendered into words, but towards the end of the verse the mention of Simeon recalls the ‘Nunc dimittis.’
#20 Of the father’s love begotten is a translation of corde natus ex parentis by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (ca. 348-ca. 413) by Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821-1877) based on one by John Mason Neale (1818-1866).
In His temple now behold him was written by Henry John Pye (1827-1903), who was ordained as an Anglican clergyman but with his family entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1868. The tune ST THOMAS, often used for the Tantum ergo, is attributed to Samuel Webbe (1740-1816).
Born in Menorca in 1740, Webbe was brought up in London. His father died when he was still an infant, and his mother returned to London where she raised Webbe in difficult circumstances. At the age of 11 he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker, and during the first year of his apprenticeship his mother died.
Webbe was an autodidact. He first discovered his aptitude for music when called on to repair the case of a harpsichord. During the course of the repair work he taught himself to play the instrument. Near the end of the job he was overheard playing it. As a result of this incident he turned to the study of music under Carl Barbandt.
A Roman Catholic, Webbe in 1776 became organist of the Sardinian Embassy Chapel, a position which he held until 1795; he was also organist and choirmaster of chapel of the Portuguese Embassy in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the only place in London where the Catholic liturgy could be publicly celebrated.
I will make you fishers of men
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Epiphany III
Sunday, January 26, 2020
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Common
Merbecke
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Organ Prelude
Choral in G major by Alexandre Guilmant
Organ Postlude
Lead, Kindly Light by Robert Powell
Anthems
Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem, William Byrd (1540-1623)
Surge, illuminare Jerusalem: quia venit lumen tuum, et gloria Domini super te orta est. Alleluia.
Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
“Surge, Illuminare” is typical of the densely written, detailed counterpoint of Byrd’s Latin motets. The opening figure for “surge” (meaning “arise”) spins rhythmically forward. Byrd maintains a driving quality that peaks in the swinging motive for the last phrase “super te orta est.” The fastest rhythms are saved for the highly imitative “alleluia.” Published in Byrd’s second book of Gradualia, this piece was the result of a mistake on Byrd’s part and therefore serves no liturgical function. He intended it as a setting of the Gradual for the Epiphany mass, but accidentally used a related text from the lesson of that mass rather than the correct Gradual text. Realizing his mistake, he moved this piece out of the sequence of the Epiphany mass to its final position in the Gradualia. Nevertheless, the sense of the text is appropriate for the Epiphany season, where we celebrate the coming of the light and the glory of the Lord.
Almighty and everlasting God, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Almighty and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) was one of the great English composers between Byrd and Purcell, excelling in many idioms, including keyboard music, verse anthem for choir and organ, and especially music for viol consort. The text of “Almighty and everlasting God” is taken from the traditional Book of Common Prayer collect for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, read by the priest in today’s service after the Kyrie and Gloria. Gibbons pays particular attention to the musical shape of each line; listen, for example, to the syncopated entrance that pulls the line forward at the high point of the piece on the text “stretch forth thy right hand.”
Hymns
How bright appears the morning star is a translation by William Mercer (1811—1873 ) of Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern by Philipp Nicolai (1556—1608). The hymn is based on Psalm 45, a wedding song and on Revelation 22:11. Nicolai, a Lutheran minister, wrote in 1597, during a terrible pestilence, when he saw thirty parishioners a day buried under his window. The original version of the hymn uses the extravagant language of bridal mysticism, but William Mercer changed it into a sober celebration of God’s love and power, manifested in the Incarnation. Adapting a tune written for Psalm 100 found in Wolff Köphel’s Psalter (1538), Nicolai composed the tune WIE SCHÖN LEUCHTET, which was published with the text in 1599.
Lead, Kindly Light (LUX BENIGNA). Newman write this while sick and becalmed at sea in June 1933. Angry at the state of disunion and supineness in the Church he still loved and in which he still believed; confident that he had ‘a mission,’ ‘a work to do in England;’ passionately longing for home and the converse of friends; sick in body to prostration, and, as some around him feared, even unto death; feeling that he should not die but live, and that he must work, but knowing not what that work was to be, how it was to be done, or to what it might tend, he breathed forth the impassioned and pathetic prayer, one of the birth-pangs, it might be called, of the Oxford movement of 1833. LUX BENIGNA was composed by John Bacchus Dykes (1823-1876).
