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 November 7, 2021
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.
About the Music:
This Sunday we celebrate All Saints’ Day (transferred from November 1). Our service begins with the familiar hymn for this day, #287, “For all the saints”. With words by William Walsham How (1823-1897), Bishop of Wakefield, and tune by the English hymn writer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), this great hymn was first published in The English Hymnal of 1906.
Hymn 618, “Ye watchers and ye holy ones”, will conclude the service. This wonderful hymn begins with a “catalog of angels”. “Holy ones” is a reference to the saints; watchers, seraphs, cherubim, thrones, etc., are references to various classifications of angels - an angel family tree! The angels are close companions of the saints. In stanza two, the reference is to the Virgin Mary without actually naming her. This hymn was also first published in the 1906 English Hymnal.
The Gospel hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God”, was written in Britain by Lesbia Scott and first published in 1929. Ms. Scott (1898-1986) composed a number of children’s hymns for her three children. One of them, “Saints’ Days”, found its way to the United States and was matched to a new tune (“Grand Isle”) by retired Episcopal priest John H. Hopkins, Jr., grandson of the writer of “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” This beloved hymn draws us into the colorful world of saints and their life adventures. We learn that these heroes and heroines of the church belong not only to the past, but also may live and work today as they carry out their daily activities.
The hymn at Communion will be the traditional hymn “Shall we gather at the river” by Robert Lowry (1826-1899). The hymn’s lyrics speak of restoration and reward.
British jazz pianist George Shearing (1919-2011), composer of over 300 titles including the jazz standard “Lullaby of Birdland”, contributed a set of pieces for organ based on early American tunes titled “Sacred Sounds”. His setting of Hymn #620, “Jerusalem, My Happy Home”, serves as the Prelude this week. The Postlude is “Alleluya, A Festal Postlude on the tune Lasst uns erfreuen” by English organist William Faulkes (1863-1933).
The Offertory Anthem is a setting of the text “Beati mortui” by contemporary English composer Tim Knight. The Latin text is translated as “Blessed are the dead who die in Christ, even so said the spirit for they rest from their labors.” The anthem was a gift to Trinity Church last year by Mr. Knight, as a thank you for my playing his organ work “Paean” in worship.