By the Rev. Craig Lemming, Associate Rector
The etymology of the word “Liturgy” teaches us that it is the work of all the people in our public worship of Almighty God. On Sunday morning, in our Celebration of Holy Eucharist, it is in the Prayers of the People and in the singing of Hymns that our communal work of liturgy is expressed most beautifully. As such, St. John’s Liturgy Commission has focused on these two aspects of Sunday worship in our liturgical preparations for the Holy Season of Advent.
In September we gathered to study the four Gospels appointed for the four Sundays of Advent. After reading and listening to the Holy Scriptures, we discussed and collected the theological themes, ideas, words, and symbols which captured our imaginations or spoke most vividly to our hearts. We then split into two “teams” – the Prayer Team and the Hymn Team – to begin working on our respective liturgical tasks.
On page 383 of The Book of Common Prayer, we are invited to make adaptations and insertions to the six traditional forms of the Prayers of the People. The Prayer team wrestled with all that we had gleaned from the Advent Gospels, and we discerned a common theme of Transformation undergirding all four pericopes. We also agreed that the Song of Mary or the Magnificat on the fourth Sunday of Advent is a remarkable culmination of our four-week pilgrimage of preparation for the Incarnation of God’s love in the Christ Child. The Prayer Team formulated the following bidding and response for the Prayers of the People this Advent:
Intercessor: God of Transformation,
People: Prepare our souls to magnify you.
We then assigned each person on our Prayer Team to compose one of the six traditional intercessions as follows:
- The universal church, her members, and her mission – Bill Sherfey
- The nation and all in authority – Bob Linehan
- The welfare of world/the earth – Cynthia Bronson Sweigert
- The concerns of the local community – Terry Dinovo
- Those who suffer and those in trouble – Craig Lemming
- The departed – Nancy Wellington
As Richard Gray, our Director of Music and co-convener of the Liturgy Commission said in our meeting, “Hymns don’t select themselves! We all need to be involved in selecting hymns that we love.” After pondering all of the ideas collected in our study of the Advent Gospels, the Hymn Team were invited to not only look for Hymns in the Advent section of the hymnal, but to “think outside the box” and to look for Hymns that captured the theological themes, ideas, words, and symbols in the Scriptures we studied. We are delighted that Margaret Thor, Keith Davis, Helen Boyer, Kathy Brown, Susan Moss, and Richard Gray as the Hymn Team have selected the Gospel Sequence and Communion hymns for Advent.
For the Season of Christmas, we will return to the traditional Forms of the Prayers of the People in the Prayer Book and Richard will select the Hymns. The Liturgy Commission has already studied the Gospels for the Season after The Epiphany and are now in the process of writing the Prayers of the People and selecting the entrance processional and retiring processional Hymns – except, the Prayer Team for Advent is now the Hymn Team for Season after The Epiphany, and vice-versa.
We are grateful for the hard work the Liturgy Commission is doing to create beautiful worship services at St. John’s. We trust that the Prayers of the People we have composed and the Hymns we have selected for Advent will edify our communal work of liturgical worship; preparing our souls to magnify God’s radical love made flesh in Christ Jesus.
Originally published in the November-December 2018 Evangelist.
