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The Parish of Great St. Bartholomew

Lent, Passiontide, and Easter 2018

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Wednesday, 14th February 2018: Ash Wednesday

Lent begins each year on Ash Wednesday, when we are reminded of our mortality: Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return, says the priest as he marks our foreheads with a cross, using the ashes of the palm crosses from the Palm Sunday procession of the previous year. This annual reminder is not intended to depress us, but to remind us of our

dependence on our Creator for our existence, and for the forgiveness of our sins accomplished through Jesus’s death on the Cross and his Resurrection on Easter Day. It also provides an occasion for us to commit ourselves to using the next forty days and nights as a time for personal and spiritual growth. There are three opportunities on Ash Wednesday to attend a Eucharist with Ashing: 08:30 Holy Eucharist with Ashing in the Lady Chapel of The Great

12:30 Holy Eucharist with Ashing in the Lady Chapel of The Great

These are both straightforward said Eucharists, with the addition of the ashing. This is very simple: those who choose to do this (and it is not compulsory in any sense) come up to the altar rail in the same way as one does for communion. The priest moves along the row, making the sign of the cross on the forehead of each person with dampened ashes and saying to each Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return. By the way, the ashes wipe off easily after the service.

19:00 Solemn Eucharist with Ashing at the High Altar of The Great Setting: Missa Emendemus in melius – Palestrina During the Ashing: Miserere mei – Allegri At the Offertory: Emendemus in melius – Byrd

The evening Solemn Eucharist is a sung service at the High Altar with the choir. Ashing is done in the same way, but while it is happening, the choir sings Allegri’s much-loved Miserere mei. The other music in this service is also remarkable, although less widely known. This is a powerfully atmospheric service.

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Services on the first three Sundays of Lent

Sunday, 18th February 2018: First Sunday of Lent 09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great 10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns in The Less 11:00 Solemn Eucharist at the High Altar of The Great

Setting: Mass for Four Voices – Byrd At the Offertory: Call to remembrance – Farrant Postlude: Prelude in F minor BWV 534 – Johann Sebastian Bach

18:30 Choral Evensong in The Great Responses: Byrd Canticles: The Fourth Service – Batten Anthem: Versa est in luctum – Lobo

Sunday, 25th February 2018: Second Sunday of Lent 09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great 10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns in The Less 11:00 Solemn Eucharist at the High Altar of The Great

Setting: Missa Brevis – Seiber At the Offertory: Communion – Kodály Postlude: Fugue in F minor BWV 534 – Johann Sebastian Bach

18:30 Choral Evensong in The Great Responses: Tomkins Canticles: The First Service – Tomkins Anthem: Salvator mundi – Blow

Sunday, 4th March 2018: Third Sunday of Lent 09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great 10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns in The Less 11:00 Solemn Eucharist at the High Altar of The Great

Setting: Missa miserere mihi Domine – Cardoso At the Offertory: O Lord increase my faith – Gibbons Postlude: Christe, du Lamm Gottes BWV 619 – Johann Sebastian Bach

18:30 Choral Evensong in The Great Responses: – Leighton Canticles: The Second Service – Leighton Anthem: Bring us O Lord – Harris Postlude: Prelude – Harris

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Sunday, 11th March 2018: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Mothering Sunday, Mid-Lent, Lætare Sunday, Refreshment Sunday

This Sunday has many names. They range from the simple Fourth Sunday of Lent, to Mothering Sunday – which in fact refers to the ancient practice of paying tithes to your “mother church” and a tradition of people returning to their family home on this day for a welcome mid-Lent break. It is also called Lætare Sunday, because the first word of the Introit for today is Lætare, which means Rejoice! The other title is Refreshment Sunday, the day in the middle of Lent when we are encouraged to relax somewhat before the final and most intense part of the season.

09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great

10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns in The Less

11:00 Solemn Eucharist with distribution of flowers in The Great Setting: Messa di Gloria – Puccini At the Offertory: O salutaris hostia – Rossini Postlude: Allegro risoluto from the Plymouth Suite – Whitlock

18:30 Choral Evensong, Sermon & Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in The Great Responses: Rose Canticles: Evening service in A minor – Noble Anthem: Geistliches Lied – Brahms Benediction motets: – Andrew Fletcher

Sunday, 18th March 2018: Fifth Sunday of Lent – Passion Sunday With this Sunday, we begin our Passiontide journey to the Crucifixion, following on to the Resurrection. The tone darkens as this narrative begins.

