Welcome to Sundays at Home
Good morning and welcome to Trinity! So glad you are tuning in virtually for today’s service. Each week you’ll find Sundays at Home with Trinity Episcopal Church. We feature the full service recording, as well as the sermon and anthem on their own.
In-person services are held at Trinity Church each Sunday at 8:00am & 10:30am and at 12:00noon each Wednesday.
Once again, thank you for tuning in and for being faithful with your time, talents, and treasures.
Grace and Peace!
Rev. Jonathan V. Adams
Worship for January 9, 2022
Please view the embedded video of our service below by clicking on the grey arrow in the middle of the image.
Our Trinity Kids series is currently featuring previously recorded episodes.
Music Notes
This week we enter a new season within the church year, Epiphany, during which the liturgical readings center on God manifested in the person of Jesus. The Christmas Season ends on Twelfth Night, January 5. Epiphany begins on January 6 and runs until the day before Ash Wednesday. While the day of Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Three Wise Men to the Christ Child, on The First Sunday after the Epiphany we remember his Baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Therefore, the music choices for this week center on this major event in the life of Jesus.
Virginia born F. Bland Tucker (1895-1984), the son of a bishop and brother of a Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was educated at the University of Virginia and Virginia Theological Seminary. He served for many years at St. John’s Church in Georgetown, Washington, DC and is the only person to serve on the committees that developed both the Hymnal 1940 and the Hymnal 1982. His text for Hymn 121, “Christ, when for us you were baptized”, was written in 1973 and included in H82. The tune, “Caithness”, derives from a melody in The Scottish Psalter of 1635. The opening voluntary is a robust setting of this tune by the noted Canadian organist and composer Healey Willan (1880-1968). Willan made a significant and lasting contribution to the world of church music in his choral works and organ music His joyous “Finale Jubilante”, written in 1959 for the dedication of a new organ in Ottawa, serves as the closing voluntary.
For the Offertory, Julian Baldwin sings “The Birds” by Benjamin Britten, written in 1929 when the composer was just 15 years old. This charming poem by French poet (Joseph) Hilaire Belloc focuses on the childhood of Christ, especially his amazing deeds and words and refers to a legend that dates from the second century that Jesus once brought clay birds to life. It tells us something about the way God’s power could work in Jesus. It ends with the poet asking the child Jesus to “bless mine hands and fill mine eyes and bring my soul to Paradise”.
Other hymns included in this week’s liturgy are the gospel hymn about Baptism, “Shall we gather at the river” by American poet and composer Robert Lowry, and “Songs of thankfulness and praise”. This hymn refers to Christ’s birth and baptism, the wedding at Cana, healing and conquering evil, all in the first three stanzas! The fourth stanza turns toward our response. The author, Christopher Wordsworth, was the son of an Anglican priest and the nephew of the poet William Wordsworth. In 1869, he became the bishop of Lincoln. We sing this hymn at the close of the service, on the day when the Church around the world celebrates Christ’s baptism.