Music Notes from Denise, November 1, 2025

This Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of All Saints Day when we remember the lives of our members and friends who have passed away, and ponder our own lives and how they fit into God’s kingdom. Our Processional hymn, Give thanks for life, exemplifies this with stanza 3: for our own, our living and our dead, thanks for the love by which our life is fed, a love not changed by time or death or dread, Alleluia. It was written by Shirley Erena Murray and sung to Vaughan Williams’s noble tune Sine nomine. Murray’s text affirms the meaning and joy of life, even in the midst of death, and blesses the Godly example of those who have gone before us, while recalling Shakespeare’s 116 sonnet: “…love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds…” (Wonder Love and Praise, Hope Publishing Co. 1987)

Our Sequence hymn will be For All the Saints and it also reflects our thankful celebration. In stanza 2, we sing For all the saints who loved your name, whose faith increased the Savior’s fame, who sang your songs and shared your word, accept our gratitude, good Lord.  Sung to the English folk tune O Waly Waly, the text was written by John Bell, a Scottish musician who served as a youth pastor in the Iona Community. He composed songs that began to address concerns missing from the Scottish hymnal: “I discovered that seldom did our hymns represent the plight of poor people to God…nothing that dealt with feeling disenfranchised…that reflected concern for the developing world...that helped see ourselves as brothers and sisters to those who are suffering from poverty or persecution.”  (from an interview in Reformed Worship, March 1993, quoted by Emily Brink at Hymnary.org; GIA Publications, Inc. 1996)

St. Martin’s Choir will sing a new anthem, The Journey, arranged by Joseph M. Martin. It combines two hymns: the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, and Going Home from Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony in E minor.  In this anthem, you will hear the two hymns mixing together with these familiar words:

’Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free, ’tis a gift to come down where you ought to be.

And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ’twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we Shan’t be ashamed.

To turn, turn will be our delight, ’til by turning, turning we come round right.

Going home, going home, I am going home. Going home, going home, nevermore to roam.

Though the road’s been so long, now I’m going home. To the place I belong, I am going home.

           (Copyright 1997 by Malcolm Music, a div. of Shawnee Press, Inc. All rights reserved)  

The anthem will be enhanced with beautiful violin descants played by Alicia Bont, Orchestra Director at Parkway Central High School. Not only is Alicia a wonderful teacher and director, she also performs professionally on the violin and viola in the Bach Society of St. Louis Orchestra and will share her talents with additional pieces in our worship service. 

During Communion, Alicia Bont will play contemplative music followed by a Communion hymn written by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette: Up on a mountain top sung to the tune of Be thou my vision. It is found in The Sermon on the Mount: A Worship Service of Lessons and Songs that was written by Carolyn. She wrote this Prayer of Confession to follow the singing of her hymn:

O God, we have heard Jesus' teachings many times, but we confess that sometimes we think they are impractical. We let anger take hold of us. We fail to keep our commitments to you and to others. We lack courage to follow Jesus' way of love. Forgive us, we pray. Help us to find joy in obedience to you. Amen.

(Hymn texts and prayers copyright 2011 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved.)  

Our final hymn, I sing a song of the saints of God, was written by Lesbia Scott (1898-1986), who wrote religious dramas and children’s hymns while serving a parish near Dartmoor in England with her husband. This hymn, that was composed for All Saints’ Day, comes from the cultural context of rural England and captures many fond images. Many Episcopalians relish the annual singing of this hymn, which was designed to inspire laughter and joy! (Just refrain from singing: one was a soldier, and one was a beast, and one was slain by a fierce wild priest!)     (history of hymns; umcdiscipleship.org)