Mount Calvary Church

A Roman Catholic Parish

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Baltimore, Maryland

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choir Director and Cantor

Midori Tanaka, Organist

Ascension Thursday

May 21, 2020

Noon. Livestreamed on YouTube

Program

__________________

Organ Prelude

Llanfair, setting by Alfred Fedak

Organ Postlude

Voluntary by Maurice Greene (1696-1755)

Dr Maurice Greene was one of England’s leading composers and musicians in a period that was dominated by Handel. His output of large and small scale choral works along with his organ voluntaries are some of the finest examples of music by English composers of the Georgian period and deserve a much wider audience.

The voluntary here is No I in a set of 12 published in 1780, some 25 years after his death. With its use of the cornet stop in the second movement, and the trumpet stop in the fourth, this could have been written for any of the three principle organs in the London churches and cathedral for which Maurice Greene was at various times the organist, namely, St Dunstan’s-in-the-West, St Andrew’s, Holborn, and St Paul’s Cathedral.

__________________

Common

Missa de S. Maria Magdalena, H. Willan

_______________

Anthems

O clap your hands, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

O clap your hands together, all ye people, O sing unto God with a voice of melody. For the Lord is high, and to be feared, he is the great King of all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. He shall choose out an heritage for us, ev’n the worship of Jacob, whom he loved. God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. O sing praises, sing praises unto our God, O sing praises, sing praises unto the Lord our King. For God is the King of all the earth, sing ye praises with understanding. God reigneth over the heathen, God sitteth upon his holy seat. For God, which is highly exalted, doth defend the earth, as it were with a shield. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Orlando Gibbons is acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of his period; he wrote some 40 anthems, a variety of other church music, a book of madrigals, and a large quantity of keyboard and instrumental consort music. He was born in Oxford of a musical family, and sang as a boy in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, where later, in 1599, he became a student. In about 1603 he moved to London to become a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. By the time of his death he was senior organist there, and also organist of Westminster Abbey. O clap your hands is one of the largest and most festive of Gibbons’ anthems, making vivid use of its eight-voice double choir layout. It was first performed in 1622 at a ceremony in Oxford when Gibbons and his friend William Heyther received the degree of Doctor of Music; one source states that Gibbons wrote the piece as a qualifying exercise for the degree. The music certainly offers convincing evidence of Gibbons’ impressive compositional skill, and it contains examples of such ‘learned devices’ as canon which would no doubt have gratified the examiners.

_________

Ascendit Dominus, Peter Philips (1560-1628)

Ascendit Deus in jubilatione, et Dominus in voce tubae. Dedit dona hominibus. Alleluia. Dominus in caelo paravit sedem suam. Alleluia.

God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. He gave gifts to men. Alleluia. The Lord hath prepared his seat in heaven. Alleluia.

Philips was born in 1560 or 1561, possibly in Devonshire or London. From 1572 to 1578 he began his career as a boy chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, under the aegis of the Catholic master of choristers, Sebastian Westcott (died 1582), who had also trained the young William Byrd some twenty years earlier. Philips must have had a close relationship with his master, as he lodged in his house up to the time of Westcote’s death, and was a beneficiary of his will.

In the same year (1582), Philips left England for good, like so many others for reasons of his Catholicism, and stayed briefly in Flanders before travelling to Rome where he entered the service of Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589), with whom he stayed for three years, and was also engaged as organist at the English Jesuit College. It was here that in February 1585 he met a fellow Catholic exile, Thomas, third Baron Paget (c. 1544–1590). Philips entered Paget’s service as a musician, and the two left Rome in March 1585, travelling over several years to Genoa, Madrid, Paris, Brussels and finally Antwerp, where Philips settled in 1590 and where Paget died the same year.

After settling, Philips married and gained a precarious living by teaching the virginals to children. In 1593 he went to Amsterdam “to sie and heare an excellent man of his faculties”, doubtless Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, whose reputation had by then long been made. On his way back, Philips was denounced by a compatriot for complicity in a plot on Queen Elizabeth’s life, and he was temporarily imprisoned at the Hague, where he probably composed the pavan and galliard Doloroso (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book nos. LXXX and LXXXI). Philips himself translated the accusations made against him during his trial, revealing that he could by then speak Dutch. He was acquitted and released without further charges.

In 1597 Philips was appointed organist to the chapel of Albert VII, Archduke of Austria at the Coudenberg Palace in Brussels
Philips’ fortunes took a turn for the better on his return, and in 1597 he was employed in Brussels as organist to the chapel of Albert VII, Archduke of Austria who had been appointed governor of the Low Countries in 1595. Here, after his wife – and child’s – deaths, he was ordained a priest in either 1601 or 1609 – opinions differ; in any case, he received a canonry at Soignies in 1610, and another at Béthune in 1622 or 1623. In his position at court, Philips was able to meet the best musicians of the time, including Girolamo Frescobaldi, who visited the Low Countries in 1607–1608, and his fellow-countryman John Bull, who had fled England on a charge of adultery. His nearest colleague, however, was Peeter Cornet (c. 1575–1633), organist to Archduchess Isabella, wife of Philips’ employer the archduke.

Philips died in 1628, probably in Brussels, where he was buried.

_______________

Hymns

Hail the day that sees Him rise (LLANFAIR) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was published in 1739 in Hymns and Sacred Poems under the title “Hymn for Ascension-Day.”

The first and second stanzas employ apostrophe, a rhetorical device in which the poet addresses an absent or inanimate object. The first addresses the day of Jesus’ ascension, the second the gates of heaven which accept Christ in glory. The third emphasizes the true humanity of Jesus and his continued investment in the lives of those on earth, in comparison to his heavenly inheritance described in the previous lines. He is the continuous intercessor for mankind, imploring his assistance in the efforts of all to follow him in the ascent to the presence of God, leading finally to the beatific vision and eternal union with God.

LLANFAIR is usually attributed to Welsh singer Robert Williams (b. Mynydd Ithel, Anglesey, Wales, 1781; d. Mynydd Ithel, 1821), whose manuscript, dated July 14, 1817, included the tune. Williams lived on the island of Anglesey. A basket weaver with great innate musical ability, Williams, who was blind, could write out a tune after hearing it just once. A rounded bar form (AABA) tune, LLANFAIR features the common Welsh device of building a melody on the tones of the tonic triad. The tune is in a major key. The melismas give fitting shape to the “alleluias.”

See the conqueror mounts in triumph (IN BABILONE) was written Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885), the nephew of the poet William Wordsworth. Christopher Wordsworth was an athlete, classicist, poet, and Anglican bishop of Lincoln.

The text views the ascending Lord being sung to by angels at heaven’s gates, recalls Christ’s suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, and looks forward to our reign with Christ in glory. The text emphasizes not only the event of the Ascension but also its meaning for us: in Christ’s ascension, “we by faith can see” our own. Our shared destiny is to be raised with Jesus: “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence”(2 Cor 4:13-14).

IN BABILONE is a traditional Dutch melody that appeared in Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boerenlities en Contradansen (Old and New Dutch Peasant Songs and Country Dances), c. 1710. Ralph Vaughan Williams  discovered this tune as arranged by Julius Rontgen (b. Leipzig, Germany, 1855; d. Utrecht, the Netherlands, 1932) and included it in The English Hymnal (1906), from which it gained widespread use. It is a rounded barform tune (AABA).

An important Dutch pianist, composer, conductor, scholar, and editor, Rontgen studied music in Leipzig with well-known German teachers. In 1877 he moved to Amsterdam, where he first taught at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1886 he became conductor of the Society for the Advancement of Musical Art. He returned to the Conservatory as director in 1918, and then retired in 1924 to devote himself to composition. He was a friend of leading composers of his day, including Liszt, Brahms, and Grieg, and wrote a biography of Grieg. Rontgen’s compositions include symphonies, chamber works, operas, and film scores.

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

_________

Common

Missa de Angelis

__________

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.

_____

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.

__________

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. 

_____

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.

_________

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.

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

__________________

Organ Prelude

Voluntary X by John Stanley

__________

Organ Postlude

St. Denio, setting by Stephen Johnson

_________________

Common

Merbecke

________________

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.

_________

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).

Hymns

#345 The King of love my shepherd is (ST COLUMBA) was written by Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821–1877). It is notable for its skillful meter, and its well-managed rhyme scheme of single and double rhymes, which control and shape the emotion very beautifully. Baker gave an Anglican slant to Psalm 23, interpreting it as a psalm of love and care, but stressing these qualities as evidenced in the Eucharist. The spread table of verse 5 becomes the altar on which the elements are displayed, and the delight comes as the believer takes the ‘pure chalice’; the unction, or anointing (from 1 John 2: 27), while bestowing grace in a spiritual sense, also has suggestions of a rite. This verse spreads its meaning through the whole hymn, allowing the words of Psalm 23 to acquire an extra significance: so that the last verse suggests that the length of days of a person’s life can be spent, figuratively, ‘within thy house for ever’, in the service and under the influence of the church, and then later in heaven. The singer can reflect back, and conclude that the first verses suggest the ransomed soul, sought out in love and rescued from sin (Baker’s version of ‘he restoreth my soul’). The beautiful use of the shepherd metaphor in verse 3, as the shepherd carries the lamb gently on his shoulder, is an illustration of the tenderness of Baker’s work: these lines were the last words spoken by Baker on his deathbed.

