Church Life
A work in progress!
"Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves."
. Romans 12:10
The Episcopal hymnal offers plenty of beautiful Advent hymns and that’s why churches don’t usually schedule Christmas hymns until Christmas Eve. So in Target we’re hearing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” while in church we’re singing “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns.”
But once Christmas Eve arrives, we sing plenty of Christmas carols — for a while. And that’s why I’m still posting them.
Here’s a lively mashup of the aforementioned “God Rest Ye Merry” with “We Three Kings.” The St. Paul’s choir performed it on our Epiphany Sunday, under the direction of music director Dr. Julie Neish.
The arrangers of this piece are otherwise known as the high-spirited Canadian band “Barenaked Ladies.” Enjoy! (Click slide above.)
Italian-born Pietro Yon was assistant organist at the Vatican in 1907 when Father John B. Young, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in New York City, heard him play while traveling in Rome.
Young was impressed enough to offer Yon, then 21, a three-year contract to become organist at the Manhattan church.
In America, he wrote many organ pieces including, in 1917 the famous “Gesu Bambino (The Infant Jesus),” derived from the chorus of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Frederick Martens, a German-American lyricist, used the melody in his carol “When Blossoms Flowered ‘mid the Snows.”
Enjoy this lovely performance by Colleen Carpenter on vocals and Julie Neish, music director of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Bremerton. It was performed on Christmas Eve at St. Paul’s.
Happy New Year! (Click slide above.)
As Christmas arrives, reflect on this beautiful and peaceful performance of “Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming.” Olivia Holgate and
Jim Treyens perform vocals, with Dr. Julie Neish, St. Paul’s music director, and Jessica Lewis on violin.
This haunting Advent and Christmas hymn, performed at St. Paul’s Dec. 22, 2024, expresses and acknowledges a particular tension we ought to be aware of during the Christmas season.
According to information on Hymnary.org: Just as, in the prophecies from Isaiah, a ‘rose,’ or stem, shoots up from the stump, so too do we celebrate Christ’s birth in the knowledge that He brings life out of death.
Our celebrations of Christmas must always point us to Easter. We celebrate Christ’s life because His death brings us a new kind of life. So too, the season of Advent points us not only to Christmas, but to the second coming of Christ, when He will finally make all things new. This is a, but there is just a touch of melancholy in the tune.
Even in the arrangement the composer was able to convey the tension amidst our celebration, the sorrow that must lie within our rejoicing, if only for a moment. We know what is coming that week before Easter morning, and this should give us reason to pause. But we also know that the tiny babe whose birth we celebrate, our ‘Rose,' came to ‘dispel…the darkness everywhere.’ Thus, even amid the tension of life out of death, we celebrate the ultimate life we are promised in Christ." (Click slide above)
Mason and Jazmine Spencer hang Christmas banners in the sanctuary.
St. Paul's organized a Stewardship Dinner in November — a chance for folks to come together for fellowship and consideration of what stewardship means to our livews, our Christian walk and our church. (Click slide above.)
Guest speaker Sabeth Fitzgibbons, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Seattle.