A busy diary for November, from Remembering to Anticipating, with a not-to-be-missed Book Sale.

Wed 2nd Nov, 7.30pm, All Souls’ Day, Sung Requiem Mass. Victoria, Stanford.
Sun 6th Nov, 10.45am, Trinity XXIV, Advent-3. Viadana, Gibbons.
Sun 6th Nov, 6pm, Choral Evensong & Benediction. Stanford, Bainton, Rossini, Fauré.
Wed 9th Nov, 7.30pm, Exeter College Concert. Cello & Piano.
Sun 13th Nov, 10.45am, Remembrance Sunday. Sumsion, Noble.
Sat 19th Nov, 3pm at St David’s Church – Holy Land Pilgrimage Preliminary Meeting.
Sun 20th Nov, 10.45am, Christ the King, Stir-Up, Confirmation. Casciolini, Parker.
Tue 22nd Nov, 6pm. CBS Plainsong Mass – St Cecilia (c.230), Patroness of Musicians.
Sat 26th Nov, 11am – 3pm. An Unusually Good Book Sale.
Sun 27th Nov, 10.45am, Advent Sunday. Wood x2.
Sun 27th Nov, 1pm, at Digger’s Rest, Woodbury Salterton. Advent Lunch.
Wed 30th Nov, 7.30pm, St Michael’s Lecture. Theology & Vegetarianism – Dr Matthew Barton.

Advance Notice:-
Sun 4th Dec. 6pm, Advent Procession – Readings, Candles, Carols, Hymns.
Sun 11th Dec, 4pm, Exeter Chorale Tea-time Concert. “Aqua Musicale”
Sat 17th Dec, late afternoon, Charity Carol Concert given by St Michael’s Choir.

Other Regular Services:-
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6pm Plainsong Vespers & Meditation.
Wednesdays, 9.30am Morning Prayer, 10am Low Mass.
See the Website & Twitter for Music List & Service details.

Book Sale, Advent Lunch, Lecture & Concert
BOOK_SALE_poster
Please support the “Unusually Good Book Sale” on Sat 26th Nov from 11am-3pm organised with St David’s Creates. As well as books & other media, there will be Piano music from Matthew Wright, Organ demonstration by Nigel Browne, and a guided tour of the Church given by Richard Parker. All-in-all, a day not to miss.

Please contact Chris & Lis Heaven in Church or via Facebook to sign up (by 20th at latest,please) for the St Mike’s Advent Lunch at the Digger’s Rest, Woodbury Salterton, EX5 1PQ. Cost £17.50 or £21.00.

On Wed 30th Nov we conclude our Autumn “isms” lectures with Dr Matthew Barton considering religious and theological aspects of Vegetarianism. Free & all welcome.

We are pleased to host a Concert on Wed 9th Nov in support of the Exeter College Chris Wilson Music Award; Jan Skrdlik, Cello & Petra Besa, Piano, play Saint-Saens, Kodaly, Dvorak. £15.

Please Note also:- Fr Christopher has asked his father-in-law Preb. Alistair Wheeler to organise a parish pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the month after Easter 2018! Alistair is a retired priest from Bath & Wells Diocese, who has led Holy Land pilgrimages over many decades. He will be making a short informal presentation about the Holy Land at St. David’s Church at 3pm on Saturday 19th November.

Choir Music

Our traditional All Souls’ Day Requiem, Wed 2nd Nov at 7.30pm, uses the Missa Pro Defunctis a 4, by Victoria, with Stanford’s motet “Justorum animae”, the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God. All are welcome to this moving Service when the list of names of the Faithful Departed is prayed.

On Sun 6th Nov at 6pm, our Evensong Anthem “And I saw a new heaven” by Edgar Bainton continues the Remembrance-tide theme. The Benediction hymns are Romantic settings by Rossini & Fauré, as Jesus, lifted up, draws us to himself.

For Remembrance Sunday on the 13th the music is the Communion Service in F by Herbert Sumsion (1899-1995), who was at Gloucester Cathedral, Chorister and Organist, for 60 years. From 1917 to 1919 Sumsion served in the Queen’s Westminster Rifles and spent time in the trenches in Flanders. The Motet by Tertius Noble uses a versified form of Wisdom 3.

“Souls of the righteous in the hand of God,
Nor hurt nor torment cometh them anigh;
O holy hope of immortality.
Souls of the righteous in the hand of God,
to eyes of men unwise, they seem to die;
They are at peace, O fairest liberty.
On earth as children chasten’d by Love’s rod,
As gold in furnace tried, so now on high
they shine like stars, a golden galaxy:
Souls of the righteous in the hand of God.”

Please support a special service on 20th Nov – as well as being Stir-up Sunday and Christ the King, we will welcome Bishop Martin Shaw to our Sung Mass to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation on Amy Down. We will sing “Te Deum laudamus”, the great 4th century credal hymn in a setting by the American composer Horatio Parker, learned on our summer visit to Winchester.

On Sun 27th Nov we joyously celebrate the traditional start of the New Liturgical Year, Advent Sunday, with music by Charles Wood, his Mass in F and “O Thou the central Orb”.

“Let Thy bright beams disperse the gloom of sin, Our nature all shall feel eternal day
In fellowship with thee, transforming clay To souls erewhile unclean; now pure within.”

Richard Barnes