Write a Prayer for Advent

Our Wednesday evening Vespers service will continue through Advent with some modifications to the service music. For the Hymn of Light we’ll sing a hymn Christians have been singing since the ninth century – “Creator of the Stars of Night.” You can find it in Evangelical Lutheran Worship at hymn no. 245. We’ll switch to an Advent Psalm based on the tune we know as “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Finally, the Magnificat (Mary’s Song) will be sung to Deo Gracias which is often sung to the text “Oh Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High.”

We are asking for your help in composing the prayer section of the service. You are invited to write prayers for the assembly in this time of hope and waiting. We are looking for fully written prayers rather than a list of prayer requests. You might wish to use the prayers from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (pages 72 – 83) as a guide. Before the service begins we will announce the names of those who have written prayers. If you wish for your prayer to remain anonymous, just let us know.

For more help on writing prayers, I found this excellent article on the internet:
http://www.examiner.com/protestant-in-richmond/liturgical-writing-101-the-collect-prayer-form.

You may submit your prayers to Tony Cruz at vespers@comcast.net. Hard copies will also be accepted!

Singers for Advent and Christmas are Welcome

Have you thought about singing in the choir but decided the commitment is too long? Then make a seasonal commitment! We would love to have any singers who would like to join the Festival Choir for the Advent/Christmas Season. We meet in the music suite on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 and will begin music for Advent and Christmas on Wednesday, November 30th.

The Festival Choir sings at the 11:00 service each Sunday. We will also be singing a service of Advent Lessons & Carols at All Saints Episcopal Church on December 11th. The only other major event is Christmas Eve. A thirty minute service of music by the choir and bell choir starts our 10:30 p.m. Christmas Eve worship service.

You might also like to sing in the Matins Choir. This group meets each Sunday in the music suite at 8:00 a.m. to prepare liturgical music and a musical offering for the 8:30 service.

All singers are welcome!

Bach Vespers Thank You

Thank you to all who participated in our Bach Vespers service featuring cantata no. 180, “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” as the musical offering. There were 28 singers (including the soloists) and 10 instrumentalists, all using their gifts to glorify God through music. Thank you to each of them for their hard work.

Thank you to Jane D. for leading a soprano/alto sectional rehearsal. Thank you to Ellen O. for hiring the orchestra. Thank you to Frank S. for guiding us through the German diction – something he’s been doing for about 20 years. Thank you to Pastor Hanson for his reverent presiding. Thank you to each person who came to participate in this worship service.

Started by St. Mark’s former Cantor, Jim Rindelaub, this tradition is more than 20 years old at St. Mark’s. It is a rare chance to hear the music of Lutheranism’s fifth evangelist, Johann Sebastian Bach, in its intended setting in worship. We could not continue this tradition without generous financial support. Thank you to each person who has contributed to keep this important expression of our faith alive. We are especially grateful for a gift of $5,000.00 from the Ardell N. Smith Family Trust. Please remember, you may give a gift to Bach Vespers any time during the year. Simply designate “Bach Vespers” in the memo line on your check.

Plans are in the works for our next Bach Vespers service, so please watch The Messenger and The Lion’s Roar for information.

Pictures of the Contemporary Worship Setting at St. Mark's

Bach Vespers at St. Mark's

What historic person was "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and able to write a 20-minute cantata for choir, soloists and orchestra every week (sometimes more than one per week) for over five years?”

Okay, okay, I may have gotten my super heroes mixed up, but I’m really speaking of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Lutheran composer that Thomas Schmidt calls “a superhuman musician.” Dr. Schmidt is the Cantor/Director of Music at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York and explains that Bach took operatic-styled texts based on the gospel lesson of the day, and created music “mixing the highest intellectual art with uncommon sensitivity to the human condition.” It was intellectual because Bach was a master of compositional counterpoint.

In musical terms, counterpoint is a style of composing that uses two or more voices that have their own rhythmic and harmonic structure. The result is polyphony, a musical structure different from what we hear in most hymns where all voices (usually four) move in the same rhythm to create harmony. How much of this does one need to understand to enjoy the music of Bach?

According to Valerie Hess, Coordinator of Music Ministries for Trinity Lutheran Church of Boulder, Colorado, there is something for everyone to enjoy in the music of Bach because “the hidden intricacies and ‘symbolisms’ allow for people of all intellectual capabilities to find meaning in it. There is a level at which everyone can enter the music, from the simple beauty of the sound to the depths of the mathematical equations and number symbols hidden deep within, and everything in between.”

Bach, often called The Fifth Evangelist by Lutherans, died in 1750 but his music is still played earnestly and reverently today – not just in Lutheran churches, but throughout Christendom.

Why should we devote so much attention to music from a bygone era? Mark Mummert is the Music Director of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas. He says that worshipers today are tempted to judge music based on personal taste and its ability to manipulate our emotions. Bach takes us deeper than that because “his music functions primarily as proclamation inside a marvelous aesthetic. . .(it) will teach us to not just judge music with the question ‘was it pretty?’ but also with ‘what did it mean?’ or ‘what did it say?’”
A twenty year tradition of Bach Vespers at St. Mark’s brings us to another cantata of Bach in the context of a Lutheran service of evening prayer. Members of our own Festival Choir, singers from the community, and an orchestra of instrumentalists from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra will present cantata no. 180, Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, which finds its musical genesis in the hymn Soul, Adorn Yourself With Gladness (hymn no. 488 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship.)
This will be such a unique worship experience that you will want to share it with your family and friends. Join us in the nave on Sunday, November 6th at 6:00 p.m.
Without your support, this endeavor of music and worship would not be able to continue. Please consider a generous gift!

Vespers in Commemoration of September 11, 2001 on 9/11 at 6:00 PM

All liturgical churches observe some form of Evening Prayer (vespers), a practice that has existed since at least the middle ages. Glowing candles, chanted psalms and appointed readings mark this time of reflection at the close of the day. This is an appropriate time to remember all of those who perished in the terrorist attacks on our country ten years ago. With them, we remember the first responders,our leaders, our people serving in the military, and those whose lives have been forever altered - and we offer our prayers for peace.

There will be hymns, prayers, silence, and music by the Festival Choir.

All are welcome. Please join us.

Bach Vespers on November 6, 2011 at 6 PM

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) is widely regarded as one of the most important composers of church music and certainly the most important composer of Lutheran church music. St. Mark's tradition of Bach Vespers - the singing of a Bach cantata as the musical offering within a Lutheran service of evening prayer - is twenty years old. This year we continue the tradition by singing cantata no. 180, Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Deck yourself, my soul, with gladness)written for the 20th Sunday after Trinity.

Singers from the community are heartily invited to sing for this service which will be accompanied by a chamber orchestra comprised of members of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Rehearsals will be held on Saturday mornings from 10 - 12. The dates of the rehearsals are October 15, 22, 29, and November 5th (dress rehearsal). We would be happy and honored to have you sing with us. There is no charge to sing, but we do need to know you are coming to be sure we have enough scores! Please contact Tony Cruz (vespers@comcast.net) for more information.

Hiring an orchestra, purchasing scores, and other costs require us to ask for monetary donations to present this important music and continue the tradition. Your contributions are welcome!

Photo Credit: Bill Daugherty from Bach Vespers 2007 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme