ebook img

Hallelujah: a Journey Through Advent with Handel’s Messiah PDF

96 Pages·2017·0.04 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Hallelujah: a Journey Through Advent with Handel’s Messiah

Hallelujah A Journey through Advent with Handel's Messiah Edited by Cindy Rollins First published in the USA by the CiRCE Institute © CiRCE Institute 2017 ISBN: 978-0-9991466-1-3 All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the CiRCE Institute. For information CiRCE Institute 81 McCachern Blvd Concord, NC 28025 www.circeinstitute.com Cover art by Graeme Pitman. Printed in the United States of America. Contents What is Advent? Why Handel’s Messiah? How to Use This Guide What is the Church Calendar?, by Dr. Brian Phillips Week One Weekly Resources What to Listen for in Week One, by Greg Wilbur Daily Resources How Our Family Celebrates, by Kerry Williamson Week Two Weekly Resources What to Listen for in Week Two, by Greg Wilbur Daily Resources How Our Family Celebrates, by Karen Kern Week Three Weekly Resources What to Listen for in Week Three, by Greg Wilbur Daily Resources How Our Family Celebrates, by David Kern Week Four Weekly Resources What to Listen for in Week Four, by Greg Wilbur Daily Resources How Our Family Celebrates, by Lynn Bruce Christmas Fulfilled Resources Christmas Books Christmas Recipes What Is Advent? by Cindy Rollins It was inevitable: I was born on St. Nicholas’s Day which falls just when everyone is itching to celebrate, before the fatigue has set into the season. My mother loved the holiday season and celebrated it with vigor in our home. She especially loved giving presents. Unfortunately, she is not a patient person. The minute she bought a present she wanted us to open it. I spent my childhood begging my mom to hide my presents and wait until Christmas. I have always loved the wait. It came as quite a surprise to me when I grew up and found out that what I had called the Christmas season was really a season of celebrating “the wait,” the expectation of the coming of Christ: Advent. A whole season of waiting, followed by the joy of the consummation of Christmas. The idea of Advent was my first introduction to the idea of a church calendar and it has taken me years and years to begin to appreciate the meaning of it all. Advent is the first event in the liturgical year. It begins four Sundays before Christmas and typically ends on Christmas Eve. While Advent is historically a time of fasting in preparation for the Christmas Eve festivities and the Twelve Days of Christmas, in our family it took on a more American twist. We always started our holiday celebrations the day after Thanksgiving by bringing out all the Christmas music and all the Christmas books. We set aside our usual Morning Time routine to read Christmas books and sing Christmas carols. I often interchanged the words Advent and Christmas, which makes sense since Americans begin celebrating Christmas sometime in the middle of Halloween night. Therefore, our family’s Advent was always part contemplation and expectation, and part wild celebration. Truthfully, in the end, we limped into New Year’s Eve. The Twelve Days of Christmas that began with Christmas Day were for the most part unknown and uncelebrated as we longed, after a month of feasting and fun, to return to normalcy. I say all that because this little book reflects our family’s somewhat synchronistic practices. Other families, especially in recent years, as Christians have sought out historical forms, have successfully moved their traditions into alignment with the church calendar. I think that is a wonderful thing. Hopefully, the ideas in this little volume will be helpful to both strict Advent observers (we won’t call them Adventists!) and those who muddy the waters with Christmas celebrations. So let the wild ruckus begin! Why Handel’s Messiah? by Cindy Rollins IN THAT FAR-OFF TIME before computers or the internet, the Rollins family loved Christmas music. We loved it more than most other families I knew. We had a huge collection of Christmas tapes which we eventually converted to Christmas CDs. We had LPs from my childhood, like Christmas with Gisele — including the classic “Too Fat for the Chimney” and a series of contemporary Christian Christmas offerings, some of which have actually stood the test of time. Eventually, we even re-purchased our favorites on iTunes; our family iTunes Holiday playlist is over 24 hours long. At the center of all that wonderful music is Handel’s Messiah. There was hardly time to listen to it. I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of great Christmas music. One day while reading through the sheet music, I realized that the libretto aligned closely with many of the Advent devotionals I used during the month of December. Most of my Advent resources concentrated on Old Testament prophecies anticipating Christ, which is exactly what Messiah does. Only Messiah goes even further; it continues through the birth of Christ — “Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth” — to the final, more sobering triumph of “Worthy is the Lamb.” After noticing this I decided to structure our December Morning Time around Handel’s Messiah. I divided up the libretto and tracks into days. For our Advent devotions we read the scriptures referenced in the music, discussed the tracks we would listen to, and then closed our eyes and listened. It was truly perfection: an Advent family devotion that was not too long, and that we could easily catch up on when we missed days. No more trying to read pages and pages of missed readings. Messiah breaks down easily into daily sections. Most sections include, first, a recitation, followed by an air or solo, followed by a chorus. The lengths vary, from Day 1 which is 11 minutes to Day 17 which is only a 1 minute tenor aria. Our family has done this year after year so that Messiah is a part of our hearts and minds. In addition to this simple method, I sometimes have the whole Messiah playing in the background just as a remembrance. How to Use This Guide by Cindy Rollins I HAVE TRIED to keep this book very simple. Let me tell you a secret. You can use this book any old way you please. You can follow all my suggestions and ideas or you can simply follow the outline of Messiah each