09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great

10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns in The Less

11:00 Solemn Eucharist at the High Altar of The Great Setting: Missa brevis – Palestrina At the Offertory: Drop, drop slow tears – Walton Postlude: O Mensch, bewein dein‘ Sünde groß BWV 622 – Johann Sebastian Bach

18:30 Choral Evensong & Sermon in The Great Responses: Tomkins Canticles: The Sixth Service – Weelkes Anthem: When David heard – Weelkes

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Sunday, 25th March 2018: Palm Sunday – the start of Holy Week

09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great

09:30 Family Eucharist in St Bartholomew the Less – please note the special start time

11:00 Blessing of Palms, Procession & Solemn Eucharist starting in The Less Setting: Communion Service in E – Darke Hosanna to the son of David – Weelkes Pueri Hebræorum portantes – Schubert The Passion – Victoria

This is when Holy Week begins, and where the story moves most purposefully towards its climax. Palm Sunday marks Jesus’s coming to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. The people were so overcome with excitement and enthusiasm that they tore down palm branches to carpet the road, as well as taking

clothes and spreading them on the ground – a version of a red-carpet welcome. It is a significant part of the story that the crowd will change its mind completely in a few days – an acute observation about the fickleness of mobs and a timely warning about political manipulation of the people. In a matter of days, they will be baying for Jesus’s blood, and will get it. Our service at 11:00 begins in St Bartholomew the Less, and we mark the journey Jesus took by going in procession from there to St Bartholomew the Great for the Solemn Eucharist.

18:30 Into the Hands of Sinners in St Bartholomew the Great

Hosanna to the son of David – Weelkes Vinea mea electa – Poulenc O sacrum convivium – Miškinis O vos omnes – Casals Astiterunt reges terræ – Gesualdo Civitas sancti tui – Byrd

This service is rather like a solemn carol service, but with the story of Holy Week instead of the Nativity. It is made up of readings, choir music, and hymns, and is a preview of what is yet to come in the week. We begin where we were this morning, with the people crying Hosanna to the Son of David. From there, we go to the institution of the Eucharist in the Last Supper of Maundy Thursday. Then come the Reproaches of Good Friday, and, finally, the Crucifixion and Burial. The last piece of music by Byrd, Civitas sancti tui captures the desolation of this moment in the story: Your holy city has become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness; Jerusalem has been made desolate.

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Thursday, 29th March 2018: Maundy Thursday

20:00 Solemn Eucharist, Mandatum & Watch at the High Altar of The Great

Setting: Messe cum jubilo – Duruflé Si iniquitates observaveris – Wesley Ubi caritas – Chant

This service marks the evening in which Jesus and his disciples met for a meal in an upper room. Here, Jesus blesses bread and wine and gives it to his friends saying This is my body and This is my blood, the act which quickly became the focus of Christian worship, as it still is today. In John’s Gospel, he also took water and a towel and began to wash his disciples’ feet, despite their protests. If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. This moment is recreated in this service, when the priest washes the feet of a few of the servers and volunteers from the congregation. This ceremony and Jesus’s instruction to do this for one another is known as the Mandatum.

At the end of the service, the Blessed Sacrament is taken in procession to the Lady Chapel Altar of Repose, where those who wish can go to spend as much time as they wish in contemplation and prayer up to midnight. In the account of this night, Jesus

and his disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed intensely, while his disciples fell asleep. Finding them, he said Could you not watch with me one hour?

Meanwhile, the servers strip the High Altar bare, a symbol of the lonely and desolate fate that awaits Jesus, even as his betrayer, Judas, draws near with the soldiers.

The music at this service is the powerful and dramatic Messe cum jubilo by Maurice Duruflé, a setting for men’s voices only. For the first time since before Ash Wednesday, the Gloria is sung; it is especially appropriate in this service, which marks Jesus’s gift of the Eucharist to his followers. It will next be heard on Easter Eve, after the Resurrection is announced.