#223 Jesus son of Mary was written by Edmund Stuart Palmer (1856–1931) in Swahili as ‘Yesu Bin Mariamu’ sometime before 1901, for the Requiem of a colleague. Palmer was a doctor and Anglican cleric who preached and practiced medicine in Zanzibar and East Africa.

Here is the tune we will use ADORO DEVOTE.

#585 Jerusalem, my happy home has a complicated history. It may have been written by a 16^th century Catholic priest “F. B. P” (¿Francis Baker Porter?) imprisoned in the Tower and it may be based on The Meditations of St. Augustine. It exists in several versions; the one we use was said to be the favorite hymn of Elizabeth Ann Seton.As adults, we know we live in a vale of tears: the disappointments of life, the sickness and death of friends and family, the destruction that evil works in God’s creation. This world as it now exists is not our home, which we will find in the transfigured world of the New Creation. The disharmony of the present age will be replaced by the harmony of heaven, symbolized by music, the new song, canticum novum, that we will forever sing.

LAND OF REST is an American folk tune with roots in the ballads of northern England and Scotland. It was known throughout the Appalachians; a shape-note version of the tune was published in The Sacred Harp (1844).

The first two verses of the hymn are a description of the saints arrayed before God’s throne, asking the question: who are they? Verse three begins to answer the question. So verse four is an answer to the question of who are the saints? What is wonderful about verse four is that it describes people who do not simply submit to God’s will: “who in prayer full oft have striven with the God they glorified.” In other words, their prayer has often been an intense struggle with God. It’s a powerful description of one aspect of a devout Christian life. Like Jacob, we often wrestle with God about His seeming absence in our anguish; Jesus too cried “my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Here is the Wakefield Cathedral Choir.

#585 Jerusalem, my happy home has a complicated history. It may have been written by a 16^th century Catholic priest “F. B. P” (¿Francis Baker Porter?) imprisoned in the Tower and it may be based on The Meditations of St. Augustine. It exists in several versions; the one we use was said to be the favorite hymn of Elizabeth Ann Seton.As adults, we know we live in a vale of tears: the disappointments of life, the sickness and death of friends and family, the destruction that evil works in God’s creation. This world as it now exists is not our home, which we will find in the transfigured world of the New Creation. The disharmony of the present age will be replaced by the harmony of heaven, symbolized by music, the new song, canticum novum, that we will forever sing.

LAND OF REST is an American folk tune with roots in the ballads of northern England and Scotland. It was known throughout the Appalachians; a shape-note version of the tune was published in The Sacred Harp (1844).

#126 For all the saints is by the Anglican bishop William Walsham How (1823—1897), who was a great friend of the poor of his diocese, and was known variously as ‘the children’s bishop’, ‘the poor man’s bishop’ and ‘the omnibus bishop’ (the last referring to his preferred means of travel about his diocese).

This hymn derives much of its power from its ability to capture the spirit of the Church Militant here on earth, using imagery from the book of Revelation. Vaughan Williams composed the tune SINE NOMINE (‘without a name’) for this hymn. It has been suggested that the name of the tune refers to the countless number of saints who are not remembered by name but who are part of the ‘glorious company’.

Here is the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral Choir.

Scandinavia is the most egalitarian area in the world when it comes to policies, but it is also the area in which men and women segregate themselves into different occupations.

This division by gender in many professions is unusually pronounced in Iceland, known as a society that values equality, with a female prime minister, a law requiring employers to certify they pay male and female workers equally and a rule that at least 40 percent of corporate board members must be women.

The male dislike of education is of long standing, but it is increasing. An article in the Post points out:

Fifty years ago, 58 percent of U.S. college students were men. Today, 56 percent are women, Education Department estimates show. This year, for the first time, the share of college-educated women in the U.S. workforce passed the share of college-educated men.