Christ, whose glory fills the skies was written by Charles Wesley (1707—1788). He begins the hymn with the antithesis between light and night. In stanza two, Wesley uses the first words of each line to tell the story of redemption. The first three lines begin with “Dark,” “Unaccompanied,” and “Joyless.” The plight of humanity has been set. The next two lines begin with “till” which represents hope for salvation. The repeating of “more and more” implies the idea that we can never see enough of the “Radiancy divine” which has “[pierced] the gloom of sin and grief.” Scripture references are present throughout: John 1:9,the “true light”; Isaiah 2:6 and Malachi 4:2, the “Sun of Righteousness”; Isaiah 14:12 and 2 Peter 1:19, the ”Day Star.” The tune RATISBON is by Johann Gottlob Werner (1777-1822).
Behold the Lamb of God, Ottavio Vannini (1585-c. 1643)
Mount Calvary Church
Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
A Roman Catholic Parish of
The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter
Anglican Use
Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor
Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster
Midori Ataka, Organist
Epiphany II
Sunday, January 19, 2020
8:00 AM Said Mass
10:00 AM Sung Mass
Brunch to follow in undercroft
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Common
Merbecke
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Organ Prelude
O Morning Star, arranged by Franklin Ritter
Organ Postlude
Variations on ‘Puer Nobis Nascitur,’ arranged by Hal H. Hopson
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Anthems
Behold the Lamb of God, George Fredrick Handel (1685-1759)
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.
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O sacrum convivium, William Byrd (1540-1623)
O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur; recolitur memoria passionis ejus; mens impletur gratia; et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.
O sacred banquet, wherein Christ is received; the memorial of his passion is renewed; the soul is filled with grace; and a pledge of future glory is given to us.
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Hymns
Lord, whose love through humble service (IN BABILONE). Albert F. Bayly wrote this text in response to a Hymn Society of America search for new hymns on social welfare. It was chosen as the theme hymn for the Second National Conference on the Churches and Social Welfare held in Cleveland, Ohio, 1961. The text begins with recognition of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice on the cross and then points to the continuing needs of the homeless, the hungry, the prisoners, and the mourners. Bayly’s words remind us of modern refugees, and famine victims, and drug addicts who are at our doorstep. The final two stanzas encourage us to move from Sunday worship to weekday service; such integrity in the Christian life is truly a liturgy of sacrifice, pleasing to God. IN BABILONE is a Dutch folk tune.
Draw us in the Spirit’s tether (UNION SEMINARY) was written by the Anglican Percy Dearmer (1867—1936). Jesus has promised that he will be present when we gather in His name, and indeed the purpose of our receiving Him in the Eucharist is to become one body with Him, and our love and service is a sign to the world of His presence. The hymn begins in the Upper Room with the disciples and comes full circle as we join them and the Christians of every age around the table and are nourished by the flesh of God to serve others in the world.
“Tether” is an archaic, albeit felicitous word for “tying” or “joining together.” Stanza 1 reminds us of Christ’s presence (“Where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them,” Matthew 18: 20); and the haemorrhaging woman’s fervent affirmation (“If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well,” Matthew 9: 20b). Stanzas 2 and 3 paraphrase the ancient Christian Eucharistic rite of gathering, giving thanks, and sharing over the cup and loaf, and sending forth into the world as Christ’s disciples called to render all our meals and living as a sacrament and a means of God’s grace. The hymn begins in the Upper Room with the disciples and comes full circle as we join them and the Christians of every age around the table and are nourished to serve others in the world. UNION SEMINARY was composed by Harold W. Friedell (1905-1959), organist at St. Bartholomew’s and teacher at Union Seminary.
# 545 Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (WOODBIRD) is based on Psalm 72, a Messianic psalm. It was written by James Montgomery (1771-1854). For thirty years he edited a radical paper; in the fears that swept England after the French Revolution he was twice jailed because of his advocacy of social justice. He was an advocate for the end of the slave trade and of the exploitation of child chimney sweeps. The tune WOODBIRD is a German folk melody.