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Friday, 30th March 2018: Good Friday

This is undoubtedly the most solemn day in the entire church year – the day on which we commemorate the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ at Golgotha, the evocatively named place of a skull. Not surprisingly, the seriousness and emotion of this day has drawn remarkable music from composers, who have tried to provide fitting material to illustrate these events.

Nevertheless, our day begins with a service that may seem unexpectedly light-hearted. Yet this first service of the day reminds us through its charitable origins that Jesus came not just to forgive sins and lead us to everlasting life, but also to build the kingdom of heaven, beginning with all of us here and now. This annual commemoration of an old charitable bequest reminds us of Jesus’s preoccupation with the poor, the dispossessed, the lonely, the vulnerable, the sick, and the weak, and his teaching that this, too, should be our great preoccupation. 11:30 Butterworth Charity in the churchyard of The Great

The Butterworth Charity began in October 1887. Joshua Whitehead Butterworth was an antiquarian and a member of a firm of law publishers. He created the charity to continue an already long-existing custom of providing the sum of six (pre-decimalization) pennies to twenty-one poor widows of the parish and of giving buns to children who attended the distribution. There are altogether two hymns, a reading, a very short address, and then the question as to whether there are any poor widows of the parish to whom 6d (today, that is £0.025) should be given. After that, hot cross buns are distributed to all those who have come to this short service. Afterwards, the choir, servers, and clergy return to the church to prepare for the Solemn Liturgy at noon.

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12:00 Solemn Liturgy of the Passion at the High Altar of The Great The Passion according to S. John – Victoria The Reproaches – Sanders Crux fidelis – John of Portugal Christus factus est – Bruckner

This is the service in which we finally come to the Crucifixion itself. At the beginning of the service, the ministers enter and fall prostrate before the High Altar for a time. Then we hear the Passion narrative once more, this time from S. John’s Gospel, set to music by Victoria. After an address, a cross is brought into the church, and three times a minister sings This is the wood of the Cross on which hung the Saviour of the world, to which the people answer Come let us adore. After this, those who wish to do so are invited to come forward and either kiss the cross or make some other sign of reverence to it of their choice. During this, the

Reproaches are sung. They question why God’s people have turned against Him to the point of crucifying their Saviour. After the beautiful setting of Crux fidelis composed by King John IV of Portugal, the ministers go to the Lady Chapel and collect the Blessed Sacrament, which has been on the Altar of Repose since the preceding night. Communion is then given just in the form of bread to those who wish to come up to the altar rail to receive it.

19:00 Tenebræ in The Great Responsories – Victoria Christus factus est – Anerio

The service of Tenebræ has become one of our best attended services in the year. It is profoundly monastic in style and content, and much of it is in Latin (although translations are, of course, provided). A triangular candle stand is set up with fifteen candles. As each stage of the service concludes – and each is short – a candle is extinguished. Finally, there is just one left, and as the choir sings Christus factus est, this is removed and taken to be hidden behind the High Altar. When the music has finished, everyone is invited to strike as hard as possible whatever wooden surface they can reach to create a thunder in the church that demands the return of the light. When the demand can no longer be resisted, the candle is brought out from behind the altar, shown to the people, and then abruptly extinguished. And so ends our Good Friday.

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Saturday, 31st March 2018: Holy Saturday – Easter Eve

20:00 Easter Vigil & First Mass of Easter beginning in the cloister of The Great Setting: Messe Solennelle – Vierne Vigil Motet: Sicut cervus – Palestrina

This is the first year that we will be going from the Easter Vigil into the First Mass of Easter, and this means a few changes from what we have done in the past.

The service begins in the cloister. The whole building is in darkness until the priest lights the first fire of Easter in a brazier. By its light, the Paschal Candle is prepared and then lit. After this, charcoal is also lit and placed in the thurible. Everyone present will have been given a candle on the way into

the cloister, and these are now also lit from the new flame. The deacon takes the candle into the church, pausing three times (in a parallel to the three similar moments on Good Friday) to announce The Light of Christ, to which the people reply Thanks be to God. The Paschal Candle is put into its stand, and then the deacon goes to announce the Resurrection in a sung text known as the Exsultet – which means Rejoice!

As soon as this is over, a fanfare is sounded, and then the choir sings the Gloria as the rest of the candles are lit around the church. This is always a stunningly beautiful sight.