Iceland is leading the way:

the shrinking number of men in higher education has, until recently, attracted scant attention, said Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, rector of the University of Akureyri, where 77 percent of 2,389 undergraduates are women.
“We are just now waking up and understanding that this is a problem,” Gudmundsson said. “The world is waking up to it.”
Yet some people still ask him why they should be concerned, Gudmundsson said.
“It is of concern for the exact reason that we had concern 30 years ago about women not being represented in higher education in a fair way, or in the United States about ethnic groups and people of different backgrounds” not going to college, he said he tells them.
______
Though there are slightly more men in Iceland than women, women earn more undergraduate and graduate degrees, including PhDs, according to the country’s Directorate of Equality. Fifty-nine percent of women in the Reykjavik region have completed college, compared with 45 percent of men; outside the capital, the ratio is 40 percent to 19 percent.
While men still predominate in engineering and computer science, they won’t go into nursing; 98 percent of nurses here are women, at a time when the need for nurses is rising.
There are also shortages of teachers in Iceland, another job for which few men apply; at the University of Iceland, 91 percent of teaching students are women.

Women will go into fields long associated with men, bt men will not go into fields long associated with women:

In fact, attitudes toward work have started changing — but more among women than men. At the University of Iceland, more women have begun to enter male-dominated disciplines such as electrical engineering.

“What isn’t happening is the other trend in the female-dominated departments,” Gestsdottir said. “We’re not seeing men going into women-dominated subjects at the same rate. This is a very slow process.”

Women will happily wear pants; men will rarely wear dresses (and no, a kilt is not a skirt).

In higher education in the United States there is some hostility to men, especially heterosexual men, especially white heterosexual men. So there are fewer and fewer men in college; women have to marry down educationally.

In Iceland, with is 3% unemployment rate, there are still many well-paying blue collar jobs in fishing and construction; less so in the United States.

The dominance of men at the very top of society conceals the downward mobility of men as a whole, and the males at the top of the pyramid show little empathy for males at the bottom of the pyramid, where men far outnumber women in prison and on the streets.

Several years ago, I attended a conference on fatherhood at McGill University in Montreal. A professor of sociology, a woman, gave a depressing presentation on the rising number of suicides of young men in Canada and elsewhere.

In the middle of her presentation an older man arose and interrupted her. “Stop!” he said. “Why are you discussing this? The real crisis is the glass ceiling that women assistant professors of theology face when they try to become full professors! Don’t waste your time on trivial issues! Concentrate on the real problems!”

I asked who the jerk was and was informed it was Gregory Baum. Ah yes, Gregory Baum, super-liberal theologian and peritus at the Second Vatican Council. And liberals wonder why men voted for Trump.

Mount Calvary Church

A Roman Catholic Parish

The Personal Ordinariate of S. Peter

Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue

Baltimore, Maryland

Trinity XIX

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster

Midori Ataka, Organist

Sunday, October 27, 2019

8:00 A.M. Said Mass

10:00 A.M. Sung Mass, with Baptism

Brunch to follow in the undercroft

_______________

Prelude

Andante, from Voluntary I, John Stanley

Postlude

Southwell, setting by Raymond Haan

_______________

Common

Missa S. Maria Magdalena, Healey Willan

______________

Anthems

 Give Almes of Thy Goods, Christopher Tye (1500-1573)

Give almes of thy goods, and turn never thy face from any poor man:
then the face of the Lord shall not be turned away from thee.

This Sunday’s offertory anthem is the most tasteful stewardship anthem in the repertoire. Rather than “please turn in your pledge card,” it requests us to “give almes of thy goods.” The beauty and effectiveness this short anthem is its simplicity and imitative voice parts. One vocal line leads as all the others follow, woven together like fine fabric. Listen for the words “and then the face” as they culminate in sublime, homophonic chordal treatment of the text “shall not be turned away from thee.” Christopher Tye (c.1505-1572) has been called an “innovator” of English cathedral music; together with Tallis, he bridged the musical and liturgical styles from Roman to Anglican in the earliest days of the English Church in the mid-16th Century. He worked closely with Edward VI, the young monarch who called Tye “our musical lecturer.” Moving away from plainsong, Edward VI had decreed that choirs sing in English and with only one note to every syllable. Tye graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music from Cambridge and sang as a lay clerk in the King’s College Cambridge choir. He then became master of the choir at Ely Cathedral, and Cambridge bestowed upon him the Doctor of Music degree. Though not documented, it is assumed he held a position in the Chapel Royal in the 1550s.

_________

Beati mundo cordi,  William Byrd (1540-1623)

Domine, non sum dignus
ut intres sub tectum meum,
sed tantum dic verbum,
et sanabitur anima mea.

