CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL An Episcopal Community in the Heart of Houston, Texas
MARCH 2020 CHRISTCHURCHCATHEDRAL.ORG
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On Lent
Christ Church Cathedral is known for its glorious, diverse, and truly excellent choral and music programming.
The Music of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Canon for Music Robert L. Simpson, the Artistic Director and Founder of the Grammy©Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir, says that one of his most enjoyable responsibilities at Christ Church Cathedral is selecting the hymns and choral music for services throughout the year, and especially at Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.
Music underscores the season’s Bible lessons Simpson’s first objective is to choose hymns and choir anthems with texts that reflect or in some way underscore the appointed lessons
from the Bible. “No matter how beautiful the piece of music, if the text doesn’t fit the theme of these lessons, it won’t do,” Simpson said. “The lessons for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter are among the most dramatic of the church year, and consequently they have inspired centuries of composers to write some of their finest works. My difficulties are not finding music, but deciding which extraordinary pieces will have to wait for another year.” Tom Marvil, the Cathedral’s organ scholar, who along with Cathedral Organist Daryl
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McBride returns to read from his newest novel Join us for an evening of contemporary fiction with National Book Award Winner, NYU Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, and friend of the Cathedral James McBRIDE BOOK READING McBride. This program, a cooperaWednesday, March 25, 7 p.m. tion with Brazos Bookstore, will feature McBride reading from his new novel, Deacon King Kong. Capturing the “tumultuous swirl” of 1960s New York, Deacon King Kong follows the story of an old church deacon nick-named
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The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts THE VERY REV. to the faith were preBARKLEY pared for Holy Baptism. THOMPSON It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. — Book of Common Prayer, 264–65 The first recorded observance of a fortyday Lent was in Egypt in the fourth century. There, January 6 was considered to be the date of Jesus’ baptism, and the forty day fast occurred immediately thereafter, in imitation of Jesus’ forty days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. Eventually the forty day fast was relocated just prior to the Easter feast, where it remains today. From Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, excluding Sundays, is exactly forty days. (So yes, we’ll end the age-old debate once and for all: Sundays are not fast days during Lent. They are always — even in penitential seasons — days of Resurrection.) Traditionally, Christians give up
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JAMES MCBRIDE