A sequence of Old Testament readings follows interspersed with choral music and hymns. They tell of God reaching out to save his people and culminate in the New Testament Epistle and the Gospel of Easter. After a brief address, we go straight on into the liturgy of the Solemn Eucharist.

People sometimes wonder why we celebrate the Resurrection on Saturday night, after marking the Crucifixion only the previous day. What happened to rising on the third day? In the Jewish tradition, taken over by the Christian church, each day starts at sundown and therefore begins with gathering darkness. This means that the day proceeds from darkness to light the next morning. Jesus was crucified on a Friday afternoon – the first day. From the evening of Good Friday to sundown on Saturday makes the second day, and the evening of Holy Saturday is the start of the third day on which he rose. We know that the empty tomb was discovered at first light on what we now call Easter Sunday morning, which means that the Resurrection had already happened the preceding night – the True Light bursting into the darkness, as it were – which is therefore when we start our celebration.

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Sunday, 1st April 2018: Easter Day

09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great

10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns and Easter Egg hunt in The Less

11:00 Solemn Eucharist, renewal of baptismal covenant & distribution of Easter Eggs at the High Altar of The Great

Setting: Krönungsmesse – Mozart At the Offertory: Rise heart, from Five Mystical Songs – Vaughan Williams Communion Motet: This joyful Eastertide – arr. Wood Postlude: Improvisation sur le Victimae Paschali – Eyre

This is always one of our best attended services of the year, when many people come to celebrate Easter at St Bartholomew the Great. The choir sings Mozart’s great Easter mass setting, known in English as The Coronation Mass, because it was once used at a coronation, but in fact its original purpose was to celebrate this day. Rise heart from the Five Mystical Songs by Vaughan Williams certainly lifts our hearts

in a burst of Easter radiance, and the entire service is suffused with light and joy.

18:30 Festal Solemn Evensong, Sermon, and Benediction in The Great Introit: Haec dies – Wood Responses: Shepherd Canticles: Evening Service in D – Dyson Anthem: My beloved spake – Hadley Benediction Motets: Dupré Postlude: Toccata – Mushel

In the evening, there is one further opportunity to celebrate the Easter message, with a festive Choral Evensong, celebrated with much drama, ceremony, and wonderful music. The service culminates with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

The service begins with Charles Wood’s energetic Haec Dies. George Dyson’s vivid and dramatic Evening Canticles in D, written in 1907 in Dresden, provide the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis on this special day, and the anthem is one of the best-known works by Patrick Hadley, My beloved spake. Originally written as a wedding anthem, its text is drawn from the vivid and colourful Song of Songs, and speaks of new life and energy in the spring, an apt image for Easter: For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come. The canticles at Benediction are by the great French composer Marcel Dupré.

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In the weeks following Easter Day on each Sunday:

09:00 Holy Eucharist in the Lady Chapel of The Great 10:00 Family Eucharist with hymns in The Less

11:00 Solemn Eucharist at the High Altar of The Great 18:30 Choral Evensong & Sermon (Benediction as indicated below) in The Great

Sunday, 8th April 2018 – Easter II: Low Sunday

Sunday, 15th April 2018 – Easter III (Benediction after Evensong) Sunday, 22nd April 2018 – Easter IV

Sunday, 29th April 2018 – Easter V Sunday, 6th May 2018 – Easter VI

Sunday, 13th May 2018 – Sunday of the Ascension On this day, we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our services are as

above, but Evensong ends with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Sunday, 20th May 2018 – Pentecost This is the Birthday of the Church, when we celebrate the Holy Spirit falling upon the disciples, energizing them for the work of building the Christian church. We mark

the day with processions inside the church.

Sunday, 27th May 2018 – Trinity Sunday Today is the ultimate festival, the subject of which is God, Father, Son, and Holy

Ghost. We mark this also with celebratory processions and wonderful music.

Sunday, 3rd June 2018 – Sunday of Corpus Christi We celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi this Sunday with a special procession of the

Blessed Sacrament and Benediction both morning and evening.

St Bartholomew the Great St Bartholomew the Less West Smithfield, London, EC1A 9DS

Tel: 020 7600 0440 Email: administrator@greatstbarts.com Website: www.greatstbarts.com