Lord, I am not worthy
that thou shouldest come under my roof:
but speak the word only,
and my soul shall be healed.

Hymns

#414 (words) O for a heart to praise my God (RICHMOND) 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 RICHMOND is by the Anglican clergyman Thomas Haweis (rhymes with pause) (1734-1820), a leading figures of the 18th century evangelical revival and a key figure in the histories of the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, the Free Church of England and the London Missionary Society.It is named for the  Rev. Leigh Richmond, a friend of Haweis’s.

#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.

I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath (OLD 113th) is Isaac Watts’ (1674-1748) paraphrase of Psalm 146, altered by John Wesley. It was one if his favorite hymns; he sang it at the end of his last sermon. Wesley’s caretaker at his deathbed wrote that, shortly before Wesley’s death, he ” broke out ..in a manner which considering his extreme weakness astonished us all, in these blessed words: ‘ I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath…’ ” During that night Wesley tried to repeat the hymn, but could only say ” I’ll praise — I’ll praise”. A few hours later John Wesley has passed into the Lord’s presence. In death Christians pass into endless praise of God’s goodness and mercy.  OLD 113th was composed by Matthaus Greiter (1495-1550). He became priest and cantor at Strasbourg Cathedral. In 1524 he joined the new Reformed Church. In 1538 he accepted a position of music teacher at the Collegium Argentinense (later University of Strasbourg). In 1549 he returned to the Catholic religion and founded a Catholic school of singing.

Addendum

The attentive reader (and all readers of this blog are in that category) will no doubt have noticed the variation in the text of Byrd’s Domine non sum dignus.

In the Latin Missal, the phrase is sed tantum dic verbo, verbo being an ablative of means : Say only by the word, but Byrd’s text puts verbum in the accusative, making it the direct object of dic. Alas, I do not know the origin of this variation (the Vetus Latina?).

The Vulgate has sed dic verbo, et sanabitur puer meus.

As the blog Réponses Catholiques explains in answer to a question:

« Dans la liturgie en latin, avant la communion, nous disons : « Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic VERBO, et sanabitur anima mea. Instinctivement je dirais : « sed tantum dic VERBUM ». Pouvez-vous m’expliquer le sens de VERBO ? »

Sur ce blogue, toutes les questions sont bonnes, y compris les plus techniques. Mais comme mes connaissances ne sont pas universelles, j’ai consulté un confrère hautement qualifié.

Voici sa réponse, in extenso :

« J’ai longtemps cru que c’était une faute de latin (comme il y a dans le missel français des fautes de grammaire, cf. l’horrible et fautif “prends pitié”), jusqu’au jour où un moine que j’interrogeais à ce sujet m’a dit : Mais pas du tout ! Il s’agit bien d’un ablatif. Le verbe transitif “dicere” est normalement suivi d’un accusatif : “dic verbum” = “dis une parole”. Mais il existe un autre sens : commander, ordonner, avec l’ablatif : “dic verbo” = “ordonne au moyen d’une parole (par une parole)”. Il n’y a donc pas de faute, contrairement aux apparences.

Signé : Père O. »

Mount Calvary Church

A Roman Catholic Parish

The Personal Ordinariate of S. Peter

Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue

Baltimore, Maryland

Trinity XVIII

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster

Midori Ataka, Organist

Sunday, October 20, 2019

8:00 A.M. Said Mass

10:00 A.M. Sung Mass, with Baptism

Brunch to follow in the undercroft

_______________

Prelude

Postlude

_______________

Common

Missa S. Maria Magdalena, Healey Willan

______________

Anthems

God be in my head, Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941)

God be in my head, and in my understanding; God be in mine eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at mine end, and at my departing.

________

Hear the voice and prayer, Thomas Tallis (1510-1585)

Hear the voice and prayer of thy servants, that they make before thee this day. That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, ever toward this place, of which thou hast said: “My Name shall be there.” And when thou hearest have mercy on them.

____________________

Hymns

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.”

When Jesus left His Father’s throne (KINGSFOLD) was written by the Moravian social reformer James Montgomery (1771-1854). Following Jesus, Montgomery had a heart for those who were regarded as insignificant by society: the poor and children. Let us rejoice that our church is blessed with so many children: “For of such is the kingdom of heaven.” KINGSFOLD is thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland.