day. I highly recommend that you do not complicate it too much. Did you have a great St. Nicholas Day Feast last year but feel overwhelmed and tired this year? Guess what: It is okay to skip it or to celebrate it with take-out Chinese. Some years you might make the best molded cookies and some years the cookies crumble to pieces. I have found that crumbled cookies still taste good. Advent is a time of anticipation and joy. What I love most about using Messiah as an outline for the season is its simplicity. Remember, media applications like Spotify and YouTube are your friends. The entire Messiah is available on both, as well as on CD, DVD, and other formats (new and old). As you will see in this guide, tracks for daily listening are named according to the scripture passages(s) they include. I have chosen to use the libretto from the first London performance of Messiah in 1743. This was not the first performance of Messiah; that happened in Dublin in 1742. My own favorite recording is the performance with Sir Neville Marriner conducting the Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. On my recent trip to London, one of the surprises was getting to hear a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. I must say it was thrilling, except the modern updates to the church were a bit disturbing. So terribly, terribly modern. I had always imagined a place more, well, medieval, and sitting in a field, perhaps. Nevertheless, it was still quite emotional for me to be in a place so central to my own mothering memories through that much-loved recording of Messiah. I have divided this booklet into weeks. Each week contains ideas for things to cook, memorize, or enjoy. Feast days are noted. It is probably ambitious to think you can memorize the Bible passages and poems in one week. Let us return to the imagery of the long haul and save some for next year. No need to stress everyone out by trying to memorize it all at once. You can use the weekly selection for your Advent wreath activities. On Sunday light the candle (or candles) for the week. You can also re-light the weekly candles while you are listening to the Messiah selections each day. Just buy extra candles in case they burn down. Candles are for burning and they are inexpensive. They are the perfect embodiment of the season, so burn, baby, burn. What is the Church Calendar? by Dr. Brian Phillips IN HIS INTRODUCTION to The Story of Christianity, David Bentley Hart writes, “Most Christians . . . are conscious of only a small portion of Christian tradition, belief and practice, and rarely have cause to investigate the many forms of their faith with which they are not immediately familiar.” We tend to live with a perpetual case of tunnel vision, our time and attention largely devoted to what is immediately before us, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because of misplaced priorities. In The Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren hints at this tension: “I need rituals that encourage me to embrace what is repetitive, ancient, and quiet. But what I crave is novelty and stimulation.” We could all use some help patterning our lives after what we need rather than what we crave, after what is “repetitive, ancient, and quiet” rather than what keeps us insulated from greater “Christian tradition, belief and practice.” Learning to order our lives according to the church calendar provides a significant help for correcting these tendencies. Our lives are inevitably governed by some calendar, or a multitude of calendars — work deadlines, sports practices, music lessons, and any number of other “extras” that often have us scrambling this way and that. We do our best just to keep up with the demands through smartphone schedulers, reminders, and notifications. Although following the church calendar does not eliminate those immediate, pressing obligations, it can help set the rhythm of our lives to something greater — the life and work of Jesus Christ. Just as God gave His people feasts and fasts to keep in the Old Testament, so the Church has established days and seasons that give rhythm and identity to Christians. And, while it is true that different Christian traditions follow different calendars, they all include the pattern of fasting and feasting. For example, the Western Church (Roman Catholic, Anglican, and historic Protestant) calendar begins with Advent, a time of prayer and fasting in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth. The Christmas feast then lasts for 12 days, from December 25th to January 5th, ending with the Epiphany feast on January 6th. These are immovable feasts, taking place on the same day every year. The calendar then shifts to Lent, another 40-day period of fasting and prayer in preparation for the Easter feast, which lasts for 40 days, culminating in the Feasts of Ascension and Pentecost (10 days after Ascension). These are called movable feasts because their dates depend upon the observance of Easter, the date of which changes annually. Of course, there are many other days that are observed by both East and West, but it is sufficient here to note the alternation of “fasting and feasting” established by the church calendar. This sequence mirrors the whole story of the Church — a story of blessing and hardship, growth and persecution. The church calendar prepares us for the valleys and mountains life contains for all of us. More importantly, by focusing the major seasons of the year on the life of Christ, the church calendar teaches us that, whether we are metaphorically in times of “feasting” or “fasting,” the center of life is Jesus. By allowing the church calendar to establish the rhythm of our lives, we are better equipped to obey the Lord’s most oft-repeated commandment to the children of Israel: remember. Remember the Lord in good times and bad. Remember the Lord in every season of life. Week One Remembering Prophecy

Description:
Reflections from Cindy Rollins, with essays by Karen Kern, Brian Phillips, Greg Wilbur, David Kern, Lynn Bruce, & Kerry Williamson. Celebrate Advent like never before, using these weekly and daily tools, all built around Handel's famous "Messiah" - one of the most lovely and important pieces of musi
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.