Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Sang at a funeral today, with the choir. I didn't know the person we were singing for (even though he's apparently the one who's been paying me and most of the choir for the past two years--yeah. This parish does have some wealthy members), but even without any emotional context for the service it's impossible to make it through the committal prayer without weeping:

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of mankind;

and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return.
For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying,
"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

...fortunately we'd done all our singing by then, except for the closing hymn.
Oh, and the sermon was inaudible from where we were sitting, so I amused myself by picking out the hymns for my own funeral: Slane, Lasst uns Erfreuen, Hyfrodol, Land of Rest...I think that's it. (and yes, those names won't mean anything to you if you haven't spent a while singing in Anglican churches. Sorry. But trust me, they're rockin' tunes.)

1 comment:

Leslie Lewis said...

Your taste in funeral music is impeccable (inherited?) You can choose mine when the time comes.
Do you sing the Kontakion? Someday I'd like to, but I'm afraid choking up would make it difficult.