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee was written ca. 1908, when Henry van Dyke (1852-1953) was a visiting preacher at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, set in the beautiful landscape of the Berkshire Hills, which is said to have inspired the hymn. Van Dyke, a Presbyterian minister, was also a professor of English literature at Princeton and a friend of President Woodrow Wilson. He also served as a naval chaplain in World War I. He composed it to be sung to the Ode to Joy in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Take up thy cross

Mount Calvary Church

A Roman Catholic Parish

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of S. Peter

Eutaw St. and Madison Ave.

Baltimore, Maryland

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster

Trinity XII

September 8, 2019

Summer Schedule

One Mass at 9:00 A.M.

Breakfast following in the undercroft

__________________

O Divine Redeemer, Charles Gounod

Ah! Turn me not away,
Receive me though unworthy;
Hear Thou my cry,
Behold, Lord, my distress!
Answer me from thy throne
Haste Thee, Lord to mine aid,
Thy pity shew in my deep anguish!
Let not the sword of vengeance smite me,
Though righteous thine anger,
O Lord! Shield me in danger, O regard me!
On Thee, Lord, alone will I call.
O Divine Redeemer!

I pray Thee, grant me pardon,
and remember not, remember not my sins!
Forgive me, O Divine Redeemer!
Night gathers round my soul;
Fearful, I cry to Thee;
Come to mine aid, O Lord!
Haste Thee, Lord, haste to help me!
Hear my cry! Save me Lord in Thy mercy;
Come and save me O Lord
Save, in the day of retribution,
From Death shield Thou me, O my God!
O Divine Redeemer, have mercy!
Help me, my Savior!

__________

En priere,  Gabriel Faure

Si la voix d’un enfant peut monter jusqu’à Vous,
Ô mon Père,
Écoutez de Jésus, devant Vous à genoux,
La prière!
Si Vous m’avez choisi pour enseigner vos lois
Sur la terre,
Je saurai Vous servir, auguste Roi des rois,
Ô Lumière!
Sur mes lèvres, Seigneur, mettez la vérité
Salutaire,
Pour que celui qui doute, avec humilité
Vous révère!
Ne m’abandonnez pas, donnez-moi la douceur
Nécessaire,
Pour apaiser les maux, soulager la douleur,
La misère!
Révélez Vous à moi, Seigneur en qui je crois
Et j’espère:
Pour Vous je veux souffrir et mourir sur la croix,
Au calvaire!

If the voice of a child could reach up to you,
O my Father,
To be heard by Jesus… kneeling before You,
A prayer!
If you have chosen me to teach your laws
On Earth,
I would know how to serve you, august King of kings,
O Light!
On my lips, Lord, place the Truth
salutary,
So that those who doubt, with humility will
revere you!
Do not abandon me, but give me the Grace
necessary
to overcome evils, and to relieve pain
and misery!
Reveal yourself to me, Lord in whom I believe
and hope!
For You I want to suffer and die on the Cross,
on Calvary!

__________________

Hymns

Immortal, Invisible, God only wise (ST DENIO) by William Chalmers Smith (1824—1908), is a proclamation of the transcendence of God: “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever” (1 Tim 17). No man has ever seen God, who dwells in inaccessible light that is darkness to mortal eyes. God lacks nothing (“nor wanting”) and never changes (“nor wasting”), and is undying, unlike mortals, who in a striking image “blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree, then wither and perish.” The original ending of the hymn completes the thought: “And so let Thy glory, almighty, impart, / Through Christ in His story, Thy Christ to the heart.” “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known” (John 1:18). Only in Jesus through the proclamation of the Gospel can we know the Father.

John Roberts, in Welsh Ieuan Gwyllt (1822-1877), composed the tune ST. DENIO (also known as JOANNA, or PALESTINA). It is derived from a Welsh folk song Can Mlynned i ‘nawr’ (“A Hundred Years from Now”).

Fairest Lord Jesus (CRUSADERS HYMN) is a 17th century German, hymn. Three stanzas of this hymn are taken from the version published by Richard Storrs Willis (1819-1900), in his Church Chorals and Choir Studies (New York, 1850). The tune emerges in Franz Liszt’s oratorio Legend of Saint Elizabeth—wherein the tune forms part of the “Crusader’s March”—but no evidence of the tune exists prior to 1842, when the hymn appeared in Schlesische Volkslieder.

