All Saints and All Souls

Dear Friends,

The church has long celebrated the heroes and inspirational stories of our Christian faith on All Saints’ Day, which falls on November 1. And then, on November 2, we commemorate the Faithful Departed on what is known as All Souls’ Day. These dates are often conflated to create a holy confusion, taking serious time to fit it all in.

This year, with November 2 falling on a Sunday, we will celebrate All the Saints during the morning services. After we’ve enjoyed that extra hour of sleep, with most of our clocks magically turning back an hour to Eastern Standard Time, we will begin our three-service Sunday morning schedule. The 8:00 a.m. spoken Eucharist is always at 8:00, lasting about 40 minutes. At 9:00 a.m., we will celebrate the Eucharist with a choir sextet to lead hymns and service music, lasting bout 50 minutes. The 11:00 a.m. Eucharist refreshes us in just over an hour, and the full Bethesda Choir will lead us through a procession of “For all the Saints.” We will also celebrate Baptisms at 9:00 and 11:00.

At 4:00 p.m., we will move on to All Souls. At Bethesda, this is an opportunity to remember loved ones who have died in the last year. We will read their names in the Necrology. The liturgy will be based on the Burial Rite, which The Book of Common Prayer describes as a service of Resurrection. The Bethesda Choir will be joined by an orchestra to sing Gabriel Fauré’s exquisite setting of the Requiem in its intended liturgical context. And I’ve orchestrated the hymns for all of us to sing together. It’s a service, not a concert; so there are no tickets needed. (I’m asked that question a lot!)

The name “Requiem,” like many of the names in our prayer book, is simply the first word of the original version of the service: “Requiem aeternam” means “Rest eternal.” The structure and full Requiem text is largely the same as in our Sunday Eucharist, but without communion. The parts of the service that normally change from week to week are specifically conceived here for the Requiem and grew out of a tradition of singing during liturgical movement. Fauré parted with tradition by omitting most of the texts that talked about judgment on the last day, leaving us with a musical setting that is peaceful, comforting, and truly beautiful. In fact, I dare say that many people would rank Fauré’s piece right up there with Mozart’s as some of the most beautiful music ever composed.

I hope you will take this opportunity to join us in the morning and afternoon on November 2, and to invite someone to join you. There will be receptions after each service and we’d love to extend our Bethesda hospitality to everyone!

Warmly,

Stuart.