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee was written ca. 1908, when Henry van Dyke (1852-1953) was a visiting preacher at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, set in the beautiful landscape of the Berkshire Hills, which is said to have inspired the hymn. Van Dyke, a Presbyterian minister, was also a professor of English literature at Princeton and a friend of President Woodrow Wilson. He also served as a naval chaplain in World War I. He composed it to be sung to the Ode to Joy in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The Heavenly Jerusalem

Mount Calvary Church

A Roman Catholic Parish

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of S. Peter

Eutaw St. and Madison Ave.

Baltimore, Maryland

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster

Trinity XI

September 1, 2019

Summer Schedule

One Mass at 9:00 A.M.

Breakfast following in the undercroft

___________

Anthems

Laudate Dominum,  W. A. Mozart

Laudate Dominum omnes gentes
Laudate eum, omnes populi
Quoniam confirmata est
Super nos misericordia eius,
Et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.
Gloria Patri et Filio
et Spiritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper.
Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Praise the Lord, all nations;
Praise Him, all people.
For He has bestowed
His mercy upon us,
And the truth of the Lord endures forever.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever,
and for generations of generations. Amen.

_____

Ave verum corpus, W. A. Mozart

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.

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.

__________

Hymns

Glorious things of thee are spoken was written by John Newton (1725—1807), sometime slave trader and author of Amazing Grace, with the help of William Cowper (1731—1800).  The opening line quotes Psalm 87:3 “Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God.” The theme is the universal church. The text begins with a vision of the new city of God (Heb 12:22), founded on the rock of ages (2 Sam 22), from which flow streams of living waters (Rev 22), alluding to the rock that Moses truck in the desert, to the Gihon spring on Mount Zion, and to the living water that Jesus promised the women at the well. The third stanza names the cloud and fire — the enduring presence God in the church —, and the manna (Ex 13:21, 16:31), a symbol of the Eucharist. We are washed in the Blood of the Lamb, making us Kings and priests to our God, to Whom we offer in Jesus the sacrifice of our lives in praise and thanksgiving for the salvation He has wrought.

The tune, AUSTRIA, by Haydn, created problems for England during World War II and was replaced by a newly composed tune, but we are using the 18^thcentury melody, which also appears in the Emperor quartet, opus 70, no. 5.

Jerusalem, my happy home has a complicated history. It may have been written by a 16^th century Catholic priest “F. B. P” (¿Francis Baker Porter?) imprisoned in the Tower and it may be based on The Meditations of St. Augustine. It exists in several versions; the one we use was said to be the favorite hymn of Elizabeth Ann Seton.

As adults, we know we live in a vale of tears: the disappointments of life, the sickness and death of friends and family, the destruction that evil works in God’s creation. This world as it now exists is not our home, which we will find in the transfigured world of the New Creation. The disharmony of the present age will be replaced by the harmony of heaven, symbolized by music, the new song, canticum novum, that we will forever sing. As the Navajos say, Hózhó Nahasdlii: It is finished in beauty.

LAND OF REST is an American folk tune with roots in the ballads of northern England and Scotland. It was known throughout the Appalachians; a shape-note version of the tune was published in The Sacred Harp (1844).

Love divine, all loves excelling is by Charles Wesley (1707—1788). The hymn is a prayer: through the incarnate Christ, we pray for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and ask that we would never be separated from the love of God in Christ, who works in us and through us until our time on earth is done.

One of the most loved Welsh tunes, HYFRODOL was composed by Rowland Hugh Prichard (1811—1887) in 1830 when he was only nineteen.

Strive to enter through the narrow door

Mount Calvary Church

A Roman Catholic Parish

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of S. Peter

Eutaw St. and Madison Ave.

Baltimore, Maryland

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Dr. Allen Buskirk, Choirmaster

Trinity X

August 25, 2019

Summer Schedule

One Mass at 9:00 A.M.

Breakfast following in the undercroft

____________________

Common

Merbecke

___________________

Hymns

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy (IN BABILONE) was written by Frederick Faber (1814—1863). He was born an Anglican and reared a strict Calvinist. After attending Oxford, he took orders as an Anglican priest and began his ministry as a rector. Influenced by his friend John Henry Newman (1801—1890), who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, Faber also converted to Catholicism that same year.

IN BABILONE is a traditional Dutch melody that appeared in Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boerenlities en Contradansen (Old and New Dutch Peasant Songs and Country Dances), c. 1710. Ralph Vaughan Williams discovered this tune as arranged by Julius Rontgen (b. Leipzig, Germany, 1855; d. Utrecht, the Netherlands, 1932) and included it in The English Hymnal (1906), from which it gained widespread use

In Christ, there is no east or west (MCKEE) is by John Oxenham (1852—1941). Oxenham opposes Rudyard Kipling’s sentiment: “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” from Barrack-Room Ballads, and Other Verses (1892). Paul in Galatians 3:28 proclaimed: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ.’”

MCKEE is a tune adapted from a spiritual by the famous African-American composer and songwriter, Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949). It was named for the rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in New York City, Elmer M. McKee, where Burleigh was the baritone soloist for over 50 years.

Mount Calvary was the leading Episcopal church in Baltimore in its mission to African-American, It welcomed all as members, and sponsored two missions in Baltimore, St. Mary the Virgin and St. Katherine. St Mary the Virgin was the most prominent African-American Episcopal church in the United States, and had more communicants than Mount Calvary. Mount Calvary sponsored the first African- American seminarian at the General Theological Seminary. The Catholic vision of Mount Calvary has always included all races.

All people that on earth do dwell is by William Kethe (–1594), who helped translate the Geneva Bible in 1560 and contributed twenty-five psalms to the 1561 Anglo-Genevan Psalter. Only ten of these were retained in the 1562 English Psalter, while the 1564 Scottish Psalter retained all 25. His version of Psalm 100, The Old Hundredth, is universally known by its first line.

OLD HUNDRETH is a hymn tune in Long Metre from Pseaumes Octante Trois de David (1551) (the second edition of the Genevan Psalter) and is one of the best-known melodies in all Christian musical traditions. The tune is usually attributed to the French composer Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510 – c.1560).

Mount Calvary Church

Eutaw Street and Madison Avenue

Baltimore, Maryland

The Roman Catholic Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter

Rev. Albert Scharbach, Pastor

Corpus Christi

8:00 AM Said Mass

10:00 AM Sung Mass

Eucharistic Procession to Mother Anne Seton House

Parish Picnic

Anthems

The text of the Corpus Christi Carol (music by Benjamin Britten) was discovered in 1504. One theory about the meaning of the carol is that it is concerned with the legend of the Holy Grail. In Arthurian traditions of the Grail story, the Fisher King is the knight who is the Grail’s protector, and whose legs are perpetually wounded.^[1]When he is wounded his kingdom suffers and becomes a wasteland. This would explain the reference to “an orchard brown”.

The text may be an allegory in which the crucified is described as a wounded knight. The bleeding knight could be Christ who bleeds for the sins of humanity endlessly. Christ is most probably represented as a knight as he is battling sin and evil by his continual pain. The “orchard brown” to which the knight was conveyed becomes, in this reading, the “orchard” of wooden crosses that covered the hill of Golgotha/Calvary where Christ – along with many others – was Crucified, while the “hall… hanged with purpill and pall” could be a representation of the tomb in which Christ was placed after Crucifixion. The maiden who is by the knight’s side could be Mary. The colours in the carol are also significant. The purple and gold are signs of wealth, although these were also colours that referred to the Church due to its wealth. The pall (black velvet) probably refers to death.

Panis angelicus, set by Cesar Franck, (Latin for “Bread of Angels” or “Angelic Bread”) is the penultimate strophe of the hymn “Sacris solemniis” written by Saint Thomas Aquinas for the feast of Corpus Christi. 

Hymns

Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor (BRYN CALFARIA) is a communion hymn by the Rev. George Hugh Bourne (1840-1925). The tune is by the Welsh musician William Owen (1813-1893).

O food to pilgrims given (O WEWLT ICH MUSS DICH LASSEN) is a translation of O esca viatorum, an anonymous Latin hymn first published in 1647. In the first verse, we express the desire to unite with Christ by means of His body, the manna from heaven; in the second, by means of His blood, the fountain of living water that gives us eternal life. In the third verse, we desire the vision of Christ’s face unveiled, whose hidden presence we adore in the eucharistic species.

O saving victim (MARTYR DEI) is a translation of O salutaris hostia by Thomas Aquinas.

Thee Father, we thank thee (RENDEZ A DIEU) is a translation by the Rev. Francis Bland Tucker (1896—1984; UVA 1914) of a portion of the Didache (c. 110 AD) that describes the manner of celebrating the Eucharist: “concerning the broken bread. We thank thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which thou hast made known unto us through Jesus thy Son; to thee be the glory forever. As this broken bread was once scattered on the mountains, and after it had been brought together became one, so may thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth unto thy kingdom.”

Hymns in procession

Now, my tongue, the mystery telling is a translation of the Pange lingua by Thomas Aquinas.

Holy God we praise Thy name is a translation of a German paraphrase of the Te Deum.